Young
Frank
Robert
Ocean
Mary
Young
Ocean
Union
Robert
David
Union
Mary
Boy
Adam
Sam
Sam
David
Adam
David
He waited for her return, but when there was no response, he took up the murder book and went to work, hoping immersion in the Snow White case would take him away from the parenting mistake he had just made.
The thickest report in the murder book was the investigators’ chronology, because it was a line-by-line accounting of every move made by detectives as well as every phone call and inquiry from the public about the case. The Riot Crimes Task Force had put up three billboards on the Crenshaw Boulevard corridor as a means of stirring public response to the unsolved Jespersen murder. The boards promised a $25,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction in the killing. The boards and the prospect of a reward brought in hundreds of phone calls ranging from legitimate to completely bogus tips to complaints from citizens about the police department’s effort to solve the murder of a white woman when so many blacks and Latinos were the victims of unsolved murders during the riots. RCTF detectives dutifully noted each call in the chronology and cited any follow- up that was conducted. Bosch had moved quickly through these pages on his first survey of the murder book, but now he had names attached to the case and he wanted to study every page in the book to see if any names had come up before.
Over the next hour, Bosch combed through dozens of pages of the chronology. There was no mention of Charles Washburn or Rufus Coleman or Trumont Story. Most of the tips seemed useless at face value and Bosch understood why they’d been dismissed. Several callers gave other names but those suspects were dismissed upon follow-up investigation. In many instances, anonymous callers fingered innocent people, knowing that the police would investigate them and make their lives difficult until they were cleared, the whole exercise payback for something unrelated to the murder.
The calls noted in the chronology began to thin by 1993 and the closing of the task force and removal of the billboards. Once the Jespersen case was shifted to 77th Street Division homicide, the notations in the chronology became few and far between. Primarily, only Jespersen’s brother, Henrik, and a number of different reporters checked in on the case’s status from time to time. But one of the very last entries finally caught Bosch’s eye.
On May 1, 2002, the tenth anniversary of the murder, a call was noted in the chronology from someone named Alex White. The name meant nothing to Bosch but its entry in the chrono was followed by a phone number with a 209 area code. It was listed as a status inquiry. The caller wanted to know if the case had ever been closed.
There was nothing further noted in the entry as to what White’s interest in the case was. Bosch had no idea who White was but was intrigued by the area code. It wasn’t one of L.A.’s codes and Bosch couldn’t place it.
Harry opened his laptop, Googled the area code, and soon learned that it was assigned to Stanislaus County in the state’s Central Valley—250 miles from Los Angeles.
Bosch checked his watch. It was late but not that late. He called the number that followed Alex White’s name in the chrono. The line rang once and then went to a recording of a woman’s pleasant voice.
“You have reached Cosgrove Tractor, the Central Valley’s number-one John Deere dealership, located at nine-twelve Crows Landing Road in Modesto. We are convenient to the Golden State Highway and are open Monday through Saturday from nine to six. If you would like to leave a message, a member of our sales team will call you back as soon as possible.”
Bosch hung up before the beep, deciding that he would call back the next day during business hours. He also knew that Cosgrove Tractor might have nothing to do with the call. The number could have been assigned to a different business or individual back in 2002.
“Are you ready for your cake?”
Bosch looked up. His daughter had come out of her bedroom. She was wearing a long sleep shirt now, the dress probably hung in her closet.
“Sure.”
He closed the murder book and, getting up, put it on the coffee table. As he approached the dining-room table, he attempted to hug his daughter, but she gently ducked away and turned toward the kitchen.
“Let me get a knife and some forks and plates.”
From the kitchen she called for him to open his two gifts, starting with the obvious one, but he waited for her return.
As she cut the cake, he opened the long thin box that he knew contained a tie. She often remarked on how old and colorless his ties were. She once even suggested he got his ideas about ties from the old
He opened the box to find a tie with a tie-dyed pattern of blues and greens and purples.
“It’s beautiful,” he proclaimed. “I’ll wear it tomorrow.”
She smiled and he moved on to the second gift. He unwrapped it to find a box containing a stack of six CD cases. It was a collection of recently released live recordings of Art Pepper.
“‘
“Internet,” Maddie said. “His widow puts them out.”
“I never heard of this stuff before.”
“She has her own label: Widow’s Taste.”
Bosch saw that some of the cases contained multiple discs. It was a lot of music.
“Should we listen?”
She handed him a plate with a piece of marble cake on it.
“I still have some homework,” she said. “I’m going to go back to my room, but you go ahead.”
“I might start the first one.”
“I hope you like it.”
“Pretty sure I will. Thanks, Maddie. For everything.”
He put the plate and the CDs down on the table and reached to hug his daughter. This time she allowed it, and he was the most thankful for that.
7
Bosch got to the cubicle early Wednesday morning and before anyone in the squad had arrived. He poured coffee out of the take-out cup he’d brought with him into the mug he kept in his desk drawer. He put on his readers and checked for messages, hoping he had gotten lucky and would find that Charles Washburn had been picked up overnight and was waiting for him in a holding cell at 77th Street Division. But there was nothing on the phone or in email about 2 Small. He was still in the wind. There was, however, a return email from Anneke Jespersen’s brother. Bosch felt a trill of excitement when he recognized the words in the subject line: “The investigation of your sister’s murder.”
