The Drop hb-17

by Michael Connelly

  “I’m going in six A to see if this is worth our while.”

  It was called jumping the warrant. Checking a place out before a search has officially been approved by a judge. If it was ever acknowledged as a police practice, people could lose their badges, even end up in jail. But the truth was, many were the times that search warrants were authored with full knowledge of what would be found in the targeted structure or vehicle. This was because the police had already been inside.

  “You sure you need to, Harry?” Chu asked.

  “Yeah. If Hardy made a play on me while I was playing him, then I want to know sooner rather than later so we aren’t spinning our wheels.”

  “Then just wait till I’m inside so I don’t know about it.”

  Bosch gestured toward the door of 6B like a maître d’, with his arm out and his body slightly bent at the waist. Chu headed back to the town house but then stopped and came back.

  “When are we going to tell the other LAPD that we’re here and what we’re doing?”

  “What other LAPD?”

  “Los Alamitos Police Department.”

  “Not quite yet,” Bosch said. “When we get an approval on the warrant, we can call them in.”

  “They’re not going to like that.”

  “Tough shit. Our case, our arrest.”

  Bosch knew that a department the size of Los Alamitos could easily be bigfooted by the “real” LAPD.

  Chu started toward the door to 6B again and Bosch headed back to the car. He popped the trunk and from the equipment box took several pairs of latex gloves and put them into his coat pocket. He grabbed a flashlight in case it was needed and closed the trunk.

  Bosch walked back to 6A but was distracted by the sound of yelling coming from 6B as he approached. It was Hardy.

  Bosch went through the door of 6B. Hardy was still lying prone under the couch. Chu was sitting on a chair he had brought out from the kitchen and was working on his laptop. Hardy went silent as Bosch entered.

  “What’s he yelling about?”

  “First he wanted a cigarette. Now he wants his attorney.”

  Bosch looked down at the overturned couch.

  “As soon as you’re booked you get your phone call.”

  “Then book me!”

  “We are securing the scene first. And if you keep yelling, then we are going to further secure you with a gag.”

  “I’m entitled to an attorney. You said so yourself.”

  “You’ll get the phone call when everyone else gets the phone call. When you’re booked.”

  Bosch turned back toward the door.

  “Hey, Bosch?”

  He turned back.

  “Did you go in yet?”

  Bosch didn’t answer. Hardy continued.

  “They’re going to make movies about us.”

  Chu glanced up and exchanged a look with Bosch. There were killers who got off on their infamy and the fear their legends created. Real-life bogeymen, urban myth becoming urban reality. Hardy had stayed hidden for so many years. Now it would be his turn in the spotlight.

  “Sure,” Bosch said. “You’re going to be the most famous asshole on death row.”

  “Please. You know I’ll be able to beat the needle for twenty years. At least. Who do you think will play me in the movie?”

  Bosch didn’t answer. He stepped out onto the stoop and casually glanced around to see if there were any nearby pedestrians or motorists. It was clear. He quickly walked to the door of 6A and pulled Hardy’s key ring out of his pocket. He tried one of the Schlage keys on the deadbolt and got lucky with his first try. The key also fit the knob lock. He pushed the door open and entered, then closed it behind him.

  Standing still in the entry, Bosch pulled on a set of latex gloves. The place was as dark as night. He swept the wall with his freshly gloved hand until he found a switch.

  A dim ceiling light exposed 6A as a house of horrors. A jerry-built wall had been constructed across the front windows, ensuring darkness and privacy as well as a layer of soundproofing. All four walls of the front room had been used as a gallery for photo collages and newspaper stories of murder and rape and torture. Newspapers from as far as San Diego, Phoenix and Las Vegas. Stories about unexplained abductions, body dumps, missing people. It was clear that if these cases were the work of Hardy, then he was a traveler. His hunting territory was immense.

  Bosch studied the photos. Hardy’s victims included both young men and women. Some were children. Bosch moved slowly, studying the horrible images. He stopped when he came to a full front page of the Los Angeles Times, yellowed and cracked now, with the smiling face of a young girl in a photo next to a story about her disappearance from a West Valley mall. He leaned closer to read the story until it said her name. He knew the name and the case and he now remembered why the address on Hardy’s driver’s license had sounded familiar to him.

  Eventually he had to break away from the ghastly images. This was a pre-search sweep. He had to keep moving. When he came to the door to the garage, Bosch knew what he would find before he opened it. There in the bay sat a white work van. Hardy’s most important abduction tool.

  It was a late-model Dodge. Bosch used the key to unlock it and look inside. It was empty except for a mattress and a hanging tool rack with two rolls of duct tape on it. Bosch put the key in the ignition and started the engine so he could check the mileage. The van had over 140,000 miles on it, another indication of the killer’s territory. He cut the engine and relocked the van.

  Bosch had seen enough to know what they had, but he was drawn upstairs, anyway. He checked the front bedroom first and found it empty of furniture. All that was here were several small piles of clothing. There were T-shirts with pop stars’ faces on them, several pairs of blue jeans, separate piles just for bras and underwear and belts. The clothing of the victims.

  The walk-in closet had a hasp and padlock on it. Bosch pulled the key ring again and fitted the smallest key into the padlock. He opened the closet door and flicked the switch on the outside wall. The small room was empty. The walls, ceiling and floor had been painted black. Two thick steel eyebolts protruded from the back wall, three feet off the ground. It was clearly a storage room for Hardy’s victims. Bosch thought about all of the people who had spent their last hours in this room, gagged, secured to the bolts, waiting for Hardy to end their agony.

  In the back bedroom, there was a bed with a bare mattress on it. In the corner was a camera tripod without a camera. Bosch opened the closet doors and found it to be the electronics center. There were video cameras, archaic still and Polaroid cameras and a laptop computer, and the upper shelves were lined with DVD cases and VHS tapes. On one of the shelves were three old shoeboxes. Bosch pulled one down and opened it. It was filled with old Polaroids, mostly bleached out now, depicting many different young women and men engaged in oral sex with a man whose face was never seen.

  Bosch put the box back in its place and closed the closet doors. He went back into the hallway. The bathroom was just as dirty as the bathroom in 6B but the tub ring was brownish-red and Bosch knew that this was where Hardy washed the blood off. He backed out of the room and checked the hallway closet. It was empty except for a black plastic case that stood about four and a half feet high and was roughly the shape of a bowling pin. There was a handle on the top of it. Bosch grabbed it and tipped it forward. There were two wheels on the bottom and he rolled it out into the hallway. The case felt empty and Bosch wondered if it had contained a musical instrument.

  But then he saw a manufacturer’s plate on the side of the container. It said Golf+Go Systems and Bosch realized it was a case for transporting golf clubs on planes. He laid it down on the carpet and opened it, noting that the two latches could be locked with a key. It was empty but Bosch saw that there were three rough-edged holes the size of dimes cut into the top facing of the container.

  Bosch closed it, righted it and put it back in the closet to be found later during the official searc
h. He shut the door and headed back downstairs.

  When he was halfway down the stairs, Bosch suddenly stopped and gripped the banister. He knew the dime-sized holes in the golf clubs carrier were to allow air into the case. And he knew a child or small person could fit inside. The inhumanity and depravity suddenly seized him. He could smell the blood. He could hear the muffled pleas. He knew the misery of this place.

  He put his shoulder against the wall for a moment and then slid down to a seated position on the steps. He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. He was hyperventilating and tried to slow down his breathing cycle. He ran a hand back through his hair and then held the hand across his mouth.

  He closed his eyes and remembered another time when he was in a place of death, huddled in a tunnel and far from home. He was really just a boy then and he was scared and trying to control his breathing. That was the key. Control your breathing and you control the fear.

  He sat there for no more than two minutes but it seemed like an entire night went by. Finally his breathing returned to normal and the memory of the tunnels faded.

  His phone buzzed and it brought him out of the dark moment. He pulled it and looked at the screen. It was Chu.

  “Yeah?”

  “Harry, you okay over there? You’re taking a long time.”

  “I’m cool. I’ll be over in a minute.”

  “Are we good?”

  Meaning did Bosch find what they needed in 6A.

  “Yeah, we’re good.”

  He disconnected and then called Tim Marcia’s direct number. He obliquely explained to the squad whip what was going on.

  “We’re going to need people down here,” Bosch said. “I think there’s going to be a lot of work to do. We are also going to need media relations and a liaison with the locals. We should set up a command post because we’re going to be here all week.”

  “Okay, I’m on it,” Marcia said. “I’ll talk to the lieutenant and we’ll start mobilizing. It sounds like we’re going to need to send everybody.”

  “That would be good.”

  “Are you all right, Harry? You sound weird.”

  “I’m all right.”

  Bosch gave him the address and hung up. He sat still for another two minutes and then made the next call, to Kizmin Rider’s cell.

  “Harry, I know why you’re calling and all I can tell you is that it was thought out very carefully. A decision was made that was best for the department and we’re never going to talk about it. It’s best that way for you, too.”

  She was talking about the Times story on Irving and the taxi franchise. The case seemed so distant to Bosch now. And so meaningless.

  “That’s not why I’m calling.”

  “Oh. Then, what’s up? You don’t sound right.”

  “I’m fine. We just took down a big one that I’m sure the chief’s going to want to get in on. You remember the Mandy Phillips case up in the West Valley about nine, ten years ago?”

  “No, refresh me.”

  “Thirteen years old, she got grabbed at a mall out there. Never found, nobody ever arrested.”

  “You got the guy?”

  “Yeah, and get this. When he got a driver’s license three years ago? He gave the girl’s address as his own.”

  Rider was silent as she registered Hardy’s audacity.

  “I’m glad you got him,” she finally said.

  “She’s not the only one. We’re down in Orange County putting it together. But it’s going to get big. The guy claims his number is thirty-seven.”

  “Oh, my god!”

  “He’s got a closet full of cameras and photos and tapes. There are VHS tapes, Kiz. This guy’s been at this a very long time.”

  Bosch knew he was taking a risk in revealing to Rider what he had found while jumping the warrant. They had been partners once but the bulletproof bond they shared then was now rusting through. Still, he risked it. Politics and high jingo aside, if he couldn’t trust her, then he could trust no one.

  “You told Lieutenant Duvall all of this?”

  “I told the whip. Not everything, but enough. I think they’re coming down with everybody.”

  “Okay, I’ll check in and monitor things. I don’t know if the chief will go down there. But he’ll want to get involved. They may want to use the theater here for something like this.”

  The PAB complex had a ground-level theater that was used for award programs, special events and major press conferences. This would be one of those.

  “Okay, but that wasn’t the main reason I called.”

  “Well, what was the main reason?”

  “Did you do anything yet about moving my partner out of the unit?”

  “Uh, no. I’ve been a little busy this morning.”

  “Good. Then don’t. Never mind that.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, then.”

  “And that other thing you mentioned. About me getting the whole five years on the DROP. Is that something you still think you can do?”

  “I was pretty sure I could get it done when I made the offer. After this case, I think it’s a cinch. They’re going to want to keep you around, Harry. You’re about to get famous.”

  “I don’t want to be famous. I just want to work cases.”

  “I understand that. I’ll go for the full five.”

  “Thanks, Kiz. And I guess I should get back to it now. A lot going on here.”

  “Good luck, Harry. Keep it between the lines.”

  Meaning don’t break the rules. The case is too big, too important.

  “Got it.”

  “And Harry?”

  “Yeah.”

  “This is why we do this. Because of people like this guy. Monsters like him, they don’t stop until we stop them. It’s noble work. Remember that. Just think how many people you just saved.”

  Bosch nodded and thought about the golf clubs carrier. He knew it was going to be something that stayed with him forever. Hardy had been right when he warned that going into 6A would change Bosch.

  “Not enough,” he said.

  He disconnected and thought about things. Two days ago he didn’t think he could leg out the last thirty-nine months of his career. Now he wanted the full five years. Whatever his failings were on the Irving case, he now understood that the mission didn’t end. There was always the mission and always work to be done. His kind of work.

  This is why we do this.

  Bosch nodded. Kiz got that right.

  He used the banister to pull himself up to a standing position and then started down the stairs again. He needed to get out of the town house and into the sunlight.

  37

  By noon a search warrant had been signed by superior court judge George Companioni and the horrors contained inside town house 6A were officially and legally confirmed by Bosch, Chu and other members of the Open-Unsolved Unit. Chilton Hardy was then moved to one of the squad’s cars and transported to the Metropolitan Detention Center for booking by detectives Baker and Kehoe. Bosch and Chu, as the lead investigators, remained behind to work the crime scene.

  Soon the street outside the side-by-side town houses where Hardy had lived as his father and carried out his ghastly desires took on a circus atmosphere as reports of the horrific findings drew more investigators and law enforcement officers as well as forensic technicians and the media from two counties. It would not be long before tiny Los Alamitos attracted the attention of the entire world as the story was catapulted onto every news site on the Internet as well as the cable and broadcast television networks.

  A jurisdictional squabble between the two LAPDs was quickly settled in favor of Los Angeles handling all of the investigative aspects of the case, while Los Alamitos was given site security as well as crowd and media control. The latter included a traffic shutdown on the block and an evacuation of all other residents in the six-unit town house complex where Hardy lived and operated. Both sides dug in for what was expecte
d to be a minimum weeklong crime scene investigation. Both sides brought in onsite media spokesmen to handle the expected crush of reporters, cameras and satellite trucks that would descend on the once quiet neighborhood.

  The chief of police and the commander of the Robbery-Homicide Division put their heads together and created an investigative battle plan that had at least one immediate surprise attached. Lieutenant Duvall, supervisor of the Open-Unsolved Unit, was aced out of running the show. What would be arguably her unit’s finest hour and most important investigation was placed in the hands of Lieutenant Larry Gandle, another RHD squad leader who had more experience than Duvall and was considered far more media savvy. Gandle would direct the ongoing investigation.

  Bosch couldn’t complain about the move. He had been on Gandle’s homicide team previous to his assignment in OU and they had worked well together. Gandle was a roll-up-his-sleeves kind of guy who trusted his investigators. He was not the kind of supervisor who hid behind closed doors and shuttered blinds.

  One of the first moves Gandle made after conferring with Bosch and Chu was to call for a meeting of all the investigators on the scene. They stood together in the dark front room of unit 6A after Gandle temporarily shooed a team of forensic photographers and technicians out.

  “Okay, people, listen up,” he said. “I didn’t think we should meet together outside in the sunshine and fresh air. I thought it would be better for us to be in here, where it’s dark and it stinks of death. The indications are that many people died in this place and that they died horribly. They were tortured and murdered and we must respect them and honor them by doing our very best work here. We cut no corners, we bend no rules. We do it right. I don’t care if this guy Hardy is riding in that car right now with Baker and Kehoe and confessing his ass off. We are going to put together a case that is absolutely fucking bulletproof. We all make the vow right now that this guy never sees the light of day again. Destination: death row. Nothing else. Everybody got that?”

  There were a few nods across the room. It was the first time Bosch had ever seen the lieutenant giving a pep talk like a football coach. Harry liked it and thought it was a good move to remind everyone in the room how high the stakes were with the investigation.