“Go ahead and play it,” he said. “Speed it up.”
He noted the time on the bottom of the screen. The orange car entered the motel lot at 11:09 p.m. Gascon went back to triple speed and they sat and watched silently for several minutes. Several cars went in and out. It was a busy night at the motel. Finally, the orange car appeared and disappeared. Gascon reversed the video and they watched again on slow speed. The car pulled out of the motel without stopping, turned right, and went west on Santa Monica and out of the frame.
“He’s in a hurry now,” Gascon said.
Bosch looked at the time counter. The orange car left at 11:32 p.m., just twenty-three minutes after entering. Bosch wondered if that was enough time for them to go into Allen’s room and extricate him, alive or dead.
“When the LAPD guys were here, did they key on this car?” Bosch asked.
“Uh, no, not really,” Gascon said. “They watched for a while and seemed like they thought it was kind of useless. They took a copy to give to the Video Tech Unit for enhancement. I never heard from them after that.”
Bosch kept his eyes on the playback while they talked. From the right side of the screen he now saw an orange car moving west on Santa Monica toward the Haven House. It crossed the screen and turned into the entryway before disappearing.
“He’s back,” he said.
Gascon looked at the screen but the car was already gone.
“Back it up,” Bosch instructed. “He comes in from the east this time. Freeze it when he gets to the center.”
Gascon quickly executed and Bosch leaned in close to the screen. There was a head visible in the car as it crossed directly in front of the cemetery. The image was still small and grainy but it was more defined because the car was closer to the camera. Bosch had no doubt now that it was a Camaro. From this angle, he could even see a few yellow pixels in the center of the black wheels — the yellow brake calipers that Cisco Wojciechowski had described.
But the distance from the camera and the dark-tinted windows made it impossible for Bosch to get a bead on the driver.
“Okay, play it,” he said. “Let’s see how long they stay this time.”
Bosch noted that the time on the video was now 11:41 p.m. They watched the Camaro turn into the motel entrance again. Gascon then sped the playback and they watched and waited. Bosch thought about why there had been two visits to the motel. He guessed that the first time, Ellis and Long may have been casing the motel and Allen’s room. Another possibility was that the rear parking lot was too busy with people coming and going. A third possibility was that Allen was with a client.
This time the Camaro did not emerge for fifty-one minutes. Once again it left quickly, turning right without stopping as it emerged and then going west and out of the picture. Bosch considered the time that had elapsed, and his instincts told him that James Allen was dead and in the trunk of the Camaro when it drove out of the frame.
“What do you think?” Gascon asked.
“I think I need a copy of that,” he said.
“Got a drive?”
“Nope.”
“How about two hundred beans, like I got before?”
“I have that.”
“Then let me see if I can find somebody around here with a drive.”
39
On his way back to his house, Bosch parked his rental behind the Poquito Mas on Cahuenga. He went into the restaurant and ordered a chile pasilla plate to go. He then used his Uber app to call for a car. Both the car and his food order arrived at the same time. He took the car up to his house, checking along the drive for indications of surveillance from Ellis and Long. There was no sign of the vice cops and no conversation with the driver this time. Bosch decided it had something to do with sitting in the backseat.
Once inside the house Bosch grabbed the discovery file out of his bedroom and dropped it on the dining room table. Before beginning his work he opened the sliders to let in some fresh air. He stepped out on the deck for a moment and looked around. To his right he could see across a cut in the canyon to the cantilevered deck from which Long had been watching that morning. He wondered if they had figured out that he was not home and not using the Cherokee.
He went back inside to the table and pulled a legal pad over front and center. He started using the discovery file and his own notes and memory to construct a timeline that would allow him to see and contemplate the case as a whole, beginning it far before the murder of Alexandra Parks. He first posted the murders on the timeline and then added the other relevant events around them.
He was fifteen minutes into the project when the doorbell rang. He got up quietly and approached the door. Through the peephole he saw the top of a bald head with a scattershot spread of sun spots on it. He stepped back and opened the door. It was his neighbor Francis Albert.
“Detective Bosch, I saw you out on the deck a little bit ago. Were you going to show me any pictures?”
“Totally forgot, Frank. Hold on a second.”
It was rude but Bosch left him standing on the front stoop. He didn’t want Albert coming inside because it might then be difficult to get him back out. Bosch returned to the table where he had left his coat draped over a chair. He pulled the photos of Ellis and Long out of the pocket and went back to the door. He handed the photocopy containing both headshots to Albert.
“Was the guy you saw this morning one of them?” he asked.
Albert didn’t take very long to draw a conclusion. He nodded.
“Yeah, this guy, he was the clown,” he said.
He turned the photo of Long toward Bosch. Bosch nodded.
“Yeah, I thought it might be,” he said. “Thanks, Frank.”
There was an awkward pause as Frank didn’t move and waited for more.
“Will you give me a call if you see him again?” Bosch asked.
“Sure,” Albert said. “Do you think he’s really a cop?”
Bosch paused for a moment and thought about the question and what he should tell Albert.
“Not really,” he said.
He went back to the table after closing the door and repeatedly went through the timeline, adding nuances of detail as he went. After another half hour he finally had a document he believed detailed the case and his investigation in its entirety.
Unknown Date 2013 — watch bought by Dr. Schubert
Unknown Date 2014 — watch stolen or sold by Schubert
Dec. 11 — watch bought by Harrick at Grant & Sons
Dec. 25 — watch given to Alexandra Parks
Unknown Date — watch’s crystal is broken
Feb. 2 — watch arrives by FedEx to Las Vegas
Feb. 5 — Gerard examines watch — still registered to Schubert
Feb. 5 — Gerard calls Mrs. Schubert (watch stolen)
Feb. 5 — Parks calls Gerard, learns her watch may have been stolen
Feb. 5 — Parks calls Grant & Sons (conversation unknown)
Feb. 5 — Dr. Schubert calls Gerard — watch not stolen, paid gambling debt
Feb. 5 — Gerard calls Parks (watch not stolen)
Feb. 9 — Alexandra Parks murdered
Mar. 19 — Da’Quan Foster arrested — DNA match
Mar. 21–22 — James Allen murdered — orange Camaro in Haven House lot — two car doors in alley — two killers?
Apr. 1 — Cisco crashes — orange Camaro
May 5 — Haller arrested — Ellis and Long
May 7 — Nguyen brothers questioned by Bosch — Nguyen brothers murdered — two killers?
Bosch finally put the pen down and studied the dates and events on each line. Deconstructing the case to a simple timeline helped him see how everything was connected and how the events fell like dominoes, one leading to the next. And through all of it was the watch. Could four murders actually be linked by the changing ownership of a watch?