Suicide Run: Three Harry Bosch Stories (8 page)

“Okay, and what about the second car?”

“That’s the thing, Harry. I couldn’t find anybody walking out of the casino that connects with that car. Not at first. So I had to go all the way back an hour to find the guy. He left an hour before the victim and he sat out there in his car waiting for her.”

Bosch started to pace in the street as all of this registered.

“Did you also look at the tapes from inside the casino with this guy?” he asked.

“I did. And the guy wasn’t playing, Harry. He was just watching. He was walking around, acting like he was a player but he never actually played. He was watching the tables and in the last hour he was watching her play. The victim. He zeroed in on her, then he left and waited for her in the parking lot.”

Bosch nodded slowly. He was seeing the case turning completely in a new direction. Kimber Gunn walked up to him then but he held up a finger so he could finish the call.

“Ignacio, did you get plates off the cars that left after Tracey Blitzstein?”

“Yeah, we got the plates on the tape. The first car was registered to a Douglas Pennington of Beverly Hills. The second car’s registered to a Charles Turnbull of Hollywood.”

Beverly Hills and Hollywood were on the west side, same as Venice. If Pennington and Turnbull were heading home from the casino in Commerce, they would have gone in the same direction as Tracey Blitzstein. That was explainable—at least as far as Pennington went. But Turnbull’s activity in the casino and then his waiting in the parking lot for an hour wasn’t—yet.

“And you put them through the box?” Bosch asked his partner.

“Yeah, both clean. I mean, Turnbull’s got a lot of parking and moving violations but that’s it.”

Bosch looked into Gunn’s eyes while he tried to think about what to do. Her eyebrows were raised. He could tell she sensed a change in the winds of the investigation.

“Harry, what do you want me to do?” Ferras asked.

“Head to Parker Center. I’m going to put Sauer on a search warrant for the victim’s house. Hopefully he’ll have it signed and ready to go by the time you get there. Pick it up and come out here to the scene. We’ll figure out things then.”

“What about Turnbull?”

“Give me his address. I’m going to take a run by there now.”

After he finished the call and hung up, Gunn spoke first.

“I checked the purse. The money’s gone. What’s happening?”

“You have a company car here?”

“Yeah, I’ve got a piece-of-shit cruiser from the barn at Pacific.”

“Good. You drive. I’ll tell you what’s happening on the way. Everything I just told you—that we talked about—it all just went down the tubes.”

The address Ferras had given Bosch for the home of Charles Turnbull led to a brick apartment building on Franklin. On the way there Bosch filled Gunn in on what Ferras had come up with at the casino in Commerce.

They had no background on Turnbull other than what Ferras had given them but when they got to the entrance to the apartment building, another new dimension was added. Next to the button for apartment 4B it said
Turnbull Investigations.
Before pushing the button, Bosch called Jim Sauer at Parker Center and asked him to run the name Charles Turnbull through the state corporations and licensing computer. A few minutes later he hung up.

“He’s held a PI license for sixteen years,” he told Gunn. “Before that he was a Santa Monica cop.”

Bosch pushed the button next to Turnbull Investigations. After getting no response he pushed it two more times, each time longer than the time before. He had opened his phone again and was asking directory assistance for a number for Turnbull when a sleepy and annoyed voice sounded from the speaker above the entrance buttons.

“
Whaaat
is it?”

Bosch stepped close to the speaker.

“Mr. Turnbull?”

“What? It’s eight o’clock in the morning!”

“LAPD, Mr. Turnbull. We need to speak to you.”

“About what?”

“It’s an emergency situation, sir, involving one of your clients. Can we come up?”

“Which client?”

“Can we come up?”

There was no response for five seconds and then there was a buzzing sound and the entrance door was electronically unlocked. They took the elevator up to the fourth floor and on the way Bosch unsnapped the safety strap on his holster. Gunn did the same.

“That a Kimber?” Bosch asked.

“Yeah, the Ultra Carry.”

Bosch nodded. It was the same weapon he carried.

“Good gun. Never jams.”

“I hope we don’t have to find out.”

When they stepped out of the elevator, there was a man standing in the hallway in blue jeans and a white T-shirt. He wore a ragged bathrobe over the ensemble, which hid much of his belt line and anything he might have hidden in it. He was in bare feet and his dark brown hair was sticking straight up on one side. He had been asleep.

“Turnbull?” Bosch asked, while using his right hand to show the man his badge.

“What’s this about?” the man asked.

“Not in the hallway. Can we come in, Mr. Turnbull?”

“Whatever.”

He pointed them toward the open door to apartment B but Bosch signaled him to go in first. Bosch wanted to keep Turnbull in front of him and in sight at all times.

“Have a seat if you can find a spot,” Turnbull said as they entered. “Coffee?”

“I could use some,” Bosch said.

“Thank you,” said Gunn.

They both remained standing. The apartment had furnishings of a contemporary design but it was cluttered with Turnbull’s work. There were files stacked on the coffee table and spread on a couch. It was clear that the living room was the nexus of his practice.

Bosch followed him to the kitchen alcove, again so he could keep a visual on him. Turnbull spoke as he filled a glass coffeepot with water.

“Which client is in the shit?” Turnbull asked.

“What do you mean?”

“You said there was an emergency. So which client is in the shit?”

Bosch decided to roll with things.

“David Blitzstein,” he said.

Turnbull was about to pour the water into the coffee brewer but paused with the glass pot held above it. He shook his head.

“Don’t know that name,” he said. “Not my client.”

“Really? You were working for him last night,” Bosch said.

Turnbull smiled.

“You’ve got your facts wrong, Detective.”

Turnbull poured the water into the brewer and set the glass pot underneath it.

“You own a weapon, Mr. Turnbull? You know I can find out with one phone call.”

“You probably already have. Yes, I own a weapon but I almost never carry it. It’s ancient. From my days with the cops. A thirty-eight-caliber Smith and Wesson. A wheel gun. No cop would use one today.”

A revolver. No ejection of shells. It was the wrong caliber and wrong kind of gun for the Blitzstein killing.

“We’ll check to make sure. You want to show it to me?”

Turnbull leaned back against a counter in the kitchen and folded his arms in a gesture of frustration.

“Sure, I’ll show it to you, just as soon as the bank down the street opens up at nine because it’s in a safe-deposit box. Like I told you, I rarely use the thing. Now, you guys are either seriously running down the wrong alley or I am missing something right in front of my face. I don’t know any David Blitzstein. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Bosch instinctively believed him. He also believed that something was wrong. They were indeed down the wrong alley. He decided to try the direct approach.

“All right, let’s stop dancing. You were at the casino in Commerce last night. Why?”

Turnbull raised his eyebrows. It was the first thing that made sense to him.

“I was working. But not for or against David Blitzstein.”

“Then let’s start with who hired you.”

“A lawyer named Robert Suggs. I do a lot of work for him. He’s a divorce lawyer.”

“All right, then, what were you doing?”

“I was watching an individual for another individual, a client of Bob Suggs.”

Bosch nodded that he understood.

“Mr. Turnbull. I think we have made a mistake here but we need to be sure. The individual you were watching, what was his name?”

“I would have to call Suggs before I could reveal that.”

“Was it Douglas Pennington of Brentwood?”

Bosch saw the tell in Turnbull’s eyes. The name was familiar to him.

“I can’t say,” Turnbull said.

“You just did,” Bosch said. “Look, I understand your position. I spent two years working a private ticket myself and I know how that is. But we’re working a homicide here. So let’s find a middle ground where you can help us and help yourself by being done with us. Let’s forget names. We’ll go with individuals. Tell us what you can about the case you were working last night.”

Coffee started dripping into the pot and its smell began to pervade the apartment. It kicked off a craving in Bosch. The charge from his first cup of the day was dead and gone.

“An individual hired my employer to begin the marital dissolution process. Only this individual’s husband doesn’t know about it yet. We’re in what we call the hunting-and-gathering stage. She tells us that she thinks her husband’s got a girlfriend on the side. Once or twice a week he stays out almost all night, telling her he’s playing poker. She’s noticed that the bank account has been dropping eight to ten grand a month with withdrawals he has made.”

“So you were tailing him last night,” Bosch said.

Turnbull nodded

“That’s correct.”

“And it turned out he actually was playing poker.”

“Correct again.”

“How much did he lose?”

“About two grand. He played at a high-stakes table and a woman cleaned him out. In a way, the wife turned out to be right. He gave his money to another woman.”

Turnbull smiled and then snapped his fingers and pointed at Bosch.

“Blitz. I heard the woman who was cleaning up at that table called Blitz. Is she the homicide?”

He turned toward a cabinet but kept his eyes on Bosch. He opened it and pulled out three cups. He set them on the counter next to the coffeemaker.

“Yeah, she’s the one,” Bosch said.

“She left at the same time as my guy and so the cameras in the parking lot gave you the idea that I was tailing her, not him.”

“Something like that.”

Turnbull hit a switch on the brewer and pulled out the glass pot. He poured three cups and asked if anybody wanted sugar or powdered cream. There were no takers.

“Of course,” he said. “You’re cops.”

Bosch drank from the cup he was given and the coffee was strong and hot, just like he wanted it. He relaxed a bit. Turnbull was a dead end as far as being a suspect but he could still be useful as a witness.

“You went out to the parking lot about an hour ahead of your subject,” he said. “How come?”

“Because I was tired of acting like I belonged in there. I had to start playing or I had to get out of there. I don’t play poker. No interest. So I went out and sat on his car.”

“See anything unusual out there?”

“No, just people coming and going.”

“What about the woman when she came out? Did you see her?”

“I saw her. My guy had already come out and he was sitting in his car smoking and trying to cool down after dropping all that money. So then she came out with a security guy. I thought that was a good move. She was probably carrying a lot of dough after the way she was playing. She was cleaning everybody out. Not just my guy.”

Bosch nodded.

“Then what?”

“Then nothing. I was watching because my guy was in his car and thought maybe if there was something going on, I was going to see it right there. But she got in her car and left. Then my guy left and I followed him.”

“Nothing else with her in the parking lot.”

“Not in the parking lot, no.”

“Meaning…?”

“Well, I don’t know if it means anything at all. But I was on the job once, a long, long time ago, and I know you guys want everything about everything. So I’ll give you everything. On the freeway she almost lost control of her car.”

“How so?”

“I’m not really sure but I think she was doing something, maybe she dropped something or she was reaching for something, and it made her swerve out of her lane and then back into it. She looked like she was drunk-driving but she wasn’t drunk. When I was watching her in the card room she was drinking bottled water only.”

“Was it a cell phone? Was she looking down while driving?”

“I don’t think so. Not a cell phone. I probably would have seen the light. Anyway, when she swerved I was right behind her so I lit her up with my brights to see if she was all right. I didn’t see any phone. She was sort of bent over like she had dropped something down by the bottom of the door. She sat up when I hit her with the brights. She looked back at me in the rearview and I turned them off.”

Bosch thought about this for a few minutes, wondering what Tracey Blitzstein had been doing. He then realized that maybe she had made the same mistake he had just made, mistaking Turnbull for a follower, and was hiding the money she had won under the seat as a precaution against robbery.

“Do you think she saw you leaving the casino lot?” he asked.

“I don’t know. She could have.”

“Is there a chance she could have thought you were following her? Or a chance that she thought the guy you were following was following her?”

Turnbull drank some coffee and thought over his answer before voicing it.

“If she thought anybody was following her, it would have been me. We were all going the same way but my guy got ahead of her. So if she was checking the mirrors, she would have seen me. If I had won that kind of money, I would’ve been checking my mirrors.”

Bosch nodded and thought about everything for a few moments.

“When exactly did she make that swerve between the lanes?” he then asked.

“Almost as soon as we got up on the freeway. Like I said, my guy got ahead of the both of us. So I dropped behind her and was kind of using her car to shield myself from my guy—in case
he
was watching the mirrors. So she easily might’ve thought I was on her instead of him.”