“You found them with him?”
“Mrs. Aliso, I’d rather that you’d just answer my questions. I know this is difficult, but there are some things I can’t tell you yet. I will when I can. I promise.”
“No, he didn’t use them…with me.”
“I’m sorry that I have to be so personal, but we want to catch the person who did this. We both want that. Now, your husband was about ten or twelve years older than you.” He was being charitable here. “Did he have problems performing sexually? Is there any chance he might have been using poppers without your knowledge?”
She turned to go back to her chair. When she was seated again she said, “I wouldn’t know.”
Now Bosch narrowed his eyes. What was she trying to say? His silence worked. She answered before he had to ask, but as she spoke she looked directly at Rider, the unspoken message being that as a woman Rider might sympathize.
“Detective, I haven’t had…I guess, sexual relations is the way it is said in these matters. My husband and I…not in almost two years.”
Bosch nodded and looked down at his notebook. The page was blank but he couldn’t bring himself to write this latest piece of information down with her watching them. He folded the notebook closed and put it away.
“You want to ask me why, don’t you?”
He just looked at her and she answered with a measure of defiance in her face and voice.
“He had lost interest.”
“Are you sure?”
“He told me that to my face.”
Bosch nodded.
“Mrs. Aliso, I’m sorry for the loss of your husband. I’m also sorry for the intrusion and the personal questions. I’m afraid, though, that there will be more as the investigation progresses.”
“I understand.”
“There is one other thing I’d like to cover.”
“Yes, what is it?”
“Did your husband have a home office?”
“Yes.”
“Could we take a quick look at it?”
She stood up and they followed her down the second hallway to the office. They both stepped into the room and Bosch looked around. It was a small room with a desk and two file cabinets. There was a TV on a cart in front of a wall of shelves. Half were filled with books and the rest stacked with scripts, the titles written with Magic Markers on the edges of the pages. There was a golf bag leaning in the corner.
Bosch walked over and studied the desk. It was spotless. He came around and saw that the desk contained two file drawers. He opened these and found one empty and one containing several files. He quickly looked through the file tabs and saw that they apparently were files containing personal finance records and tax documents. He closed the drawers, deciding that a search of the office could probably keep.
“It’s late,” he said. “This is not the time. I want you to understand, though, that investigations like this often shoot off into many directions. But we have to follow up on everything. We’re going to need to come in here tomorrow and go through your husband’s things. We’ll probably take a lot with us. We’ll have a warrant so everything will be perfectly legal.”
“Yes. Of course. But can’t I just give you permission to take what you need?”
“You could, but it would be better this way. I’m talking about check books, savings account records, credit card statements, insurance, everything. We’ll probably need the records on your household account, too.”
“I understand. What time?”
“I don’t know yet. I’ll call first. Or someone will. Do you know, did your husband leave a will?”
“Yes. Both of us made wills. They’re with our attorney.”
“How long ago was that?”
“The will? Oh, a long time. Years.”
“In the morning, I’d like you to call the attorney and tell him we’ll need a copy of it. Are you up to doing that?”
“Of course.”
“What about insurance?”
“Yes, we have policies. The attorney, Neil Denton in Century City, will have them also.”
“Okay, we’ll worry about that tomorrow. I need to seal this room now.”
They stepped back into the hallway and Bosch closed the door. From his briefcase he took a sticker that said
CRIME SCENE
DO NOT ENTER PREMISES
CALL LAPD 213 485-4321
Bosch pressed the sticker across the door jamb. If anyone entered the room now, they would have to cut the sticker or peel it off. Bosch would know.
“Detective?” Veronica Aliso said quietly from behind him.
Bosch turned around.
“I am the suspect, aren’t I?”
Bosch put the two papers he had peeled off the back of the sticker in his pocket.
“I suppose everyone and no one is a suspect at this point. We’re looking at everything. But, yes, Mrs. Aliso, we’re going to be looking at you.”
“I guess I shouldn’t have been so candid before, then.”
Rider said, “If you’ve got nothing to hide, the truth shouldn’t hurt you.”
Bosch knew from long experience never to say such a thing. He knew the words were false before they were out of her mouth. Judging by the small, thin smile on Veronica Aliso’s face, she knew it as well.
“Are you new at this, Detective Rider?” she asked while looking at Bosch with that smile.
“No, ma’am, I’ve been a detective for six years.”
“Oh. And I guess I don’t have to ask Detective Bosch.”
“Mrs. Aliso?” Bosch asked.
“Veronica.”
“There is one last thing you could clear up for us tonight. We do not know yet exactly when your husband was killed. But it would help us concentrate on other matters if we could quickly eliminate routine avenues of—”
“You want to know if I have an alibi, is that it?”
“We just want to know where you were the last few days and nights. It’s a routine question, nothing else.”
“Well, I hate to bore you with my life’s details, because I’m afraid that’s what they are, boring. But other than a trip to the mall and supermarket Saturday afternoon, I haven’t left the house since I had dinner with my husband Wednesday night.”
“You’ve been here alone?”
“Yes…but I think you can verify this with Captain Nash at the gate. They keep records of who comes in as well as out of Hidden Highlands. Even the residents. Also, on Friday our pool man was here in the afternoon. I gave him his check. I can get you his name and number.”
“That won’t be necessary right now. Thank you. And again, I’m sorry for your loss. Is there anything we can do for you right now?”
She seemed to be withdrawing into herself. He was not sure she had heard his question.
“I’m fine,” she finally said.
He picked up his briefcase and headed down the hallway with Rider. It ran behind the living room and took them directly to the front door. All the way along the hallway there were no photographs on the wall. It didn’t seem right to him, but he guessed nothing had been right in this house for a while. Bosch studied dead people’s rooms the way scholars studied dead people’s paintings at the Getty. He looked for the hidden meanings, the secrets of lives and deaths.
At the door Rider went out first. Bosch then stepped out and looked back down the hall. Veronica Aliso was framed at the other end in the light. He hesitated for a beat. He nodded and walked out.
They drove in silence, digesting the conversation, until they got to the gatehouse and Nash came out.
“How’d it go?”
“It went.”
“He’s dead, isn’t he? Mr. Aliso.”
“Yeah.”
Nash whistled quietly.
“Captain Nash, you keep records here of when cars come in and out?” Rider asked.
“Yes. But this is private property. You’d need a—”
“Search warrant,” Bosch said. “Yes, we know. But befor
e we go to all that trouble, tell me something. Say I come back with a warrant, are your gate records going to tell me when exactly Mrs. Aliso came in and out of here the last few days?”
“Nope. It’ll only tell you when her car did.”
“Gotcha.”
Bosch dropped off Rider at her car and they drove separately down out of the hills to the Hollywood Division station on Wilcox. On the way Bosch thought about Veronica Aliso and the fury she seemed to hold in her eyes for her dead husband. He didn’t know how it fit or if it even fit at all. But he knew they would be coming back to her.
Rider and Bosch stopped briefly in the station to update Edgar and pick up cups of coffee. Bosch then called Archway and arranged for the security office to call in Chuckie Meachum from home. Bosch did not tell the duty officer who took the call what it was about or what office inside the studio they would be going to. He just told the officer to get Meachum there.
At midnight they went out the rear door of the station house, past the fenced windows of the drunk tank and to Bosch’s car.
“So what did you think of her?” Bosch finally asked as he pulled out of the station lot.
“The embittered widow? I think there wasn’t much to their marriage. At least at the end. Whether that makes her a killer or not, I don’t know.”
“No pictures.”
“On the walls? Yeah, I noticed that.”
Bosch lit a cigarette and Rider didn’t say anything about it, although it was a violation of department policy to smoke in the detective car.
“What do you think?” Rider asked.
“I’m not sure yet. There’s what you said. The bitterness you could almost put in a glass if you ever ran out of ice. Couple other things I’m still thinking about.”
“Like what?”
“Like all the makeup she had on and the way she took my badge out of my hand. Nobody’s ever done that before. It’s like…I don’t know, like maybe she was waiting for us.”
When they got to the entrance of Archway Pictures, Meachum was standing under the half-size replica of the Arc de Triomphe smoking a cigarette and waiting. He was wearing a sport coat over a golf shirt and had a bemused smile on his face when he recognized Bosch pulling up. Bosch had spent time with Meachum in the Robbery-Homicide Division ten years before. Never partnered, but they worked a few of the same task forces. Meachum had gotten out when the getting out was good. He pulled the pin a month after the Rodney King tape hit the news. He knew. He told everybody it was the beginning of the end. Archway hired him as the assistant director of security. Nice job, nice pay, plus he was pulling in the twenty-year pension of half pay. He was the one they talked about when they talked about smart moves. Now, with all the baggage the LAPD carried—the King beating, the riots, the Christopher Commission, O.J. Simpson and Mark Fuhrman—a retiring dick would be lucky if a place like Archway hired him to work the front gate.
“Harry Bosch,” Meachum said, leaning down to look in. “What it is, what it is?”
The first thing Bosch had noticed was that Meachum had gotten his teeth capped since he’d last seen him.
“Chuckie. Long time. This is my partner, Kiz Rider.”
Rider nodded and Meachum nodded and studied her a moment. Black female detectives were a rarity in his day, even though he hadn’t been off the job more than five years.
“So what’s shaking, Detectives? Why’d you want to go and pull me out of the hot tub?”
He smiled, showing off the teeth. Bosch guessed he knew that they had been noticed.
“We got a case. We want to take a look at the vic’s office.”
“It’s here? Who’s the stiff?”
“Anthony N. Aliso. TNA Productions.”
Meachum crinkled his eyes. He had the deep tan of a golfer who never misses his Saturday morning start and usually gets away for at least nine once or twice during the week.
“Doesn’t do anything for me, Harry. You sure he—”
“Look it up, Chuck. He’s here. Was.”
“All right, tell you what, park the car over in the main lot and we’ll go back to my office, grab a cup and look this guy up.”
He pointed toward a lot directly through the gate and Bosch did as instructed. The lot was almost empty and was next to a huge soundstage with an outside wall painted powder blue with puffs of white clouds. It was used for shooting exteriors when the real sky was too brown with smog.
They followed Meachum on foot to the studio security offices. Entering the suite, they passed by a glass-walled office in which a man in a brown Archway Security outfit sat at a desk surrounded by banks of video monitors. He was reading the Times sports page, which he quickly dropped into a trash can next to the desk when he saw Meachum.
Bosch saw that Meachum didn’t seem to notice because he had been holding the door open for them. When he turned, he casually saluted the man in the glass office and led Bosch and Rider back to his office.
Meachum slid in behind his desk and turned to his computer. The monitor screen depicted an intergalactic battle among assorted space ships. Meachum hit one key and the screen saver disappeared. He asked Bosch to spell Aliso’s name and he punched it into the computer. He then tilted the monitor so Bosch and Rider couldn’t see the screen. Bosch was annoyed by this but he didn’t say anything. After a few moments, Meachum did.
“You’re right. He was here. Tyrone Power Building. Had one of the little cubbyholes they rent to nonplayers. Three-office suite. Three losers. They share a secretary who comes with the rent.”
“How long’s he been here? That say?”
“Yeah. Almost seven years.”
“What else you got there?”
Meachum looked at the screen.
“Not much. No record of problems. He complained once about somebody dinging his car in the parking lot. Says here he drove a Rolls-Royce. Probably the last guy in Hollywood who hadn’t traded in his Rolls on a Range Rover. That’s tacky, Bosch.”
“Let’s go take a look.”
“Well, I’ll tell you what, why don’t you and Detective Riley go out there and grab a cup of joe while I make a call about that. I’m not sure what our procedure is for this.”
“First of all, Chuck, it’s Rider, not Riley. And second, we’re running a homicide investigation here. Whatever your procedures are, we are expecting you to allow us access.”
“You’re on private property here, buddy. You’ve got to keep that in mind.”
“I will.” Bosch stood up. “And when you make your call, the thing you should keep in mind is that so far the media haven’t gotten wind of any of this. I didn’t think it would be good to pull Archway into this sort of thing, especially since we don’t know for sure what’s involved here. You can tell whoever you’re calling that I’ll try to keep it that way.”
Meachum smirked and shook his head.
“Still the same old Bosch. Your way or the highway.”
“Something like that.”
While waiting, Bosch had time to gulp down a cup of lukewarm coffee from a pot that had been on a warmer in the outer office for the better part of the night. It was bitter, but he knew the cup he’d had at the station would not take him through the night. Rider passed on the coffee, instead drinking water from a dispenser in the hallway.
After nearly ten minutes Meachum came out of his office.
“Okay, you got it. But I’ll tell you right now that me or one of my people gotta be in there the whole time as observers. That going to be a problem for you, Bosch?”
“No problem.”
“Okay, let’s go. We’ll take a cart.”
On the way out he opened the door to the glass room and stuck his head in.
“Peters, who’s roving?”
“Uh, Serrurier and Fogel.”
“Okay, get on the air and tell Serrurier to meet us at Tyrone Power. He’s got keys, right?”
“Right.”
“Okay, do it.” Meachum made a motion to close the door but stoppe
d. “And Peters? Leave the sports page in the trash can.”
They took a golf cart to the Tyrone Power Building because it was on the other side of the lot from the security offices. Along the way Meachum waved to a man dressed entirely in black who was coming out of one of the buildings they passed.