It took a moment for their eyes to adjust to the dim lighting of the garage. There was more activity than on their previous visit. Shift change. Drivers and cars coming and going. They headed directly to the dispatch office, not wanting anyone to get the news to McQuillen before they got to him.
Bosch rapped on the door with his knuckles as he opened it. As he stepped in, he saw two men in the room, just as before. But one was McQuillen and the other was a new man as well. McQuillen was standing by his workstation, spraying a disinfectant on the radio headset he was about to put on. He seemed unfazed by the appearance of the two men in suits. He even nodded as if to signal that they were expected.
“Detectives,” he said. “What can I do for you?”
“Mark McQuillen?” Bosch asked.
“That would be me.”
“Detectives Bosch and Chu, LAPD. We want to ask you a few questions.”
McQuillen nodded again and turned to the other dispatcher.
“Andy, you hold the fort? Hopefully this won’t take long.”
The other man nodded and gave the smooth-seas signal with his hand.
“Actually,” Bosch said, “it might. Maybe you should see if you can get someone in.”
This time McQuillen spoke while looking directly at Bosch.
“Andy, call Jeff, get him out. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Bosch turned and gestured toward the door. McQuillen started out of the office. He was wearing a baggy shirt that was not tucked in. Bosch stayed behind him and kept his eyes on his hands the whole time. When they got into the garage, he put his hand on McQuillen’s back and directed him toward a taxi that was on jacks.
“Do you mind putting your hands on the hood for a minute?”
McQuillen complied, and when he did so his wrists extended past the cuffs of his shirtsleeves. Bosch saw the first thing he was hoping to see. A military-style watch on his right wrist. It had a large steel bezel with grip ridges.
“Not at all,” McQuillen said. “And I’ll tell you right now that in my right-front waistband you will find a little two-shot popper I like to carry. It’s not the safest job in the world. I know you have it tougher but we work in there through the night, the garage door always open. We take each driver’s bank at the end of shift and sometimes the drivers themselves aren’t the nicest guys, if you know what I mean.”
Bosch reached around McQuillen’s substantial girth and found the weapon. He pulled it out and held it up to show Chu. It was a Cobra Derringer with a big-bore barrel. Nice and small but hardly a popper. It could fire two.38 caliber rounds and they could do some damage if you used it up close enough. The Cobra had been on the list of guns McQuillen had registered and that Chu had pulled up on the ATF computer. Harry put it into his pocket.
“You have a concealed weapons permit?” Bosch asked.
“Not quite.”
“Yeah, I didn’t think so.”
As Bosch finished the pat-down, he felt what he was sure was a phone in McQuillen’s right-front pocket. He left it in place, acting as though he had missed it.
“Do you shake down everybody you bring in for questioning?” McQuillen asked.
“Rules,” Bosch said. “Can’t take you in the car without cuffs unless we do the pat-down.”
Bosch wasn’t exactly talking about department rules. More his own rules. When he had seen the Cobra on the ATF report, he guessed that it was a weapon McQuillen liked to carry on him — there wasn’t really much other reason to have a pocket pistol. Harry’s first priority was to separate him from it and anything else that might not have been on the ATF’s radar.
“Okay,” he said. “Let’s go.”
They walked out of the garage and into the late afternoon sun. Walking on either side of McQuillen, the detectives led him toward their car.
“Where are we going for this voluntary conversation?” McQuillen asked.
“The PAB,” Bosch replied.
“Haven’t seen the new building but if it is all the same, I’d rather go to Hollywood. It’s close and I can get back to work sooner.”
This was the start of a cat-and-mouse game. The key thing from Bosch’s perspective was to keep McQuillen cooperating. The moment he shut down and said, I want a lawyer, was the moment everything halted. Being a former cop, McQuillen was smart enough to know this. He was playing them.
“We can check if they have the space,” Bosch said. “Partner, give them a call.”
Bosch had used the code word. As Chu pulled his phone, Bosch opened the back door of their sedan and held it while McQuillen climbed in. He closed it and over the hood of the car gave Chu a hand signal, like a cutoff motion. The meaning was, we are not going to Hollywood.
Once they were all in the car Chu proceeded to fake a phone call with the lieutenant in charge of the detective squad room at Hollywood Division.
“L.T., Detective Chu, RHD, my partner and I are in the vicinity and would like to borrow one of your nine-by-nines for about an hour if we could. We could be there in five. Would that be all right with you?”
There was a long silence followed by “I see” three times from Chu. He then thanked the lieutenant and closed his phone.
“No good. They just rolled a DVD counterfeiting warehouse and they got all three rooms stacked. It will be a couple hours.”
Bosch glanced back at McQuillen and shrugged.
“Looks like you get to see the PAB, McQuillen.”
“I guess so.”
Bosch was pretty sure McQuillen had not fallen for the charade. On the rest of the drive Bosch tried to make small talk that would either elicit information or lower McQuillen’s guard. But the former cop knew all the tricks of the trade and remained mute almost the entire ride. This told Bosch that the interview at PAB was going to be difficult. Nothing was more difficult than trying to get a former cop to talk.
But that was okay. Bosch was ready for the challenge and had a few things up his sleeve that he was pretty sure McQuillen hadn’t seen.
Once they got into the PAB, they walked McQuillen through the vast RHD squad room and then placed him in one of the Open-Unsolved Unit’s two interview rooms.
“We just need to check on a few things and we’ll get right back to you,” Bosch said.
“I know how it works,” McQuillen said. “See you in about an hour, right?”
“No, not that long. We’ll be right back.”
The door automatically locked when he pulled it closed. Bosch went down the hall to the next door and stepped into the video room. He started the video and audio recorders and then went to the squad room. Chu was at his desk, opening the envelopes containing George Irving’s credit-card records. Bosch took his own seat.
“How long are you going to let him cook?” Chu asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe a half hour. I missed his cell phone during the pat-down. Maybe he’ll make a call and say the wrong thing and we’ll have it on video. Might get lucky.”
“It’s happened before. You think he’s walking out of here tonight?”
“I kind of doubt it. Even if he gives us nothing. Did you see his watch?”
“No, he’s got long sleeves.”
“I saw it. It fits. We book him and take the watch and it goes to forensics. We go for DNA and wound matching. DNA will take a while but maybe they can make the wound match by lunch tomorrow and then we go to the DA.”
“Sounds like a plan. I’m going to get a cup of coffee. You want something?”
Bosch turned and looked at his partner for a long moment. Chu’s back was to him. He was putting the credit-card reports into one stack and tapping the edges clean.
“Nah, I’m fine.”
“As long as you’re letting him cook awhile, I might sit down and look at all of this stuff. You never know.”
Chu got up, putting the credit-card data into a fresh green file.