“That’s probably the mother,” Bosch said. “We better get in there.”
Bosch started trotting toward the ER doors and Ferras followed. They went through the ER waiting room and down a hallway where the father had been placed in a private room to wait.
As Bosch got close he did not hear any screaming or crying or fists on flesh—things that wouldn’t have surprised him. The door was open and when he turned in he saw the parents of the dead boy embracing each other, but not a tear lined any of their cheeks. Bosch’s initial, split-second reaction was that he was seeing relief in their young faces.
They separated when they saw Bosch enter, followed by Ferras.
“Mr. and Mrs. Helton?” he asked.
They nodded in unison. But the man corrected Bosch.
“I’m Stephen Helton and this is my wife, Arlene Haddon.”
“I’m Detective Bosch with the Los Angeles Police Department and this is my partner, Detective Ferras. We are very sorry for the loss of your son. It is our job now to investigate William’s death and to learn exactly what happened to him.”
Helton nodded as his wife stepped close to him and put her face into his chest. Something silent was transmitted.
“Does this have to be done now?” Helton asked. “We’ve just lost our beautiful little—”
“Yes, sir, it has to be done now. This is a homicide investigation.”
“It was an accident,” Helton weakly protested. “It’s all my fault but it was an accident.”
“It’s still a homicide investigation. We would like to speak to each of you privately, without the intrusions that will occur here. Do you mind coming down to the police station to be interviewed?”
“We’ll leave him here?”
“The hospital is making arrangements for your son’s body to be moved to the medical examiner’s office.”
“They’re going to cut him open?” the mother asked in a near-hysterical voice.
“They will examine his body and then determine if an autopsy is necessary,” Bosch said. “It is required by law that any untimely death fall under the jurisdiction of the medical examiner.”
He waited to see if there was further protest. When there wasn’t, he stepped back and gestured for them to leave the room.
“We’ll drive you down to Parker Center and I promise to make this as painless as possible.”
They placed the grieving parents in separate interview rooms in the third-floor offices of Homicide Special. Because it was Sunday the cafeteria was closed and Bosch="0ed and had to make do with the vending machines in the alcove by the elevators. He got a can of Coke and two packages of cheese crackers. He had not eaten breakfast before being called in on the case and was now famished.
He took his time while eating the crackers and talking things over with Ferras. He wanted both Helton and Haddon to believe that they were waiting while the other spouse was being interviewed. It was a trick of the trade, part of the strategy. Each would have to wonder what the other was saying.
“Okay,” Bosch finally said. “I’m going to go in and take the husband. You can watch in the booth or you can take a run at the wife. Your choice.”
It was a big moment. Bosch was more than twenty-five years ahead of Ferras on the job. He was the mentor and Ferras was the student. So far in their fledgling partnership, Bosch had not let Ferras conduct a formal interview. He was allowing that now and the look on Ferras’s face showed that it was not lost on him.
“You’re going to let me talk to her?”
“Sure, why not? You can handle it.”
“All right if I get in the booth and watch you with him first? That way you can watch me.”
“Whatever makes you comfortable.”
“Thanks, Harry.”
“Don’t thank me, Ignacio. Thank yourself. You earned it.”
Bosch dumped the empty cracker packages and the can in a trash can near his desk.
“Do me a favor,” he said. “Go on the Internet first and check the L.A. Times to see if they’ve had any stories lately about a case like this. You know, with a kid. I’d be curious, and if there are, we might be able to make a play with the story. Use it like a prop.”
“I’m on it.”
“I’ll go set up the video in the booth.”
Ten minutes later Bosch entered interview room 3, where Stephen Helton was waiting for him. Helton looked like he was not quite thirty years old. He was lean and tan and appeared to be the perfect real estate salesman. He didn’t look like he had ever spent even five minutes in a police station before.
Immediately he protested.
“What is taking so long? I’ve just lost my son and you stick me in this room for an hour? Is that procedure?”
“It hasn’t been that long, Stephen. But I am sorry you had to wait. We were talking to your wife and that went longer than we thought it would.”
“Why were you talking to her? Willy was with me the whole time.”
“We talked to her for the same reason we’re talking to you. I’m sorry for the delay.”
Bosch pulled out the chair that was across the small table from Helton and sat down.
“First of all,” he said, “thank you for coming in for the interview. You understand that you are not under arrest or anything like that. You are free to go if you wish. But by law we have to conduct an investigation of the death and we appreciate your cooperation.”
“I just want to get it over with so I can begin the process.”
“What process is that?”
“I don’t know. Whatever process you go through. Believe me, I’m new at this. You know, grief and guilt and mourning. Willy wasn’t in our lives very long but we loved him very much. This is just awful. I made a mistake and I am going to pay for it for the rest of my life, Detective Bosch.”
Bosch almost told him that his son paid for the mistake with the rest of his life but chose not to antagonize the man. Instead, he just nodded and noted that Helton had looked down at his lap when he had spoken most of his statement. Averting the eyes was a classic tell that indicated untruthfulness. Another tell was that Helton had his hands down in his lap and out of sight. The open and truthful person keeps his hands on the table and in sight.
“Why don’t we start at the beginning,” Bosch said. “Tell me how the day started.”
Helton nodded and began.
“Sunday’s our busiest day. We’re both in real estate. You may have seen the signs, Haddon and Helton. We’re PPG’s top-volume team. Today Arlene had an open house at noon and a couple of private showings before that. So Willy was going to be with me. We lost another nanny on Friday and there was no one else to take him.”
“How did you lose the nanny?”
“She quit. They all quit. Willy is a handful… because of his condition. I mean, why deal with a handicapped child if someone with a normal, healthy child will pay you the same thing? Consequently, we go through a lot of nannies.”
“So you were left to take care of the boy today while your wife had the property showings.”
“It wasn’t like I wasn’t working, though. I was negotiating a sale that would have brought in a thirty-thousand-dollar commission. It was important.”
“Is that why you went into the office?”
“Exactly. We got an offer sheet and I was going to have to respond. So I got Willy ready and put him in the car and went into work.”
“What time was this?”
“About quarter to ten. I got the call from the other Realtor at about nine thirty. The buyer was playing hardball. The response time was going to be set at an hour. So I had to get my seller on standby, pack up Willy and get in there to pick up the fax.”
“Do you have a fax at home?”
“Yes, but if the deal went down we’d have to get together in the office. We have a signing room and all the forms are right there. My file on the property was in my office, too.”
Bosch nodded. It sounded plausible to a point.
<
br /> “Okay, so you head off to the office…”
“Exactly. And two things happened…”
Helton brought his hands up into sight but only to hold them across his face to hide his eyes. A classic tell.
“What two things?”
“I got a call on my cell—from Arlene—and Willy fell asleep in his car seat. Do you understand?”
“Make me understand.”
“I was distracted by the call and I was no longer distracted by Willy. He had fallen asleep.”
“Uh-huh.”
“So I forgot he was there. Forgive me, God, but I forgot I had him with me!”
“I understand. What happened next?”
Helton dropped his hands out of sight again. He looked at Bosch briefly and then at the tabletop.
“I parked in my assigned space behind PPG and I went in. I was still talking to Arlene. One of our buyers is trying to get out of a contract because he’s found something he likes better. So we were talking about that, about how to finesse things with that, and I was on the phone when I went in.”
“Okay, I see that. What happened when you went in?”
Helton didn’t answer right away. He sat there looking at the table as if trying to remember so he could get the answer right.
“Stephen?” Bosch prompted. “What happened next?”
“I had told the buyer’s agent to fax me the offer. But it wasn’t there. So I got off the line from my wife and I called the agent. Then I waited around for the fax. Checked my slips and made a few callbacks while I was waiting.”
“What are your slips?”
“Phone messages. People who see our signs on properties and call. I don’t put my cell oriv t my ce home number on the signs.”
“How many callbacks did you make?”
“I think just two. I got a message on one and spoke briefly to the other person. My fax came in and that was what I was there for. I got off the line.”
“Now, at this point it was what time?”
“I don’t know, about ten after ten.”
“Would you say that at this point you were still cognizant that your son was still in your car in the parking lot?”
Helton took time to think through an answer again but spoke before Bosch had to prompt him.
“No, because if I knew he was in the car, I would not have left him in the first place. I forgot about him while I was still in the car. You understand?”
Bosch leaned back in his seat. Whether he understood it or not, Helton had just dodged one legal bullet. If he had acknowledged that he knowingly left the boy in the car—even if he planned to be back in a few minutes—that would have greatly supported a charge of negligent homicide. But Helton had maneuvered the question correctly, almost as if he had expected it.
“Okay,” Bosch said. “What happened next?”
Helton shook his head wistfully and looked at the side wall as if gazing through a window toward the past he couldn’t change.
“I, uh, got involved in the deal,” he said. “The fax came in, I called my client and I faxed back a counter. I also did a lot of talking to the other agent. By phone. We were trying to get the deal done and we had to hand-hold both our clients through this.”
“For two hours.”
“Yes, it took that long.”
“And when was it that you remembered that you had left William in the car out in the parking lot where it was about ninety-five degrees?”
“I guess as soon—first of all, I didn’t know what the temperature was. I object to that. I left that car at about ten and it was not ninety-five degrees. Not even close. I hadn’t even used the air conditioner on the way over.”
There was a complete lack of remorse or guilt in Helton’s demeanor. He wasn’t even attempting to fake it anymore. Bosch had become convinced that this man had no love or affinity for his damaged and now lost child. William was simply a burden that had to be dealt with and therefore could easily be forgotten when things like business and selling houses and making money came up.
But where was the crime in all of this? Bosch knew he could charge him with negligence but the courts tend to view the loss of a child as enough punishment in these situations. Helton would go free with hi defree wis wife as sympathetic figures, free to continue their lives while baby William moldered in his grave.
The tells always add up. Bosch instinctively believed Helton was a liar. And he began to believe that William’s death was no accident. Unlike his partner, who had let the passions of his own fatherhood lead him down the path, Bosch had gotten here after careful observation and analysis. It was now time to press on, to bait Helton and see if he would make a mistake.
“Is there anything else you want to add to the story?” he asked.
Helton let out a deep breath and slowly shook his head.
“That’s the whole sad story,” he said. “I wish to God it never happened. But it did.”
He looked directly at Bosch for the first time during the entire interview. Bosch held his gaze and then asked a question.
“Do you have a good marriage, Stephen?”
Helton looked away and stared at the invisible window again.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean do you have a good marriage? You can say yes or no if you want.”
“Yes, I have a good marriage,” Helton responded emphatically. “I don’t know what my wife told you but I think it is very solid. What are you trying to say?”
“All I’m saying is that sometimes when there is a child with challenges, it strains the marriage. My partner just had a baby. The kid’s healthy but money’s tight and his wife isn’t back at work yet. You know the deal. It’s tough. I can only imagine what the strain of having a child with William’s difficulties would be like.”
“Yeah, well, we made it by all right.”
“The nannies quitting all the time…”
“It wasn’t that hard. As soon as one quits we put an ad on Craigslist for another.”
Bosch nodded and scratched the back of his head. While doing it he waved a finger in a circular motion toward the camera that was in the air vent up on the wall behind him. Helton could not see him do this.
“When did you two get married?” he asked.
“Two and a half years ago. We met on a contract. She had the buyer and I had the seller. We worked well together. We started talking about joining forces and then we realized we were in love.”
“Then William came.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“That must’ve changed em"ve chathings.”
“It did.”
“So when Arlene was pregnant, couldn’t the doctors tell that he had these problems?”
“They could have if they had seen him. But Arlene’s a workaholic. She was busy all the time. She missed some appointments and the ultrasounds. When they discovered there was a problem it was too late.”
“Do you blame your wife for that?”
Helton looked aghast.
“No, of course not. Look, what does this have to do with what happened today? I mean, why are you asking me all of this?”
Bosch leaned across the table.
“It may have a lot to do with it, Stephen. I am trying to determine what happened today and why. The why is the tough part.”
“It was an accident! I forgot he was in the car, okay? I will go to my grave knowing that my mistake killed my own son. Isn’t that enough for you?”
Bosch leaned back and said nothing. He hoped Helton would say more.
“Do you have a son, Detective? Any children?”
“A daughter.”
“Yeah, well, then happy Father’s Day. I’m really glad for you. I hope you never have to go through what I’m going through right now. Believe me, it’s not fun!”
Bosch had forgotten it was Father’s Day. The realization knocked him off his rhythm and his thoughts went to his daughter living eight thousand miles away. In her ten years he had only been with her
on one Father’s Day. What did that say about him? Here he was trying to get inside another father’s actions and motivations and he knew his own could not stand equal scrutiny.
The moment ended when there was a knock on the door and Ferras came in carrying a file.
“Excuse me,” he said. “I thought you might want to see this.”
He handed the file to Bosch and left the room. Bosch turned the file on the table in front of them and opened it so that Helton would not be able to see its contents. Inside was a computer printout and a handwritten note on a Post-it.
The note said: “No ad on Craigslist.”
The printout was of a story that ran in the L.A. Times ten months earlier. It was about the heatstroke death of a child who had been left in a car in Lancaster while his mother ran into a store to buy milk. She ran into the middle of a robbery. She was tied up along with the store clerk and placed in a back room. The robbers ransacked the stotoucked thre and escaped. It was an hour before the victims were discovered and freed but by then the child in the car had already succumbed to heatstroke. Bosch scanned the story quickly then dropped the file closed. He looked at Helton without speaking.
“What?” Helton asked.
“Just some additional information and lab reports,” he lied. “Do you get the L.A. Times, by the way?”
“Yes, why?”
“Just curious, that’s all. Now, how many nannies do you think you’ve employed in the fifteen months that William was alive?”
Helton shook his head.
“I don’t know. At least ten. They don’t stay long. They can’t take it.”
“And then you go to Craigslist to place an ad?”
“Yes.”
“And you just lost a nanny on Friday?”
“Yes, I told you.”
“She just walked out on you?”
“No, she got another job and told us she was leaving. She made up a lie about it being closer to home and with gas prices and all of that. But we knew why she was leaving. She could not handle Willy.”
“She told you this Friday?”