“Back off, Bosch. Back off or you got a dead partner. You want that?”
Powers had turned his head so that he was looking back at Bosch. Bosch stopped and raised his hands away from his body.
“That’s it,” Powers said. “Now this is what you’re going to do. Take your gun out real slowly and drop it in that first sink there.”
Bosch made no move.
“Do it. Now.”
Powers spoke with measured force, careful to keep his voice low.
Bosch looked at the tiny gun in Powers’s hand. He recognized it as a Raven .25, a favored throw-down gun among patrol cops going back to at least his own time in a uniform. It was small—it looked like a toy in Powers’s hand—but deadly and it fit snugly into a sock or boot, virtually unseen with the pants leg pulled down. As Bosch came to the realization that Edgar and Rider had not completely searched Powers, he also knew that a shot from the Raven at point-blank range would certainly kill Edgar. It was against all his instincts to give up his weapon, but he saw no alternative. Powers was desperate and Bosch knew desperate men didn’t think things out. They went against the odds. They were killers. With two fingers he slowly removed his gun and dropped it into the sink.
“That’s real good, Bosch. Now I want you to get on the floor underneath the sinks.”
Bosch did as he was told, never taking his eyes off Powers as he moved.
“Edgar,” Powers said. “Now your turn. You can just go ahead and drop yours on the floor.”
Edgar’s gun hit the tile.
“Now, you get under there with your partner. That’s it.”
“Powers, this is crazy,” Bosch said. “Where’re you going to go? You can’t run.”
“Who’s talking about running, Bosch? Take out your cuffs and put one on your left wrist.”
After Bosch had complied, Powers told him to loop the cuffs through one of the sink trap pipes. He then told Edgar to put the free cuff around his right wrist. He did so and then Powers smiled.
“There, that’s good. That ought to hold you guys for a few minutes. Now, give me your keys. Both of you, throw ’em out here.”
Powers picked Edgar’s set up off the floor and unlocked the cuffs around his wrists. He quickly massaged them to get the circulation going. He was smiling but Bosch wondered if he even knew it.
“Now, let’s see.”
He reached into the sink and grabbed Bosch’s gun.
“This is a nice one, Bosch. Nice weight, balance. Beats mine. Mind if I borrow it for a couple minutes?”
Bosch knew then what he was planning to do. He was going for Veronica. Bosch thought of Kiz sitting at the homicide table, her back to the front counter. And Billets in her office. They wouldn’t see him until it was too late.
“She’s not here, Powers,” he said.
“What? Who?”
“Veronica. It was a scam. We never even picked her up.”
Powers was silent as the smile dropped away and was replaced with a serious look of concentration. Bosch knew what he was thinking.
“The voice came from one of her movies. I taped it off the videotape. You go back to those interview rooms and it’s a dead end. There’s nobody back there and no way out.”
Bosch saw the same tightening of skin around Powers’s face that he had seen before. His face grew dark with blood and anger, then, inexplicably, the smile suddenly creased across it.
“You smart fucker, Bosch. Is that so? You ‘spect me to believe she’s not there? Maybe this is the con, and not before. See what I’m saying?”
“It’s no con. She isn’t there. We were going to pick her up with what you told us. Went up the hill an hour ago but she’s not there either. She left last night.”
“If she’s not already here, then how…”
“That part was no scam. The money and pictures were in your house. If you didn’t put them there, then she did. She’s setting you up. Why don’t you just put the gun down and let’s start this over. You apologize to Edgar for what you called him and we drop this little incident.”
“Oh, I see. You drop the escape but I still get hit with the murder.”
“I told you, we’re going to talk to the DA. We got one coming in right now. He’s a friend. He’ll do right by you. She’s the one we really want.”
“You fucking asshole!” Powers said loudly. He then brought his voice back into check. “Don’t you see that I want her? You think you beat me? You think you broke me down in there? You didn’t win, Bosch. I talked because I wanted to talk. I broke you, man, but you didn’t know it. You started trusting me because you needed me. You should’ve never moved the cuffs, brother.”
He was silent a moment, letting that sink in.
“Now I’ve got an appointment with that bitch that I’m going to keep no matter what. She ain’t here, then I’ll go find her.”
“She could be anywhere.”
“So could I, Bosch, and she won’t see me coming. I have to go.”
Powers grabbed the plastic bag out of the trash can and emptied it on the floor. He put Bosch’s gun into the bag, then turned the faucets in all three sinks on full blast. The cascading water created a cacophony as it echoed off the tile walls. Powers picked up Edgar’s gun and put it in the bag. He then wrapped the bag around itself several times, concealing the two guns inside. He put the Raven in his front pocket for easy access, threw the handcuff keys into one of the urinals and flushed each one. Without even looking at the two men handcuffed under the sink, he headed to the door.
“Adios, dipshits,” he threw over his shoulder and then he was gone.
Bosch looked at Edgar. He knew that if they yelled, it was likely they wouldn’t be heard. It was a Sunday, the administration wing was empty. And in the bureau there were only Billets and Rider. With the water running, their shouts would probably be unintelligible. Billets and Rider would probably think it was the normal yelling from the drunk tank.
Bosch swiveled around and braced his feet on the wall beneath the sink counter. He grabbed the trap pipe so that he could use his legs as leverage in an attempt to pull the pipe free. But the pipe was burning hot.
“Son of a bitch!” Bosch yelled as he let go. “He turned the hot water on.”
“What are we going to do? He’s getting away.”
“Your arms are longer. See if you can reach up there and turn off the water. It’s too hot. I can’t grab the pipe.”
With Bosch feeding his arm almost up to the elbow through the pipe loop, Edgar was barely able to touch the faucet. It took him several seconds to turn the water down to a trickle.
“Now turn on the cold,” Bosch said. “Cool this thing down.”
It took another few seconds, but then Bosch was ready to try again. He grabbed the pipe and pushed against the wall with his legs. As he did this, Edgar squeezed his hands around the pipe and did the same. The added muscle broke the pipe free along the seal beneath the sink. Water sloshed down on them as they threaded the cuffs chain through the pipe break. They got up and slid along the tile to the urinal, where Bosch saw his keys on the bottom grate. He grabbed them up and fumbled with them until he had the cuff off. He handed the keys to Edgar and ran toward the door, sloshing through the water that had completely spread across it.
“Turn off the water,” he yelled as he hit the door.
Bosch ran down the hallway and vaulted over the detective bureau front counter. The squad room was empty and through the glass he saw the lieutenant’s office was vacant. He then heard a loud pounding and the muffled shouts of Rider and Billets. He ran down the hallway to the interview rooms and found all the doors open but one. He knew Powers had checked for Veronica Aliso anyway after locking Billets and Rider in room thrree. He opened the door to three and then quickly ran back through the squad room into the station house’s rear hallway. He slammed through the heavy metal door and into the back parking yard. Instinctively reaching to his empty shoulder holster, he scanned the parking lot and the open bays of
the garage. There was no sign of Powers, but there were two patrol officers standing near the gas pumps. Bosch focused on them.
“You seen Powers?”
“Yeah,” said the older of the two. “He just left. With our fucking car. What the fuck’s going on?”
Bosch didn’t answer. He closed his eyes, bowed his head and cursed silently to himself.
Six hours later, Bosch, Edgar and Rider sat at the homicide table, silently watching the meeting taking place in the lieutenant’s office. Huddled in the small office like people on a bus were Billets, Captain LeValley, Deputy Chief Irving, three IAD investigators including Chastain, and the chief of police and his administrative aide. Deputy District Attorney Roger Goff had been consulted on the speakerphone—Bosch had heard his voice through the open door. But then the door was closed and Bosch was sure the group was deciding the fate of the three detectives sitting outside.
The police chief stood in the middle of the cramped room with his arms folded and his head down. He was the last to arrive, and it looked as if he was getting the run-down from the others. Occasionally he nodded, but it didn’t look to Bosch as though he was saying much at all. Bosch knew that the main issue they were discussing was how to handle the problem with Powers. There was a killer cop on the loose. Going to the media with that would be an exercise in self-flagellation, but Bosch saw no way around it. They had looked in all the likely places for Powers and had not found him. The patrol car he had commandeered had been found abandoned up in the hills on Fareholm Drive. Where he had gone from there was anyone’s guess. Surveillance teams stationed outside his bungalow and the Aliso house, as well as the lawyer Neil Denton’s house and office, had produced nothing. It was now time to go to the media, to put the rogue cop’s picture on the six o’clock news. Bosch guessed that the reason the police chief had showed up was that he planned to call a press conference. Otherwise he would have left the whole thing for Irving to deal with.
Bosch realized Rider had said something.
“Excuse me?”
“I said what are you going to do with your time?”
“I don’t know. Depends on how much we get. If it’s just one DP, I’ll use it to finish work on my house. If it’s longer than two, I’ll have to see about making some money somehow.”
A DP, or deployment period, was fifteen days. Suspensions were usually handed out in such increments when the offense was serious. Bosch was pretty sure the chief wouldn’t be handing out minor suspensions to them.
“He isn’t going to fire us, is he, Harry?” Edgar asked.
“Doubt it. But it all depends on how they’re telling it to him.”
Bosch looked back at the office window just as the chief was looking out at him. The chief looked away, not a good sign. Bosch had never met him and never expected that he would. He was an outsider brought in to appease the community. Not because of any particular police administrative skills, but because they needed an outsider. He was a large black man with most of his weight around his waist. Cops who didn’t like him, and there were many, often referred to him as Chief Mud Slide. Bosch didn’t know what cops who liked him called him.
“I just want to say I’m sorry, Harry,” Rider said.
“Sorry about what?” Bosch asked.
“About missing the gun. I patted him down. I ran my hands down his legs but somehow I missed it. I don’t understand it.”
“It was small enough that he could fit it in his boot,” Bosch said. “It’s not all on you, Kiz. We all had our chances. Me and Jerry fucked up in the rest room. We should’ve been watching him better.”
She nodded but Bosch could tell she still felt miserable. He looked up and saw that the meeting in the lieutenant’s office was beginning to break up. As the police chief and his aide, followed by LeValley and the IAD dicks, filed out, they left the bureau through the front entrance. It would make for an out-of-the-way walk if their cars were parked in the station lot out back, but it meant they didn’t have to walk by the homicide table and acknowledge Bosch and the others. Another bad sign, he though.
Only Irving and Billets remained in the office after it cleared. Billets then looked out at Bosch and signaled the three of them into her office. They got up slowly and headed in. Edgar and Rider sat down but Bosch stayed on his feet.
“Chief,” Billets said, giving Irving the floor.
“Okay, I’ll give it to you the way it was just given to me,” Irving said.
He looked down at a piece of paper on which he had taken a few notes.
“For conducting an unauthorized investigation and for failure to follow procedure in searching and transporting a prisoner, each of you is suspended without pay two deployment periods and suspended with pay for two deployment periods. These are to run consecutively. That’s two months. And, of course, a formal reprimand goes into each of your jackets. Per procedure, you can appeal this to a Board of Rights.”
He waited a beat. It was heavier than Bosch had expected, but he showed nothing on his face. He heard Edgar audibly exhale. As far as the appeal went, disciplinary action by the police chief was rarely overturned. It would require two of the three captains on the Board of Rights to vote against their commander in chief. Overruling an IAD investigator was one thing, overruling the chief was political suicide.
“However,” Irving continued, “the suspensions are being held in abeyance by the chief pending further developments and evaluation.”
There was a moment of silence while the last sentence was computed.
“What does he mean, abeyance?” Edgar asked.
“It means the chief is offering you a break,” Irving said. “He wants to see how things fall out over the next day or two. Each of you is to come to work tomorrow and proceed with the investigation where you can. We talked with the DA’s office. They’re willing to file on Powers. Get the paperwork over there tomorrow first thing. We’ve put the word out and the chief will take it to the media in a couple hours. If we’re lucky, we’ll get this guy before he finds the woman or does any other damage. And if we’re lucky, you three will probably be lucky.”
“What about Veronica Aliso, aren’t they going to file on her?”
“Not yet. Not until we have Powers back. Goff said that without Powers, the taped confession is worthless. He won’t be able to use it against her without Powers on the stand to introduce it or her being able to confront a witness against her.”
Bosch looked down at the floor.
“So without him, she walks.”
“That’s the way it looks.”
Bosch nodded his head.
“What’s he going to say?” he asked. “The chief, I mean.”
“He’s going to tell it like it is. You people will come out okay in some parts, not so okay in others. Overall, it’s not going to be a good day for this department.”
“Is that why we’re getting hit for two months? Because we’re the messengers?”
Irving looked at him a long moment, his jaw clenched, before answering.
“I’m not going to dignify that with a reply.”
He looked at Rider and Edgar and said, “You two can go now. You’re finished here. I need to discuss another matter with Detective Bosch.”
Bosch watched them go and prepared for more of Irving’s ire about the last comment. He wasn’t sure why he had said it. He knew it would bait the deputy chief.
But after Rider closed the door to the office, Irving spoke of another matter.
“Detective, I wanted you to know that I’ve already talked to the federal people and we’re all squared away on that.”
“How is that?”
“I told them that with today’s developments it has become pretty clear—make that crystal clear—that you had nothing to do with planting evidence on their man. I told them it was Powers and that we were terminating that particular aspect of our internal investigation of your conduct.”
“Fine, Chief. Thanks.”
Thinking that was it, Bos
ch made a move toward the door.
“Detective, there is one other thing.”
Bosch turned back to him.
“In discussing this matter with the chief of police, there is still one other aspect that bothers him.”
“And what is that?”
“The investigation started by Detective Chastain brought in ancillary information about your association with a convicted felon. It’s troubling to me, too. I’d like to be able to get some assurance from you that this is not going to continue. I’d like to take that assurance to the chief.”
Bosch was silent a moment.
“I can’t give you that.”