City of Bones (21 page)

“He didn’t contest it?”

“It looks like a deal was made. He got custody of the two kids and didn’t contest. Nice and clean. The file’s about twelve pages thick. I’ve seen some that are twelve inches. My own, for example.”

“If Arthur was five . . . some of those injuries predate that, according to the anthropologist.”

Edgar shook his head.

“The extract says the marriage had ended three years prior and they were living separately. So it looks like she split when the boy was about two—like Sheila said. Harry, you usually don’t refer to the vic by name.”

“Yeah, so?”

“Just pointing it out.”

“Thank you. Anything else in the file?”

“That’s about it. I got copies if you want it.”

“Okay, what about the skateboard friend?”

“Got him, too. Still alive, still local. But there’s a problem. I ran all the usual data banks and came up with three John Stokes in L.A. that fall into the right age range. Two are in the Valley, both clean. The third’s a player. Multiple arrests for petty theft, auto theft, burglary and possession going back to a full juvy jacket. Five years ago he finally ran out of second chances and got sent to Corcoran to iron out a nickel. Did two and a half to parole.”

“You talk to his agent? Is Stokes still on the line?”

“Talked to his agent, yes. No, Stokes isn’t on the hook. He cleared parole two months ago. The agent doesn’t know where he is.”

“Damn.”

“Yeah, but I got him to pull a look at the client bio. It has Stokes growing up mostly in Mid-Wilshire. In and out of foster homes. In and out of trouble. He’s gotta be our guy.”

“The agent think he’s still in L.A.?”

“Yeah, he thinks so. We just gotta find him. I already had patrol go by his last known—he moved out of there as soon as he cleared parole.”

“So he’s in the wind. Beautiful.”

Edgar nodded.

“We have to put him on the box,” Bosch said. “Start with—”

“Did it,” Edgar said. “I also typed up a roll-call notice and gave it to Mankiewicz a while ago. He promised to get it read at all calls. I’m having a batch of visor photos made, too.”

“Good.”

Bosch was impressed. Getting photos of Stokes to clip to the sun visors of every patrol car was the sort of extra step Edgar usually didn’t bother to make.

“We’ll get him, Harry. I’m not sure what good he’ll do us, but we’ll get him.”

“He could be a key witness. If Arthur—I mean, the vic—ever told him his father was beating him, then we’ve got something.”

Bosch looked at his watch. It was almost two. He wanted to keep things moving, keep the investigation focused and urgent. For him the most difficult time was waiting. Whether it was for lab results or other cops to make moves, it was always when he became most agitated.

“What do you have going tonight?” he asked Edgar.

“Tonight? Nothing much.”

“You got your kid tonight?”

“No, Thursdays. Why?”

“I’m thinking about going out to the Springs.”

“Now?”

“Yeah, talk to the ex-wife.”

He saw Edgar check his watch. He knew that even if they left that moment, they still wouldn’t get back until late.

“It’s all right. I can go by myself. Just give me the address.”

“Nah, I’m going with you.”

“You sure? You don’t have to. I just don’t like waitin’ around for something to happen, you know?”

“Yeah, Harry, I know.”

Edgar stood up and took his jacket off the back of his chair.

“Then I’ll go tell Bullets,” Bosch said.

27

T
HEY were more than halfway across the desert to Palm Springs before either one of them spoke.

“Harry,” Edgar said, “you’re not talking.”

“I know,” Bosch said.

The one thing they had always had as partners was the ability to share long silences. Whenever Edgar felt the need to break the silence, Bosch knew there was something on his mind he wanted to talk about.

“What is it, J. Edgar?”

“Nothing.”

“The case?”

“No, man, nothing. I’m cool.”

“All right, then.”

They were passing a windmill farm. The air was dead. None of the blades were turning.

“Did your parents stay together?” Bosch asked.

“Yeah, all the way,” Edgar said, then he laughed. “I think they wished sometimes they didn’t but, yeah, they stuck it out. That’s how it goes, I guess. The strong survive.”

Bosch nodded. They were both divorced but rarely talked about their failed marriages.

“Harry, I heard about you and the boot. It’s getting around.”

Bosch nodded. This is what Edgar had wanted to bring up. Rookies in the department were often called “boots.” The origin of the term was obscure. One school of thought was that it referred to boot camp, another that it was a sarcastic reference to rookies being the new boots of the fascist empire.

“All I’m saying, man, is be careful with that. You got rank on her, okay?”

“Yeah, I know. I’ll figure something out.”

“From what I hear and have seen, she’s worth the risk. But you still gotta be careful.”

Bosch didn’t say anything. After a few minutes they passed a road sign that said Palm Springs was coming up in nine miles. It was nearing dusk. Bosch was hoping to knock on the door where Christine Waters lived before it got dark.

“Harry, you going to take the lead on this, when we get there?”

“Yeah, I’ll take it. You can be the indignant one.”

“That will be easy.”

Once they crossed the city boundary into Palm Springs they picked up a map at a gas station and made their way through the town until they found Frank Sinatra Boulevard and took it up toward the mountains. Bosch pulled the car up to the gate house of a place called Mountaingate Estates. Their map showed the street Christine Waters lived on was within Mountaingate.

A uniformed rent-a-cop stepped out of the gate house, eying the slickback they were in and smiling.

“You guys are a little ways off the beat,” he said.

Bosch nodded and tried to give a pleasant smile. But it only made him look like he had something sour in his mouth.

“Something like that,” he said.

“What’s up?”

“We’re going to talk to Christine Waters, three-twelve Deep Waters Drive.”

“Mrs. Waters know you’re coming?”

“Not unless she’s a psychic or you tell her.”

“That’s my job. Hold on a second.”

He returned to the gate house and Bosch saw him pick up a phone.

“Looks like Christine Delacroix seriously traded up,” Edgar said.

He was looking through the windshield at some of the homes that were visible from their position. They were all huge with manicured lawns big enough to play touch football on.

The guard came out, put both hands on the window sill of the car and leaned down to look in at Bosch.

“She wants to know what it’s about.”

“Tell her we’ll discuss it with her at her house. Privately. Tell her we have a court order.”

The guard shrugged his shoulders in a have-it-your-way gesture and went back inside. Bosch watched him speaking on the phone for a few more moments. After he hung up, the gate started to open slowly. The guard stood in the open doorway and waved them in. But not without the last word.

“You know that tough-guy stuff probably works real well for you in L.A. Out here in the desert it’s just—”

Bosch didn’t hear the rest. He drove through the gate while putting the window up.

They found Deep Waters Drive at the far extreme of the development. The homes here looked to be a couple million dollars more opulent than those built near the entrance to Mountaingate.

“Who would name a street in the desert Deep Waters Drive?” Edgar mused.

“Maybe somebody named Waters.”

It dawned on Edgar then.

“Damn. You think? Then she really has traded up.”

The address Edgar came up with for Christine Waters corresponded with a mansion of contemporary Spanish design that sat at the end of a cul-de-sac at the terminus of Mountaingate Estates. It was most definitely the development’s premier lot. The house was positioned on a promontory that afforded it a view of all the other homes in the development as well as a sweeping view of the golf course that surrounded it.

The property had its own gated drive but the gate was open. Bosch wondered if it always stood open or had been opened for them.

“This is going to be interesting,” Edgar said as they pulled into a parking circle made of interlocking paving stones.

“Just remember,” Bosch said, “people can change their addresses but they can’t change who they are.”

“Right. Homicide one-oh-one.”

They got out and walked under the portico that led to the double-wide front door. It was opened before they got to it by a woman in a black-and-white maid’s uniform. In a thick Spanish accent the woman told them that Mrs. Waters was waiting in the living room.

The living room was the size and had the feel of a small cathedral, with a twenty-five-foot ceiling with exposed roof beams. High on the wall facing the east were three large stained-glass windows, a triptych depicting a sunrise, a garden and a moonrise. The opposite wall had six side-by-side sliding doors with a view of a golf course putting green. The room had two distinct groupings of furniture, as if to accommodate two separate gatherings at the same time.

Sitting in the middle of a cream-colored couch in the first grouping was a woman with blonde hair and a tight face. Her pale blue eyes followed the men as they entered and took in the size of the room.

“Mrs. Waters?” Bosch said. “I am Detective Bosch and this is Detective Edgar. We’re from the Los Angeles Police Department.”

He held out his hand and she took it but didn’t shake it. She just held it for a moment and then moved on to Edgar’s outstretched hand. Bosch knew from the birth certificate that she was fifty-six years old. But she looked close to a decade younger, her smooth tan face a testament to the wonders of modern medical science.

“Please have a seat,” she said. “I can’t tell you how embarrassed I am to have that car sitting in front of my house. I guess discretion is not the better part of valor when it comes to the LAPD.”

Bosch smiled.

“Well, Mrs. Waters, we’re kind of embarrassed about it, too, but that’s what the bosses tell us to drive. So that’s what we drive.”

“What is this about? The guard at the gate said you have a court order. May I see it?”

Bosch sat down on a couch directly opposite her and across a black coffee table with gold designs inlaid on it.

“Uh, he must have misunderstood me,” he said. “I told him we could get a court order, if you refused to see us.”

“I’m sure he did,” she replied, the tone of her voice letting them know she didn’t believe Bosch at all. “What do you want to see me about?”

“We need to ask you about your husband.”

“My husband has been dead for five years. Besides that, he rarely went to Los Angeles. What could he possibly—”

“Your first husband, Mrs. Waters. Samuel Delacroix. We need to talk to you about your children as well.”

Bosch saw a wariness immediately enter her eyes.

“I . . . I haven’t seen or spoken to them in years. Almost thirty years.”

“You mean since you went out for medicine for the boy and forgot to come back home?” Edgar asked.

The woman looked at him as though he had slapped her. Bosch had hoped Edgar was going to use a little more finesse when he acted indignant with her.

“Who told you that?”

“Mrs. Waters,” Bosch said. “I want to ask questions first and then we can get to yours.”

“I don’t understand this. How did you find me? What are you doing? Why are you here?”

Her voice rose with emotion from question to question. A life she had put aside thirty years before was suddenly intruding into the carefully ordered life she now had.

“We are homicide investigators, ma’am. We are working on a case that may involve your husband. We—”

“He’s
not
my husband. I divorced him twenty-five years ago, at least. This is crazy, you coming here to ask about a man I don’t even know anymore, that I didn’t even know was still alive. I think you should leave. I want you to leave.”

She stood up and extended her hand in the direction they had come in.

Bosch glanced at Edgar and then back at the woman. Her anger had turned the tan on her sculptured face uneven. There were blotches beginning to form, the tell of plastic surgery.

“Mrs. Waters, sit down,” Bosch said sternly. “Please try to relax.”

“Relax? Do you know who I am? My husband built this place. The houses, the golf course, everything. You can’t just come in here like this. I could pick up the phone and have the chief of police on the line in two—”

“Your son is dead, lady,” Edgar snapped. “The one you left behind thirty years ago. So sit down and let us ask you our questions.”

She dropped back onto the couch as if her feet had been kicked out from beneath her. Her mouth opened and then closed. Her eyes were no longer on them, they were on some distant memory.

“Arthur . . .”

“That’s right,” Edgar said. “Arthur. Glad you at least remember it.”

They watched her in silence for a few moments. All the years and all the distance wasn’t enough. She was hurt by the news. Hurt bad. Bosch had seen it before. The past had a way of coming back up out of the ground. Always right below your feet.

Bosch took his notebook out of his pocket and opened it to a blank page. He wrote “Cool it” on it and handed the notebook to Edgar.

“Jerry, why don’t you take some notes? I think Mrs. Waters wants to cooperate with us.”

His speaking drew Christine Waters out of her blue reverie. She looked at Bosch.

“What happened? Was it Sam?”

“We don’t know. That’s why we’re here. Arthur has been dead a long time. His remains were found just last week.”

She slowly brought one of her hands to her mouth in a fist. She lightly started bumping it against her lips.

“How long?”

“He had been buried for twenty years. It was a call from your daughter that helped us identify him.”