“That’s not fair and you know it.”
“Look, I’m in the middle of things here. Give me a call back if you change your mind. I remember there was a case that meant a lot to you once. We were partners and I was right there for you. I guess things are different now.”
He disconnected. He felt a pang of guilt. He was being heavy-handed with Soto but felt he needed to push her toward giving him what he needed. He dropped the thought when he saw Lourdes walking up with a troubled look on her face.
“What’s wrong?”
“I came out and Garrison signaled me over to the tape. He had the wife and mother there and she was hysterical. I just put her in a car and they’re taking her to the station.”
Bosch nodded. It was a good move.
“You up for talking with her?” he asked. “We can’t leave her over there too long.”
“I don’t know,” Lourdes said. “I just ruined her life. Everything that’s important to her is suddenly gone.”
“I know, but you have to establish rapport. You never know, this case could go on for years. She’s going to need to trust the person carrying it and it shouldn’t be me.”
“Okay, I can do it.”
“Focus on the son. His friends, what he did when he wasn’t working, enemies, all of that stuff. Find out where he lived, whether he had a girlfriend. And ask her if José Sr. was having any problems with him at work. The son is going to be the key to this.”
“You get all that from a shot up the ass?”
Bosch nodded.
“I’ve seen it before. On a case where we talked to a profiler. It’s an angry shot. It has payback written all over it.”
“He knew the shooters?”
“No doubt. Either he knew them or they knew him.”
5
Bosch didn’t get home until after midnight. He was beat from a long day working the crime scene and coordinating the efforts of the other detectives as well as the patrol division. The new day had arrived without any arrests being made in the farmacia murders. There were no suspects or even persons of interest yet. The murders and subsequent looting of the store’s supplies of prescription drugs had indeed been captured on three cameras inside the drugstore. But the two gunmen who cut down José Esquivel Sr. and his namesake had pulled black ski masks down over their heads before entering the premises. There was nothing on the initial viewings of the video that was a usable identifier of either shooter.
After parking in the carport, Bosch skipped the side-door entrance to the house and walked out front so he could check his mailbox. He saw that the top of the box attached to the house was held open by a thick manila envelope. He pulled it out and held it under the porch light to see where it had come from.
There was no return address and no postage on the envelope. Even his own address was missing. It had only his name written on it. Bosch unlocked the door and carried the envelope inside. He put it and the mail he had received down on the kitchen counter while he opened the refrigerator to grab a beer.
After his first draw on the amber bottle, he put it to the side and tore open the package. He slid out a one-inch-thick sheaf of documents. He recognized the top report right away. It was a copy of the initial incident report relating to Danielle Skyler’s murder in 1988. Bosch riffled through the stack of documents and quickly determined that he had a copy of the current investigative file.
Lucia Soto had come through.
Bosch was dead tired but he knew that he would not be going to sleep anytime soon. He dumped the rest of the beer down the drain, grabbed the stack of documents, and went to work.