fucked by this.”
“Well, you didn’t tell her, right?”
“Harry, you think I’d tell some-”
“No, I don’t. I was confirming. You didn’t tell her, right?”
“Right.”
“And neither did I. So, yeah, we’re going to take some shit but we’re clear on it.”
“Well, who else knew? I doubt Trent was the one who told her. About a million people now know he’s a child molester.”
Bosch realized the only people who knew were Kiz, who had gotten the records flag while doing the computer work, and Julia Brasher, whom Bosch told while he was making his excuse for missing dinner. Suddenly a vision of Surtain standing at the roadblock on Wonderland came to him. Brasher had volunteered her help during both days of the hillside search and excavation. It was entirely possible that she had connected with Surtain in some way. Was she the reporter’s source, the leak?
“There didn’t have to be a leak,” Bosch said to Edgar. “All she needed was Trent’s name. She could have gotten any cop she knew to run it on the box for her. Or she could have looked it up on the sexual offenders CD. It’s public record. Hold on.”
He had gotten a call-waiting beep on the phone. He switched over and learned it was Lt. Billets calling. He told her to hold while he got off the other line. He clicked over.
“Jerry, it’s Bullets. I gotta call you back.”
“It’s still me,” Billets said.
“Oh, sorry. Hold on.”
He tried again and this time made the switch back. He told Edgar he’d call him back if Billets said anything he needed to know right away.
“Otherwise, go with the plan,” he added. “See you at Van Nuys at eight.”
He switched back over to Billets.
“Bullets?” she said. “Is that what you guys call me?”
“What?”
“You said ‘Bullets.’ When you thought I was Edgar you called me ‘Bullets.’ ”
“You mean just now?”
“Yes, just now.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what you’re talking about. You mean when I was switching over to-”
“Never mind, it doesn’t matter. I assume you saw Channel Four?”
“Yeah, I saw it. And all I can tell you is that it wasn’t me and it wasn’t Edgar. That woman got a tip that we were out there and we ‘no comment’-ed our way out of there. How she came up with his-”
“Harry, you didn’t ‘no comment’ your way out of there. They have you on tape, your mouth moving, and then I hear you say, ‘that’s all I can say.’ If you say ‘that’s all,’ that means you gave her something.”
Bosch shook his head, even though he was on the phone.
“I didn’t give her shit. I just bullshitted my way by. I told her we were just finishing up the routine canvas of the neighborhood and I hadn’t talked to Trent before.”
“Was that true?”
“Not really, but I wasn’t going to say we were there because the guy’s a child molester. Look, she didn’t know about Trent when we were there. If she did, she would have asked me. She found out later, and how I don’t know. That’s what Jerry and I were just talking about.”
There was silence for a moment before Billets continued.
“Well, you better have your shit together on this tomorrow because I want a written explanation from you that I can send up the line. Before that report on Four was even over I got a call from Captain LeValley and she said she had already gotten a call from Deputy Chief Irving.”
“Yeah, yeah, typical. Right on down the food chain.”
“Look, you know that leaking the criminal record of a citizen is against departmental policy, whether that citizen is the target of an investigation or not. I just hope you have your story straight on this. I don’t need to tell you that there are people in the department just waiting for you to make a mistake they can sink their teeth into.”
“Look, I’m not trying to downplay the leak. It was wrong and it was bad. But I’m trying to solve a murder here, Lieutenant, and now I’ve got a whole new obstacle to overcome. And that’s what’s typical. There is always something thrown in the way.”
“Then you should be more careful next time.”
“Careful of what? What did I do wrong? I’m following leads where they go.”
Bosch immediately regretted the explosion of frustration and anger. Of those people in the department waiting for his self-destruction, Billets certainly wasn’t on the list. She was only the messenger here. In the same moment, he realized his anger was also self-directed because he knew Billets was right. He should have handled Surtain differently.
“Look, I’m sorry,” he said in a low, even tone. “It’s just the case. It’s got its hooks, you know?”
“I think I do,” Billets answered just as quietly. “And speaking of the case, what exactly is going on? This whole thing with Trent came out of left field for me. I thought you were going to keep me up to date.”
“It all came up today. Late. I was just going to fill you in in the morning. I didn’t know Channel Four would be doing it for me. And doing it for LeValley and Irving as well.”
“Never mind them for now. Tell me about Trent.”
Chapter 16
IT was well after midnight by the time Bosch got to Venice. Parking on the little streets near the canals was nonexistent. He drove around looking for ten minutes and ended up parking in the lot by the library out on Venice Boulevard and then walking back in.
Not all of the dreamers drawn to Los Angeles came to make movies. Venice was the century-old dream of a man named Abbot Kinney. Before Hollywood and the film industry barely had a pulse, Kinney came to the marshlands along the Pacific. He envisioned a place built on a network of canals with arched bridges and a town center of Italian architecture. It would be a place emphasizing cultural and artistic learning. And he would call it Venice of America.
But like most of the dreamers who come to Los Angeles his vision was not uniformly shared or realized. Most financiers and investigators were cynical and passed on the opportunity to build Venice, putting their money into projects of less grand design. Venice of America was dubbed “Kinney’s Folly.”
But a century later many of the canals and the arched bridges reflected in their waters remained while the financiers and doomsayers and their projects were long swept away by time. Bosch liked the idea of Kinney’s Folly outlasting them all.
Bosch had not been to the canals in many years, though for a short period in his life after returning from Vietnam he had lived there in a bungalow with three other men he knew from overseas. In the years since, many of the bungalows had been erased and modern two- and three-story homes costing a million dollars or more had replaced them.
Julia Brasher lived in a house at the corner of the Howland and Eastern canals. Bosch expected it to be one of the new structures. He guessed she probably used her law-firm money to buy it or even build it. But as he came to the address he saw that he was wrong. Her house was a small bungalow made of white clapboard with an open front porch overlooking the joining of the two canals.
Bosch saw lights on behind the windows of her house. It was late but not that late. If she worked the three- to-eleven shift, then it was unlikely she was used to going to bed before two.
He stepped up onto the porch but hesitated before knocking on the door. Until the doubts of the last hour had crept in, he had gotten only good feelings about Brasher and their fledgling relationship. He knew he now had to be careful. There could be nothing wrong and yet he could spoil everything if he misstepped here.
Finally, he raised his arm and knocked. Brasher answered right away.
