“Then move back over there, away from the scene.”
She walked off behind her car. Bosch felt sick to his stomach as well, but he knew he could keep it in. It wasn’t seeing Mackey’s torn and broken body that was causing the bile to rise in his throat. Bosch, like Rider, had seen far worse. It was the circumstances that were sickening. Instinctively he knew that this was no accident. This had been an assassination. And it was he who had put it all into motion.
He was sick because he had just gotten Roland Mackey killed. And with the death he might have lost the last, best link to Rebecca Verloren’s killer.
32
THE TAMPA AVENUE entrance ramp to the Ronald Reagan Freeway was closed and traffic was routed down Rinaldi to the Porter Ranch Drive entrance. The entire freeway ramp was choked with official police vehicles. The LAPD’s Scientific Investigation Division, California Highway Patrol and the Medical Examiner’s Office were all represented, along with members of the Open-Unsolved Unit. Abel Pratt had made calls and had greased the takeover of the case by the unit. Because the murder of Roland Mackey had taken place on a state freeway entrance, the case technically belonged to the jurisdiction of the CHP. But the agency was more than happy to hand it off, especially since the death was seen as part of an ongoing LAPD investigation. In other words, the LAPD was going to be allowed to clean up its own mess.
The commander of the local CHP barracks did offer the use of his squad’s best accident expert, and Pratt took him up on that. Added to this, Pratt had assembled some of the best forensics people the department could muster, all in the middle of the night.
Bosch and Rider spent much of the time during the crime scene investigation sitting in the back of Pratt’s car, where they were interviewed at length by Pratt and then by Tim Marcia and Rick Jackson, who were called in from home to head up the investigation into Mackey’s death. Since Bosch and Rider were part of some events and witnesses to others, it was determined that they would not investigate the case as leads. This was a technical formality. It was clear that Bosch and Rider would be continuing to pursue the Verloren case, and in doing so they would obviously be pursuing Roland Mackey’s killer.
At about 3 a.m. the forensics investigators gathered with the homicide detectives to go over what they knew so far. Mackey’s body had just been removed from beneath the truck and the scene had been thoroughly photographed, videoed and sketched. It was now considered an open scene and everyone could walk freely about.
Pratt asked the CHP investigator, a tall man named David Allmand, to go first. Allmand used a laser pointer to delineate the tire marks on the roadway and the gravel that he believed were involved in the incident with Mackey. He also pointed to the back of the tow truck, where chalk circles had been drawn around several scratches, dents and breaks in the heavy steel gate. He said he concluded the same thing Bosch and Rider had concluded within seconds of finding Mackey. He was murdered.
“The tire markings tell us that the victim pulled the tow truck onto the shoulder about thirty yards west of this point,” Allmand said. “This was likely to avoid the disabled vehicle already on the shoulder. The tow truck was then backed down the shoulder to this position here. The driver put the transmission in park and set the parking brake before exiting the truck. If he was in a hurry, as some of the ancillary information indicates, he may have gone right to the tail here to lower the towing assembly. This is where he got it.
“The disabled car was obviously not disabled. The driver floored the accelerator and it lurched forward, striking the tow truck driver and pinning him against the back of the truck and the tow assembly. To get ready for the tow the vic would have bent over here to free the hook assembly. He was likely doing this when he was struck, and this would explain the head injuries. He went face first into the assembly. There’s blood on the tow arm. ”
Allmand ran the red eye of his laser over the tow truck’s hook assembly to illustrate.
“The car then backed up,” he continued. “And that’s where you get the striated markings on the asphalt here. He then moved forward for another strike. The victim was probably already fatally injured from the first impact. But he wasn’t dead yet. It is likely he fell to the ground after the first impact and with his last strength crawled under the truck to avoid the second impact. Either way, the vehicle did strike the tow truck a second time. And of course, the victim succumbed to his injuries while beneath the truck.”
Allmand paused there for questions but he was met only with grim silence. Bosch could think of nothing to ask. Unchecked, Allmand finished up his report by pointing to two tire lines made in the gravel and asphalt.
“You’ve got a wheel base on the striking vehicle that is not very wide,” he said. “That will cut it down some. It’s probably going to be a little foreign job. I took measurements, and as soon as I consult my manufacturers’ catalogs I will be able to come up with a list of cars those treads could have come from. I’ll let you know.”
When no one said anything Allmand used his laser to circle a small oil spot on the asphalt.
“Additionally, the striking vehicle was leaking oil. Not a big deal, but if it becomes important for a prosecutor to be able to say how long the killer sat here and waited for the victim, then we can time the leak once the vehicle is recovered and come up with a rough estimate of how long it would have taken to make this little spot here.”
Pratt nodded.
“Good to know,” he said.
Pratt thanked Allmand and asked the assistant medical examiner, Ravi Patel, to report on his preliminary examination of the body. Patel began by listing the numerous broken bones and injuries that were obvious from external examination of the body. He said the impact had likely fractured Mackey’s skull, crushed the orbit of his left eye and dislocated his jaw. His hips were crushed along with the left side of his upper torso. His left arm and left thigh were broken as well.
“It is likely these injuries were sustained in one initial impact,” he said. “The victim was likely standing and the impact came from the right rear side.”
“Would he have been able to crawl under the truck?” Rick Jackson asked.
“It is possible,” Patel answered. “We have seen the instinct for survival allow people to do amazing things. I won’t know until I open him up, but what we often see in cases like this is that the compression perforates the lungs. The lungs fill with blood. This takes time. He could have crawled to what he thought was safety.”
And then drowned on the side of the freeway, Bosch thought.
Next to report was the lead SID investigator, who happened to be Ravi Patel’s brother, Raj. Bosch knew them both from previous cases and knew they were both among the best.
Raj Patel gave the basics of the crime scene investigation and reported that Mackey’s efforts to save his life by crawling under the truck could ultimately allow the investigators to catch his killer.
“The second impact on the truck was without the body as a buffer, you see. It was metal on metal. We have both metal and paint transference and we have collected several samples. If you find the vehicle that did this, we can match it with one hundred percent accuracy.”
That was one piece of light in all the darkness, Bosch thought.
After Patel finished his report the crime scene began to break up, with the investigators heading out to follow various assignments Pratt wanted completed before the entire unit was to meet at the Pacific Dining Car at 9 a.m. to discuss the case.
Marcia and Jackson were assigned to search Mackey’s home. This would entail rousting a judge from sleep and getting a search warrant signed, because Mackey shared the home with William Burkhart and Burkhart was a possible suspect in the killing. The home-with Burkhart presumed to be in it-was under surveillance at the time Mackey was cut down on the freeway. Nevertheless, Burkhart could have directed someone else to carry out the killing and was viewed as a suspect until cleared of involvement.
One of the first calls Bosch and Rider had made after finding Mackey beneath the tow truck was to Kehoe and Bradshaw, the two RHD detectives watching the home on Mariano Street. They immediately went to the house and
