“They wanted our camera. The camera that worked with my husband’s computer. I told them Stanley had a camera that I thought was in his desk. Whenever I answered a question, one man-the one who asked them-would then translate to the other, and then that man left the room. I guess he went to get the camera.”
Now Walling stood up and headed toward the hallway leading to the bedrooms.
“Rachel, don’t touch anything,” Bosch said. “I have a crime scene team coming.”
Walling waved as she disappeared down the hall. Brenner then came back into the room and nodded to Bosch.
“The BOLO’s out,” he said.
Alicia Kent asked what a BOLO was.
“It means ‘be on the lookout,’” Bosch explained. “They’ll be looking for your car. What happened next with the two men, Mrs. Kent?”
She grew tearful again as she answered.
“They… they tied me in that awful way and gagged me with one of my husband’s neckties. Then after the one came back in with the camera, the other took a picture of me like that.”
Bosch noted the look of burning humiliation on her face.
“He took a photograph?”
“Yes, that’s all. Then they both left the room. The one who spoke English bent down and whispered that my husband would come to rescue me. Then he left.”
That brought a long space of silence before Bosch continued.
“After they left the bedroom, did they leave the house right away?” he asked.
The woman shook her head.
“I heard them talking for a little while, then I heard the garage door. It rumbles in the house like an earthquake. I felt it twice-it opened and closed. After that I thought they were gone.”
Brenner cut into the interview again.
“When I was in the kitchen I think I heard you say that one of the men translated for the other. Do you know what language they were speaking?”
Bosch was annoyed with Brenner for jumping in. He intended to ask about the language the intruders used but was carefully covering one aspect of the interview at a time. He had found in previous cases that it worked best with traumatized victims.
“I am not sure. The one who spoke in English had an accent but I don’t know where it was from. I think Middle Eastern. I think when they spoke to each other it was Arabic or something. It was foreign, very guttural. But I don’t know the different languages.”
Brenner nodded as if her answer was confirming something.
“Do you remember anything else about what the men might have asked you or said in English?” Bosch asked.
“No, that’s all.”
“You said they wore masks. What kind of masks?”
She thought for a moment before answering.
“The pullover kind. Like you see robbers put on in movies or people wear for skiing.”
“A wool ski mask.”
She nodded.
“Yes, exactly.”
“Okay, were they the kind with one hole for both eyes or was there a separate hole for each eye.”
“Um, separate, I think. Yes, separate.”
“Was there an opening for the mouth?”
“Uh… yes, there was. I remember watching the man’s mouth when he spoke in the other language. I was trying to understand him.”
“That’s good, Mrs. Kent. You’re being very helpful. What haven’t I asked you?”
“I don’t understand.”
“What detail do you remember that I haven’t asked you for?”
She thought about it and then shook her head.
“I don’t know. I think I’ve told you everything I can remember.”
Bosch wasn’t convinced. He began to go through the story with her again, coming at the same information from new angles. It was a tried-and-true interview technique for eliciting new details and it did not fail him. The most interesting bit of new information to emerge in the second telling was that the man who spoke English also asked her what the password was to her e-mail account.
“Why would he want that?” Bosch asked.
“I don’t know,” Alicia Kent said. “I didn’t ask. I just gave them what they wanted.”
Near the end of the second telling of her ordeal the forensics team arrived and Bosch called for a break in the questioning. While Alicia Kent remained on the couch, he walked the tech team back to the master bedroom so they could start there. He then stepped into a corner of the room and called his partner. Ferras reported that he had found nobody so far who had seen or heard anything on the overlook. Bosch told him that when he wanted a break from knocking on doors he should check into Stanley Kent ’s ownership of a gun. They needed to find the make and model. It was looking like his own gun was probably the weapon he was killed with.
As Bosch closed the phone Walling called to him from the home office. Harry found her and Brenner standing behind the desk and looking at a computer screen.
“Look at this,” Walling said.
“I told you,” he said, “you shouldn’t be touching anything yet.”
“We don’t have the luxury of time anymore,” Brenner said. “Look at this.”
Bosch came around the desk to look at the computer.
“Her e-mail account was left open,” Walling said. “I went into the sent mail file. And this was sent to her husband’s e-mail at six-twenty-one p.m. last night.”
She clicked a button and opened up the e-mail that had been sent from Alicia Kent’s account to her husband’s. The subject line said
HOME EMERGENCY: READ IMMEDIATELY!
Embedded in the body of the e-mail was a photograph of Alicia Kent naked and hog-tied on the bed. The impact of the photo would be obvious to anyone, not just a husband.
Below the photograph was a message:
We have your wife. Retrieve for us all cesium sources available to you. Bring them in safe containment to the Mulholland overlook near your home by eight o'clock. We will be watching you. If you tell anyone or make a call we will know. The consequence will be your wife being raped, tortured and left in to many pieces to count. Use all precautions while handling sources. Do not be late or we will kill her.
Bosch read the message twice and believed he felt the same terror Stanley Kent must have felt.
“‘We will be watching… we will know… we will kill her,’” Walling said. “No contractions. The ‘too’ in ‘too many pieces’ is spelled wrong and then the odd construction of some of the sentences. I don’t think this was written by someone whose original language is English.”
As she said it Bosch saw it and knew that she was right.
“They send the message right from here,” Brenner said. “The husband gets it at the office or on his PDA-did he have a PDA?”
Bosch had no expertise in this area. He hesitated.
“A personal digital assistant,” Walling prompted. “You know, like a Palm Pilot or a phone with all the gadgets.”
Bosch nodded.
“I think so,” he said. “There was a BlackBerry cell phone recovered. It looks like it has a mini-keyboard.”
“That works,” Brenner said. “So no matter where he is, he gets this message and can probably view the photo, too.”
All three of them were quiet while the impact of the e-mail registered. Finally, Bosch spoke, feeling guilty now about holding back earlier.
“I just remembered something. There was an ID tag on the body. From Saint Aggy’s up in the Valley.”
Brenner’s eyes took on a sharpness.
“You just remembered a key piece of information like that?” he asked angrily.
“That’s right. I for-”
“It doesn’t matter now,” Walling interjected. “Saint Aggy’s is a women’s cancer clinic. Cesium is used almost exclusively for treating cervical and uterine cancer.”
Bosch nodded.
“Then we better get going,” he said.
FIVE
SAINT AGATHA’S CLINIC FOR WOMEN was in Sylmar at the north end of the San Fernando Valley. Because it was the dead of night they were making good time on the 170 Freeway up. Bosch was behind the wheel of his Mustang, one eye on the fuel needle. He knew he was going to need gas before coming back down into the city. It was he and Brenner in the car. It had been decided-by Brenner-that Walling should stay behind with Alicia Kent, to continue both questioning and calming her. Walling didn’t seem happy about the assignment but Brenner, asserting his seniority in the partnership, didn’t give her room to debate it.