The Overlook

Walling came away from the window, sat back down and folded her arms. Bosch finally sat down on a chair directly across from her. He continued.

“But how would the witness know it was the shooter and not the victim who yelled?” he asked. “He was more than fifty yards away. It was dark. How would he know that it wasn’t Stanley Kent yelling out his last word before execution? The name of the woman he loved, because he was about to die not even knowing that she’d betrayed him.”

“Alicia.”

“Exactly. Alicia interrupted by a gunshot becomes Allah.”

Walling relaxed her arms and leaned forward. As body language went, it was a good sign. It told Bosch he was pushing through.

“You said the first set of snap ties before,” she said. “What were you talking about?”

Bosch nodded and handed across the file containing the crime scene photos. He had saved the best for last.

“Look at the photos,” he said. “What do you see?”

She opened the file and started looking at the crime scene photos. They depicted the master bedroom in the Kent house from all angles.

“It’s the master bedroom,” she said. “What am I missing?”

“Exactly.”

“What?”

“It’s what you don’t see. There are no clothes in the shot. She told us they told her to sit on the bed and take off her clothes. What are we supposed to believe, that they let her put the clothes away before they hog-tied her? They let her put them in the hamper? Look at the last shot. It’s the e-mail photo Stanley Kent got.”

Walling looked through the file until she found the printout of the e-mail photo. She stared intently at it. He saw recognition break in her eyes.

“Now what do you see?”

“The robe,” she said excitedly. “When we let her get dressed, she went to the closet to get her robe. There was no robe on that lounge chair!”

Bosch nodded and they started trading pieces of the story back and forth.

“What does that tell us?” he asked. “That these considerate terrorists hung the robe up in the closet for her after taking the photo?”

“Or that maybe Mrs. Kent was tied up twice and the robe was moved in between?”

“And look again at the picture. The clock on the bed table is unplugged.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know but maybe they didn’t want to worry about having any sort of time stamp on the photo. Maybe the first photo wasn’t even taken yesterday. Maybe it came from a dry run two days ago or even two weeks.”

Rachel nodded and Bosch knew she was committed. She was a believer.

“She was tied up once for the photo and then once again for the rescue,” she said.

“Exactly. And that left her free to help carry out the plan on the overlook. She didn’t kill her husband but she was up there in the other car. And once Stanley was dead and the cesium was dumped and the car was ditched at Samir’s she and her partner came back home and she was tied up all over again.”

“She wasn’t passed out when we got there. That was an act and part of the plan. And her wetting the bed was a nice little touch to help sell it to us.”

“The smell of urine also covered up the smell of grape juice.”

“What do you mean?”

“The purple bruises on her wrists and ankles. Now we know she wasn’t tied up for hours. But she still had those bruises. There’s an opened bottle of grape juice in the fridge and paper towels soaked with it out in the trash can. She used grape juice to create the bruises.”

“Oh, my God, I can’t believe this.”

“What?”

“When I was in the room with her at TIU. That small space. I thought I smelled grape in the room. I thought somebody had been in there before us and had been drinking grape juice. I smelled it!”

“There you go.”

There was no doubt now. Bosch had her. But then a shadow of concern and doubt moved across Walling’s face like a summer cloud.

“What about motive?” she asked. “This is a federal agent we’re talking about. To move on this we need everything, even motive. There can be nothing left open to chance.”

Bosch had been ready for the question.

“You saw the motive. Alicia Kent is a beautiful woman. Jack Brenner wanted her and Stanley Kent was in the way of that.”

Walling’s eyes widened in shock. Bosch pressed on with his case.

“That’s the motive, Rachel. You-”

“But he-”

“Let me just finish. It goes like this. You and your partner show up here that day last year to give the Kents the warning about his occupation. Some kind of vibe is exchanged between Alicia and Jack. He gets interested, she gets interested. They meet on the sly for coffee or for drinks or whatever. One thing leads to another. An affair begins and it lasts and then it lasts to the point that it’s time to start thinking about doing something. Leaving the husband. Or getting rid of him because there’s insurance and half a company at stake. That’s enough motive right there, Rachel, and that’s what this case is about. It’s not about cesium or terrorism or anything else. It’s the basic equation: sex plus money equals murder. That’s all.”

She frowned and shook her head.

“You don’t know what you are talking about. Jack Brenner is married and has three children. He’s stable, boring and not interested. He wasn’t-”

“Every man is interested. It doesn’t matter if they’re married or how many kids they have.”

She spoke quietly.

“Would you listen and let me finish now? You are wrong about Brenner. He never met Alicia Kent before today. He wasn’t my partner when I came here last year and I never told you he was.”

Bosch was jolted by the news. He’d assumed that her current partner had been her partner last year. He’d had Brenner’s image locked and loaded in his mind as he had unfolded the story.

“At the start of the year all partners in TIU were shuffled. It’s the routine. It promotes a better team concept. I’ve been with Jack since January.”

“Who was your partner last year, Rachel?”

She held his eyes for a long moment.

“It was Cliff Maxwell.”

NINETEEN

HARRY BOSCH ALMOST LAUGHED but was too shocked to do anything but shake his head. Rachel Walling was telling him that Cliff Maxwell was Alicia Kent’s partner in murder.

“I can’t believe this,” he finally said. “About five hours ago I had the killer handcuffed on the floor right here!”

Rachel looked mortified by the realization that the murder of Stanley Kent was an inside job and the theft of the cesium was nothing more than a well-played misdirection.

“You see the rest now?” Bosch asked. “You see how he would work it? Her husband’s dead and he starts coming around out of sympathy and because he’s on the case. They start dating, fall in love and nobody ever raises an eyebrow about it. They’re still out there looking for Moby and El-Fayed.”