The Burning Room

by Michael Connelly

  “I can’t be more specific without you agreeing it’s off the record. For now. You’d obviously be first in if it comes to anything.”

  “And it is political? I cover politics, not crime.”

  Bosch ran into a slowdown across all eight lanes of the freeway as the traffic came to the 110 split. He thought maybe there was an event at the convention center. It was too early for a game or concert at Staples.

  “It’s both,” he said.

  “Politics and murder—that’s always a good story,” she said. “Okay, I give. We are off the record, on deep background. I do nothing with anything you give me until I get the high sign.”

  Deep background meant there would be no story until Bosch gave the okay. He was almost satisfied.

  “You don’t even tell your editor,” he said. “You tell no one.”

  “I don’t trust my editor,” she said. “He’d tell everyone in the news meeting and act like it was his work. Agreed.”

  Bosch paused. It was the point of no return with a reporter. He felt he could trust Skinner, but the halls of the PAB were littered with the carcasses of cops who thought they could trust reporters.

  He slowly merged onto the 110. His exit was less than a mile ahead but it might take him fifteen minutes to get there in the wall-to-wall traffic.

  “Are you there, Harry?”

  “Yes, I’m here. Okay, this is what I want. Do you know of a guy named Charles Broussard?”

  “Of course. People call him Brouss, like the name Bruce. He’s a money man. He owns a company that puts those concrete barriers on the freeways when there’s construction, and there’s always construction. What about him?”

  “Do you personally know him?”

  “No, but I may have talked to him once or twice for a quote or something. He was tight with Zeyas during that regime. I think he’s on the outs at city hall now because he backed the wrong horse the last time around. So I get it now. Broussard was close to Zeyas, and Zeyas was close to this mariachi guy who got shot. I wrote about that guy during the first campaign. I was assigned to Zeyas, remember?”

  “Look, don’t jump to conclusions. Can you meet me now? I want to know who Broussard gave money to in the past few campaigns. And I want to know about Broussard. Anything you might know.”

  “Meet you now? Can’t we do this Monday?”

  “If I wait till Monday, I don’t need you, Ginny. I can get this stuff on my own then.”

  Now it was Skinner who paused.

  “Come on,” Bosch urged. “Do this and then I’ll buy you a margarita for your last day as a forty-niner. They have to make a good margarita somewhere over there in the Pueblo.”

  “That’s tempting,” she finally said. “Okay, I’ll meet you at the Spring Street entrance at one o’clock.”

  Bosch checked his watch. That was nearly two hours away.

  “I’ll be there,” he said.

  19

  The Times was located directly across Spring Street from the PAB. The two buildings were so close that Harry once had a supervisor who closed the blinds on his office windows because he was certain there were Times reporters across the street watching him. Bosch parked in the underground garage at the PAB but didn’t go up to the squad. Instead he decided to get in some exercise and walked down 1st Street toward Mariachi Plaza. He had no investigative intent in going there but it always felt good to him to return to crime scenes during an investigation. He called it listening to the scene. There were nuances and small details that could be picked up even years after the crime. Plus there was a sense of ghosts, some sort of presence of those who had been murdered. Bosch always felt it, whether anybody else did or didn’t.

  Downtown was perfectly warm compared to when he had stepped out of the terminal at LAX, which was located at the edge of the chilly Pacific. The walk down 1st Street and through Little Tokyo was pleasant as the sun warmed Bosch’s shoulders. When he crossed the 1st Street bridge he noticed that someone had tied a clutch of flowers to one of the light poles at the center of the span. There was a cardboard heart that said “RIP Vanessa.” For some reason Bosch pulled out his phone and took a photo of the sad little memorial for a woman, or more likely a girl, who had jumped to her death. The cameras that had been put up on the bridge obviously did not stop all jumpers.

  He walked up to the rail and leaned over to look down. He wondered if Vanessa had regretted her decision during those last few seconds as she fell.

  He checked his watch and moved on. A few blocks later he got to Mariachi Plaza. Because it was a Saturday, the small triangular public space was crowded with mariachis, locals, and food and flower vendors. He realized that the plaza would have been this active on the day Orlando Merced was shot. The shooter must have planned on that. There would be more camouflage, more panic, more people running in all directions on a Saturday. Had that been part of the plan?

  He crossed 1st Street and started moving through the crowd. At least two of the bands were playing but it did not seem like a competition. It seemed as though the bands were warming up for the gigs that they hoped would follow in the afternoon and evening.

  Bosch saw that the door of the bookstore was open and there was a crowd inside. He read the banner that hung next to the door.

  LOS ANGELES IS LIKE YOUR BRAIN.

  YOU ONLY EVER USE 20% OF IT.

  BUT IMAGINE IF WE USED IT ALL.

  Harry turned toward the Metro entrance because the walk over had taken longer than expected and he didn’t want to be late for the meeting with Skinner. His plan was to take the Gold Line back across the bridge. He’d jump off at the Little Tokyo station and walk the rest of the way. It would save him fifteen minutes.

  But as Bosch approached the escalator, a voice called to him from behind. He turned around and there was Lucy Soto.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  “I was going to ask you the same thing,” she said.

  Bosch shrugged and made up a lie. He didn’t want to tell Soto that he was going to talk to a reporter about Broussard. Not yet.

  “I just wanted to see this place on a Saturday. You know, same day as the shooting. Wanted to get a feel for it. Listen to it.”

  “Same here.”

  Bosch nodded. He knew in that moment that she would be a good detective.

  “Were you going down to the Metro?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said. “I parked back at the PAB and walked over. The Metro will get me about halfway back.”

  “Don’t tell me Harry Bosch carries a TAP card.”

  She was being sarcastic. It was a crack at him being old school and set in his ways. The Metro was new in the evolution of the city and it had been difficult for lifelong L.A. drivers to adapt to using it.

  “Actually, I do,” he said. “You never know when it will come in handy.”

  “How about I just give you a ride? I’m parked over there.”

  She pointed toward the line of vans belonging to the bands. Each one had the band’s name and a phone number painted across the side panels. At the end of the line was a red two-seater with the top down.

  “Sounds good. I think.”

  Her car was small and low to the ground. Bosch had to turn and slowly lower himself into the cockpit.

  “I feel like I’m in a kayak or something,” he said.

  “Oh, relax,” Soto said. “It’s fun. I bet your daughter would like one of these.”

  “I wouldn’t let her. You need a roll bar for it.”

  “Just sit tight and we’ll be there in five minutes.”

  “No other way to sit in this thing.”

  She pulled away from the curb, slamming Bosch back into his seat and headrest. She made the light at Boyle and flew over the rise of the 1st Street bridge. Bosch felt himself about to smile but was able to contain it.

  “So you never really said anything about Bonnie Brae,” she yelled.

  Bosch looked over at her. Her eyes were hidden behind sunglasses that had
wind guards on the sides.

  “That’s because I’m not finished reviewing it,” he called back. “I started with the clips on the plane today but have a lot more to read.”

  She nodded.

  “Okay. Whenever you’re ready.”

  They hit the light at Alameda and Bosch didn’t have to yell once the car came to a stop.

  “There’s no guarantee that there will be anything there to work,” he said. “I mentioned visiting some of these guys in prison to see if that’s softened them up. But that’s a long shot. They know that if even a whiff of them cooperating gets out, they could end up dead in the yard. It will be hard finding somebody willing to risk that.”

  “I know,” she said, a hint of defeat in her voice.

  “We’ll see,” he said.

  They drove the rest of the way in silence and in two minutes she turned left on Spring and then over to the curb next to the PAB. She didn’t realize she was dropping him closer to his intended destination—the Times—than she had thought. He gingerly pulled himself up and out of the car.

  “Thanks for the ride. You going home now?”

  She nodded and smiled.

  “I’m going home.”

  “See you tomorrow, then.”

  “Yep. See you.”

  She took off and Bosch watched her until she made a turn a couple blocks down the street. He then crossed Spring to the sidewalk that ran alongside the Times Building.

  There was an entrance at the corner of Spring and 2nd. Bosch walked in and saw an anteroom where Virginia Skinner was standing, typing on her phone. She looked different than Bosch remembered from the last time he’d encountered her in person at least two years before. It was the hair and the glasses. Both different, but both suited her better.

  “Ginny.”

  She looked up and smiled.

  “Harry.”

  “Sorry if I kept you waiting.”

  “No, not at all. You’re right on time. I got so intrigued by your call that I drove in early to pull up some stuff and then came down here as soon as I was ready. You want to come up?”

  “Sure.”

  But Bosch was a little nervous. In all his years of dealing with reporters from the Times, he had never been up to the newsroom. There was a deal in place allowing employees from the PAB, simply by showing their ID cards, to enter the Times Building and use the first-floor cafeteria. Bosch was a frequent user of that courtesy, since there were only snack machines in the PAB, but the newsroom was new and forbidding territory. Bosch was glad it was a Saturday and both the PAB and the newspaper building were understaffed. The fewer people to see him cross the gray line, the better.

  The newsroom on the third floor was almost as vast as the squad room across the street. And just as empty. Skinner led Bosch to her cubicle, which was much like his. He looked around and saw the same sort of decorations on desks, the names written on seat backs, and the unkempt piles of paperwork and files.

  “What?” Skinner asked.

  “Nothing,” Bosch said. “Just never been up here before.”

  “It’s just a newsroom. And most of it’s a ghost town. Pull that chair from that desk over here. No one works there anymore.”

  Her comments alluded to the state of the newspaper business as a whole and the Times specifically. Bosch had heard that nearly half of the newsroom was empty these days as the newspaper tried to adjust to falling circulation and the migration of readers to the Internet.

  He brought the chair over and sat next to Skinner, who was already pulling up numbers on her computer screen.

  “You said you were interested in the past three elections. Where do you want to start?”

  “Let’s go three back.”

  “That’s what I thought and that’s what I have up here. You are specifically interested in Charles Broussard, and you can see here that personally, corporately, and with in-kind donations, he was hedging his bets.”

  Bosch leaned toward the computer screen but what he was looking at didn’t really make a lot of sense to him.

  “How so?” he asked.

  “He maxed out on two candidates,” Skinner said. “Zeyas, who eventually won, and Robert Inglin, who was eliminated before the runoff.”

  Bosch knew the name Robert Inglin. He was a former city councilman and perennial candidate for local offices. He was from Woodland Hills and carried the vast backing of the Valley when he entered a race.

  “What in-kind donations are we talking about?” he asked.

  “To get that we would have to pull records on Monday,” Skinner said. “But normally what that means is they sponsored an event that raised money for the candidate.”

  “Like a dinner.”

  “Exactly. Broussard provides the place, the staff, and the food, and all of that has to be reported as a donation. You can sort of see this in the numbers. Broussard made an in-kind donation here to Inglin on January twelfth in ’04. You then look at other donors and you have scads of donations for two hundred fifty dollars each on the same date. It obviously was a dinner for Inglin, and it cost anybody who went two hundred fifty bucks a plate.”

  Bosch pulled out his notebook and wrote the date down. He believed it was the date that Los Reyes Jalisco played at a fund-raiser at the Broussard house and Angel Ojeda met Maria Broussard. If this could be confirmed, it would go a long way toward supporting Ojeda’s veracity. This would be important if Bosch and Soto ever reached the point of going to the District Attorney’s Office with the case to seek charges against someone.

  “Okay,” he said. “So when did Broussard give money to Zeyas?”

  Skinner scrolled down the screen.

  “He put his money on Zeyas after,” she said. “First donation in May, right before the runoff.”

  She moved her finger across a line on the screen. Bosch leaned in to see and then wrote the date and the amount down in the notebook.

  “That was the max?” he asked.

  “Up until that point, yes,” Skinner said. “The most he could do.”

  Bosch leaned back and looked at his notes. Between Broussard’s going all in with Inglin in January and then all in with Zeyas in May, Orlando Merced was shot on April tenth. It made Bosch wonder about things. Was Broussard really hedging his bets and supporting two candidates equally, or had he changed allegiances from Inglin to Zeyas? And if so, why?

  “What else, Harry?” Skinner asked.

  “What happened in the next election?” he responded.

  Skinner went to work on the computer and pulled up financial figures from the 2008 election. She typed in a search for Broussard’s donations and then studied the results for a moment before speaking.

  “He was with Zeyas again,” she said. “Maxed out again.”

  “Did he hedge his bets?” Bosch asked.

  “You mean donate to other candidates?”

  Bosch nodded. She looked at the charts for a moment before drawing a conclusion.

  “He contributed in many other races,” she said. “Sometimes to two competing candidates. But when it came to Zeyas he never doubled down after that first run for mayor. He was exclusive to him.”

  “Okay,” Bosch said. “Zeyas is now going for the governor’s job. Has he started taking donations? Can you see if Broussard is still supporting him?”

  “That would be under the state, so that will take a little more . . .”

  She pulled up another screen of numbers and studied them.

  “Yes,” she finally said. “He’s still a major funder—contributed to the Zeyas exploratory campaign for governor.”

  Bosch nodded and wrote a few notes down.

  “Anything else?” Skinner asked.

  “I think that’s good,” Bosch said. “Thanks for this.”

  “You owe me a margarita. But I’d trade it for your telling me what’s going on.”

  Bosch was quiet a moment as he thought about how to answer. He had to give her something, because if he didn’t, she might very well go of
f on her own, and that could be disastrous if she drew the notice of Charles Broussard.

  “Tell you what,” he finally said. “Let me have a day with what you’ve given me and then I’ll come back to you. I don’t want you going off and doing anything on your own. It could be dangerous.”

  Skinner held back a smile.

  “Now you’re really hooking me. You’ve got to tell me something, Harry. Pretty please?”

  “Look, I really can’t. You’ve been very helpful here and I owe you for that, but I need to check a few things out first. What are you doing tomorrow? I can—oh, never mind, it’s your birthday. I forgot.”

  “Tomorrow I’m not doing anything. You think I want people to know I’m fifty? In this business it’s an invitation to a pink slip. I shouldn’t even have told you.”

  Bosch now held back a smile. He realized he was attracted to her. She was all business. He liked that about her.

  “Tell you what,” he said. “Let’s have dinner tomorrow and we won’t even mention it’s your birthday. By then I think I can continue this conversation—as long as we’re still off the record.”

  She looked at him suspiciously.

  “The dinner, the birthday, everything off the record?”

  “Yes, everything. But it’s gotta be early. I have a daughter and she works till about eight-thirty. So let’s say we get together at six-thirty or seven. Deal?”

  She didn’t hesitate.

  “Deal.”

  20

  Bosch took all the binders from the Bonnie Brae murder case home with him Saturday night. He decided that the strides being made on the Merced case required his full attention. No more jumping back and forth from case to case. He would finish the review of the deadly arson investigation and in the morning tell Lucy Soto his final thoughts on it before they moved on to Merced and the focus on Charles Broussard. With a clear direction now apparent, the Merced case demanded it.

  Before getting down to work, he saw his daughter off on her date, telling her that he would have preferred to meet the young man she was rendezvousing with at the Grove shopping center. She countered that this was the way things were done these days and reminded him that it was not a one-on-one date but that several of the Explorers from the Hollywood Division were getting together for dinner and a movie. This mollified Bosch but he did not let her out the door without a hug and a promise of regular text updates—except during the movie, a science-fiction story starring Matthew McConaughey.