Bosch and Lourdes were soon out of the car and weaving through the crowd. Yellow crime scene tape had been strung between the patrol cars, and two officers stood conferring by the trunk of one car while another stood with his hands on his belt buckle, watching the front door of the farmacia.
Bosch saw Chief Valdez standing near the open front door of the store with Sisto and Luzon. It appeared that they were waiting for the all-clear from the coroner’s investigators before entering the crime scene. That was the only good thing Bosch had seen so far. He gave a short, low whistle that drew their attention and then spun a finger in the air to signal he wanted to group everybody into a meeting.
Everyone gathered between two of the patrol cars. Bosch looked at Valdez and waited for the chief to give him the nod to take charge.
“Okay, we need to protect the crime scene a lot better than this,” he began. “Patrol, I want you guys to move your cars out and to shut down this block on either end. Tape it up. Nobody comes in without authorization. I then want clipboards on either end, and you write down the name of every cop or lab rat that comes into the crime scene. You write down the license-plate number of every car you let out too.”
Nobody moved.
“You heard him,” Valdez said. “Let’s move it, people. We’ve got two citizens on the floor in there. We need to do right by them.”
The patrol officers moved quickly to their cars to carry out Bosch’s orders. That left him with the chief and the three detectives as the black-and-whites backed out on either side of them. Bosch once more looked at Valdez for confirmation of his authority, because he didn’t expect his next moves to go over well.
“I still have this, Chief?” he asked.
“All yours, Harry,” Valdez said. “How do you want to do it?”
“Okay, we want to limit people inside,” Bosch said. “That’s going to be Lourdes and me. Sisto and Luzon, I want you going down the street in both directions. We’re looking for witnesses and cameras. We—”
“We got here first,” Luzon said. “It should be our case.”
At about forty, Luzon was the oldest of the three investigators, but he had the least experience as a detective. He was moved into the unit six months ago after twelve years in patrol. He had gotten the promotion to fill the void left by Lourdes’s leave of absence and then Valdez found the money in the budget to keep him on board at a time when there was a spike in property crimes attributed to a local gang called the SanFers.
“That’s not how it works,” Bosch said. “Lourdes is going to be lead. I need you two to go two blocks in both directions. We’re looking for the getaway vehicle. We need video and I need you guys to go find it.”
Bosch could see Luzon fighting back the urge to again argue Bosch’s orders. But he looked at the chief and saw no indication that the man ultimately in charge disagreed with Bosch.
“You got it,” he said.
He headed in one direction while Sisto headed off in the other. Sisto did not complain.
“Take down plates and phone numbers,” Bosch called to them.
“Harry,” Valdez said. “Let’s talk for a second.”
He stepped away from Lourdes and Bosch followed. The chief spoke quietly.
“Look, I get what you’re doing with those two. But I want you on lead. Bella’s good but this is what you do.”
“I get that, Chief. But you don’t want me. We have to think about when this gets into court. You don’t want a part-timer on lead. You want Bella. They try character assassination on her, and she’ll eat their lunch after what happened last year and then her coming back to the job. On top of that, she’s good and she’s ready for this. And besides, I may have some problems coming up soon from downtown. You don’t want me on lead.”
Valdez looked at him. He knew that “downtown” meant from outside the SFPD, from Bosch’s past.
“We’ll have to talk about that later,” he said. “So where do you want me?”
“Media relations,” Bosch said. “They’ll get wind of this soon enough and will start showing up. ‘The little town with a murder problem’—it’ll be a story. You need to set up a command post and corral them. That and see if you can get more bodies from patrol to come in and help with the canvass. There were people in all of these shops. Somebody saw something.”
“You got it. What if I can get Penney’s to open up and we use that as the CP? I know the guy who owns the building.”
Bosch looked across the street and down half a block at the facade of the long-closed department store.
“If you can get lights on in there, go for it. What about Captain Trevino? Is he around?”
“I have him covering the shop while I was here. You need him?”
“No, I can fill him in on things later.”
The chief headed off and Lourdes came up to Bosch.
“Let me guess, he didn’t want me as lead,” she said.
“He wanted me,” Bosch said. “But it was no reflection on you. I said no. I said it was your case.”
“Does that have something to do with the three visitors you had this morning?”
“Maybe. Why don’t you stick your head inside and see how Gooden and Sanders are doing? I want to know when we’re going to get in there. I’ll call the sheriff’s lab and get an ETA.”
“Roger that.”
Lourdes headed toward the door of the farmacia and Bosch pulled his phone. The SFPD was so small, it did not have its own forensics team. It used the Sheriff’s Department unit and that often put it in second position for services. Bosch called the liaison at the lab and was told a team was on the road to San Fernando as they spoke. Bosch reminded the liaison that they were working a double murder and asked for a second team, but he was denied that request. He was told there wasn’t a second team to spare.
As he hung up, he noticed one of the patrol officers he had given orders to earlier standing at the new crime scene perimeter at the end of the block. Yellow tape had been strung completely across, closing the road through the mall. The patrol officer had his hands on his belt buckle and was watching Bosch.
Bosch put his phone away and walked up the street to the yellow tape and the officer manning it.
“Don’t look in,” Bosch said. “Look out.”
“What?” the officer asked.
“You’re watching the detectives. You should be watching the street.”
Bosch put his hand on the officer’s shoulder and turned him toward the tape.
“Look outward from a crime scene. Look for people watching, people who don’t fit. You’d be surprised how many times the doer comes back to watch the investigation. Anyway, you’re protecting the crime scene, not watching like one of these looky-loos. Got it?”
“Got it.”
“Good.”
The forensic team of two evidence technicians arrived shortly after that, and it was another thirty minutes before Bosch, Lourdes, and the team entered the farmacia to go to work. They wore gloves and paper booties. As he entered behind Lourdes, Bosch leaned forward and whispered.
“Make sure you take time just to observe.”