yellow plastic. A powder blue pants leg, a black loafer and white sock. That was all Bosch could see of Joey Marks now.
“The bank people, are they cooperating or do you need a warrant for every move you make?” Bosch asked.
“No, they’re on board. The manager’s in there shaking like a leaf. Not every day you get a massacre outside your front door.”
“Then ask them to check their records and see if there’s a box in there under the name Gretchen Alexander.”
“Gretchen Alexander? Who’s that?”
“You know her, Roy. It’s Layla.”
“Layla? Are you fuckin’ kidding me? You think he’d give that bimbo two million duckets while he goes off and gets himself killed?”
“Just check, Roy. It’s worth a shot.”
Lindell went off toward the bank doors. Bosch looked at his partners.
“Jerry, you going to want your gun back? We should tell them now so they don’t destroy them or file them away forever.”
“My gun?”
Edgar looked at all of the yellow plastic with a pained look on his face.
“No, Harry, I don’t think so. That piece is haunted now. I don’t ever want it back.”
“Yeah,” Bosch said. “I was thinking the same thing.”
Bosch brooded about things for a while and then heard his name being called. He turned and saw Lindell beckoning him from the door of the bank. He headed over.
“Bingo,” Lindell said. “She’s got a box.”
They walked back into the bank and Bosch saw several agents conducting interviews with the branch’s stunned employees. Lindell led him to a desk where the branch manager sat. She was a woman of about thirty with brown curly hair. The nameplate on her desk said Jeanne Connors. Lindell picked up a file that was on her desk and showed it to Bosch.
“She has a box here and she made Tony Aliso a signatory on it. He pulled the box at the same time he pulled his own on the Friday before he got nailed. You know what I’m thinking? I think he emptied his and put it all in hers.”
“Probably.”
Bosch was looking at the safe deposit entry records in the file. They were handwritten on a three by five card.
“So,” Lindell said, “what we do is we get a warrant for her box and drill the sucker-maybe get Maury out there to do it, since he’s being so cooperative. We seize the money and the federal government is that much ahead. You guys’d get a split, too.”
Bosch looked at him.
“You can drill it, if you’ve got the probable cause, but there isn’t going to be anything in it.”
Bosch pointed to the last entry on the box card. Gretchen Alexander had pulled the box herself five days earlier-the Wednesday after Tony Aliso was killed. Lindell stared at it a long moment before reacting.
“Jesus, you think she cleared it out?”
“Yeah, Roy, I do.”
“She’s gone, isn’t she? You’ve been looking for her, haven’t you?”
“She’s in the wind, man. And I guess so am I.”
“You’re leaving?”
“I gave my statement, I’m clear. I’ll see you, Roy.”
“Yeah, okay, Bosch.”
Bosch headed to the door of the bank. As he opened it, Lindell came up behind him.
“But why’d he put it all in her box?”
He was still holding the box card and staring at it as if it might suddenly answer all his questions.
“I don’t know but I’ve got a guess.”
“What’s that, Bosch?”
“He was in love with her.”
“Him? A girl like that?”
“You never know. People can kill each other for all kinds of reasons. I guess they can fall in love with each other for all kinds of reasons. You gotta take it when it comes, no matter if it’s a girl like that or…someone else.”
Lindell just nodded and Bosch stepped through the door.
Bosch, Edgar and Rider took a cab to the federal building and picked up their car. Bosch said he wanted to stop by the house in North Las Vegas where Gretchen Alexander had grown up.
“She isn’t going to be there, Harry,” Edgar said. “Are you kidding?”
“I know she won’t be there. I just want to talk to the old lady for a minute.”
He found the house without getting lost and pulled into the driveway. The RX7 was still there and didn’t look like it had moved.
“This will only take a minute, if you want to stay in the car.”
“I’ll go in,” Rider said.
“I’ll stay and keep the AC going,” Edgar said. “In fact, I’ll drive the first leg, Harry.”
He got out as Bosch and Rider exited and came around and took Bosch’s place behind the wheel.
Bosch’s knock on the front door was answered quickly. The woman had heard or seen the car and was ready.
“You,” she said, looking through the two-inch crack she had allowed in the door. “Gretchen still isn’t here.”
“I know, Mrs. Alexander. It’s you I want to talk to.”
“Me? What on earth for?”
“Would you please let us in? It’s hot out here.”
She opened the door with a resigned look on her face.
“Hot in here, too. I can’t afford to put the thermostat lower than eighty.”
Bosch and Rider entered and moved into the living room. He introduced Rider and all three of them sat down. This time Bosch sat on the edge of the sofa, remembering how he had sunk in last time.
“All right, what’s this about? Why do you want to talk to me?”
“I want to know about your granddaughter’s mother,” Bosch said.
The old woman’s mouth went slack and Bosch could tell Rider wasn’t much less confused.
“Her mother?” Dorothy asked. “Her mother’s long gone. Didn’t have the decency to see her own child through. Never mind her mother.”
“When did she leave?”
“Long time ago. Gretchen wasn’t even out of diapers. She just left me a note saying good-bye and good luck. She was gone.”
“Where’d she go?”
“I have no earthly idea and I don’t want to know. Good riddance, is what I say. She turned her back on that beautiful little girl. Didn’t have the decency to ever call or even send for a picture.”
“How did you know she was even alive?”
“I didn’t. She could be dead all these years for all I know or care.”
She was a bad liar, the type who got louder and indignant when she lied.
“You know,” Bosch said. “She sent you money, didn’t she?”
The woman looked sullenly down at her hands for a long moment. It was her way of confirming his guess.
“How often?”
“Once or twice a year. It wasn’t near enough to make up for what she did.”
Bosch wanted to ask how much would have been enough but let it go.
“How did the money come?”
“Mail. It was in cash. I know it came from Sherman Oaks, California. That was always the postmark. What does
