Without answering, Smoltz froze the image on the screen.
“Okay,” Bosch said. “Which dealer is that?”
“That’s Amy Rohrback. You talked to her.”
“Right. Hank, could you bring her back up here?”
“Uh, sure. Can I ask why?”
“This player,” Bosch said, pointing on the screen to the woman across from Aliso. “She acknowledged Aliso when he sat down. Amy Rohrback just acknowledged her. She must be a regular. She knew Aliso and Rohrback. I might want to talk to her and your dealer might know her name.”
“Okay, I’ll go get her, but if she’s in the middle of a dealing rotation I’ll have to wait.”
“That’s fine.”
While Meyer went down to the casino, Bosch and Smoltz continued to review the tapes on fast speed. Aliso played for twenty-five minutes at the one-to-five table before the pit boss came around, picked up his rack of chips and moved him to the more expensive five-to-ten table. Smoltz put in the tape for that table and Aliso played there, losing miserably, for two more hours. Three times he bought five-hundred-dollar racks of chips and each time he quickly lost them. Finally, he put the few remaining chips he had left down as a tip for the dealer and got up and left the table.
The tape was finished and Meyer still hadn’t returned with Rohrback. Smoltz said he would spool up the tape with the mystery woman on it so it would be ready. When it was, Bosch told him to fast-forward it to see if there was ever a moment when her face was visible. Smoltz did so and after five minutes of straining to watch the quick movements of the people on the tape, Bosch saw the mystery woman look up at the camera.
“There! Back it up and slow it down.”
Smoltz did so and Bosch watched the screen as the woman took out a cigarette, lit it and leaned her head back, her face toward the ceiling camera, and exhaled. The discharged smoke blurred her image. But before it had done so, Bosch thought he had recognized her. He was frozen to silence. Smoltz backed the tape up to the moment her face was most clearly visible and froze the image on the screen. Bosch just stared silently.
Smoltz was saying something about the image being the best they could hope for when the door opened and Meyer came back in. He was alone.
“Uh, Amy had just started a deal set, so it’s going to be another ten minutes or so. I gave her the message to come back up.”
“You can call down there and tell her never mind,” Bosch said, his eyes still on the screen.
“Really? How come?”
“I know who she is.”
“Who is she?”
Bosch was silent a moment. He didn’t know if it was seeing her light the cigarette or some pang of deeper anxiety, but he dearly wanted a cigarette.
“Just somebody. I knew her a long time ago.”
Bosch sat on the bed with the phone on his lap, waiting for the conference call. But his mind was far off. He was remembering a woman he had long believed was out of his life. What had it been now, four, five years? His mind was such a rush of thoughts and emotions, he couldn’t remember for sure. It had been long enough, he realized. It should be no surprise to him that she was out of prison by now.
“Eleanor Wish,” he said out loud.
He thought of the jacaranda trees outside her townhouse in Santa Monica. He thought of them making love and the small crescent scar barely visible on her jawline. He remembered the question she had asked him so long ago, when they were making love. “Do you believe you can be alone and not be lonely?”
The phone rang. Bosch jerked out of his reverie and answered. It was Billets.
“Okay, Harry, we’re all here. Can you hear me all right?”
“It’s not good but it probably won’t get any better.”
“Right, city equipment. Okay, let’s start by everybody kind of reporting on the day’s events. Harry, you want to go first?”
“All right. There’s not a lot to tell.”
He went over the details of what he had done so far, stressing the missing betting receipt as something to watch for. He told of his review of the surveillance tapes but left out mention of his recognizing Eleanor Wish. He had decided that there was no definitive sign of a connection between her and Aliso and that for the time being he would keep it to himself. He ended his summary by telling the others of his plans to check out Dolly’s, the place Aliso had last called from his office line at Archway, and the woman named Layla who was mentioned when Bosch called there.
Next it was Edgar’s turn. He announced the flavor-of-the-month screenwriter had been cleared through alibi and Edgar’s own gut instinct that the young man might have rightfully hated Aliso but was not of the personality type that would act on that hate with a twenty-two.
Edgar said he had also interviewed the employees at the garage where Aliso had his car washed and waxed while he went to Las Vegas. Part of the service was airport pickup, and Edgar said the man who picked Aliso up said that Tony was alone, relaxed and in no hurry.
“It was a routine pickup,” Edgar said. “Aliso took his car and went home. Gave the guy a twenty-buck tip. So whoever put him down, they intercepted him on the way home. My guess is it was somewhere up there on Mulholland. Lot of deserted curves. You could stop a guy if you did it quick. Probably two people.”
“What did the valet say about luggage?” Bosch asked.
“Oh, yeah,” Edgar said. “He said that as near as he could remember, Tony had the two bags the wife described, a silver briefcase and one of those hanging bags. He hadn’t checked either one for the flight.”
Bosch nodded, though he was alone.
“What about the media?” Bosch said. “We put anything out yet?”
“It’s being handled,” Billets said. “Media relations is putting out a release first thing tomorrow. It will have a picture of the Rolls. They’ll also make the car available at the OPG for video. And I’ll be available for sound bites. I’m hoping the stations will pick it up. Anything else, Jerry?”
Edgar concluded by saying he had the murder book up to speed and that he was halfway through the list of plaintiffs from the various lawsuits against Aliso. He said he would be setting up interviews for the next day with others who had allegedly been wronged by Aliso. Lastly, he said he had called the coroner’s office and the autopsy on Aliso had not yet been scheduled.
“Okay,” Billets said. “Kiz, what do you have?”
Rider broke her report into two parts. The first was on her interview with Veronica Aliso, which she covered quickly, saying the woman had been extremely closemouthed during their morning interview in comparison to the night before when Bosch and Rider brought her the news of her husband’s death. The morning session consisted mostly of yes and no answers and a few added details. The couple had been married seventeen years. They had no children. Veronica Aliso had been in two of her husband’s films and never worked again.
“You think she talked to a lawyer about talking to us?” Bosch asked.
“She didn’t say so, but I think that’s exactly what’s going on,” Rider said. “Just getting what I got was like pulling teeth.”
“Okay, what else?” Billets said, trying to keep the discussion moving.
Rider went on to the second part of her day’s investigation, which was the focus on the financial records of Anthony Aliso. Even listening on the poor conference line connection, Bosch could tell Kiz was excited about what she had learned so far.
“Basically, this guy’s financial portfolio shows an extremely comfortable standard of living. He’s got high-five- figure sums in his personal bank accounts, zeroed-out credit cards, that house that has a seven-hundred-thousand mortgage against a value of a million one. That’s it, though, as far as what I could find. The Rolls is leased, his wife’s Lincoln is leased, and the office we know is leased.”
She paused a moment before going on.
“Incidentally, Harry, if you have the time, here’s something you might want to check out over there. Both the cars are leased to his company, TNA Productions, through a dealership over there in Vegas. You might want to check it out if there’s time. It’s called Ridealong-one word-Incorporated. The address is two thousand and two Industrial Drive, suite three-thirty.”
