The Black Box

On this deeper dig, Chu had also found that in addition to his DUI conviction, Banks also had two other DUI arrests that did not result in conviction. Bosch noted that the one conviction came from an arrest in San Joaquin County, where Manteca was located. But two DUI stops in neighboring Stanislaus County never resulted in charges being filed. Bosch wondered if being foxhole buddies with the Stanislaus County sheriff might have had something to do with that.

He moved on to Francis John Dowler and read a bio not too different from his pal Banks’s curriculum vitae. Born, raised, and still living in Manteca, he attended San Joaquin Valley College in Stockton but didn’t stick around for the two-year degree.

Bosch heard a low snickering sound and looked up to see Pino, their usual waiter, smiling.

“What?” Bosch asked.

“I read your paper, I am sorry.”

Bosch looked down at the data sheet on Dowler and then back at Pino. He was Mexican-born but posed as Italian since he worked in an Italian restaurant.

“That’s okay, Pino. But what’s so funny?”

The waiter pointed at the top line of the data sheet.

“It say there he was born in Manteca. That is funny.”

“Why?”

“I thought you speak Spanish, Mr. Bosch.”

“Just a little. What is Manteca?”

“It is the lard. The fat.”

“Really?”

“Si.”

Bosch shrugged.

“I guess they must’ve thought it sounded nice when they named the place,” he said. “They probably didn’t know.”

“Where is this town called Lard?” Pino asked.

“North of here. About five hours.”

“If you go, take a picture for me. ‘Welcome to Lard.’”

He laughed and moved away to check on customers at other tables. Bosch checked his watch. Hannah was now a half hour late. He thought about calling to check on her. He pulled out his phone and noticed that his daughter had answered his text with a simple ordered in pizza. That was pizza for the second night in a row while he was out for a supposedly romantic dinner with salad and pasta and wine. A wave of guilt hit him again. He seemed incapable of being the father he knew he should be. The guilt turned to self-directed anger and it gave him all the resolve he needed for what he planned to ask Hannah—if she ever showed up.

He decided he would give it another ten minutes before he pestered her with a call, then went back to his work.

Dowler was forty-eight years old and had logged exactly half of his life in the employ of Cosgrove Ag. His job description was listed on the sheet as Contract Transport and Bosch wondered if that meant he was still a truck driver.

Like Banks, he also had a DUI bust without subsequent filing on his record in Stanislaus County. He also had an arrest warrant that had been sitting on the computer for four years for unpaid parking tickets in Modesto. That would be understandable if he resided in L.A. County, where thousands of minor warrants idled in the computer until the wanted person happened to be stopped by a law officer and their ID was checked for wanteds. But it seemed to Bosch that a county the size of Stanislaus would have the personnel and time to pursue local scofflaws wanted on warrants. The duty to execute a warrant pickup would, of course, fall to the county sheriff’s office. Once again it looked to Bosch like the bonds of Desert Storm and other places were protecting a former soldier in the 237th Company—at least when it came to Stanislaus County.

But just as a pattern seemed to be emerging, it disappeared when Bosch moved on to Carl Cosgrove’s sheet. Cosgrove was born in Manteca as well and was in the same age group, at forty-eight, but resemblance to the other men in the file ended at age and service to the 237th Company. Cosgrove had no arrest record, earned a full degree in agricultural management from UC Davis, and was listed as president and CEO of Cosgrove Ag. A 2005 profile in a publication called California Grower stated that the company held nearly two hundred thousand acres of farm and ranch lands in California. The company managed both livestock and produce and was one of the largest suppliers of beef, almonds, and wine grapes in the state. Not only that, but Cosgrove Ag was even harvesting the wind. The article credited Carl Cosgrove with turning much of the company’s cattle grazing land into wind farms, double dipping on the land by producing electricity and beef.

On the personal side, the article described Cosgrove as a long-divorced bachelor with a penchant for fast cars, fine wines, and finer women. He lived on an estate near Salida on the northern edge of Stanislaus County. It was surrounded by an almond grove and included a helicopter pad so he could proceed by air without delay to any of his other holdings, which included a penthouse in San Francisco and a ski lodge in Mammoth.

It was a classic silver-spoon story. Cosgrove ran a company his father Carl Cosgrove Sr. had built from a sixty-acre strawberry farm and accompanying fruit stand in 1955. At seventy-six, the father remained in place as chairman of the board, but he had passed the reins to his son ten years before. The article focused on Carl Sr.’s grooming his son for the business, making sure that he worked in all facets—from cattle breeding to farm irrigation to wine making. It was also the old man who insisted that the son give back to the community in multiple ways, including his twelve years in the California National Guard.

The article did credit Carl Jr. with taking the fifty-year-old family business to new heights and in bold new directions, most notably with the wind farms that produced green energy and the expansion of the family-owned chain of steakhouses called the Steers, now with six locations throughout the Central Valley. The last line of the article said, “Cosgrove is most proud of the fact that it is virtually impossible to have a meal at any one of the Steers restaurants without eating or drinking something his vast company has produced.”

Bosch read the last four lines twice. They were confirmation of another connection between the men in the Saudi Princess photo. Christopher Henderson had been closing manager at one of Carl Cosgrove’s restaurants—until he was murdered there.

Chu had added a note at the bottom of the California Grower story. It said, “Ran a check on Dad. He died 2010—natural causes. Junior runs the whole show now.”

Bosch translated that to mean that Carl Cosgrove had inherited complete control over Cosgrove Ag and its many holdings and interests. That made him the king of the San Joaquin Valley.

“Hi. Sorry.”

Bosch looked up as Hannah Stone slipped into the booth next to him. She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek and said she was starving.

23

They both drank a glass of red wine before getting into talk about Mendenhall and the events of their day. Hannah said she needed to decompress for a few minutes before turning the discussion serious.

“This is good,” she said about the wine Bosch had ordered.

She reached across the table and turned the bottle to read the label. She smiled.

“‘Modus Operandi’—of course that would be what you’d order.”

“You’ve got me pegged.”

She took one more sip and then took her napkin and needlessly rearranged it on her lap. Bosch noticed she often did this as a nervous tell when they were in restaurants and the discussion turned toward her son.

“Detective Mendenhall told me she was going up to talk to Shawn on Monday,” she finally said.

Bosch nodded. He wasn’t surprised that Mendenhall was going to San Quentin. He was just a little surprised that she had told Hannah. It wasn’t good investigative practice to tell one interviewee about plans regarding another, even if they were mother and son.

“Doesn’t matter if she goes up there,” he said. “Shawn doesn’t have to talk to her if he doesn’t want to. But if he decides he wants to, he just needs to tell her the—”

Bosch stopped talking as he suddenly realized what Mendenhall might be doing.