Four hours and a nonstop drive across the desert later I was in the tech lab at Biggar amp; Biggar. I took the memory card from my pocket and handed it to Andre. He held it up and looked at it and then looked at me as though I had just put used gum in his hand.
“Where’s the case?”
“The case? You mean the clock? It’s still on the wall.”
I hadn’t figured out yet how to tell him that the clock was broken and probably the camera as well.
“No, the plastic case for the card. You put the spare card I gave you into the clock when you took this one out, right?”
I nodded.
“Right.”
“Well, you should have put this one into the spare card’s case. This is a delicate instrument. Carrying it around with your pocket change and lint is not the proper way of -”
“Andre,” Burnett Biggar interrupted, “let’s just see if it’s going to work. It was my mistake for not schooling Harry on the finer points of care and maintenance. I forgot he’s such a throwback.”
Andre shook his head and walked over to a workbench with a computer set up on it. I looked at Burnett and nodded my thanks for the rescue. He winked at me and we followed Andre.
The son used a pneumatic air gun that looked like it was from a dentist’s office to blast dust and debris off the memory card I had mishandled and then plugged it into a receptacle that was attached to the computer. He typed in a few commands and soon the images from Lawton Cross’s sitting room were playing on the computer screen.
“Remember,” Andre said, “we were using the motion sensor so it’s going to be a bit jerky. Watch the clock in the corner and you’ll be able to keep track.”
The first image on the screen was my own face. I was staring right at the camera as I adjusted the time on the clock. I then backed away, revealing Lawton Cross in his chair behind me.
“Oh, man,” Burnett said, seeing his former colleague’s condition and situation. “I don’t know if I want to see this.”
“It gets worse,” I said, confident in what I thought was ahead on the surveillance.
Cross’s voice croaked from the computer’s speakers.
“Harry?”
“What?” I heard myself ask.
“Did you bring me some?”
“A little.”
On the screen I flipped open the toolbox to get the flask.
In the lab I said, “Can you fast-forward this?”
Andre nodded and used the computer’s mouse to click a fast-forward button on the screen. The screen blinked black for a moment, indicating the camera had gone off for lack of movement. It then came back on as Danny Cross entered the room. Andre switched the playback to real time. I checked the time and saw this was just a few minutes after I had left the room. Danny stood with her arms crossed in front of her and stared at her invalid husband as though he was a misbehaving child. She started speaking and it was hard to hear because of the television noise.
“This is amateur hour here,” Andre said. “Why’d you put it next to the TV?”
He was right. I hadn’t thought about that. The camera’s microphone was picking up the voices from the television better than those in the room.
“Andre,” Burnett said, quieting his son’s complaint. “Just see if you can clean it up some.”
Andre used the mouse again to manipulate the sound. He backed the image up and played it again. The television noise was still intrusive but at least the conversation in the room was audible.
Danny Cross spoke with a sharp tone in her voice.
“I don’t want him coming back here,” she said. “He’s not good for you.”
“Yes, he is. He’s fine. He cares.”
“He’s using you. He pours booze into you so he gets the information he needs.”
“So what’s wrong with that? I think it’s a good trade.”
“Yes, until the morning, when the pain comes.”
“Danny, if one of my friends comes here, you let him in.”
“What did you tell him this time, that I’m starving you? That I abandon you at night? Which lie this time?”
“I don’t want to talk now.”
“Fine. Don’t talk.”
“I want to dream.”
“Be my guest. At least one of us still can.”
She turned and left the room and the picture held on Lawton’s motionless body. Soon his eyes closed.
“There’s a sixty-second cutoff,” Andre explained. “The camera stays on for a minute after motion ceases.”
“Fast-forward,” I said.
We spent the next ten minutes fast-forwarding and then stopping to watch mundane yet heart-ripping scenes of Lawton being fed and cleaned by Danny. At the end of the first night he was wheeled out by his wife and the camera went dark for nearly eight hours before he was wheeled back into the room. A new round of feedings and cleanings began.
It was horrible to look at, made more so because the clock was positioned just to the left of the television. Lawton Cross spent his time looking at the TV but the angle was so close it almost looked like he was staring up at the camera, looking right at us.
“This is pathetic,” Andre finally said. “And there’s nothing here. She treats him fine. Better than I would.”
“You want to see it through, Harry?” Burnett asked.
I nodded.
“I think you’re right. She’s clean. But there’s something coming up. He had visitors last night. I want to see that. You can fast-forward if you want. It was near midnight.”
Andre worked the toggle and sure enough at 12:10 A.M. on the surveillance clock two men entered the room. I recognized Parenting Today and his partner. The first thing Parenting Today did was walk behind Lawton to turn off the baby monitor on the bureau. He then signaled his partner to close the door. Lawton’s eyes were open and alert. He’d been awake before they had come into the room and the camera had activated. His eyes moved about in their sunken sockets as he tried to track the agent moving behind him.
“Mr. Cross, we need to have a little talk,” Parenting Today said.
He moved forward past Cross’s chair and reached up and turned off the television.
“Thank God for that,” Andre said.
“Who are you people?” Cross rasped from the screen.
Parenting Today turned and looked at him.
“We’re the FBI, Mr. Cross. Who the fuck are you?”
“What do you mean? I don’t -”
“I mean who the fuck do you think you are, compromising our investigation?”
“I don’t-what is this?”
“What did you tell Bosch that put the fire under his ass?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. He came to me, I didn’t go to him.”
“Doesn’t look like you can go anywhere now, does it?”
There was a short silence and I could see Lawton’s eyes working. The man couldn’t move a single limb but his eyes showed all the body language necessary.
“You’re not FBI,” he said gallantly. “Let me see badges and IDs.”
Parenting Today moved two steps toward Cross, his back blocking our view of the man in the chair.
“Badges?” he said in his best Mexican accent. “We don’t need no steenking badges.”
“Get out of here,” Cross said, his voice the clearest and strongest I had heard since I first visited him. “When I tell Harry Bosch about this, you better watch your ass.”
Parenting Today turned in profile to smile at his partner.
