“I told you all to get!” Briscoe called from behind her security gate. “Leave me alone or I’ll sue your asses for harassment! Why don’t you make yourselves useful and find out who killed Tru Story.”
Bosch put the gun into an open cardboard box he kept in the trunk and then slammed the lid, looking at the woman over the roof of his car. He held his tongue as he came around to the driver-side door.
They were lucky. Charles Washburn had not only been unable to make bail but he had yet to be transferred from the lockup at 77th Street Station to the city jail downtown. He was pulled out and returned to the interview room in the Detective Bureau and was waiting there when Bosch, Chu, and Gant walked in.
“What, we got
“Nah, we ain’t here to roust you, Charlie,” Gant said. “We’re here to make things right by you.”
“Yeah, and how’s that?”
Bosch pulled out a chair and sat across from Washburn. He placed a closed cardboard box on the table. Gant and Chu remained standing in the tiny room.
“We got a deal for you,” Gant said. “You take us to the house where you grew up and show us where you put a bullet in the fence post, and we’ll see what we can do about dropping some of these charges you got on you. You know, cooperating witness. Quid pro quo.”
“What, now? It’s dark out, man.”
“We’ve got flashlights, Two Small,” Bosch said.
“I ain’t no cooperating witness, man, and you can keep your quid pro quota shit. I only tol’ you about Story because he’s dead. You can put me back in lockup now.”
He started to get up but Gant clapped him on the shoulder in a way that was friendly but also kept him in the chair.
“Nah, you won’t be cooperating against anybody. Nuttin’ like that. You’ll just be leading us to that bullet. That’s all we want.”
“And that’s all?”
His eyes moved to the box on the table. Gant looked at Bosch who took over.
“And we want you to look at a couple of guns we picked up and see if you can identify the one you found twenty years ago. The gun you gave to Trumont Story.”
Bosch leaned forward and opened the box. They had put two other unloaded 9mm pistols in evidence bags into the box along with the gun turned over by Gail Briscoe. Bosch took them out and put them on the table and then put the box on the floor. Gant then uncuffed Washburn so he could pick each one up and study it without removing it from the plastic bag.
Two Small examined the Beretta from Trumont Story’s house last. He studied both sides and then nodded.
“This one,” he said.
“You sure about that?” Bosch asked.
Washburn ran a finger along the left side of the Beretta.
“Yeah, I guess, except they fixed the scratch mark up. But I can still feel it. That’s the lawnmower blade.”
“I don’t want you guessing. Is that the weapon you found or not?”
“Yeah, man, it’s the piece.”
Bosch took it back and stretched the plastic tightly across the frame where the serial number would have been stamped.
“Look at that. Is that how it was when you found it?”
“Look at what?”
“Don’t play dumb, Charles. The serial number’s gone. Was it that way when you found it?”
“You mean those scratch marks? Yeah, I guess so. The lawnmower did that.”
“No lawnmower did that. That was done with a file. And you’re saying you’re sure that’s the way it was when you found it?”
“Man, I can’t be sure about nothin’ twenty years ago. What do you want from me? I don’t remember.”
Bosch was getting annoyed with his dancing.
“Did you do that, Charles? To make it more valuable to a guy like Tru Story?”
“No, man, I didn’t do it.”
“Then, tell me, how many guns have you found in your life, Charles?”
“Just this one.”
“Okay, and as soon as you found it, you knew it had a value, right? You knew you could give it to the street boss and you could get something back for it. They might welcome you into the club, right? So don’t be dancing around this, telling me you don’t remember. If the serial number was gone when you found it, then you would have told Trumont Story that it was gone, because you knew it would be a plus to him. So, which is it, Charles?”
“Yeah, man, it was gone. Okay? It was gone. There was no serial number when I found it, and that’s what I told Tru, so get outta my face.”
Bosch realized he had leaned across the table and had invaded what Washburn considered his personal space. He leaned back.
“Okay, Charles, thank you.”
It was a significant admission because it confirmed something about how Anneke Jespersen’s killer carried out the crime. Bosch had been grinding on the question of why the killer had thrown the gun over the fence. Had something happened in the alley that necessitated his getting rid of the gun? Had the gunshot drawn others? The fact that he was using a gun that he thought was untraceable made things fit a little better. With the serial number obliterated, the killer would have thought that the only way to be connected to the murder would be to be caught with the murder weapon in his possession. The best way to avoid that was to dump the gun quickly. This explained why the gun was thrown over the fence.
Making sense of the sequence of events in the crime was always important to Bosch.
“Now you going to drop my charges and shit?” Washburn asked.
Bosch came out of his thoughts and looked at him.
“No, not yet. We still want to find that bullet.”
“Why you need that? You got the gun now.”
“Because it will help tell the story. Juries like the little details. Let’s go.”
Bosch stood up and started packing the three guns back in the cardboard box. Holding the cuffs out, Gant signaled Washburn to stand up. Washburn stayed put in his chair and continued protesting.
“I told you where it is, man. You don’t need me.”
Bosch suddenly realized something and waved Gant back.
“Tell you what, Charles. You promise to cooperate out there and we don’t have to go with the cuffs. And we’ll be sure to keep you and your ex far apart. That work for you?”
Washburn looked at Bosch and nodded. Harry saw the change. The little man had been worried about his son seeing him cuffed up.
“But if you jackrabbit on us,” Gant said, “I will hunt your ass down and you ain’t going to like it when I find you. Now, let’s go.”
This time he helped Washburn up out of his seat.
A half hour later Bosch and Chu stood with Washburn in the backyard of his boyhood home. Gant was in the front of the house, maintaining a vigil with Washburn’s ex, making sure her anger didn’t translate into aggressive action against the father of her child.
It didn’t take Washburn long to point out the fence post he had put a bullet in twenty years before. The penetration mark was still visible, especially in the angled light of their flashlights. The hole had broken the weather seal on the wood and been the point of water damage. Chu first took a photograph with his phone, while Bosch held a business card next to the penetration point to give it scale. Then Bosch opened the blade of his folding knife and dug into the soft, rotting wood, soon prying out the lead slug. He rolled it between his fingers to clean it off and then held it up. The bullet that had been ahead of it in the gun had killed Anneke Jespersen.
He dropped the slug into a small evidence bag opened by Chu.
“So, now I walk?” Washburn said, his eyes warily darting toward the back door of the house.
