“I made one mistake,” he said. “One awful mistake and...”
He trailed off again.
“What mistake, Doctor?” Bosch asked.
Considering the other players involved, he had an idea where this was going. Ellis and Long were vice cops and they worked in the dark corridors of the sex trade. That was how they had crossed paths with James Allen. There was no reason to think that Schubert was going in a different direction.
“I had a relationship with a patient,” Schubert said. “She happened to work in the adult entertainment business. Over the years, there were several surgeries. Every enhancement you can think of — lips, breasts, buttocks. We did Botox regularly. There was labiaplasty, face-lift, arm-lift... everything to keep her career going.”
Bosch had no idea what a labiaplasty was but didn’t want to ask for fear it would depress him to depths beyond the level to which the rest of the list had sent him.
“This of course was over a number of years,” Schubert said. “Almost a decade.”
He stopped there as if he had laid out enough for Bosch to figure out the rest. Bosch knew he probably could do just that but he needed Schubert to tell the story.
“When you say ‘relationship,’ what are we talking about?” Bosch asked.
“A doctor-patient relationship,” Schubert said curtly. “It was professional.”
“Okay. So what happened that brought vice officers Ellis and Long into your life?”
Schubert cast his eyes down for a moment and came to grips with what he must do.
“I want your promise that you won’t put this in any police reports that are not held as strictly confidential,” he said.
Bosch nodded.
“You have my promise. I won’t put any of this into any police reports.”
Schubert studied him for a long moment as if taking measure of his truthfulness. He then nodded, more to himself than to Bosch.
“I crossed a line,” Schubert said. “I slept with her. I slept with my patient. Only one time but I have regretted it every moment since.”
Bosch nodded as though he believed him.
“When did this crossing of the line happen?” he asked.
“Last year,” Schubert said. “Right before Thanksgiving. It was a setup. A trap.”
“What is her name?”
“Deborah Stovall. She uses a different name as a performer. I think it’s Ashley Juggs or something like that.”
“You said it was a setup. How?”
“She called the office and asked for me. I do my phone consults at the end of the day. So I called and she said she was having an allergic reaction to a Botox injection received at our offices. I told her to come in first thing the next day and I’d take a look, but she said she couldn’t go out in public because of the swelling of her face. She wanted me to come to her.”
“So you went.”
“Against my better judgment, I did. At the end of my schedule that day, I packed a medical bag and went to her apartment. That part was not unusual. I occasionally make house calls, depending on who the client is. In fact, she was the second of two calls I was scheduled to make that day. But I should have known with her — because of what she does for a living — where this might lead.”
“Where was her place?”
“Over on Fountain near Crescent Heights. An apartment. I can’t remember the exact address. It’s in her medical file.”
“What happened when you got there?”
“Well, she wasn’t exhibiting any symptoms of infection or allergic reaction. She told me that the problem had cleared up during the day and the swelling she had experienced was gone now. I don’t think there ever actually was a problem.”
“Okay, so you went there,” Bosch said. “Then what happened?”
“She had a roommate who was there,” Schubert said. “And this girl just wasn’t wearing any clothes. And one thing—”
“What was the roommate’s name?”
“It was Annie but I don’t know if that was her real name or not.”
“Was she in the adult entertainment world as well?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Okay. So what, you had sex with one or both of them?”
Schubert dropped his chin and made a noise from his throat that Bosch thought was intended to be interpreted as a choking back of tears.
“Yes... I did. I was weak.”
Bosch left him hanging without a sympathetic reaction.
“So I’m assuming there were cameras but you didn’t see them,” he said.
“Yes, there were cameras,” Schubert said quietly. “Hidden cameras.”
“Who did you hear from, the women or Ellis and Long?”
“Ellis and Long. They came here, sat in front of the desk like you are now, and showed me the video on a phone. Then they told me how things were going to be. I was going to do what they told me and pay them what they wanted or they would disseminate the video on the Internet. They would make sure it was seen by my wife and they would make Deborah file a complaint with the California Medical Ethics Board. They would ruin me.”
Bosch nodded, the closest he could come to a sign of sympathy.
“How much did they want?” he asked.
“A hundred thousand dollars starting out,” Schubert said. “And then another fifty thousand every six months.”
Bosch was beginning to get a hook on why Ellis and Long had taken such extreme measures in killing anyone perceived as a threat to their operation. Schubert was a goose laying golden eggs — an annual income stream for them as long as the plastic man wished to cover up his indiscretion.
“So you paid them the first hundred.”
“I paid them.”
“How exactly?”
Schubert had now turned in his desk chair and was no longer looking at Bosch. To his right was a large poster covering one wall that showed an outline of a woman’s body. It was clinical, not erotic, and it detailed outside the lines of the body the many different procedures that could be performed on various parts. It appeared to Bosch that he was addressing the woman on the poster as he answered.
“I told them I couldn’t pay in cash,” he said. “My money — I never see my money. I have a firm that manages the center here, and what comes to me goes to direct deposit and into the control of accountants and money managers. All of this is monitored by my wife. I had an addiction disease that required that we do it this way.”
“A gambling addiction?” Bosch asked.
Schubert turned and glanced at Bosch as if just remembering that he was in the room. He then turned back to the poster.
“Yes, gambling,” he said. “It had gotten out of control and I lost a lot, so they took my money from me. Controlled it. It was the only way to save my marriage. But it means I can’t just go to the bank or write a check that size without a cosigner.”
“So you gave jewelry instead,” Bosch said. “Your wife’s watch.”
“Yes, exactly. She was away on a holiday. Out of town. I gave them the jewelry. Her watch, my watch, several diamond pieces. It was their idea to make it look like a burglary. When she came home, I told her there had been a break-in and the police were on it. They were investigating. Ellis broke a window in the French doors at the back of the house so it would look like that’s how the robbers got in.”
Bosch reached over to the desk for the file. He slid it out from beneath the phone.
“Let me take a look at something here,” he said.
He opened the file and flipped through the reports clipped to the right side until he found the timeline he had put together that morning.
Schubert’s story fit with the facts Bosch had accumulated. He gives the jewelry to Ellis and Long as an extortion payoff. They then strike a deal with the Nguyen brothers to sell it as estate property at Nelson Grant & Sons. The jewelry starts to sell — Harrick buys the ladies’ watch for his wife as a Christmas present. Ellis and Long start to get their money and the Nguyen brothers get a cut for selling it without delving into its provenance.