“Got it.”
Bosch disconnected and went back in.
The playback continued, and at the thirty-four-minute mark, the intensity in the boardroom palpably heightened when on the recording Bosch said, “Is there anybody else here?”
Where Bosch had mostly kept quiet during the playback of the interview with Schubert, he now felt compelled to offer descriptions of what was happening in the office to supplement what was captured on the recording. The recording was clear to a zone of about six feet. Sounds and voices more distant were fuzzy and lacking clarity. Bosch tried to be brief with his descriptions so as not to overlap what was coming from the phone.
“We heard a noise, like a door closing out in the hall...”
“I was listening at the door to the office and I heard one of them say, ‘Clear.’ I knew they were out there searching for us...”
“I tipped the desk over because my first plan was to make a barricade...”
“The first three were Ellis shooting Schubert. The doctor had his hands up and posed no threat. He shot him three times. Then that was me yelling there and firing. Four shots, I think, at first. Then two more when Ellis was backing out, using Long as a shield.”
The recording ended with Bosch’s announcement to the deputy on the office phone that he was coming out. There was a gulf of silence from the investigators gathered around the table. Bosch then noticed Cornell shake his head and lean back in his chair in a dismissive manner.
“What?” Bosch said. “You’re going to stick with Foster as your guy?”
Cornell pointed at the phone that still sat in the middle of the table.
“You know what that is?” he asked. “It’s just a bunch of words. You’ve got nothing — no evidence — that directly links these two to Parks. And let’s not forget, you’re a guy suing your own department and you’ll do anything to embarrass it.”
Now Bosch shook his head dismissively and looked at Sutton, who was still in the posture he had adopted while listening to the playback, leaning forward, hands clasped on the table. He now extended a finger and pointed at Bosch’s phone.
“I need you to send me that,” he said.
“Me, too,” Mendenhall said.
Bosch nodded and picked up his phone. He moved a file containing a copy of the recording into an e-mail and then handed his phone to Sutton so he could type in his e-mail address. The process was then repeated with Mendenhall.
“Now what?” Bosch asked.
“You can go,” Sutton said.
Cornell made another gesture of dissatisfaction, tossing a hand up in the air. Sutton ignored it.
“Do us a favor, Harry,” Sutton said. “We’ve got a bunch of TV reporters outside the station, doing their stand-ups for the eleven-o’clock news. Don’t talk to them about any of this, huh? That won’t help anybody.”
Bosch stood up, putting his phone away.
“No worries,” he said. “What about the rest of my stuff? Wallet, gun, car?”
Sutton frowned.
“Uh, we’ll get you your wallet,” he said. “The car and gun we’re going to need to hang on to for the moment. We’re going to put together a full ballistics package and we’ll need the weapon for that. And that whole building is taped off and considered a crime scene right now. We’ll be working it for a few more hours. All right if we wait on the car until tomorrow morning?”
“No problem. I’ve got another at home.”
He knew he had another gun at home as well, but he didn’t mention that.
Standing up, Mendenhall put her notebook away in a leather satchel that doubled as purse and briefcase and probably contained her service weapon as well.
“I can give you a ride,” she said.
50
Mendenhall drove her company car toward Hollywood. Bosch judged that there had been a purpose beyond courtesy to her offering to give him a ride. After telling her he lived in the Cahuenga Pass, he got down to business, turning in his seat to look at her. She was a brunette with dark eyes and smooth skin. Bosch put her at late forties. Looking at her hands on the wheel, he saw no rings. He remembered that from Modesto. No rings.
“So, how come you ended up with this mess?” he asked.
“I would say it’s because of my familiarity with you. Your last interaction with IA is in litigation, so that created a conflict of interest with O’Dell. I was next on the list because of Modesto.”
Bosch’s lawsuit against the department for unfair labor practices named IAD investigator Martin O’Dell as a defendant along with several others involved in his being forced to retire. A few years before, Bosch had worked a case in which Mendenhall had trailed him to Modesto on suspicion that he was acting outside the policies of the department. She ended up helping him escape from captors who intended to kill him and clearing him of any departmental wrongdoing. The episode left Bosch with something he had never known before — respect for an Internal Affairs investigator. There had been a connection between them in Modesto. But because at the time he was the subject of an investigation being conducted by her, Bosch never did anything about it.
“Let me ask you something,” he said.
“You can ask me anything, Harry,” she said. “But I’m not promising to answer. Some things I can’t talk about. But just like before, you be straight with me, I’ll be straight with you.”
“Fair enough.”
“Which way should I go, Laurel Canyon up to Mulholland or down to Highland and then up?”
“Uh, I’d take Laurel Canyon.”
His suggested route would take longer than the other choice. He hoped to be able to use the extra time to draw more information out of her.
“So, did Ellington tell you ahead of time to give me a ride? Maybe get me to talk outside the room?”
“No, it was just spur of the moment. You needed a ride. I offered. If you want to tell more, I’ll certainly listen.”
“There is something more, but let me ask a few questions first. Let’s start with Ellis and Long. Big surprise today in IAD, or were they a known quantity?”
“Well, you really don’t beat around the bush, do you?”
“They’re bad cops. You guys go after bad cops. I’m just wondering if they were already on the radar.”
“I can’t go into specifics, but, yes, they were on the radar. The thing is, we’re not even remotely talking about the level of action we are looking at today. It involved use of time complaints, insubordination. But usually when you have those things happening, they’re indicators of bigger problems.”
“So no external complaints. All department bred.”
“No, none.”
“What about Long? Is he going to make it?”
“He’ll recover.”
“Is he talking?”
“Last I heard, not yet.”
“And nobody’s got a line on Ellis?”
“Not yet, but not for lack of trying. It’s a Sheriff’s Department op, but we’re all over it. RHD, Major Crimes, Fugitives — they don’t want this to blow up into another Dorner. They want a quick end to it.”
Christopher Dorner was an ex-LAPD cop who went on a killing rampage a couple years before. A massive manhunt ended at a cabin near Big Bear where he killed himself during a firefight with officers who had surrounded the location. His notoriety was such that within the department his last name had become a noun applied to any officer controversy or scandal involving crazy and deadly behavior.
“So, the big question,” Bosch said, “is whether there’s a case? Are they going to be charged?”
“That’s actually two big questions,” Mendenhall said. “The answers, as far as I’m concerned, are yes and yes. But it’s a Sheriff’s case. You never know. We will be looking into anything on our turf, which includes James Allen and whatever else those two had going.”