“Bosch,” he said. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“That’s our line, Powers,” Edgar said angrily. “Don’t you know what the fuck you just did? You walked right into a-what are you doing here, man?”
Powers lowered his gun and slid it back into its holster.
“I was-there was a report. Somebody must’ve seen you guys sneaking in here. They said they saw two men sneaking around.”
Bosch stepped back from the tarp, keeping his gun raised.
“Come out of there, Powers,” he said.
Powers did as he was commanded. Bosch put the beam from his light right in the man’s face.
“What about this report? Who called it in?”
“Just some guy driving by up on the road. Must’ve seen you going in here. Can you get the light out of my face?”
Bosch didn’t move the focus of the light an inch.
“Then what?” he asked. “Who’d he call?”
Bosch knew that after Rider had dropped them off, her job was to park on a nearby street and keep her scanner on. If there had been such a radio call, she would have heard it and called off the patrol response, telling the dispatcher it was a surveillance operation.
“He didn’t call it in. I was cruising by and he waved me down.”
“You mean he claimed he just saw two guys going into the woods?”
“Uh, no. No, he waved me down earlier. I just didn’t get a chance to check it out until now.”
Bosch and Edgar had gone into the woods at two-thirty. It was full daylight then and Powers hadn’t even been on duty yet. And the only car that had been in the area at the time was Rider’s. Bosch knew Powers was lying, and it was all beginning to fall into place. His finding the body, his fingerprint on the trunk, the pepper spray on the victim, the reason the bindings were taken off the wrists. It was already there, in the details.
“How much earlier?” Bosch asked.
“Uh, it was right after I came on duty. I can’t remember the time.”
“Daylight?”
“Yeah, daylight. Can you put the fuckin’ light down?”
Bosch ignored him again.
“What was the citizen’s name?”
“I didn’t get it. Just some guy in a Jag, he waved me down at Laurel Canyon and Mulholland. Told me what he saw and I said I’d check it when I got the chance. So I was checking it out and saw the bag here. I figured it belonged to the guy in the trunk. I saw the bulletin you people put out about the car and the luggage, so I knew you were looking for it. Sorry I blew it, but you people should’ve let the watch commander know what you were doing. Jesus, Bosch, I’m going blind here.”
“Yeah, it’s blown all right,” Bosch said, finally lowering the light. He lowered his gun to his side also but didn’t put it away. He kept it ready there, under the poncho. “Might as well pack it in now. Powers, go on up the hill to your car. Jerry, grab the bag.”
Bosch climbed up the hill behind Powers, careful to keep the light up and back on the patrol cop. He knew that if they had cuffed Powers down by the tarp, they’d never get him up the hill because of the steep terrain and because Powers might fight them. So he had to scam him. He let him think he was clear.
At the top of the hill, Bosch waited until Edgar came up behind them before making a move.
“Know what I don’t get, Powers?” he said.
“What, Bosch?”
“I don’t get why you waited until dark to check out a complaint you got during the day. You’re told that two suspicious-looking characters went into the woods and you decide to wait until it’s late and it’s dark to check it out by yourself.”
“I told you. Didn’t have the time.”
“You’re full of shit, Powers,” Edgar said.
He had either just caught on or had played along with Bosch perfectly.
Bosch saw Powers’s eyes go dead as he went inside to try to figure out what to do. In that instant Bosch raised his gun again and aimed it at a spot between those two vacant portals.
“Don’t think so much, Powers,” he said. “It’s over. Now stand still. Jerry?”
Edgar moved in behind the big cop and yanked his gun out of its holster. He dropped it on the ground and jerked one of Powers’s hands behind his back. He cuffed the hand and then he did the other. When he was done, he picked up the gun. It seemed to Bosch that Powers was still inside, still staring blankly at nothing. Then he came back.
“You people, you have just fucked up big time,” he said, controlled rage in his voice.
“We’ll see about that. Jerry, you got him? I want to call Kiz.”
“Go ahead. I got his ass. I hope he does make a move. Go ahead, Powers, do something stupid for me.”
“Fuck you, Edgar! You don’t know what you’ve just done. You’re goin’ down, bro. You’re going down!”
Edgar remained silent. Bosch took the Motorola two-way out of his pocket, turned it on and keyed the mike.
“Kiz, you there?”
“Here. I’m here.”
“Come on over. Hurry.”
“On my way.”
Bosch put the two-way back and they stood there in silence for a minute until they saw the flashing blue light lead Rider’s car around the bend. When it pulled up, the lights swept repeatedly through the tops of the trees on the incline. Bosch realized that from below, down in George’s shelter, the lights on the trees might look as if they were coming from the sky. It all came to Bosch then. George’s spacecraft had been Powers’s patrol car. The abduction had been a traffic stop. The perfect way to get a man carrying nearly a half million in cash to stop. Powers had simply waited for Aliso’s white Rolls, probably at Mulholland and Laurel Canyon, then followed and put the lights on when they approached the secluded curve. Tony probably thought he had been speeding. He pulled over.
Rider pulled off the road behind the patrol car. Bosch came over and opened the back door and looked in at her.
“Harry, what is it?” she asked.
“Powers. Powers is it.”
“Oh my God.”
“Yeah. I want you and Jerry to take him in. I’ll follow with his car.”
He walked back over to Edgar and Powers.
“Okay, let’s go.”
“You people have all lost your jobs,” Powers said. “You fucked yourselves up.”
“You can tell us about it at the station.”
Bosch jerked him by the arm, feeling its thickness and strength. He and Edgar then hustled him into the back of Rider’s car. Edgar went around and got in the other side next to him.
Looking in through the open rear door, Bosch went over what would be the procedure.
“Take all his shit away and lock him in one of the interview rooms,” he said. “Make sure you get his cuff key. I’ll be right behind you.”
Bosch slammed the door and knocked twice on the roof. He then went to the patrol car, put the suit bag in the back seat and got in. Rider pulled out and Bosch followed. They sped west toward Laurel Canyon.
It took Billets less than an hour to come in. When she got there, the three of them were sitting at the homicide table. Bosch was going through the murder book with Rider while she took notes on a legal pad. Edgar was at the typewriter. Billets walked in with a force and look on her face that clearly showed the situation. Bosch hadn’t talked to her yet. It had been Rider who had called her in from home.
“What are you doing to me?” Billets asked, her piercing eyes clearly fixed on Bosch.
What she was really saying to him was that he was the team leader and the responsibility for this potential fuckup rested squarely on him. That was okay with Bosch, because not only was that right and fair, but in the half
