“What about the skim?”
“Good question. Nothing like the kind of money he’s talking about showed up on Aliso’s bank accounts. Powers said she said it was in a safe deposit box but she never told him where. It’s got to be somewhere. We’ll find it.”
“If it exists.”
“I think it does. She planted a half million in Powers’s place to put him in the frame. That’s a lot of money to spend on setting him up, unless you happen to have a couple million more stashed someplace. That’s what we-”
Bosch looked through the glass into the squad room. Edgar and Rider were walking toward the lieutenant’s office. Veronica Aliso was not with them. They came into the office with urgent looks on their faces and Bosch knew what they were going to say.
“She’s gone,” Edgar said.
Bosch and Billets just stared at them.
“Looks like she split last night,” Edgar said. “Her cars are still there but there was nobody at the house. We slipped in a back door and it’s empty, man.”
“She take her clothes, jewelry?” Bosch asked.
“Doesn’t look like it. She’s just gone.”
“You check the gate?”
“Yeah, we checked at the gate. She had two visitors yesterday. First was a courier at four-fifteen. Legal Eagle Messenger Service. Guy was there about five minutes, in and out. Then a visitor last night. Late. Guy gave the name John Galvin. She had already called the gate and given the same name and told them to let him through when he showed up. They took his plate down and we ran it. It’s Hertz out of Vegas. We’ll put a call in. Anyway, Galvin stayed until one this morning. Just about the time we were in the woods hooking up Powers, he split. She probably went with him.”
“We called the guard on duty at the time,” Rider said. “He couldn’t remember if Galvin left alone or not. He doesn’t specifically remember seeing Mrs. Aliso last night, but she could have been down in the backseat.”
“Do we know who her attorney is?” Billets asked.
“Yes,” Rider said, “Neil Denton, Century City.”
“Okay, Jerry, you work the trace on the Hertz rental and, Kiz, you try to run down Denton and see if you can find out what was so important that he had to messenger it over to her on Saturday.”
“All right,” Edgar said. “But I got a bad feeling. I think she’s in the wind.”
“Well, then we have to go into the wind to find her,” Billets said. “Go to it.”
Edgar and Rider went back out to the homicide table and Bosch stood silent for a few moments, thinking about this latest development.
“Should we have put people on her?” Billets asked.
“Well, looking back, it seems that way. But we were off the books. We didn’t have the people. Besides, we didn’t really have anything on her until a couple hours ago.”
Billets nodded, a pained expression on her face.
“If they don’t get a line on her in the next fifteen minutes, put it out on the air.”
“Right.”
“Listen, getting back to Powers, you think he’s holding anything back?”
“Hard to say. Probably. There’s still the question about why this time.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean Aliso had been going over to Vegas for years and bringing back suitcases full of money. He’d been skimming for years, according to Powers, and also had been having his share of the women over there. Veronica knew all of this. She had to. So what was it that made her do it now, rather than last year or next year?”
“Maybe she just got fed up. Maybe this was just the right time. Powers came along and it clicked.”
“Maybe. I asked Powers and he said he didn’t know. But I think maybe he was holding back. I’m going to take another run at him.”
Billets didn’t respond.
“There’s still some sort of secret we don’t know about,” Bosch continued. “There’s something there. I’m hoping she’ll tell it. If we find her.”
Billets dismissed it with a wave of her hand.
“You have Powers on tape?” she asked.
“Audio and video. Kiz was watching in room four. As soon as he said he wanted to talk she started it all rolling.”
“Did you advise him again? On the tape?”
“Yeah, it’s all on there. He’s sealed up pretty good. You want to watch it, I’ll get the tape.”
“No. I don’t even want to look at him if I can help it. You didn’t promise him anything, did you?”
Bosch was about to answer but stopped. There was the sound of muffled yelling that he could tell was coming from Powers, still sequestered in room three. He looked through the glass of the lieutenant’s office and saw Edgar get up from the homicide table and go down the hall to check it out.
“He probably wants his lawyer now,” Bosch said. “Well, it’s a little late for that…Anyway, no, I made no promises. I did tell him I’d talk to the DA about dropping special circs, but that’s going to be tough. With what he told me in there, we can take our pick. Conspiracy to commit, lying in wait, murder for hire maybe.”
“I guess I should get a DA in here.”
“Yeah. If you don’t have anyone in mind or anybody you owe a hot case to, put in a request for Roger Goff. This is his kind of case and I’ve owed him one for a while. He won’t blow it.”
“I know Roger. I’ll ask for him… I have to call out the brass, too. It’s not every day you get to call a deputy chief and tell him not only have your people been running an investigation they were specifically told to stay away from, but that they’ve arrested a cop to boot. And for murder, no less.”
Bosch smiled. He would not relish having to make such a call.
“It’s really going to hit the fan this time,” he said. “One more black eye for the department. By the way, they didn’t seize any of it because it’s not related to this case, but Jerry and Kiz found some scary stuff in Powers’s place. Nazi paraphernalia, white-power stuff. You might alert the brass about that, so they can do with it what they want.”
“Thanks for telling me. I’ll talk to Irving. I’m sure he won’t want that to see the light of day.”
Edgar leaned in through the open door.
“Powers says he’s got to take a leak and can’t hold it any longer.”
He was looking at Billets.
“Well, take him,” she said.
“Keep him hooked,” Bosch added.
“How’s he gonna piss, his hands behind his back? Don’t be expecting me to be taking it out for him. No way.”
Billets laughed.
“Just move the cuffs to the front,” Bosch said. “Give me a second to finish in here and I’ll be right there.”
“Okay, I’ll be in three.”
Edgar left and Bosch watched him through the glass as he walked to the hallway leading to the interview rooms. Bosch looked back at Billets, who was still smiling at Edgar’s comical protest. Bosch put a serious look on his face.
“You know, you can use me when you make that call.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, if you want to say you didn’t know about any of this until I called you this morning with the bad news, that’s cool with me.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. We cleared a murder and got a killer cop off the street. If they can’t see that the good in this outweighs the bad, then…well, fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke.”
Bosch smiled and nodded.
“You’re cool, Lieutenant.”
“Thanks.”
