As soon as he pulled the box open he determined there was no watch in it. There was a brown velvet cushion on which the watch should be set when not being worn. But it was empty. There was an instruction booklet in the box and a small square envelope marked in handwritten ink:
Bosch quickly put the box under his arm and opened the envelope. He removed the receipt and unfolded it. The watch had been manufactured by Audemars Piguet and purchased at a jewelry store on Sunset Boulevard called Nelson Grant & Sons. The watch was called a Royal Oak Offshore and had cost $6,322 when purchased in December 2014. The name of the buyer on the receipt was Vincent Harrick.
Bosch assumed that the watch had been purchased by Harrick as a Christmas gift to his wife. He wondered briefly how a Sheriff’s deputy could afford such an expensive watch but the question did not rise to the level of suspicion. People made all kinds of concessions to love — money choices being the least of them.
He quickly put the receipt back into the envelope and returned it to the box. He closed it, having to push the front panel in and hearing the air whoosh out. He placed it back in its spot on the shelf and stepped away. He was in the middle of the room when Mitchell walked in, carrying the listing sheet.
“This says both guest rooms are fourteen by twelve,” she said. “This room probably just feels smaller because of the bookcase.”
Bosch looked at the shelves behind the desk and nodded.
“Oh, okay,” he said. “That makes sense.”
She handed him the listing sheet. He looked at it as if he were genuinely interested.
“Do you want to check out the barbecue now?” she asked.
“Sure,” he said. “But is someone here? I heard you talking.”
“It was the owner. He thought we would be finished by now but I told him we got a late start.”
“Oh, I can leave.”
“No, it’s fine. And he’s fine. Let’s go out on the deck.”
Bosch followed her through the house to the sliding door off the kitchen. He did not see Harrick anywhere. They stepped onto a planked deck with a vine-covered latticework sun cover and a built-in barbecue station. It was all in good shape but didn’t look like it had been used in a long time. The yard beyond was tiny but private. The front hedge ran along the sides and turned to continue along the property lines of the back, giving the yard and the back of the house complete privacy.
“There is probably just enough room for a hot tub, if you were interested,” Mitchell said.
“Yeah, but I wonder how they’d get it in here,” Bosch said. “Take down the hedge, I guess.”
“No, they would crane it over. They do it all the time.”
Behind him Bosch heard the glass door roll open.
“Taylor?” a man said. “Can I talk to you for a second?”
“Of course,” Mitchell responded.
Bosch turned to see Vincent Harrick standing in the open door. Bosch nodded and he nodded back.
“Sorry. I won’t keep her long,” Harrick said.
“I’ll be fine,” Bosch said.
Mitchell went through the door and Harrick shut it behind her so Bosch would not hear their conversation. Bosch felt sweat start to pop on his scalp as he wondered if he had put the watch box in the wrong position or had somehow been seen.
Before he could worry further about it, the sliding door came open and Mitchell stepped back out.
“So, what do you think?” she asked.
Bosch nodded.
“It’s nice,” he said. “Very nice. I’ll have to think about it and talk to my girls.”
He looked through the glass into the kitchen as he spoke but didn’t see Harrick.
“I’ll call you tomorrow,” he added.
“Just let me know if they would like to take a look for themselves,” she said cheerily. “I’m only a block away and can make that happen pretty quickly.”
“Great.”
Bosch headed toward the door. He was still holding the listing sheet, which he folded lengthwise and put into the inside pocket of his sport coat. He hesitated before going back into the house.
“You think I should just go around the house so I don’t intrude on the owner?” he asked.
“Oh, he left,” Mitchell said. “When I told him we weren’t finished, he said he was going to run up the street to get something at Gelson’s.”
She came up next to Bosch and opened the slider. He stepped in and walked through the house to the front door. He then thanked Mitchell again and left.
As Bosch passed through the archway cut into the hedge and walked out to the sidewalk he saw a man leaning against the front of his Cherokee across the street. It was Harrick and he was waiting for Bosch, his arms folded across his chest.
Bosch crossed the street toward his car, unsure how he was going to handle what might be about to turn ugly.
“It’s Bosch, right?” Harrick said.
“That’s right,” Bosch said. “Sorry we took so long in—”
“Save your bullshit.”
Bosch stopped in front of him. There wasn’t much sense in continuing the play since Harrick wasn’t buying it. Bosch held his hands out as if to signal you got me.
“I thought you were a fucking reporter,” Harrick said. “Piece-of-shit car like this, you can’t afford a house like that. So I run your plate and it’s got an LAPD block on it. I make a couple calls and I get the story. Retired cop. Retired homicide cop. So tell me, Detective Bosch, what the fuck are you doing in my house?”
Bosch knew that the situation could quickly go sideways. He was acting as an extension of Haller’s defense of Da’Quan Foster. A complaint that brought the ethics of his scam with Taylor Mitchell before a judge could cause blowback for Haller. He had to salvage this somehow.
“Look, I’ll be honest with you,” he said. “I’ve been asked to look into the case privately by someone who has reason to believe Da’Quan Foster was set up and that he didn’t kill your wife.”
Harrick’s eyes disappeared in the creases of his squint. His ruddy complexion turned a darker shade.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” he said. “Who has reason to believe that?”
“I can’t tell you that,” Bosch said. “It’s a matter of client confidentiality. I agreed to look into the case and I wanted to see the crime scene. I apologize. I didn’t expect you to be here and to be confronted by this. It was a mistake.”
Before Harrick could respond, Mitchell called from across the street while on her walk back to her house.
“Do you need me for anything, gentlemen?”
Both Bosch and Harrick turned to her.
“We’re fine, Taylor,” Harrick called back. “Thank you.”
He added a wave to keep her going. She was one house from the corner. As soon as she got there she turned left and disappeared from sight.
“Put your hands on the hood,” Harrick said.
“Excuse me?” Bosch asked.
“On the hood. Assume the position.”
“No, I’m not going to do that.”
“You want to go to jail, Bosch?”
“You can take me to jail but I don’t think I’ll be staying there long. I haven’t committed any crime.”
“You’ve got a choice here. Put your hands on the hood so I can check for weapons. Or go to jail.”
He took a phone out of his pocket and got ready to make a call.
“I’m unarmed,” Bosch said and he stepped forward, put his hands on the front hood, and spread his feet.
Harrick quickly frisked him and found no weapons. Bosch didn’t like the way this was heading. He had to change the course.
“What happened to her watch?” he asked.
Harrick’s hands froze for a moment as he was patting down Bosch’s front pants pockets. He then stood straight up, put a hand on Bosch’s arm, and turned him away from the hood of the car.