Bosch appreciated Lucia’s efforts on his behalf and believed it might have been the reason she got him a copy of the file on the down low. She wanted him to know that what was happening was not a betrayal on her part, that she was watching out for her former mentor but letting the chips — and the evidence — fall where they may.
That aside, the allegation that Bosch had planted evidence in the case thirty years ago was now part of the record of the case and it could blow up publicly at any moment. It was clearly the leverage that Kennedy, the prosecutor, hoped to use to quiet any protest from Bosch about the move to vacate the conviction. If Bosch objected, he would get smeared.
What Kennedy, Soto, and Tapscott could not know was what Bosch knew in the deepest, darkest part of his heart. That he had not planted evidence against Borders. That he had never planted evidence against any suspect or adversary in his life. And this knowledge gave Bosch an affirming jolt of adrenaline and purpose. He knew there were two kinds of truth in this world. The truth that was the unalterable bedrock of one’s life and mission. And the other, malleable truth of politicians, charlatans, corrupt lawyers, and their clients, bent and molded to serve whatever purpose was at hand.
Borders, either with or without his attorney’s knowledge, had lied to Soto and Tapscott at San Quentin. In doing so, he had corrupted their investigation from the start. It confirmed for Bosch that this was a scam and that it was up to him to root out those who plotted against him wherever they were. He was coming for them now. The weight and guilt of possibly having made a horrible mistake so long ago was lifted.
It was Bosch who felt like the man proven innocent and released from a cage.
14
The killers of José Esquivel and his son had acted in the pharmacy video with the assurance of men who had done this kind of work before. They used revolvers both to prevent their weapons jamming and to avoid leaving behind critical evidence. They showed no hesitation, no remorse. Bosch knew that in every large criminal enterprise, there was a need for such men, enforcers willing to do what had be done to ensure the survival and success of the organization. In reality, such men were rare. This was what led to his suspicion that the killers were brought in from far outside San Fernando to deal with the problem created by the idealistic but naive José Esquivel Jr.
That suspicion seemed to be confirmed when Bosch, Lourdes, and Sisto returned to Whiteman Airport early that evening with a warrant to view surveillance footage from the airstrip’s cameras. Beginning their review of video at noon Sunday, they fast-forwarded through the hours, slowing to real-time speed only when the occasional plane landed or took off, or when a vehicle approached the row of hangars that ran along the edge of the airfield. They were in the airport’s cramped utility room beneath the tower. It also served as the security office. The space was so tight that Bosch could smell Sisto’s nicotine gum.
At 9:10 a.m. on the video, their vigil paid off when the same van they had seen pick up the lineup of pill shills at the clinic drove up to the hangar, opened its two doors wide by remote control, and then waited, its driver getting out and going inside only briefly before returning.
Fourteen minutes later the jump plane landed and taxied to and then into the hangar. Only two men disembarked — white men in dark clothing that appeared very similar to that worn by the farmacia shooters. They walked directly to the van and climbed in through the side door. The van drove off before the plane’s propeller had even stopped turning.
“It’s them,” Sisto said. “Fuckers now go to the mall and kill our victims.”
He said it with a tone of anger Bosch liked, but he knew that emotional belief and evidence were two different things.
“How do you know?” he asked.
“Oh, come on,” Sisto said. “It’s gotta be. The timing is perfect. They fly in, do the job, and you watch: they’re going to fly them out again after it’s over.”
Bosch nodded.
“I’m there with you, but what we know and what we can prove are two different things,” he said. “The men in the pharmacy were masked.”
He pointed to the video monitor.
“Can we prove that’s them?” he asked.
“We can ask the sheriff’s lab to try to clean this up,” Lourdes said. “Make it clearer.”
“Maybe,” Bosch said. “Speed it up.”
Sisto was handling the remote. He boosted the playback to 4x speed and they waited. Bosch watched the minutes go by on the video timer. At the 10:15 a.m. mark, he told Sisto to drop it back to real-time playback. The pharmacy video that had captured the murders placed the time of the killings at 10:14 a.m., and the drugstore was approximately two miles from Whiteman.
At 10:21 the van returned to the airport. It traveled within the speed limit, no hurry as it went through the gate and approached the hangar. Once it was there, the side door slid open and the two men exited and walked directly to the jump plane. Its prop was already turning and it taxied back out to the runway for takeoff.
“In and out, just like that, and two people are dead,” Lourdes said.
“We gotta get these guys,” Sisto said.
“We will,” Bosch said. “But I want the guy who made the call. The man who put those two hitters on the plane.”
“Santos,” Lourdes said.
Bosch nodded. It was a moment of true resolve for the three detectives.
Sisto finally broke the silence.
“So, what’s our next move, Harry?” he asked.
“The van,” Bosch said. “Tomorrow we bring in the driver and see what he has to say.”
“We work our way up the ladder,” Sisto said. “I like it.”
“Easier said than done,” Bosch said. “We have to assume that anybody working for Santos is working for him because he’s a trusted soldier. He won’t be afraid of prison time and that will make him hard to crack.”
“Then, what do we do?”
“We put the fear of God in him. We make him afraid of Santos if he’s not afraid of us.”
Before leaving the airport, Bosch sent Lourdes up the tower to talk to O’Connor and use the second warrant to collect the clipboard log that documented the comings and goings of the jump plane, in particular the landing on Monday morning before the pharmacy shooting. It would be marked as evidence with the video itself. The detectives then called it a day, agreeing to meet in the war room at eight the following morning to plan the takedown of the van driver. From there Sisto and Lourdes headed to Magaly’s for a late dinner, while Bosch decided to head home. He wanted to put in some time on the Borders case file before sleep deprivation caught up and knocked him down.
There was a time when Bosch could easily go two days on a case without sleep. But that time was long gone.
It was late enough for the freeway to be clear and he moved easily into the slipstream of traffic. He called his daughter, whom he had not talked to in several days except through customary good-night texts. She surprised him by answering. Usually at night she was too busy to talk.
“Hey, Dad.”
“How are you, Mads?”
“Stressed. I’ve got midterms this week. I’m about to go to the library.”
This was a sore subject with Bosch. His daughter liked to study at the school library because the place helped her focus. But she often stayed until midnight or later and that left her walking by herself to her car, parked in an underground garage. They had discussed this repeatedly but she had dug in on it and was unwilling to accept the ten p.m. curfew Bosch had tried to impose.