He paused for a moment to see if he was getting through to her, then pressed it further.
“Look, a reality check here,” he said. “At your age we have to minimize your time inside. What I’ve outlined is the way to go. But it’s your choice. You want to go to trial on an insanity defense, that’s what we’ll do. But it’s the wrong move.”
Haller’s statement was underlined by the sound of two car doors slamming out in the street. Poydras and Franks.
“That’s the police,” Bosch said. “They’re coming to the door.”
“How do you want to play it, Ida?” Haller asked.
Forsythe slowly rose to her feet. Haller did as well.
“Please invite them in,” she said.
Twenty minutes later Bosch stood with Haller on the sidewalk on Arroyo and watched as Poydras and Franks drove away with Forsythe in the backseat of their plain wrap.
“Speaking of looking a gift horse in the mouth,” Haller said. “They actually seemed pissed off that we cleared their fucking case for them. Ungrateful bastards.”
“They’ve been behind the curve on this one since the get-go,” Bosch said. “And they aren’t going to look so good at the press conference when they have to explain that the suspect turned herself in before they even knew she was the suspect.”
“Oh, they’ll find their way around that,” Haller said. “I have no doubt.”
Bosch nodded in agreement.
“So, guess what?” Haller said.
“What?” Bosch said.
“While we were in there I got another text from Lorna.”
Bosch knew that Lorna was Haller’s case manager.
“Was it more info on California Coding?”
“No, she got the call from CellRight. There is a genetic match between Whitney Vance and Vibiana Veracruz. She’s the heir and in line for a big chunk of money—if she wants it.”
Bosch nodded.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll talk to her and give her the news. See what she wants to do.”
“I know what I would do,” Haller said.
Bosch smiled.
“I know what you would do too,” he said.
“Tell her we could file it as a Jane Doe,” Haller said. “Eventually we would have to reveal her to the court and opposing parties, but starting out we could keep her name out of it.”
“I’ll tell her,” Bosch said.
“Another option is to go to corporate counsel and lay out what we’ve got—the DNA, your tracing of the paternal lineage—and convince them that if we get into a fight we’ll take it all. Then we negotiate a nice settlement from the estate and we go away, leaving money and the corporation on the table.”
“That’s an idea, too. A real good idea, I think. You can sell ice to Eskimos, right? You could get this done.”
“I could. The board of directors will take that deal in a heartbeat. So you talk to her and I’ll do some more thinking on it.”
They checked both ways before crossing the street to their cars.
“So are you going to work on Ida’s defense with me?” Haller asked.
“Thanks for saying ‘with me’ and not ‘for me,’ but I don’t think so,” Bosch said. “I think I just quit being your investigator on this one. I’m taking a full-time gig with San Fernando PD.”
“You sure about that?”
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
“Okay, my brother from another mother. Keep in touch about that other thing.”
“Will do.”
They parted ways in the middle of the street.
43
Bosch hated the Ford he was driving. He decided it was time to go back to LAX and retrieve his own car after several days of vehicular subterfuge. From South Pasadena he took the 110 down through the center of the city, past the towers of downtown, and past USC and the neighborhood where Vibiana Duarte had lived most of her short life. He eventually connected to the Century Freeway and went west to the airport. He was handing his credit card to the garage attendant to cover an enormous parking fee when his phone buzzed with a 213 number he didn’t recognize. He took the call.
“Bosch.”
“It’s Vibiana.”
Her voice was a low but near hysterical whisper.
“What’s wrong?”
“There’s a man. He’s been here all day.”
“He’s in your loft?”
“No, down on the street. I can see him from the windows. He’s watching.”
“Why are you whispering?”
“I don’t want Gilberto to hear me. I don’t want him to be scared.”
“Okay, calm down, Vibiana. If he hasn’t made any move to come up and get inside, then that’s not his plan. You are safe as long as you stay inside.”
“Okay. Can you come?”
Bosch grabbed his credit card and receipt from the attendant.
“Yes, I’m coming. But I’m at the airport. It’s going to take me a while. You need to stay inside and don’t answer the door until I get there.”
The parking gate was still down. Bosch covered the phone and yelled out the window at the attendant.
“Come on, open the gate! I gotta go!”
The gate finally started to rise. Bosch went back to the phone call as he powered through the exit.
“This guy, where exactly is he?”
“He moves around. Every time I look, he is somewhere else. I first saw him in front of the American and then he moved down the street.”
“Okay, try to track him. I’ll call when I get there and you give me his location. What does he look like? What’s he wearing?”
“He, uh, jeans, gray hoodie, sunglasses. He’s a white guy and he’s too old for the hoodie.”
“Okay, and you think he’s alone? You don’t see anybody else?”
“He’s the only one I can see but there might be somebody on the other side of the building.”
“Okay, I’ll check that when I get there. Just sit tight, Vibiana. Everything’s going to be all right. But if something happens before I get there, call nine-one-one.”
“Okay.”
“And by the way, the DNA came back. It’s a match. You are Whitney Vance’s granddaughter.”
She didn’t respond. Only silence.
“We can talk about it when I get there,” Bosch said.
He disconnected. He could have kept her on the phone but Bosch wanted both hands free for the drive. He retraced his path, jumping back onto the Century and taking it to the 110. Midday traffic was light and he made good time as he raced toward the looming towers of downtown. Most prominent of these was the U.S. Bank Tower and Bosch couldn’t help but think that whoever was watching Vibiana Veracruz had been dispatched from the fifty-ninth floor.
He exited on 6th Street downtown and worked his way into the Arts District. He called Vibiana and told her he was in the neighborhood. She said she was looking through the window as they spoke and could see the watcher under the scaffolding that wrapped the front of the building across the street, which was closed and under renovation. She said the scaffolding offered many places for him to watch from.
“That’s okay,” Bosch said. “What works for him will also work for me.”
He told her he would call her back as soon as the situation was resolved.
Bosch found parking in a lot by the river and then headed toward Vibiana’s building on foot. He saw the structure wrapped in scaffolding and entered through a side entrance where several construction workers were sitting on stacks of drywall during a break. One of them told Bosch he was in a hard-hat area as he passed.
“I know,” he said.
He followed a hallway toward the front of the building. The first floor was being prepared for commercial use and every unit had a garage-door-size opening to the street. No windows or doors had been installed yet. In the third unit he saw the back of a man in jeans and a gray hoodie. He was leaning against the right wall at the edge of the front opening and was well under the scaffold. It was good cover from the outside, but on the inside his back was to Bosch and he was vulnerable. Bosch quietly pulled his gun from its holster and started moving toward him.