The Narrows - A Harry Bosch Novel, Book 10: Booktrack Edition - Michael Connelly (Audiobook)

the narrows by michael connolly read by john chancellor all they did was trade one monster for another instead of a dragon they now have a snake a giant snake that sleeps in the narrows and bites its time until the moment is right and it can open its jaws and swallow someone down john kinsey father of a boy lost in the narrows los angeles times july 21st 1956 prologue i think maybe i only know one thing in this world one thing for sure and that is that the truth does not set you free not like i have heard it said and not like i have said it myself the countless times i sat in small rooms and jail cells and urged ragged men to confess their sins to me i lied to them trick them the truth does not salvage you or make you whole again it does not allow you to rise above the burden of lies and secrets and wounds to the heart the truths i have learned hold me down like chains in a dark room an underworld of ghosts and victims that slither around me like snakes it is a place where the truth is not something to look at or behold it is the place where evil waits where it blows its breath every breath into your mouth and nose until you cannot escape from it that is what i know the only thing i knew this going in on the day i took the case that would lead me into the narrows i knew that my life's mission would always take me to the places where evil waits to the places where the truth that i might find would be an ugly and horrible thing and still i went without pause and still i went not being ready for the moment when evil would come from its waiting place when it would grab at me like an animal and take me down into the black water chapter one she was in darkness floating on a black sea a starless sky above she could hear nothing and see nothing it was a perfect black moment but then rachel walling opened her eyes from the dream she stared up at the ceiling she listened to the wind outside and heard the branches of the azalea scratching against the window she wondered if it was the scratching on glass or some other noise from within the house that had awakened her then her cell phone rang she wasn't startled she calmly reached to the bed table she brought the phone to her ear and was fully alert when she answered her voice showing no indication of sleep agent walling she said rachel it's cherie day rachel knew right away that this would not be a res call cherie day meant quantico it had been four years since the last time rachel had been waiting where are you rachel i'm at home where did you think i'd be i know you cover a lot of territory now i thought maybe you i'm in rapid city cherie what is it she answered after a long moment of silence he's resurfaced he's back rachel felt an invisible fist punch into her chest and then hold there her mind conjured memories and images bad ones she closed her eyes cherie day didn't have to use a name rachel knew it was bacchus the poet had resurfaced just as they knew he would like a virulent infection that moves through the body hidden from the outside for years then breaking the skin as a reminder of its ugliness tell me three days ago we got something in quantico a package in the mail it contained three days you sat on it for three we didn't sit on anything we took our time with it it was addressed to you at behavioral sciences the mailroom brought it down to us and we had it x-rayed and then we opened it carefully what was in it a gps reader a global positioning system reader longitude and latitude coordinates rachel had encountered one on a case the previous year an abduction out in the badlands where the missing camper had marked her trail with a hand-held gps they found it in her pack and traced her steps back to a camp where she had encountered a man and he had followed her they got there too late to save her but they would have never gotten there at all if it hadn't been for the gps what was on it rachel sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed she brought her free hand to her stomach and closed it like a dead flower she waited and soon cherie day continued rachel remembered her once as being so green just an observer and learner on the go team assigned to her under the bureau's mentoring program ten years later in the cases all the cases had etched deep grooves into her voice cherie day wasn't green anymore and she needed no mentor it had one waypoint in its record the mojave just inside the california border at nevada we flew out yesterday and we went to the marker we've been using thermal imaging and gas probes late yesterday we found the first body rachel who is it we don't know yet it's old it had been there a long time we're just starting with it the excavation work is slow you said the first body how many more are there as of when i left the scene last we were up to four we think there's more cause of death too early rachel was silent as she thought about this the first questions that ran through her filters were why there and why now rachel i'm not calling just to tell you the point is the poet is back in play and we want you out here rachel nodded it was a given that she would go there cherie what why do you think he was the one who sent the package we don't think it we know it we got a match a little while ago on a fingerprint from the gps he replaced the batteries on it and we got a thumb off of one of them robert backus it's him he's back rachel slowly opened her fist and studied her hand it was as still as the statues the dread she had felt just a moment before was changing she could admit it to herself but no one else she could feel the juice begin moving in her blood again turning at a darker red almost black she had been waiting for this call she slept every night with the cell phone near her ear yes it was part of the job the call outs but this was the only call she had truly been waiting for you can name the waypoints they said in the silence on the gps up to 12 characters in spaces he named this point hello rachel an exact fit i guess he still has something for you it's like he's calling you out has some sort of plan rachel's memory dredged up an image of a man falling backward through glass and into darkness disappearing into the dark void below i'm on my way she said we're running it out of the vegas field office it will be easier to keep a blanket on it from there just be careful rachel we don't know what he has in mind with this you know watch your back i will i always do call me with the details and i'll pick you up i will she repeated then she pushed the button that disconnected the call she reached to the bed table and turned on the light for a moment she remembered the dream the stillness of the black water and the sky above like black mirrors facing each other and her in the middle just floating chapter 2 graciela mccaleb was waiting by her car outside my house in los angeles when i got there she had been on time for our appointment but i had not i quickly parked in the carport and jumped out to greet her she didn't seem upset with me she seemed to take it in stride graciela i am so sorry i'm late i got backed up on the 10 with all the morning traffic it's okay i was kind of enjoying it it's so quiet up here i used my key to unlock the door when i pushed it open it wedged against some of the mail that was on the floor inside i had to bend down and reach around the door to pull the envelopes free and get the door open standing and turning back to graciela i extended my hand into the house she passed by me and entered i didn't smile under the circumstances the last time i had seen her was at the funeral she looked only marginally better this time the grief still holding in her eyes and at the corners of her mouth as she moved past me in the tight entry hall i smelled a sweet orange fragrance i remembered that from the funeral from when i had clasped her hand with both of mine and said how sorry i was for her loss and offered my help if she needed it in any way she was wearing black then this day she was wearing a flowery summer dress that went better with the fragrance i pointed her to the living room and told her to have a seat on the couch i asked if she wanted something to drink even though i knew i had nothing in the house to respond with but probably a couple bottles of beer in the box and water from the tap i'm fine mr bush no thank you please call me harry nobody calls me mr bosh now i try to smile but it didn't work on her and i didn't know why i expected it would she'd been through a lot in her life i'd seen the movie and now this latest tragedy i sat down in the chair across from the couch and waited she cleared her throat before speaking i guess you must be wondering why i needed to talk to you i was not very forthcoming on the phone that's all right i said but it did make me curious is something wrong what can i do for you she nodded and looked down at her hands which held a small black beaded purse on her lap it looked like something she might have bought for the funeral something is very wrong and i don't know who to turn to i know enough about things from terry i mean how they work to know i can't go to the police not yet besides they'll be coming to me soon i suppose but until then i need someone i can trust who will help me i can pay you leaning forward i put my elbows on my knees and my hands together i had only met her that one other time at the funeral her husband and i had once been close but not in the last few years and now it was too late i didn't know where the trust she spoke of came from what did terry tell you about me that would make you want to trust me to choose me you and i don't really even know each other graciela nodded like that was a fair question and assessment at one time in our marriage terry told me everything about everything he told me about the last case you two worked together he told me what happened and how you saved each other's life on the boat so that makes me think i can trust you i nodded he one time told me something about you that i always remembered she added he told me there were things about you he didn't like and that he didn't agree with i think he meant the way you do things but he said at the end of the day after all the cops and agents he had known and worked with if he had to pick somebody to work a murder case with that it would be you hands down he said he would pick you because you wouldn't give up i felt a tightness around my eyes it was almost like i could hear terry mccaleb saying it i asked a question already knowing the answer what is it you want me to do for you i want you to investigate his death chapter 3 even though i knew it was going to be what she would ask me graciela mccaleb's request gave me pause terry mccaleb had died on his boat a month earlier i had read about it in the las vegas sun it had made the papers because of the movie fbi agent gets heart transplant and then tracks down his donor's killer it was a story that had hollywood written all over it and clint eastwood played the part even though he had a couple decades on terry the film was a modest success at best but it still gave terry the kind of notoriety that guaranteed an obituary notice in papers across the country i had just gotten back to my apartment near the strip one morning and picked up the sun terry's death was a short story in the back of the a section a deep tremor rolled through me when i read it i was surprised but not that surprised terri had always seemed to be a man on borrowed time but there was nothing suspicious in what i had read or what i had then heard when i went out to catalina for the funeral service it had been his heart his new heart that had failed it had given him six good years better than the national average for a heart transplant patient but then it had succumbed to the same factors that destroyed the original i don't understand i said to graciela he was on the boat a charter and he collapsed they said his heart yes it was his heart she said but something new has come up i want you to look into it i know you retired from the police but terri and i watched on the news last year what happened here her eyes moved around the room and she gestured with her hands she was talking about what had happened in my house a year earlier when my first post-retirement investigation had ended so badly and with so much blood i know you still look into things she said you're like terry was he couldn't leave it behind some of you are like that when we saw on the news what happened here that's when terry said he would want you if he had to pick someone i think what he was telling me was that if anything ever happened to him i should go to you i nodded and looked at the floor tell me what has come up and i will tell you what i can do you have a bond with him you know i nodded again tell me she cleared her throat she moved to the edge of the couch and began to tell it i'm a nurse i don't know if you saw the movie but they made me a waitress in the movie that's not right i'm a nurse i know about medicine i know about hospitals all of it i nodded and didn't say anything to stop her the coroner's office conducted an autopsy on terry there were no signs of anything unusual but they decided to go ahead with the autopsy at the request of dr hansen terry's cardio doctor because he wanted to see if they could find out what went wrong okay i said what did they find nothing i mean nothing criminal the heart simply stopped beating and he died it happens the autopsies showed that the muscles of the heart's walls were thinning getting narrow cardiomyopathy the body was rejecting the heart they took the normal blood samples and that was it they released him to me his body terry didn't want to be buried he always told me that so he was cremated at griffin and reeves and after the funeral service buddy took the children and me out on the boat and we did what terry asked we let him go then into the water it was very private it was nice it was buddy oh he is the man terry worked with on the charter business his partner right i remember i nodded and tried to retract her story looking for the opening the reason she had come to see me the blood scan from the autopsy i said what did they find in it she shook her head no it's what they didn't find what you have to remember that terry took a ton of meds every day pill after pill liquid after liquid it kept him alive i mean until the end so the blood scan was like a page and a half long they sent it to you no dr hansen got it he told me about it and he was calling because there were things missing from the scan that should have been there but weren't cellcept and program they weren't in his blood when he died and they're important she nodded exactly he took seven capsules of program every day salsep twice a day they were his key meds they kept his heart safe and without them he would die three or four days would be all it would take congestive heart failure would come up quickly and that is exactly what happened why did he stop taking them he didn't and that's why i need you someone tampered with his meds and killed him i pushed all of her information through the grinder again first how do you know he was taking his medicine because i saw him and buddy saw him and even their charter the man they were with on the last trip said he saw him take his meds i asked them look i told you i'm a nurse if he wasn't taking his meds i would have noticed okay so you're saying he was taking his pills but they weren't really his pills someone tampered with them what makes you say that her body language indicated frustration i wasn't making the logic jump she thought i should be making let me back up she said a week after the funeral before i knew anything about all of this i started to try to get things back to normal and i cleared out the closet where terry kept all his meds you see the meds are very very expensive i didn't want them to go to waste there are people who can barely afford them we could barely afford them terry's insurance had run out and we needed medical and medicaid just to pay for his medicine so you donated the meds yes it's a tradition with transplants when somebody she looked down at her hands i understand i said you give everything back yes to help the others everything is so expensive and terry had at least a nine week supply it would be worth thousands to somebody okay so i took everything across on the ferry and up to the hospital everybody thanked me and i thought that was that i have two children mr bosh as hard as it was i had to move on for their sake i thought about the daughter i had never seen her but terry had told me about her he told me her name and why he had named her i wondered if graciela knew that story did you tell dr hansen this i asked if somebody tampered with them you have to warn them that she shook her head there's an integrity procedure all the containers are examined you know the seals on bottles are checked expiration dates checked lot numbers checked against recall and so on nothing came up nothing had been tampered with nothing i had given them at least then what she moved closer to the edge of the couch now she would get to it on the boat the open containers i didn't donate because they don't take them hospital protocol you found tampering there was one more day's dosage of program and two more days of cell sept in the bottles i put them in a plastic bag and took them to the avalon clinic i used to work there i made up a story i told him a friend of mine found the capsules in her son's pocket while doing the laundry she wanted to know what he was using they ran tests and the capsules all of them were dummies they were filled with a white powder powdered shark cartilage actually they sell it in specialty shops and over the internet it's supposed to be some sort of homeopathic cancer treatment it's easily digestible and gentle contained in the capsule it would have tasted the same to terry he would not have known the difference from her small purse she pulled out a folded envelope and handed it to me it contained two capsules both white and small pink printing running along the side are these from the last dosage yes i saved those two and gave four to my friend at the clinic using the envelope to catch its contents i used my fingers to pull one of the capsules open it came apart freely without damaging the two pieces of the casing the white powder it had held poured into the envelope i knew then that it would not be a difficult process to pour the intended content of the capsules out and to replace it with a useless powder what you are telling me graciela is that when terry was on that last charter he was taking pills he thought were keeping him alive but they weren't doing a thing for him in a way they were actually killing him exactly where did those pills come from the bottles came from the hospital pharmacy but they could have been tampered with anywhere she stopped and allowed time for this to register with me what is dr hanson going to do i asked he said he has no choice if tampering took place in the hospital then he has to know other patients could be in danger that's not likely you said two different medicines had been tampered with that means it likely happened out of the hospital it happened after they were in terry's possession i know he said that he told me he is going to refer to the authorities he has to but i don't know who that will be or what they will do the hospital is in l.a and terry died on his boat about 25 miles off the coast of san diego i don't know who would it will probably go to the coast guard first and then it will be referred to the fbi eventually but that will take several days you could move it along if you called the bureau right now i don't understand why you were talking to me instead of them i can't not yet anyway why not of course you can you shouldn't be coming to me go to the bureau with this tell the people he worked with they'll go straight at this graciela i know they will she stood up and went to the sliding door and looked out across the pass it was one of those days when the smog was so thick it looked like it could catch on fire you're a detective think about it someone killed terry it could not have been random tampering not with two different meds from two different bottles it was intentional so the next question is who had access to his meds who had motive they are going to look at me first and they may not look any further i have two children i can't risk that she turned and looked back at me and i didn't do it what motive money for one thing there's a life insurance policy from when he was with the bureau for one thing does that mean there is a second thing she looked down at the floor i left my husband but we were having trouble he was sleeping on the boat those last few weeks it's probably why he agreed to take that long charter most of the time he just did day trips what was the trouble graciela if i'm going to do this then i have to know she shrugged as if she didn't know the answer but then answered it we lived on an island and i no longer liked it i don't think it was a big secret that i wanted us to move back to the mainland the problem was his job with the bureau had left him afraid for our children afraid of the world he wanted to shelter the children from the world i didn't i wanted them to see the world and be ready for it and that was it there were other things i wasn't happy that he was still working cases i stood up and joined her next to the door i slid it open to let some of the stuffiness out i realized i should have opened it as soon as we got inside the place smelled sour i'd been gone two weeks what cases he was like you haunted by the ones that got away he had files boxes of files down on that boat i had been in the boat a long time ago there was a state room in the bow michaela but converted into an office i remembered seeing the file boxes on the top bunk for a long time he tried to keep it from me but it became obvious and we dropped the pretext in the last few months he was going over to the mainland a lot when he didn't have charters we argued about it and he just said it was something he couldn't let go of was it one case or more than one i don't know he never told me what exactly he was working on and i never asked i didn't care i just wanted him to stop i wanted him to spend time with his children not those people those people the people he was so fascinated by the killers and their victims their families he was obsessed sometimes i think they were more important to him than we were she stared out across the pass as she said this opening the door had let the traffic noise in the freeway down below sounded like a distant ovation in some sort of arena where the games never ended i opened the door all the way and stepped out onto the deck i looked down into the brush and thought about the life and death struggle that had taken place there the year before i had survived to find out that like terry mccaleb i was a father in the months since i had learned to find in my daughter's eyes what terry had once told me he had already found in his daughters i knew to look for it because he had told me i owed him something for that graciela came out behind me will you do this for me i believe what my husband said about you i believe you can help me and help him and maybe help myself i thought but didn't say instead i looked down at the freeway and saw the sun reflected on the windshields of the cars moving through the pass it was like a thousand bright silver eyes were watching me yes i said i will do it chapter four my first interview was on the docks at the cabrillo marina in san pedro i always like coming down this way but rarely did i didn't know why it was one of those things you forget about until you do it again and then you remember that you like it the first time i arrived i was a 16 sixteen-year-old runaway i made my way down to the pedro docks and spent my days getting tattooed and watching the tuna boats come in i spent my night sleeping in an unlocked tow boat called rosebud until a harbor master caught me and i was sent back to the foster home the words hold fast tattooed across my knuckles cabrillo marina was newer than that memory these weren't the working docks where i had ended up so many years before cabrillo marina provided dockage for pleasure craft the mass of a hundred sailboats poked up behind its locked gates like a forest after a wildfire beyond these were rows of power yachts many in the millions of dollars in value some not buddy lockridge's boat was not a floating castle lockridge who graciela mccaleb told me was her husband's charter partner and closest friend at the end lived on a 32-foot sailboat that looked like it had the contents of a 60-footer on its deck it was a junker not by virtue of the boat itself but by how it was cared for if lockridge had lived in a house it would have had cars on blocks in the yard and walls of stacked newspapers inside he had buzzed me in at the gate and emerged from the cabin wearing shorts sandals and a t-shirt worn and washed so many times the inscription across the chest was unreadable graciela had called him ahead of time he knew i wanted to talk to him but not the exact reason why so he said as he stepped off the boat onto the dock graciela said you were looking into terry's death is this like an insurance thing or something yes you could say that you like a private eye or something something like that yeah he asked for identification and i showed him the laminated wallet copy of my license that had been sent to me from sacramento he raised a quizzical eyebrow at my formal first name aeronymous bosch like that crazy painter huh it was rare that someone recognized the name that told me something about buddy lockridge some say he was crazy some think he accurately foretold the future the license seemed to appease him and he said we could talk in his boat or we could walk over to the chandlery to get a cup of coffee i wanted to get a look inside his home and boat it was basic investigative strategy but didn't want to be obvious about it so i told him i could use some caffeine the chandlery was a ship's store that was a five minute walk down the dock we small talked as we walked over and i mostly listened to buddy complain about his portrayal in the movie that had been inspired by mccaleb's heart transplant and his search for his donor's killer they paid you didn't they i asked when he was finished yes but that's not the point yes it is put your money in the bank and forget about the rest it's just a movie there were some tables and benches outside the chandelier and we took our coffees there lockridge started asking questions before i got the chance i let him run his line out a little bit my view was that he was a very important piece of my investigation since he knew terry mccaleb and was one of two witnesses to his death i wanted him to feel comfortable with me so i let him ask away so what's your pedigree he asked were you a cop almost thirty years with the lapd half the time i worked homicides murders huh did you know terror what i mean terry i called him terror how come i don't know i just did i give everyone nicknames terry had seen firsthand the terror of the world you know what i mean i called him terror what about me what's my nickname going to be you he looked at me like a sculptor sizing up a block of granite um you are suitcase hairy how come because you sort of rumpled like you live out of a suitcase i nodded pretty good so did you know terry yes i knew him we worked a few cases together when he was with the bureau then one more after he got the new heart he snapped his fingers and pointed at me now i remember you were the cop you were the one who was here that night on his boat when those two goons showed up to do him in you saved him and then he turned around and saved you i nodded that's right now can i ask some questions buddy he spread his hands wide indicating he was available and had nothing to hide oh sure man i didn't mean to be hogging the microphone you know i took out my notebook and put it on the table thanks let's start with that last charter tell me about it well what do you want to know everything lockridge expelled his breath that's a tall order he said but he began to tell me the story what he initially told me matched the minimal accounts i had read in the las vegas papers and what i had then heard when i attended mccaleb's funeral mccaleb and lockridge had been on a four-day three-night charter taking a party of one into waters off baja california to fish for marlin while returning to avalon harbor and catalina on the fourth day mccaleb collapsed at the boat's top side helm station they were 22 miles off the coast midway between san diego and los angeles a help call was radioed to the u.s coast guard and a rescue chopper was dispatched michaela was airlifted to a hospital in long beach where he was pronounced dead on arrival when he was finished telling it i nodded like it had matched everything i had already heard did you actually see him collapse no not really i felt it though how do you mean well he was up on top at the wheel i was in the pit with the charter party we were headed north going home the party had enough fishing by then so we weren't even trolling terry had it flat out probably doing 25 knots so me and otto he's the party we were in the cockpit and the boat suddenly made a 90 degree turn to the west out to sea man i knew that wasn't in the plan so i climbed up the ladder to poke my head up there and i see terry sort of hunched over the wheel he'd collapsed i got to him and he was alive but man he was out of it what did you do i was a lifeguard once venice beach i still know my cpr i called otto up on top and went to work on terry while otto got control of the boat and got on the radio to call the coast guard i was never able to bring terry around but i kept putting air into him until that helicopter showed up took them long enough too i wrote a note in my notebook not because it was important but because i wanted lockridge to know i took him seriously and that whatever he thought was important was also important to me how long did they take 20 25 minutes i'm not sure how long but it seemed like an eternity when you're trying to keep somebody breathing yeah everybody i talked to said you did your best so you're saying he never said a word he just collapsed at the wheel exactly then what was the last thing he said to you lockridge started chewing the nail on one of his thumbs as he tried to recall this that's a good question i guess it was when he came back to the railing that looks down into the cockpit and he yelled down that we'd be home by sunset and how long was this before he collapsed maybe a half hour maybe a little longer he seemed fine then yeah he seemed like the regular terror you know nobody could have guessed what was going to happen by now you men had been on the boat for four straight days right that's right pretty close quarters because the party got the stateroom me and terry bunked it in the ford cabin during that time did you see terry take his meds every day you know all the pills he had to take lockridge nodded emphatically oh yeah he was popping his pills right and left every morning and every night we'd been out on a lot of charters together it was his ritual he set his watch by it he never missed and he didn't on this trip i made a few more notes just to keep silent so that lockridge might keep talking but he didn't did he say anything about them tasting different or him feeling different after taking them is that what this is about you people are trying to say terry took the wrong pills and then not have to pay the insurance if i'd known that i would have never agreed to talk to you he started to get up from his bench i reached over and gripped his arm sit down buddy that's not what this is about i don't work for the insurance company he dropped heavily back onto the bench and looked at his arm where i had gripped it then what is it about you already know what it's about i'm just making sure terry's death was what it was supposed to be supposed to be i realized that i had used an unfortunate choice of words what i'm trying to say is that i want to make sure he didn't have any help lockridge studied me for a long moment and slowly nodded you mean like the pills were tainted or messed with maybe lockridge set his jaw tightly with resolve it looked genuine to me you need any help i might need some yeah i'm going over to catalina tomorrow morning i'm going to look at the boat can you meet me there absolutely he seemed excited and i knew i would eventually drop a rock on that but for now i wanted his full cooperation good now let me ask a few more questions tell me about the charter party did you know this guy otto beforehand oh yeah we take otto out a couple of times a year he lives over there on the island that's the only reason why we got the multi-day charter you see that was the problem with the business but terror never cared he was just happy to sit there in that little harbor and wait on half days slow down a second buddy what are you talking about i'm talking about terry keeping the boat over there on that island what we got over there were people who were visiting catalina and wanted to go fishing for a few hours we didn't get the big charters the three four five day jobs where you make the good money otto was the exception because he lives over there and he wanted to go fishing off mexico a couple times a year and get his ashes hauled in the process lockridge was giving me more information and avenues of questioning than i could handle it once i stayed on my caleb but would definitely come back to otto their charter client you're saying that terry was content to sort of be small time exactly i kept telling him move the charter over here to the mainland put out some ads and get some serious work but he didn't want to did you ever ask him why sure he wanted to stay on the island he didn't want to be away from the family all the time and he wanted time to work on his files you mean his old cases yeah that and some new ones what new ones i don't know he was always clipping articles out of the newspaper and sticking them in files making phone calls things like that on the boat yeah on the boat graciala wouldn't allow it in the house he told me that that she didn't like him doing it sometimes it got to the point he was sleeping on the boat at night at the end i think it was because of the files he'd get obsessed with something and she'd end up telling him to stay on the boat until he got over it he told you that he didn't have to any case or file you remember he was interested in lately no he no longer included me in that stuff i helped him work on his heart case and then he sort of shut me out of that stuff that bother you not really i mean i was willing to help chasing bad guys is more interesting than chasing fish but i knew that was his world and not mine it sounded too much like a stark answer like he was repeating an explanation michaela had once given to him i decided to leave it at that but i knew this was a subject i would come back to with him okay let's go back to otto you fished with him how many times this was our third no fourth trip always down to mexico pretty much what does he do for a living then he can afford to do this he's retired thinks he's zane grey and wants to go sport fishing catch a black marlin and put it up on his wall he can afford it he told me he was a salesman but i never asked what he sold retired how old is he well i don't know mid 60s retired from where just across the water long beach i think what did you mean a minute ago when you said he liked to go fishing and get his ashes hauled i meant exactly that we took him fishing and when we'd stop off in cabo he always had something on the side so each night on this last trip you guys brought the boat into port always to cabo the first two nights in cabell and then the third night we made it to san diego who chose those places well otto wanted to go to cabell and san diego was just the halfway point on the trip back we always take it slow going back what happened in cabo with otto i told you he had a little something on the side down there both nights he got cleaned up and went into town i think he was meeting a senorita there he had made some calls on his cell phone is he married as far as i know i think that's why he liked the four-day charters his wife thought he was out there fishing she probably didn't know about stopping in cabo for a margarita and i'm not talking about the drink what about terry did he go into town he answered without hesitation nope terry had nothing going in that department and he would never leave the boat he'd never even step on the dock how come i don't know he just said he didn't need to i think he was superstitious about it how so you know the captain stays with the vessel that sort of thing what about you most of the time i hung with terry in the boat every now and then i'd go to town to one of the bars or something what about on that last trip no i stayed with the boat i was a little short of bread so on that last trip terry never got off the boat that's right and nobody besides you otto and him were ever on the boat right that's well not exactly what do you mean who was on the boat on the second night going into cabo we got stopped by the federales the mexican coast guard two guys came on board and looked around for a few minutes why it's sort of a routine every now and then they stop you you pay a little tariff then they let you go a bribe a bribe a payoff a bite whatever you want to call it and that happened this time yeah terry gave them 50 bucks when they were in the salon and then they split it was all pretty fast did they search the boat did they look at terry's medicine no it didn't get to that that's what the payoff is for to avoid all of that i realized i hadn't been taking notes a lot of this information was new and worth exploring further but i sense that i had enough for the moment i would digest what i had and come back to it i had a feeling that buddy lockridge would give me whatever time i needed as long as i made him feel like a player in the investigation i asked him for the exact names and locations of the marinas where they had docked overnight on the trip with otto and i did write this information in my notebook i then reconfirmed our appointment on mccaleb's boat for the next morning i told him i was taking the first ferry across and he told me he'd be on it as well i left him there because he said he wanted to go back into the chandlery to pick up some supplies as we dumped our coffee cups into the trash can he wished me luck with the investigation i don't know what you're going to find i don't know if there's anything to find but if terry had help with this i want you to get whoever it was who helped him you know what i'm saying yes buddy i think i know what you were saying i'll see you tomorrow i'll be there chapter five on the phone that night from las vegas my daughter asked me to tell her a story just five years old she was always wanting me to sing to her or tell her stories i had more stories and songs than me she had a scruffy black cat she called no name and maddie liked me to make up stories involving great peril and bravery that ended with no name winning the day by solving the mystery or finding the lost pet or the lost child or teaching a bad man a lesson i told her a quick story about no name finding a lost cat named cielo azul she liked it and asked me for another but i said it was late and i had to go then out of the blue she asked me if the burger king and the dairy queen were married i smiled and marveled at how her mind worked i told her they were married and she asked me if they were happy you can become unhinged and cut loose from the world you can believe you are a permanent outsider but the innocence of a child will bring you back and give you the shield of joy with which to protect yourself i have learned this late in life but not too late it's never too late it hurt me to think about the things she would learn about the world all i knew was that i didn't want to teach her anything i felt tainted by the paths i had taken in my life and the things i knew i had nothing from it i wanted her to have i just wanted her to teach me so i told her yes the burger king and the dairy queen were happy and that they had a wonderful life together i wanted her to have her stories and her fairy tales why she could still believe them for soon enough i knew they would be taken away saying good night to my daughter on the phone felt lonely and out of place i had just come off a two-week trip out there and maddie had gotten used to seeing me and i had gotten used to seeing her i picked her up at school i watched her swim i made dinner for her a few times in the small efficiency apartment i had rented near the airport at night when her mother played poker in the casinos i took her home and put her to bed leaving her under the watch of the live-in nanny i was a new thing in her life for the first four years she had never heard of me and i had never heard of her that was the beauty and the difficulty of the relationship i was struck with sudden fatherhood and reveled in it and did my best maddie suddenly had another protector who floated in and out of her life an extra hug and kiss on the top of the head but she also knew that this man who had suddenly entered her world was causing her mother a lot of pain and tears eleanor and i had tried to keep our discussions and sometimes harsh words away from our daughter but sometimes the walls are thin and kids i was learning are the best detectives they are masterful interpreters of the human vibe eleanor wish had withheld the ultimate secret from me a daughter on the day she finally presented maddie to me i thought that everything was right in the world my world at least i saw my salvation in my daughter's dark eyes my own eyes but what i didn't see that day were the fissures the cracks below the surface and they were deep the happiest day of my life would lead to some of the ugliest days days in which i could not get past the secret and what had been kept from me for so many years whereas in one moment i thought i had everything i could possibly want from life i soon learned i was too weak a man to hold it to carry the betrayal hidden in it in exchange for what i had been given other better men could do it i could not i left the home of eleanor and maddie my las vegas home is a one-room efficiency across the parking lot from the place where millionaire and billionaire gamblers park their private jets and head by whispery limos to the casinos i have one foot in las vegas and one remains here in los angeles a place i know i can never leave permanently not without dying after saying good night my daughter handed the phone to her mother who was on a rare night at home our relationship was more strained than it had ever been we were at odds over our daughter i didn't want her to grow up with a mother who worked nights in the casinos i didn't want her eating at burger king for dinner and i didn't want her to learn about life in a city that wore its sins on its sleeve but i was in no position to change things i know that i run the risk of seeming ridiculous because i live in a place where the randomness of crime and chaos is always near and poison literally hangs in the air but i don't like the idea of my daughter growing up where she is i see it as the subtle difference between hope and desire los angeles is a place that operates on hope and there is still something pure about that it helps one see through the dirty air vegas is different to me it operates on desire and on that road is ultimate heartbreak i don't want that for my daughter i don't even want it for her mother i am willing to wait but not that long as i spend time with my daughter and know her better and love her more my willingness freys at the middle like a rope bridge crossing a deep chasm when maddie handed the phone back to her mother neither of us had much to say so we didn't i just said i would check in with maddie the next time i could and we hung up i put the phone down feeling an ache inside i was not used to it wasn't the ache of loneliness or emptiness i knew those pains and had learned how to live with them it was the pain that came with the fear for what the future holds for someone so precious someone you would lay your own life down for without hesitation chapter six the first fairy got me to catalina at 9 30 the next morning i had called graciela mccaleb on my cell while i was crossing so she was waiting for me at the pier the day was sunny and crisp and i could taste the difference in the smogless air graciela smiled at me as i approached the gate where people waited for travelers from the boats good morning thanks for coming no problem thanks for meeting me i had half expected buddy lockridge to be with her i had not seen him on the ferry and figured that maybe he had gone across the night before nobody yet no is he coming i wanted to go over things on the boat with him he said he would be on the first boat but he didn't show well they're running two fairies the next will be here in 45 minutes he's probably on that what would you like to do first i want to go to the boat start there we walked over to the tenders dock and took a zodiac with a little one horsepower engine on it out into the basin where the yachts were lined in rows tied up to floating mooring balls and moving with the current in a synchronized fashion terry's boat the following sea was second from the end of the second row an ominous feeling came over me as we approached and then bumped up against the fan tail on this vessel terry had died my friend and graciela's husband it used to be one of the tricks of the trade for me to find or manufacture an emotional connection to a case it helped stoke the fire and gave me that needed edge to go where i had to go do what i had to do i knew i would not need to look for that in this case no manufacturing necessary it was already part of the deal the largest part i looked at the boat's name painted in black letters across the stern and remembered how terry had explained it to me once he had told me that the following sea was the wave you had to watch out for it came up and your blind spot hit you from behind a good philosophy i had to wonder now why terry hadn't seen what and who had come up behind him unsteadily i stepped off the inflatable and onto the boat's fan tail i reached back for the rope to tie it up but graciala stopped me i'm not going on board she said she shook her head as if to ward off any coercing from me and handed a set of keys toward me i took them and nodded my head i just don't want to be on there she said the one time i went to collect his meds was enough i understand this way the zodiac will be back at the dock for buddy to use if he shows up if he isn't always that reliable at least that is what terry said and if he doesn't show up what do i do i'll just flag down a water taxi they come by about every 15 minutes you won't have a problem you can just bill me which reminds me we haven't talked about what i'll be paying you it was something she had to bring up to make sure but she knew and i knew that this wasn't a job for pay that won't be necessary i said if i do this there is only one thing i'd like in return what's that terry once told me about your daughter he said you two named her cielo azul that's right he picked the name did he ever tell you why he just said he liked it he said he knew a girl named ciela azul once i nodded what i would like for payment for doing this is to meet her someday when this is all over i mean that gave graciela a moment to pause then she nodded her agreement she's a sweetheart you like meeting her i'm sure i will harry did you know her the girl terry named our daughter after i looked at her a moment and nodded yes you could say i knew her someday if you like i'll tell you about her she nodded and started to push the zodiac off the fan tail i helped with my foot the little key opens the salon door she said the rest you should be able to figure out i hope you find something that helps i nodded and held up the keys as if they would open every door i would ever encounter i watched her head back to the dock and then i climbed over the stern and into the cockpit some sort of sense of duty made me climb the ladder to the upper helm before i went inside the boat i pulled the canvas cover off the control station and stood for a moment next to the wheel and the seat and envisioned the story buddy lockridge had told me of terry collapsing here it somehow seemed appropriate for him to collapse at the wheel yet with what i now knew it also seemed so wrong i put my hand on the top of the chair as if resting it on someone's shoulder i decided that i would find the answers to all of the questions before i finished here small chrome key on the ring graciela had given me opened the mirrored sliding door that led inside the boat i left it open to air out the interior there was a briny funky smell inside i traced it to the rods and reels stored on ceiling racks artificial baits still in place i guess that they had not been washed off and properly cared for after the last charter there had not been time there had not been a reason i wanted to go down the steps to the state room in the bow where i knew terry kept all his investigative files but i decided to leave that place for last i decided to begin in the salon and work my way down the salon had a functional layout with a couch chair and coffee table on the right side leading to a chart desk built behind the seat of the interior helm on the opposite side was a restaurant style booth with red leather padding a television was locked down in a partition that separated the booth from the galley and then there was a short stairway i knew led down to the ford state rooms in a bathroom the salon was neat and clean i stood in the middle of the space and just observed it for a half minute before going to the charge station and opening drawers mccaleb had kept the charter business files here i found listings of customers and a calendar for charter reservations there were also records dealing with his collection from visa and mastercard which he evidently accepted from customers as payment the charter business had a bank account and there was a checkbook in the drawer too i checked the register and saw that just about everything that came in went back out again to cover fuel and mooring charges as well as fishing and other charter supplies there was no record of cash deposits so i concluded that if the business was profitable it was in the unrecorded cash payments from customers depending on how many of these there were in the bottom drawer there was a bad check file there were only a few and they were spread out over time none so large they could seriously damage the business i noticed that in the checkbook and with most of the business records either buddy lockridge's or graciela's name was listed as the operator of the charter business i knew this was because as graciela had told me terry was seriously limited in what he could earn as official income if he made over a certain level which was shockingly low he was not eligible to receive state and federal medical assistance if he lost that he would then end up paying medical expenses himself a quick route to personal bankruptcy for a transplant recipient in the bad check file i also found a copy of a sheriff's report unrelated to bad paper it was a two-month-old incident report stemming from an apparent burglary of the following sea the complainant was buddy lockridge and the summary indicated that only one thing was taken from the boat a hand-held global positioning system reader its value was placed at three hundred dollars and the model was listed as a gulliver one hundred an added note said that the complainant could not provide the serial number of the missing device because he had won it in a poker game from a person he could not identify and he had never bothered to write the tracking number down once i had made a quick check through all the drawers in the chart station i went back to the client files and started going through them more thoroughly looking carefully at each customer mccaleb and lockridge had taken on board in the six weeks before terry's death none of the names struck me as curious or suspicious and there were no notations by terry or buddy in the file that raised any of those feelings either nevertheless i took a notebook from the back pocket of my blue jeans and wrote a list that showed the name of each client the number in the party and the date of the charter once i had this i was able to see that the charters were by no means regular a good week for the business was three or four half-day charters there was one week in which there were no charters at all and another in which there was only one [Music] i was beginning to see buddy's point about the need to move the business to the mainland in order to increase the frequency and length of charter bookings michaela was running the charter business as a hobby and that wasn't the way to make it thrive of course i knew why he was running it that way he had another hobby if you want to call it that and he needed time to devote to that as well i was putting the records back into the chart station drawer with the intention of heading down to the bow to explore terry's other hobby when i heard the salon door roll open behind me it was buddy lockridge he had come up on the boat without my hearing the zodiac's little engine or feeling its nudge against the fan tail i also hadn't felt buddy's considerable weight as he climbed onto the boat morning he said sorry i'm late that's okay i've got a lot to look through here find anything interesting yet not really i'm about to go below check out his files cool i'll help actually buddy where you can help is if maybe you called the man who was the last charter i looked at the last name written on the page in my notebook otto woodle could you call him and vouch for me and see if i could come by this afternoon to see him that's it you wanted me to come all this way over to make a phone call no i have questions for you i need you here i just don't think you should be going through the files down there not yet at least i had a feeling that buddy lockridge had probably already perused every file in the bow but i was playing him this way on purpose i had to keep him close but distant at the same time until i had cleared him to my satisfaction yes he was mccaleb's partner and had received credit for his efforts to save his fallen friend but i had seen stranger things in my time end of disc one disc two at the moment i had no suspects and that meant i had to suspect everybody make the call and then come downstairs to see me i left him there and headed down the short set of steps to the lower part of the boat i had been here before and knew the layout the two doors on the left side of the hallway led to the head and a storage closet straight ahead was a door to the small stateroom in the bow the door on the right led to the master state room the place where i would have been killed four years before if terry michaela would not level the gun and fired on a man about to ambush me this had occurred moments after i had saved my caleb from a similar end i checked the paneling in the hallway where i remembered two of my caleb's shots had splintered the wood the surface was heavily varnished but i could tell it was newer wood the shelves in the storage closet were empty and the bathroom was clean the overhead vent popped open on the ford deck above i opened the master stateroom door and looked in but decided to leave it for later i went to the forward room and had to use a key from the ring graciela had given me to open the door the room was as i had remembered it two sets of v-bunks on each side following the line of the bow the bunks on the left still functioned as sleeping compartments their thin mattresses rolled up and held by bungee cords but on the right the lower bunk had no mattress and had been converted into a desk the bunk above was where four long cardboard file boxes sat side by side mccaleb's cases i looked at them for a long and solemn moment if someone had murdered him i believed i would find the suspect in there anytime today i almost jumped it was lockred standing behind me once again i had not heard or felt his approach he was smiling because he liked sneaking up on me good i said maybe after lunch we can head over there i'll need a break from this by then anyway i looked down at the desk and saw the white laptop with the recognizable symbol of an apple with a bite out of it in silhouette i reached down and opened it unsure of how to proceed last time i was here he had a different one yeah lockridge said he got that one on account of the graphics he was getting into digital photography and stuff without my bidding or approval lockridge reached over and depressed a white button on the computer it started to hum and then the black screen filled with light what kind of photography i asked oh you know amateur stuff mostly his kids and sunsets and it started with the clients we started taking their pictures with their trophy fish you know and terry could just come down here and print out eight by ten glasses on the spot there's a box of cheap ass frames in here someplace the client catches a fish he gets a framed photo part of the deal it worked pretty good our gratuities went way up with that the computer finished booting up the screen was the sky of light blue that made me think of mccaleb's daughter several icons were spread across the field right away i noticed one that was a miniature file folder underneath it the word profiles was printed i knew that was a folder i wanted to open scanning across the bottom of the screen i saw an icon that looked like a camera set in front of a photo of a palm tree since the subject had just been photography i pointed to it is that where the photos are yep lockridge said again he moved without my request he moved his finger on a small square in front of the keyboard which in turn moved the arrow on the screen to the camera icon he used his thumb to depress a button below the square and the screen quickly took on a new image lockridge seemed at ease with the computer and it begged the questions why and how did terry mccaleb allow him access to the computer after all they were in business together or was this something lockridge became efficient at without his partner's knowledge on the screen a frame opened under the heading eye photo there were several folders listed most were listed by dates usually a few weeks or a month there was one folder simply titled mail call here we go lockridge said you want to see some of this stuff it's clients and fish yeah show me the most recent photos lockridge clicked on a folder that was labeled with dates ending just a week before mccaleb's death the folder opened and there were several dozen photos listed by individual date lockridge clicked on the most recent date a few seconds went by and a photo opened on the screen it showed a man and woman both badly sunburned and smiling as they held up a horribly ugly brown fish santa monica bay halibut but he said that was a good one who are they um they were from minnesota i think yeah saint paul and i don't think they were married i mean they were married but just not to each other they were staying on the island shacking up they were the last charter before the trip down to baja pictures from that trip are probably still on the camera where is the camera it should be here if not then graciela probably has it he clicked on a left arrow above the photo soon another photo appeared the same couple and same fish lockridge kept clicking and eventually he came to a new customer and his trophy fish a pinkish white creature about 14 inches long white sea bass lockridge said nice fish he kept clicking showing me a procession of fishermen and their catches everybody seemed happy some even had the obvious glaze of alcohol in their eyes lockridge named all the fish but not all the clients he didn't remember them all by name some of them he simply classified as good or bad tippers and that was it eventually he came to a man with a delighted smile on his face as he held up a small white sea bass lockridge cursed what's wrong i asked he's the prick who walked off with my goddamn fish box what fish box my gps he's the guy who took it chapter seven baca stayed at least a hundred feet behind her even in the crowded chicago airport he knew she would be on what they always called six alert when he had been with the bureau watching her back her six and always checking for a trailer it had been tricky enough traveling with her so far the plane from south dakota had been small and fewer than 40 people had been on board the random assignment of seats had put him only two rows from her so close he thought he could actually smell her scent the one beneath the perfume and the makeup the one the dogs could pick up it was intoxicating to be so close and still such a long distance apart he wanted the whole time to turn and look back at her maybe catch a glimpse of her face between the seats see what she was doing but he didn't dare he had to bite his time he knew that good things come to those who plan carefully and then wait that was the thing the secret darkness waits all things come to the dark he followed her through half the american airlines terminal until she took a seat at gate k-9 it was empty no travelers were waiting there no american employees were behind the gate counter waiting and ready to work the computers and check tickets but backus knew that this was only because she was early they were both early the flight to las vegas would not leave from gate k9 for another two hours he knew this because he was on the vegas flight as well in a way he was rachel walling's guardian angel a silent escort who would be with her until she reached her final destination he walked on by the gate careful not to be obvious about glancing at her but curious to see how she was going to pass the time waiting for the next flight he hooked the strap of his large cowhide carry-on bag over his right shoulder so that if she happened to look up her eyes might be drawn to it instead of his face he wasn't worried about her recognizing him for who he was all the pain and the surgeries had taken care of that but she might recognize him from the flight from rapid city he didn't want that he didn't want her to get suspicious his heart jumped in his chest like a baby kicking under a blanket as he made the one furtive glance while passing by she had her head down and was reading a book it was old and worn from many readings there was a profusion of yellow post-its poking out from its pages but he recognized the cover design and the title the poet she was reading about him he hurried on by before she could sense she had a watcher and look up he went down two more gates and into the restroom he went into a stall and carefully locked the door he hung his bag on the door hook and quickly went to work off came the cowboy hat in the vest he sat down on the toilet and took off the boots too in five minutes back has transformed himself from a south dakota cowboy to a las vegas gambler he put on the silk clothes he put on the gold he put on the earring and the shades he clipped the gaudy chrome cell phone to his belt even though there was no one who would call him and no one he would call from the bag he took out another bag much smaller and with the figure of the mgm lion emblazoned on it the components of his first skin were pushed into the new bag and he stepped out of the stall the strap of the mgm bag over his shoulder backus went to the sink to wash his hands he admired himself for the preparation he had taken it was the planning and attention to the small details like that that made him who he was that made him a success at his craft for a moment he thought about what was waiting he was going to take rachel walling on a tour by the end of it she would know the depths of darkness his darkness she would pay for what she had done to him he felt himself getting an erection he left the sink and stepped back into one of the stalls he tried to change his thoughts he listened to the fellow travelers coming and going in the restroom relieving themselves washing themselves one man spoke on a cell phone while defecating in the next stall the whole place smelled horrible but that was okay it smelled like the tunnel where he was reborn in blood and darkness so long ago if they only knew who was in their presence here he momentarily caught a vision of a dark starless sky he was falling backward his arms flailing the featherless and useless wings of a baby bird pushed out of the nest but he had survived and had learned to fly he started to laugh and used his foot to flush the toilet and cover his sound you all he whispered he waited for his erection to subside pondering its cause and smiling he knew his own profile so well in the end it was always about the same thing there was only a nanometer of difference between power and sex and fulfillment when it came to the narrow spaces between the synapses and the gray folds of the mind in those narrows it all came down to the same thing when he was ready he flushed the toilet again careful to use his shoe and stepped out of the stall he washed his hands again and checked his look in the mirror he smiled he was a new man rachel would not recognize him nobody would feeling confident he unzipped the mgm bag and checked on his digital camera it was there and ready to go he decided he would take the risk and shoot some photos of rachel just some keepsakes a few secret shots he could admire and enjoy after everything was all over chapter eight the fish box buddy's mention of it reminded me of the sheriff's report up in the chart station drawer i meant to ask you about that you say this guy took the gps phony bastard i'm sure it was him he went out with us the next thing we know my gps is gone and he starts to charter over on the isthmus put two and two together and you get i've been meaning to go over there and pay him a little visit i was having trouble following the line of his story i asked him to explain it to me in english as if i didn't know a fish charter from a fish chowder this is the deal he said that little black box had all our best spots on it our fishing holes man not only that it had the points marked by the guy i want it from i want it in a poker game from another fish guide the value assigned was not for the box but what was on it the guy was putting his best 12 spots on the table and i want him with a full house all right i said i get it now its value was in the coordinates of the fishing spots recorded on it not the device itself exactly those things cost a couple hundred bucks but the fishing spots those come from years of work and skill fishing experience i pointed at the photo on the computer screen and this guy comes along and takes it and then he starts out his charter business ahead of the game using your experience as well as the guide you wanted from way ahead like i said i'm going to pay him a visit one of these days where is the isthmus on the other side where the island pinches together like a figure eight did you tell the sheriff's department you thought he stole it not at first because we didn't know you know the thing turned up missing and we thought maybe some kids came onto the boat or something at night and grabbed whatever they saw it gets pretty boring growing up on the island from what i hear just ask graciela about raymond the kids going stir crazy so anyway we made a report and that was that then a couple of weeks later i see this ad in fish tales and it's announcing this new charter out of the isthmus and there's a picture of the guy and i say hey i know that guy and i put it together he stole my fish box did you call the sheriff then yeah i called and told them he was the guy they didn't act too excited i called back next week and they said they talked to the guy by phone they didn't even bother to go out there for face to face he denied it like a course he would and that was that as far as they were concerned what's this guy's name robert finder his operation is called isthmus charters in the ad he calls himself robert fish finder my ass more like fish stealer i looked down at the photo on the screen and wondered if this meant anything at all to my investigation could the missing gps box be at the center of terry mccaleb's death it seemed unlikely the idea that someone would steal a competitor's fishing spots was understandable but then to engage in a complicated plot to also kill the competitor seemed on the far limit of belief it would require a hell of a plan and execution on finder's part that was for sure it would require a hell of a plan on anyone's part lockridge seemed to read my thoughts hey you think this bastard could have had something to do with terror going down i looked up at him for a long moment realizing that the idea of lockridge being involved in mccaleb's death as a means of gaining control in location of the charter business and the following sea was a more believable theory i don't know i said but i'll probably be checking it out let me know if you want somebody to go with you sure but listen i noticed on the sheriff's report that the gps was the only thing reported stolen did that hold up nothing else ever turned up missing that was it that's why me and terry thought it was so strange at first until we figured out it was finder terry thought that too that it was him he was coming around to it i mean come on who else could it have been it was a worthy question but not one i thought i needed to put front and center at the moment i pointed at the laptop screen and told lockridge to keep moving back through the photos he did so and the procession of happy anglers continued we came across one more curiosity in the photo series lockridge backed up to a set of six photos that depicted a man whose face was not shown clearly at first in the three initial shots he was posed holding a brilliantly colored fish up to the camera but in each shot he held the fish up too high obscuring most of his face in each of these shots his dark glasses peeked over the ridge of the fish's dorsal fin the fish appeared to be the same in each of these three shots which led me to assume that the photographer was repeatedly trying to get a photo that included the fisherman's face but to no avail who took these terror i wasn't there on that one something about the man or maybe the way he had avoided the camera in the trophy photo had made mccaleb suspicious that seemed obvious the next three photos in the series were shots of the man taken without his knowledge the first two were taken from inside the salon shooting out into the cockpit where the fishermen leaned against the right gunnel because the glass on the salon door had reflected film on it the man would not have seen or known that michaela had taken photos of him the first of these two photos was in profile the next a full-on face shot take away the setting and michaela had instinctively gotten mug shot poses another confirmation of his suspicion even with these photos the man was still obscured he had a full beard of brownish gray hair and wore dark sunglasses with large lenses and a blue la dodgers hat what little could be seen of the man's hair appeared to be close cropped and matching the colorations of his beard he had a gold hoop earring in his right ear in the profile shot his eyes were crinkled and hooded naturally hidden even with the dark sunglasses he wore blue jeans and a plain white t-shirt beneath the levi's jacket the sixth photo the last in the sequence was taken after the charter had ended it was a long shot of the man walking on the avalon pier apparently after leaving the following sea his face was turned slightly toward the camera though it still wasn't much more than a profile but i wondered if the man had continued to turn after the shot and perhaps had then seen mccaleb in his camera so what about this guy i asked tell me about him can't lockridge said i told you i wasn't there that was one terry picked up on the fly no reservation the guy just showed up on the water taxi while terry was on the boat and asked to go out he paid for a half a day the minimum charter he wanted to go out right away and i was over on the mainland terry couldn't wait on me so he took him out without me alone which is a pain in the ass but they got a nice spanish mac out there not bad did he talk about the guy after no not really he only said that the guy didn't take the full half he wanted to pack in after just a couple hours so they did terry had an alert on he took six photos three while the guy wasn't looking you sure he didn't say anything about that like i said not to me but terry kept a lot of stuff to himself do you know this guy's name no but i'm sure terry put something in the charter book you want me to go get it yes and i'd also like to know the exact date and how he paid but first can you print out these photos all six of them it would take a while actually all six and give me one a finder while we're at it i have the time i don't suppose you want them framed too nobody that won't be necessary just the photos i stepped back while buddy sat down on the cushion stool in front of the computer he turned on a nearby printer loaded in photo quality paper and expertly went through the commands that sent the seven pictures to the printer again i noted his ease with the equipment i had the feeling that there wasn't any content on the laptop that he was not familiar with probably nothing in the file boxes on the bunk above us either okay he said as he got up takes about a minute for each one they come out a bit sticky too might want to spread them out till they dry all the way i'll go up and see what the charter book says about your mystery man after he was gone i sat down on the stool i watched how lockridge worked the photo files and was a quick learner i went back to the main listing and double clicked on the photo folder labeled mail call a frame opened containing 36 small photos in a grid i clicked on the first one and the photo enlarged it showed graciela pushing a stroller with a little girl sleeping in it cielo azul terry's daughter the setting appeared to be a shopping mall the photo was similar to terry's photos of the mystery man and that it appeared that graciela did not know she was being photographed i turned around and looked back through the doorway toward the steps to the salon there was no sign of lockridge i got up and moved quietly into the hallway i slipped through the open door of the bathroom i pressed myself against the wall and waited soon enough lockridge moved across the opening in the hall carrying the log book he was moving very quietly so as to make no noise i let him pass and then moved into the hallway behind him i watched as he went through the door of the ford stateroom ready to startle me with his sudden appearance again but it was lockridge who was startled when he realized i wasn't in the room when he turned i was right behind him you like sneaking up on people don't you buddy uh no not really i was just don't do it with me okay what's it say in the book his face took on a pink hue beneath the permanent fisherman's tan but i had given him an out and he quickly took it terry put his name down in the book but nothing else it says jordan shandy half day that's it he opened the book and turned to show me the entry what about his method of payment how much is a half a day anyway three bills for a half five for a full i checked the credit card log and there was nothing there also the checking deposits nothing that means he paid cash when was this i assume it is logged by date yeah they went out on february 13th hey that was friday the 13th think that was intentional who knows was that before or after the charter with finder lockridge put the logbook down on the desk so we could both look at it he ran his finger down the list of clients and stopped it at finder he came a week after we went out february 19th and what's the date on the sheriff's report on the boat burglary i have to go back up he left and i heard him bound up the stairs i took the first photo out of the printer and put it on the desk it was the shot of jordan shandy hiding his face with sunglasses and the spanish mackerel i stared at it until lockridge came back into the room he didn't try to sneak up on me this time we made the burglar report february 22nd i nodded five weeks before mccaleb's death i wrote all the dates we had been talking about down in my notebook i wasn't sure if there was a significance to any of it okay i said you want to do one more thing for me now buddy sure what go on up and take those rods down off the ceiling and go out and wash them down i don't think anybody did it after that last trip they're making this place smell sour and i think i'm going to be hanging out here for a couple days it would help me a lot you want me to go up and wash off the rods he said it like a statement a treatise of insult and disappointment i looked from the photo to his face yes that's right it would help me a lot i'll finish up with the photos and then we can go visit otto woodle whatever he left the room dejected and i heard him trudge up the steps equally as loud as he had been silent before i took the second photo out of the printer and placed it down next to the first i took a black marker out of a coffee mug on the desk and wrote in the white border beneath the photo the name jordan shandy back on the stool i turned my attention once again to the computer and the photo of graciela and her daughter i clicked on the forward arrow and the next photo came up again it was a photo from inside a mall this one was taken from a further distance and there was a grainy quality to it also in this picture was a boy trailing behind graciela the sun i concluded the adopted son everyone in the family was in the photo but terry was he the photographer if so why at such a distance i clicked the arrow again and then continued through the photos almost all of them were from inside the mall and all were taken from a distance in not one photo was any family member looking at or acknowledging the camera after 28 similar shots the venue changed and the family was now on the ferry to catalina they were heading home and the photographer was there along with them there were only four photos in this sequence in each of these graciela sat in the middle rear of the ferry's main cabin the boy and girl on either side of her the photographer had been positioned near the front of the cabin shooting across several rows of seats if graciela had noticed she probably would not have realized that she was the center of the camera's focus and would have dismissed the photographer as just another tourist going to catalina the last two photos of the 36 seemed out of place with the others as if they were part of a completely different project the first was of a green highway sign i enlarged it and saw that it had been shot through the windshield of a car i could see the frame of the windshield part of the dashboard and some sort of sticker in the corner of the glass part of the photographer's hand resting on the steering wheel at 11 o'clock was also in the picture the highway sign stood against a barren desert landscape it said zizex road one mile i knew the road or more accurately i knew the sign anybody from la who made the road trip to and from las vegas as often as i had in the last year would have known it at just about the halfway point on the 15 freeway was the zzx road exit recognizable by its unique name if nothing else it was in the mojave and it appeared to be a road to nowhere no gas station no rest stop at the end of the alphabet at the end of the world the last photo was equally puzzling i enlarged it and saw that it was a strange still life at the center in the frame was an old boat the rivets of its wooden planks sprung and its yellowed paint peeling back under the blistering sun it sat on the rocky terrain of the desert seemingly miles from any water on which to float a boat a drift on a sea of sand if there was any specific meaning at all to it i did not readily see it following the procedure i had watched lockridge use i printed the two desert photos and then went back to review the other photos to choose a sampling of shots to print i sent two photos from the ferry and two photos from the mall to the printer while i waited i enlarged several of the mall shots on the screen in hopes of seeing something in the background that would identify what more graciela and her children were in i knew i could simply ask her but i wasn't sure i wanted to in the photos i was able to identify bags carried by various shoppers is coming from nordstrom saks fifth avenue and barnes and noble in one of the photos the family walked through a food court that included the concession cine bun and hot dog on a stick i wrote all of these down in my notebook and knew that with these five locations i would probably be able to determine in which mall the photos had been taken if i decided it was necessary to know this information and i did not want to ask graciela about it that was still an open question i did not want to alarm her if it was not necessary telling her she might have been stalked while with her family and possibly by someone with a strange connection to her husband might not be the best avenue to take at least at first that connection turned stranger and more alarming when the printer finally spit out one of the photos i had chosen from the mall sequence in the picture the family was walking in front of the barnes noble bookstore the shot had been taken from the other side of the mall but the angle was almost perpendicular to the storefront the front display window of the bookstore caught a dim reflection of the photographer i had not seen it on the computer screen but there it was in the print the image of the photographer was too small and too whispery against the display behind the window a full-size stand-up photo of a man and a kilt that was surrounded by stacks of books and a sign that said ian rankin here tonight i realized then that i could use the display to place the exact date that the photos of graciela and her children were taken all i had to do was call the store and find out when ian rankin had been there but the display also helped hide the photographer from me i went back to the computer and found the photo among the miniatures and enlarged it i stared at it realizing i didn't know what to do buddy was in the cockpit using a hose attached to a gunnel faucet to spray the eight rods and reels leaning against the stern i told him to turn the water off and come back down to the office he did so without a word when we were back in the office i signaled him to the stool and then leaned over him and outlined the area of the photographer's reflection on the screen can this be enlarged here i want to see this area better it can be enlarged but you lose a lot of definition it's digital you know you get what you get i didn't know what he was talking about i just told him to do it he played with some of the square buttons that ran along the top of the frame and started enlarging the photograph and then repositioning it so the area of the reflection stayed on the screen soon he said he had maximized the enlargement i leaned in close the image was even murkier not even the lines and the author's kilt were crisp you can't tighten it up any you mean make it smaller again sure right no i mean like bring it more into focus no man that is it what you see is what you get okay print it it came out better before when i printed it maybe this will too lockridge put in the commands and i spent an uneasy minute waiting what is this anyway but he asked a reflection of the photographer oh you mean it wasn't terry no i don't think so i think somebody took pictures of his family and sent them to him it was some sort of message did he ever mention this no i took a shot at seeing a buddy might let something slip when did you first notice this file on the computer i don't know it must have been actually i just saw them for the first time with you here buddy don't me this could be important i've watched you work this thing like it was yours since high school i know you went into that machine when terry wasn't around he probably knew too he didn't care and neither do i just tell me when did you first see this file he let a few moments pass while he thought about it i first saw them about a month before he died but if your real question is when did terry see them then all you have to do is look at the file archive and see when it was created then do it buddy lockridge took over the keyboard again and went into the photo file's history in a few seconds he had the answer february 27th he said that was when that file was created okay good i said now assuming that terry didn't take these how would they end up on his computer well there's a few ways one is that he got them in an email and downloaded them another is that somebody borrowed his camera and shot them and then he found them and downloaded them the third way is maybe somebody just sent him a photo chip right out of the camera or a cd with the pictures already on it that would probably be the most untraceable way could terry do email from here no up at the house there's no hard line on the boat i told him he ought to get one of those cellular modems go wireless like that commercial where the guy is sitting at his desk in the middle of a field but he never got around to it the printer kicked out the photo and i grabbed it ahead of buddy's reach but then i placed it down on the desk so we could both view it the reflection was blurred and dim but still more recognizable on the print than it was on the computer screen i could now see that the photographer was holding the camera in front of his face obscuring it completely but then i was able to identify the overlapping l and a configuration of the los angeles dodgers logo the photographer was wearing a baseball cap on any given day there might be 50 000 people wearing dodgers caps in this city i don't know for sure but what i do know is that i don't believe in coincidences i never have and i never will i looked at the murky reflection of the photographer and my sudden guess was that it was the mystery man jordan shandy lockridge saw it too god damn he said that's the guy right i think that's the charter shandy yeah i said me too i put the print of shandy holding up the spanish mackerel next to the enlargement there was no way to make a match but there was nothing that made me think the other way there was no way to be sure but i was sure i knew that the same man who had showed up unannounced for a private charter with terry mccaleb had also stalked and photographed his family what i didn't know was where mccaleb had gotten these photos and whether he had made the same jump as i had just made i started stacking all the photos i had printed all the time i was trying to put something together some connection of logic but it wasn't there i didn't have enough of the picture only a few pieces my instincts told me that mccaleb had been baited in some way photos of his family came to him in the form of an email or a photo chip or a cd and the last two photos were the key the first 34 were the bait the last two were the hook hidden inside that bait i believe the message was obvious the photographer wanted to draw terry mccaleb out to the desert out to z six road chapter nine rachel walling rode the escalator down into the cavernous baggage pickup area at mccarran international she had carried her luggage during the journey from south dakota but the airport was designed so that every passenger had to go this way the escalator landing area was crowded with people waiting limo drivers held signs with the names of their clients others just held up signs that announced the names of hotels or casinos or tour companies the cacophony rising from the room assaulted her as she descended it was nothing like the airport where she had started her travels that morning cherie day was going to meet her rachel had not seen the fellow fbi agent in four years and that was only a brief interaction in amsterdam it had been eight years since she had really spent any kind of time with her and she wasn't sure she would recognize her or that she would be recognized herself it didn't matter as she searched the sea of faces and signs it was a sign that caught her eye bob backus the woman holding it was smiling at her her idea of a joke rachel approached without returning the smile cherie day had reddish brown hair pulled back into a ponytail she was attractive and trim with a good smile her eyes still with a lot of light in them rachel thought she looked more like the mother of a couple of catholic school kids than a serial killer hunter they extended her hand they shook and day proffered the sign i know bad joke but i knew it would get your attention yes it did did you have a long layover in chicago a few hours not much choice flying out of rapid city denver or chicago i like the food better at o'hare do you have bags no just this we can go rachel was carrying one bag a mid-sized duffel she had packed only a few changes of clothing they pointed toward one of the banks of glass doors and they headed that way we got you in at the embassy suites where the rest of us are staying we almost didn't but they had a cancellation the town is crowded because of the fight what fight i don't know some super heavy wager junior middleweight boxing match at one of the casinos i didn't pay attention i just know it's the reason this place gets so crowded rachel knew that cherie was talking because she was nervous she didn't know the reason for this whether anything had happened or it was simply because rachel had to be handled carefully in this situation if you want we can go to the hotel get you settled in there you could even take some time to rest if you want there's a meeting later at the fo you could start there no i'd like to go to the scene they stepped through the automatic glass doors and rachel felt the dry nevada air it wasn't at all as hot as she'd expected and packed for it was cool and crisp even in the direct sun she took out her sunglasses and decided the jacket she had worn to the airport in south dakota would be needed here it was stuffed into her bag rachel the scene is two hours from here are you sure yes take me there i'd like to start there start what i don't know whatever it is he wants me to start this seemed to give day pause she didn't respond they walked into the parking garage and found her car a government crown vic so dirty that it looked like it was in desert camouflage once they were driving day took out a cell phone and made a call rachel heard her tell someone probably her boss or partner or the scene supervisor that she had picked up the package and would be taking it to the scene there was a long pause as the person she'd called responded at length then she said goodbye and hung up you are cleared to the scene rachel but you have to step back you're here as an observer okay what are you talking about i'm an fbi agent same as you but you're not in behavioral anymore this is not your case you're saying i am here because bacchus wants me here not you people rachel let's try to get off to a better start than we did in that anything new come up so far today we're up to 10 bodies now they think that's going to be it at least for this location ids they're getting there what they have is tentative but they're putting it all together as brass duran at the scene no she's in quantico she's she should be here don't you people know what you've got here she whoa rachel slow down okay let's get something straight here i'm the case agent on this okay you are not running this investigation this is not going to work if you confuse that but backus is talking to me he called me out and that's why you are here but you aren't calling the shots rachel you have to stand to the side and watch and i have to tell you i don't like how this is starting out this isn't driving miss rachel you mentored me but that was ten years ago i've now been in behavioral longer than you ever were and i booked more cases than you ever did so don't talk down to me and don't act like my mentor or my mother rachel didn't respond at first and then she simply asked dade to pull over so she could get her jacket out of her bag which was in the trunk day pulled into the travel america on blue diamond road and popped the trunk when rachel got back into the car she was wearing a baggy black all-weather coat that looked like it might have been designed for a man day didn't say anything about it thanks rachel said and you're right i apologize i guess you get like me when it turns out your boss your mentor is the same evil thing you've been hunting all your life and they punish you for it i understand that rachel but it wasn't just bacchus it was a lot of things the reporter some of the choices you made some people say you were lucky you still had a job at the end of it rachel's face grew hot she was being reminded that she was one of the bureau's embarrassments even within the ranks even with the agent she had mentored she had slept with a reporter working on her case that was the shorthand version it didn't matter that it was a reporter who was actually a part of the case who was working with rachel side by side in hour by hour the shorthand version would always be the story that agents heard and whispered about a reporter was there a lower breach in agent behavior and etiquette maybe a mobster or a spy but nothing else five years in north dakota followed by a promotion to south dakota she said weekly yeah i was lucky all right look i know you paid the price my point is that you have to know your place here use some finesse a lot of people are watching this case if you play it right it could be your ticket back in got it good rachel reached down to the side of her seat and adjusted it so she could lean back how long did you say she asked about two hours we've been using choppers from nellis mostly saves a lot of time hasn't drawn attention she was asking about the media whether news of the investigation in the desert had leaked yet we've had a few fires to put out but so far it is holding up the scene is in california and we're working it out of nevada i think that has somehow kept the lid on to be honest there are some people worried about you now rachel thought about jack mcavoy the reporter for a moment nobody has to worry she said i don't even know where he is well if this thing finally hits the radar you can expect to see him he wrote a bestselling book on the first go round i guarantee he'll be back for the sequel rachel thought about the book she had been reading on the plane and that was now in her bag she wasn't sure whether it was the subject or the author that had drawn her to read it so many times probably she left it at that and pulled her jacket around her shoulders and folded her arms she was tired not having slept since getting the call from day she leaned her head against the side window and pretty soon she was out her dream of darkness returned at this time she was not alone she could not see anyone because she could only see blackness but she sensed another presence someone close but not necessarily someone with her she moved and turned in the darkness trying to see who it was she reached out but her hands touched nothing she heard a moaning sound and then realized it was her own voice from deep in her throat then she was grabbed something had her and shook her very hard rachel opened her eyes she saw the freeway rushing at her through the windshield cherie day let go of her jacket you all right this is the exit rachel looked up at a passing green freeway sign z six rowed one mile she straightened up in the seat she checked her watch and realized she had slept for over 90 minutes her neck was stiff and painful on the right side from leaning so long against the window she started working it with her fingers digging deeply into the muscle you all right day asked again sounded like you were having a bad one i'm fine what did i say nothing you just sort of moaned i think you were running from something or something had you day hit the blinker and turned into the exit lane z six road appeared to be in the middle of nowhere at the top of the exit there was nothing not even a gas station or even an abandoned structure there was no visible reason for the exit or the road we're over here they turned left and took the overpass across the freeway once off the overpass the road disintegrated into an unpaved trail that wound south and down into the flat basin of the mojave the landscape was stark the white soda on the surface of the flats looked like snow in the distance joshua trees reached their bony fingers toward the sky and smaller plants wedged themselves between the rocks it was a still life rachel had no idea what sort of animal might be able to subsist in such a barren place they passed a sign that said they were headed towards soda springs and then the road curved and rachel could suddenly see the white tents and rvs and vans and other vehicles ahead she could see a military green helicopter its blades still parked at the left of the encampment further past the encampment there was a complex of small buildings set at the base of the hills it looked like a roadside motel but there were no signs and no road what is this place rachel asked this is z6 day said pronouncing it z6 as far as i can tell it is the of the universe some radio preacher named it and built it sixty years ago he got control of the land by promising the government he would be prospecting he paid winos from skid row in l.a to do that while he went on the radio and called on the faithful to come here to bathe in the spring waters and guzzle the mineral waters he bottled it took the bureau of land management 25 years to get rid of him the place was then turned over to the state university system for desert studies why here why did bacchus bury them here far as we can guess is because it's federal land he wanted to make sure we meaning you probably worked the case if that's what he wanted he got it it's a major excavation we had to bring in our own power shelter food water everything rachel said nothing she was studying everything from the crime scene to the distant horizon of grey mountain ridges that enclosed the basin she didn't agree with day's take on the place she had heard the coastline of ireland described as a terrible beauty she thought that the desert with its barren lunar landscape was in its own way beautiful too there was a harsh beauty to it a dangerous beauty she had never spent much time in the desert but her years in the dakotas had given her an appreciation for harsh places the empty landscapes were people were the intruders that was her secret she had what the bureau called a hardship posting it was designed to wear her down and make her quit but she had beaten them at this game she could last forever there she would not quit day slowed as they approached a checkpoint set up about a hundred yards before the tents a man in a blue jumpsuit with the white letters fbi on the breast pocket stood beneath a beach type tent with open sides the desert winds were threatening to tear it from its moorings just as they had already played havoc with the agent's hair day lowered the window she didn't bother to give her own name or identification she was a given she gave the man rachel's name and identified her as a visiting agent whatever that meant as she cleared with agent albert he asked his voice as dry and flat as the desert basin behind him yes she's cleared okay then i just need her credentials rachel handed over her id wallet the agent wrote down her serial number and handed it back from quantico no south dakota he gave her a look the kind that said he knew she was a fuck-up have fun he said as he turned to go back to his tent they moved the car forward raising her window leaving the agent in a cloud of dust he's from the vegas fo she said they're not too happy about things playing second string so what's new exactly is albert the sac that's him what's he like well remember your theory about agents being either morphs or empaths yes he's a morph rachel nodded they came to a little cardboard sign taped to a branch of a joshua tree it said vehicles and had an arrow pointing to the right they turned and they parked last in a row of four equally dirty crown vics what about you rachel asked which did you turn out to be they didn't answer you ready for this she asked rachel instead absolutely i've been waiting four years for another shot at him this is where it starts she cracked the door and stepped out into the bright desert sun she felt at home chapter 10 backhaus followed them down the exit ramp he was a safe distance behind he crossed over the freeway and put on his blinker to get back on in the opposite direction if they were watching him in the mirror he would simply look like someone turning around to head back to vegas before turning back onto the freeway he watched the fbi car go off the paved road and head across the desert to the site his sight a white cloud of dust kicked up behind the car he could see the white tents in the distance he felt an overwhelming sense of accomplishment the crime scene was a city he had built a city of bones the agents were like ants between pieces of glass they lived and worked in a world of his creation unknowingly doing his bidding he wished he could get closer to that glass to take it all in and see the horror he etched on their faces but he knew the risk was too great and he had other things to do he pushed his foot down hard on the accelerator and headed back toward the city of sin he had to make sure everything was ready and things were set as he drove he felt a slight sense of melancholy slide in beneath his ribs he guessed that this came with the letdown of leaving rachel behind in the desert he took a deep breath and tried to exercise the feeling he knew it would not be long before he was close to her again after a moment he smiled at the memory of seeing his name on the sign held by the woman who had met rachel at the airport an inside joke between agents backus recognized the greeter agent cherie day rachel had mentored her just as he had mentored rachel that meant some of his special insights must have been passed on through rachel to this new generation he wondered what cherie day's reaction would have been if he had stepped up to her and her stupid sign at the bottom of the escalator and said thanks for meeting me he looked out through the car's windows at the flat barren plain of the desert floor he believed it was truly beautiful made even more so by the things he had planted in the sand and rock out there he thought about that and soon the pressure in his chest eased and he felt wonderful again he checked the rear view for trailers and saw nothing that was suspicious he checked himself then and admired the surgeon's work once more he smiled at himself 11 as they got close to the tents rachel walling began to smell the scene the unmistakable odor of decaying flesh was carried on the wind as it worked through the encampment billowed the tents and moved out again she switched her breathing to her mouth haunted by knowledge she wished she didn't have that the sensation of smell occurred when tiny particles struck sensory receptors in the nasal passages it meant if you smelled decaying flesh that was because you were breathing decaying flesh there were three small square tents in the approach to the site these were not the kind for camping they were field command tents with straight sides to eight feet behind these three was a larger rectangular tent rachel noticed that all of the tents had open vent flaps on top she knew that there were body excavations taking place in each the vents were to let some of the heat and stink escape overlapping everything was the noise there were at least two gasoline powered generators providing electricity to the scene there were also two full-size rvs parked to the left of the tents and their rooftop air handlers were rumbling let's go in here first cherie day said pointing to one of the rvs randall is usually in here the rv looked like any super camper rachel had seen on the freeway this one was called the open road and it had an arizona plate on the back day knocked on the door and then pulled it open without waiting for a response they stepped up and in the vehicle wasn't set up in the inside for camping on the open road partitions and the comforts of home had been removed this was one long room set up with four folding tables and mini chairs along the rear wall was a counter with all the usual office machinery computer fax copier and coffee maker two of the tables were covered with paperwork on the third incongruous to the purpose and setting was a large bowl of fruit the lunch table rachel guessed even at a mass burial site you have to have lunch at the fourth table was a man on a cell phone an open laptop computer in front of him have a seat day said i'll introduce you as soon as he is off rachel sat at the lunch table and took a precautionary sniff of the air the rv's air handler was on recycle the odor from the excavation wasn't noticeable no wonder the man in charge stayed in here she looked at the bowl of fruit and thought about taking a handful of grapes just to keep her energy up but decided not to you want some fruit go ahead day said no thanks i'm fine suit yourself day reached over and picked off some grapes and rachel felt foolish because she had painted herself into a corner with the fruit the man on the cell who she assumed was agent albert was talking too low to be heard probably by the person he was talking to as well rachel noticed that the long wall along the left side of the rv was covered with photographs of the excavations she looked away she didn't want to study the photographs until she had been in the tents she turned and looked out the window next to the table this rv had the premier view of the desert she could see down into the basin and the entire ridgeline she wondered for a moment if the view meant anything if bacchus had chosen the spot because of the view and if so what was the significance of it when day turned her back rachel grabbed some grapes and put three in her mouth at once at the same moment the man snapped his phone closed and got up from his table and approached her with his hand out randall alpert special agent in charge we're glad you are here rachel shook his hand but had to wait to get the grapes down before speaking nice to meet you not such nice circumstances yeah but look at that view sure beats the brick wall i've got back in quantico and at least we're out here the end of april and not august that would have been a killer he was the new bob backus running the shop at quantico coming out on the big ones and of course this was a big one rachel decided she didn't like him and that cherie day was right about him being a morph end of disc two disc three rachel had always found that agents in behavioral were of two kinds the first type she called morphs these agents were much like the men and women they hunted able to keep it all from getting to them they could move on like a serial killer from case to case without being dragged down by all the horror and guilt and knowledge of the true nature of evil rachel called them morphs because these agents could take that burden and somehow morph it into something else the site of a multiple body excavation became a beautiful view better than anything at quantico the second type rachel called empaths because they took all the horror in and kept it in it became the campfire they warmed themselves by they used it to connect and motivate to get the job done to rachel these were the better agents because they would go to the limit and beyond to catch the bad guy and solve the case it was certainly healthier to be a morph to be able to move on without any baggage the halls of behavioral were haunted by the ghosts of the empaths the agents who couldn't go the distance for whom the burden became too much agents like janet newcombe who put her gun in her mouth and john fenton who drove into a bridge abutment and terry mccaleb who literally gave his heart to the job rachel remembered them all and above all she remembered bob backus the ultimate morph the agent who was both hunter and prey that was brass duran on the phone albert said she said to say hello she's back at quantico yes she's agoraphobic about that place never wants to leave she's heading up things on that end for us now agent walling i know you know the score we've got a delicate situation here we're glad you are here but you are here strictly as an observer and possibly a witness she didn't like him being so formal with her it was a way of keeping her outside the circle a witness she asked you might be able to give us some ideas you knew this guy most of us were on the street chasing bank robbers when the whole thing with bacchus went down i came into the unit right after your thing went down after opr went through the place cherie here is one of the few still around from them my thing you know what i mean you and back is going at it can i go look at the excavation now i'd like to see what you've got well cherie will take you out in a second we don't have a lot to look at but today's carcass spoken like a true morph rachel thought she glanced today in their eyes met in confirmation but there is something i want to talk about first rachel knew what was coming but let albert have his say he moved toward the front of the rv and pointed through the windshield out into the desert rachel followed his line but couldn't see anything but the mountain ridge well you can't really see it from this angle albert said but out there lying on the ground we've got a great big sign it says in big letters filming no flyovers no noise that's for anybody up there who might get curious about all these tents and vehicles pretty good idea huh they think it's a movie set helps keep them away from us and your point my point my point is we have thrown a real thick blanket over all of this nobody knows and we want to keep it that way and you are suggesting i am immediately no i am not suggesting that i am giving you the same talk i give everybody that comes out here i don't want this in the media i want to control it this time is that understood more like bureau command or the office of professional responsibility wants to control at this time she thought the backus revelations almost decimated the ranks and reputation of the behavioral sciences unit last time not to mention the colossal public relations fiasco it was for the bureau as a whole now with the failings of 911 and the bureau's competition with homeland security for budget dollars as well as headlines media focus on a mad killer agent was not what bureau command or the opr had in mind especially when the general public had been led to believe that the mad killer agent was long since dead i understand rachel said coolly you won't have to worry about me can i go out now one other thing he hesitated for a moment whatever it was it was delicate not everyone involved in this investigation is aware of the connection to robert backus it's need to know and i want to keep it that way what do you mean the people working out there don't know it was backus who did this they should be agent walling this is not your investigation don't try to make it yours you were brought here to observe and help leave it at that we don't know for sure it was bacchus and until we do right his fingerprints were only all over the gps and his mo all over everything else albert glanced today throwing her a look of annoyance cherie should not have told you about the prince and as far as the mo goes there is nothing known about that for sure just because she shouldn't have told me doesn't mean it isn't true you're not going to be able to cover this up agent albert albert laughed in frustration who said anything about a cover-up look all we're doing right now is controlling information there is a right time for revealing data that is all i'm telling you your presence alone here will be revealing enough okay [Applause] i just don't want you deciding what to reveal and who to reveal it to that's my job understood rachel nodded without conviction she glanced at day as she did so perfectly good then cherie take her away take her sightseeing they left the rv and day led her toward the first small tent you certainly ingratiated yourself with him she said to rachel as they went it's funny some things just never change i think it might be impossible for a bureaucracy to evolve to learn anything from its mistakes anyway never mind what do we have here so far we have eight bags and gas on another two we just haven't gotten to them yet classic inverted pyramid rachel knew the shorthand she had invented some of it day was saying eight bodies had been recovered and readings from gas probes indicated there were another two bodies still interred and waiting for excavation tragic history created data from which models of similar behavior were formed it had been seen before a killer who returns with victims to the same burial spot follows a pattern the newer burials radiating out from the original in an inverted pyramid or v pattern so was the case here with back as either unintentionally or consciously following a pattern based on data he helped accumulate as an agent let me ask you one thing rachel said he was talking to brass duran on the phone in there she's got to know about the backus connection right yes she knows she found the prince on the package rachel nodded at least she had one confederate she could trust and who was in the know they reached the tent and they pulled back the entry flap rachel went in first because the overhead venting flap was open it was not dark in the tent it was only dim rachel's eyes adjusted immediately and she saw a large rectangular hole in the center of the tent there was no fill pile she assumed the dirt and rock and sand removed from the grave had been shipped to quantico or the field office lab for sifting and analysis this first site is where the anomalies are day said the others are straight burials very clean what are the anomalies the reading on the gps came back to this spot sitting here when they got here was a boat it was a boat here in the desert you remember that preacher i told you started this place he dug a canal for the spring water to fill we figured the boat came from back then it had been sitting here for decades anyway we moved it sank a probe and started digging anomaly number two is that the grave contained the first two victims all the other graves are individual these first two were they buried at the same time yes one on top of the other but one was wrapped in plastic and he had been dead a lot longer than the other seven months longer we think so he sat on one body for a while wrapped it for safe keeping and when he had the second he realized he had to do something and so he came out to the desert to bury them he used the boat as a marker as a sort of gravestone and for himself because he knew he'd be back with more maybe but why'd he need the boat if he had the gps rachel nodded and felt a little buzz of adrenaline start to tick in her blood the brainstorming had always been the best part of the job the gps came later recently that was just for us us you the bureau me rachel moved to the edge and looked down into the hole it had not been deep especially for two bodies she stopped breathing through her mouth and took the fetid air in through her nose she wanted to remember this ideas yet nothing official no contact with kin yet but we know who some of them were five of them at least the first one was three years ago the second seven months after that have you built a cycle yes we have it about an eight percent reduction we think the last two will bring us up to november meaning that the intervals between the killings were decreasing by eight percent from the initial seven month period between killings one and two again it was familiar the decreasing interval was common in case history a symptom of the killer's diminishing control of his urges at the same time his belief in his invincibility grows you get away with the first one and the second comes easier and sooner and so on i guess that makes him overdue rachel said supposedly supposedly come on rachel it's bacchus he knows what we know he's just playing with us it's like amsterdam he's gone before we even recognize it is him same here he's moved on i mean why send us the gps if he hasn't he's split already he's not overdue and he's not coming back here he's somewhere laughing at us watching us follow our models and routines knowing that we won't get any closer to him than we did the last time rachel nodded she knew day was right but decided to be optimistic he's got to make a mistake somewhere what about the gps anything on that we're working it obviously brass is on that what else is there there was you rachel rachel didn't say anything again cherie day was right bacas had something in play his obscure but direct message to rachel seemed to make this obvious he wanted her here wanted her to be part of the play but what was it what did the poet want like rachel had mentored day backus had mentored rachel he was a good teacher in retrospect better than she or anyone could have imagined she was mentored by both agent and killer hunter and prey a unique combination in the annals of crime and punishment rachel always remembered a throwaway line backus had spoken one night when they were walking up the stairs from the basement at quantico leaving the unit behind for the day in the long run i think it is all we can't predict how these people act we can only react and at the end of the day that means we're largely useless we make good headlines and hollywood makes good movies about us but that's about it rachel was a rookie in the unit at the time she was full of ideals and plans and faith she spent the next 30 minutes trying to talk back as out of such a belief now she was embarrassed by the memory of the effort and the things she had said to a man she would later realize was a killer can i go into the other tents now rachel asked sure they said whatever you want chapter 12 it was late and the batteries on the boat were beginning to run low the lights and the forward birth were steadily dimming or at least it seemed so to me maybe it was my eyes that were dimming i had spent seven hours reading through files pulled out of the boxes on the top bunk i had filled my notebook to the last page and then flipped it over and started back to front the afternoon interview had been uneventful if not unhelpful terry mccaleb's last charter was a man named otto woodle who lived in a luxury condo behind the fabled avalon casino building i talked to him for an hour getting much the same story i had already gotten from buddy lockridge whittle who was 66 years old confirmed all aspects of the trip that were of interest to me he said he did leave the boat during their dockage in mexico and spent time with women he knew there he was unembarrassed and unashamed his wife was over on the mainland shopping for the day and he apparently didn't mind opening up he told me he was retired from his job but not from life he said he still had a man's needs i let that line of questioning go at that point and focused on the last moments of mccaleb's life whittle's observations and recollections mirrored buddies in all important details buddha also confirmed that on at least two specific instances during the trip he saw mccaleb take his meds downing the pills and liquids with orange juice each time i took notes but knew they wouldn't be needed after an hour i thanked woodle for his time and left him to his view of the santa monica bay and the bloom of smog that rose beyond it on the mainland buddy lockridge was waiting for me out front in a golf cart i had rented he was still brooding over my last minute decision to interview woodle without him he'd accused me of using him to get the interview with whittle he was right about that but his complaints and concerns weren't even on my radar we drove silently back to the pier and i turned in the cart i told buddy he could head home because i was going to be busy reading files the rest of the day and into the night he meekly offered to help but i told him he already had helped enough i watched him walk off toward the fairy docks with his head down i still wasn't sure about buddy lockridge i knew i had some thinking to do about him not wanting to fool around with the zodiac i took a water taxi back to the following sea i conducted a quick search of the master stateroom finding nothing of note and moved into the ford cabin i noticed that terry had a compact disc player in the converted office his small collection of music was mostly blues and 1970s rock and roll i plugged in a more recent lucinda williams cd called world without tears and liked it so much i ended up letting it play over and over during the next six hours the woman had long journeys in her voice and i liked that by the time the power started faltering on the boat and i turned the music off i had unconsciously memorized the lyrics to at least three songs i could sing to my daughter the next time i put her to bed back in mccaleb's converted office the first thing i did was go back to his computer and open the folder marked profiles it gave me a listing of six different files all titled by dates in the previous two years one by one i called them up in chronological order and found each to be a forensic suspect profile of a murder case written in the unadorned and clinical language of the professional each profile drew conclusions about a killer based on specific crime scene details it was clear from these details that mccaleb had done more than simply read newspaper articles it was obvious he had full access to the crime scenes either in person or more likely by photos and tapes and investigators notes it was very clear to me that these were not practice runs worked up by a profiler who missed the job and wanted to keep in tune these were the work of an invited guest the cases were all from the jurisdictions of small police departments in the west my guess was that mccaleb had heard of each case through news reports or other means and simply volunteered his help to the police department struggling with the case offer accepted he was probably sent the crime scene information and he then set to work analyzing and drawing up the profile i wondered if his notoriety helped or hindered him when he offered his talents how many times was he turned down to be accepted these six times one accepted he probably worked each case from the desk where i was sitting without ever leaving the boat or thinking his wife knew in detail what he was doing but i could tell each profile had taken a good amount of his time and attention i was beginning to understand more and more what graciela had said had become a problem in their marriage terry couldn't draw a line he couldn't let it go this profile work was a testament not only to his dedication to his mission as an investigator but also to his blind spot as a husband and father the six profiles came from cases in scottsdale arizona henderson nevada and the four california cities of la jolla laguna beach salinas and san mateo two were child murders and the other four were sex slayings involving three women and one male victim mccaleb drew no links between them it was clear they were simply separate cases that had drawn his attention in the last two years there was no indication in any of the files that terry's work had been helpful or if any of the cases had been cleared i wrote down the basics from each in my notebook with the idea that i would follow up with the departments to check the status of each investigation it was a long shot but it was still possible that one of these profiles could have triggered mccaleb's death it wasn't a priority but i would need to check it out finished with the computer for the time being i directed my attention to the file boxes stored on the top bunk one by one i pulled them down until there was no room on the floor of the ford room i found that they contained a mix of files from both solved and unsolved cases i spent the first hour just sorting them and pulling out the open unsolves thinking that it was more likely than not that if terry's death was related to a case then it was one with a suspect still at large there was no reason for him to be working or reworking a closed case the reading was fascinating many of the files were on cases i was familiar with or had even had a part in they were not files that had gathered dust i got the distinct impression that the open cases were an endless rotation from time to time michaela pulled them out and rethought the investigations the suspects the crime scenes the possibilities he made calls to investigators and lab people and even witnesses all of this was clear because mccaleb's practice was to use the inside front flap of the file to write notes on the moves he made meticulously dating these entries as well from these dates i could tell that mccaleb had been working many cases at once and it was clear he still had a pipeline into the fbi and the behavioral sciences squad at quantico i spent a whole hour reading the fat file he had accumulated on the poet one of the more notorious if not embarrassing serial killer cases in the fbi annals the poet was a killer later revealed to be the fbi agent who had been heading the squad essentially hunting for himself it was a scandal that had rocked the bureau and its vaunted behavioral sciences section eight years before the agent robert backus chose homicide detectives as his victims he staged the killing scenes as suicides leaving behind suicide notes containing verses from the poems of edgar allan poe he killed eight men across the country in a period of three years before a reporter discovered the false suicides and the man hunt began backus was revealed and shot by another agent in los angeles at the time he was supposedly targeting a detective from the homicide table in the lapd's hollywood division that was my table the target ed thomas was my colleague and that was my connection i remember taking a very high personal interest in the poet now i was reading the inside story officially the case was closed by the bureau but the unofficial word had always been that bacchus had gotten away after being shot bacchus initially escaped into the storm water tunnel system that ranged beneath los angeles six weeks later a body was found with a bullet hole in the right place but decomposition made a physical identification and fingerprint comparison impossible forging animals it was reported had made off with parts of the body including the lower mandible and the only teeth that could have been used for identification through dental records bacchus had also conveniently disappeared without leaving dna exemplars behind so they had the body with the bullet hole but nothing to compare it to or so they said the bureau quickly announced that bacchus was presumed dead and the file was closed if only to bring a speedy end to the agency's humiliation at the hands of one of its own but the records mccaleb had accumulated since then confirmed that the folklore was true bacchus was still alive and out there somewhere four years earlier he had surfaced in holland according to confidential fbi bulletins provided by bureau sources to mccaleb a killer took the lives of five men over a two-year period in amsterdam all the victims were foreign visitors who had disappeared after venturing into the city's red light district each man was found strangled and floating in the amstel river what connected the killings to bacchus were notes sent to local authorities in which the writer took credit for the killings and asked that the fbi be called into the case the writer according to the confidential reports asked specifically for agent rachel walling the agent who had shot robert backus four years earlier the police in holland invited the fbi to take an unofficial look at the case the sender had signed each letter as simply the poet fbi handwriting analysis of the letter indicated not conclusively that the writer was not a killer trying to ride the notorious coattails of robert backus but back is himself of course by the time the bureau local authorities and even agent walling mobilized in amsterdam the killer was long gone and robert backus had not been heard from again at least as far as terry mccaleb sources knew i replaced the thick file in one of the boxes and moved on i soon learned that mccaleb was not just working old cases in fact anything that caught his attention was subject to his focus and skills there were dozens of files that contained only a single newspaper story and some notes jotted on the file flap some cases were high profile others obscure he put together a file of newspaper clips on the lacie peterson case the disappearance of a pregnant woman from central california on christmas eve two years before the case had garnered long-term media and public attention particularly after her dismembered body was found in the bay where her husband had earlier told investigators he had been fishing when she disappeared an entry on the file flap dated before the woman's body was found said definitely dead in the water another note dated before her husband's arrest said there's another woman there was also a file with seemingly prescient notes on elizabeth smart a child kidnapped in utah who was found and returned after nearly a year he correctly wrote alive under one of the newspaper photos of the young girl mccaleb also made an unofficial study of the robert blake case the former film and television star was accused of murdering his wife in another headlining case the notes in the file were intuitive and on point ultimately borne out as correct as the case entered the courts i had to ask myself if it was possible that mccaleb had entered the notes in his files and predated them using information from media accounts and making it appear that he was predicting case aspects or suspect traits from his own work when he wasn't while anything was possible it seemed entirely unrealistic to me to think michaela had done this i could see no reason for him to commit such a quiet and self-defeating crime i believe the work was real and was his one file that i found contained newspaper stories on the lapd's new cold case squad noted on the flap were the names and cell numbers of four detectives assigned to the unit terry had obviously been able to cross the gulf between the lapd and the fbi if he had their cell numbers i knew detective cell numbers were not handed out to just anyone one of the four detectives i knew tim marcia had spent time in hollywood division including the homicide table i knew it was late but cops expect to get late calls i knew marcia wouldn't mind i took out my cell and called the number mccaleb had written next to his name on the file marcia answered immediately i identified myself got through the long time no see pleasantries and explained that i was calling about terry mccaleb i didn't lie but i didn't say i was working a murder investigation i said i was sorting through his files for his wife and came across marcia's name and number i was simply curious about what the relationship had been harry you worked some cold cases in your time right that thing up at your house last year came out of a cold case didn't it right then you know how it goes sometimes you grasp at straws you take any help you can get terry called me up one day and offered his services not on a specific case i think he had seen a story in the times about the unit and he basically said if i ever needed him to work a profile he was there for me he was one of the good ones i was really sorry to hear what happened i wanted to get over to catalina for the service but things sort of came up like they always do did you ever take him up on the offer to do a profile yeah sort of i know i did and a couple of other guys here did too you know how it is the department has no profiling to speak of and sometimes waiting on the bureau in chronicle can take months here was this guy who knew what he was doing and he didn't want anything back he just wanted to work so we used him we bounced a few things off him and how did he do he did good we're working this one case now that's interesting when the new chief put the squad together we started going back through the open unsolved we linked six cases body dumps up in the valley they had some similar aspects but were never connected before we copied the files to terry and he confirmed he connected them through what he called psychological commonalities we're still working it but at least we know what we have now we're on the track is what i mean i'm not sure we would be where we are if terry hadn't helped us out good i'm glad to hear he helped with it i'll tell his wife and i'm sure it will help her to know that good so harry you coming back in i was expecting him to ask what i was really doing with mccaleb's files not whether i was coming back to the department what are you talking about you heard about the three-year ticket the chief instituted no what's that he knows we lost a lot of talent in recent years all the scandals and whatnot good people saying what the hell i'm out of here so he's opening the door for people to come back if you reapply within three years of retirement and are accepted you can get back in without having to go to the academy that's perfect for old guys like you i heard the smile in this voice three years huh yeah what's it been for you two and a half just about well there you go think about it we could use you here in cold cases we've got 7 000 open unsolved take your pick man i didn't say anything out of the blue i was struck with the idea of going back in that moment i was blind to the negatives i only thought about what it would be like to carry the badge again then again maybe you are having too much fun being retired you need anything else harry um no that was it thanks man i appreciate it anytime and think about the three-year plan we could sure use you whether it's here or back in hollywood or wherever yeah thanks maybe i will i'm gonna think about it i closed the phone and sat there surrounded by another man's obsessions but thinking about my own i thought about going back i thought about 7 000 unanswered voices from the grave that was more than the number of stars you see when you look up into the sky at night my phone buzzed while it was still in my hand it pulled me out of the reverie and i opened it expecting it to be tim marcia calling back and saying that three-year thing had just been a gag but it was graciela calling i can see lights on in the boat she said are you still there yeah i'm here why so late harry you missed the last ferry i wasn't going to go back tonight i was going to stay over and finish up here maybe head back tomorrow i might want to come up and talk to you too that's fine i'm not working tomorrow i'll be here packing packing we're going to move back to the mainland we'll live in northridge i got my old job back in the er at holy cross is raymond one of the reasons you're moving back raymond what do you mean i was wondering if there were any troubles with the boy i heard he didn't like living on the island raymond doesn't have a lot of friends he doesn't fit in so well but the move was not just because of raymond i want to go back i wanted to go before terry was gone i told you that yes i know she changed the subject is there anything you need did you get something to eat i found some stuff in the boat's kitchen i'm fine she groaned in disgust that all must be old check the expiration dates before you eat anything else i will she hesitated and then asked the question she had called to ask have you found anything yet well i found some things i am curious about but nothing that particularly stands out yet i thought about the man in the dodgers cap he certainly stood out for me but i didn't want to bring him up yet with graciela i wanted to know more before talking to her about him okay she said but keep me informed about things okay that's the deal okay harry i'll talk to you tomorrow are you staying in a hotel or on the boat the boat i think if that's all right with you it's fine with me do what you want to okay can i ask you something sure what you were talking about packing and i'm just curious about something how often do you go over to the mainland you know to go to the mall or restaurants or see family usually about once a month unless something specific comes up and i need to go you take the kids usually i want them to be used to it you grow up on an island where they have golf carts instead of cars and everybody knows everybody it can be strange to suddenly move to the mainland i'm trying to get them ready for it i guess that's smart what mall is closest to the fairy docks i don't know what one is closest but i always go up to the promenade on pico i just shoot up the 405 from the harbour i know there are closer malls fox hills for example but i like the promenade i like the stores there and it's easy sometimes i meet friends from the valley and it is a good halfway point for all of us and easy to be followed to i thought but didn't say good i said not sure what i was saying was good one other thing i'm running out of light here the batteries i guess is there a switch or something i should hit to recharge or how do you do that you didn't ask buddy no i didn't know i was going to run out of light when i was with buddy oh harry i'm not sure there's a generator that has to run i'm not sure even where it is okay well don't worry about it i can call buddy i'll let you go graciela i ought to get back to work while i still have some light i hung up and wrote the name of the mall down in my notebook then left the room and went around the boat turning off all the lights but the one on the desk in the forward birth in an effort to conserve power i called buddy on the cell after that and he answered in a groggy voice hey buddy wake up it's harry bosch who oh what do you want i need your help is there like a generator or something on this boat that will give me some light the batteries are dying on me man don't let those things drain all the way down you'll kill them then what do i do you've got to crank the volvos man and then turn on the generator the thing is it's near midnight those folks sleeping on their boats in line with you aren't going to take so kindly to hearing that all right forget it but in the morning i should do it so what do i do use a key yeah just like a car go to the helm in the salon put in the keys and turn them to the on position then above each key is the ignition toggle flip it up and she should start right up unless you've used all the juice up and there's no charge okay i'll do it you got any flashlights on this thing yeah there's one in the galley one over the chart table and one in the master in the built-in drawer to the left of the bed there's also a lantern in the lower cabinet of the galley but you don't want to use that down in the front room the kerosene smell will build up in there and you might croak yourself then there'd be another mystery to solve he said the last line with a note of contempt in his voice i let it go thanks buddy i'll talk to you yeah good night i hung up and went looking for the flashlights coming back to the forward birth with a small one from the master stateroom and a large table light from the galley i put the large light on the desk and turned it on i then killed the births lights the table lights glow hit the small room's low ceiling and spread it wasn't bad between that and the handheld light i would still be able to get some work done i was down to less than half a box of files to go and wanted to finish before figuring out where i was going to sleep these were all thin files the most recent additions to mccaleb's collection and i could tell most of them contained little more than a newspaper clip and maybe a few notes on the flap i reached in and picked one out at random i should have been in vegas throwing dice because the file i picked turned out to be a long shot winner it was the file that gave my investigation focus it put me on the road chapter 13 the file tab simply said six missing it contained a single clipping from the los angeles times and several dated notes and names and phone numbers hand written on the inside flap as was mccaleb's routine i sense that the file was important before i even read the story or understood the meaning of some of the notes it was the dating on the flap that triggered this response mccaleb had jotted his thoughts down on the file four different times beginning on january 7th and ending on february 28th of this year he would be dead a month later on march 31st those notes and those dates were the most recent found in any of the files i had reviewed i knew i was looking at what might have been terry's last work his last case in obsession there were still files to look at but this one gave me the vibe and i went with it reporter i knew wrote the story keisha russell had been working the cop beat at the times at least 10 years and was good at it she was also accurate and fair she had lived up to every deal i had ever made with her in the years i was on the job and she had gone out of her way to play fair with me the year before when i was no longer on the job and things turned bad on my first private case the bottom line was that i felt comfortable taking anything she wrote as fact i started to read search for a missing link are nevada disappearances of two la men four others connected by keisha russell time staff writer the mysterious disappearances of at least six men including two from los angeles from gambling centers in nevada have got investigators searching for a missing link among the men detectives with the las vegas metro police said tuesday that while the men did not know each other and came from widely disparate home towns and backgrounds there still may be a commonality among them that could be the key to the mystery the men ranging in age from 29 to 61 were reported missing by their families during the past three years four were last known to be in las vegas where police are heading the investigation and two disappeared while on trips to laughlin and prim none of the men left any indication in their hotel rooms or vehicles or homes as to where they were going or what became of them at this point it is a stone cold mystery said detective todd ritz of vegas metro's missing persons unit people disappear from here or anywhere all the time but they usually show up later dead or alive and there's usually an explanation with these guys there's nothing it's a thin air case but ritz and other detectives are sure there is an explanation and they are enlisting the public's help in finding it last week detectives from las vegas laughlin and prim gathered at the vegas metro offices to compare notes and set an investigative strategy they also went public with the case hoping photographs of the men in their stories would spark new information from the public on tuesday a week later ritz reported that not much in the way of usable information had come in there has got to be someone who knows something or saw something or heard something said ritz in a telephone interview six guys just don't get up and disappear without somebody knowing something we need that somebody to come forward as ritz said missing person cases are numerous the fact that these six men came to nevada for business or pleasure and never went home is what makes this case different the publicity comes at a time las vegas is once again redefining its image gone is the marketing strategy that build the neon city as a family destination sin is back in in the past three years numerous clubs featuring nude or partially new dancers have been licensed and many of the casinos on the fabled strip have produced shows featuring nudity and strictly adult subject matter billboards featuring nudity in their advertisements have been erected and drawn the ire of some community activists it has all helped change the complexion of the city once again it is being marketed as a leave the kids at home adult playground as the recent billboard skirmishes suggest the change hasn't played well with everyone and many speculate that the disappearance of these six travelers may in some indirect way be linked to the region's return to an anything goes atmosphere let's face it said ernie gelson a columnist for the las vegas sun they tried the family fun thing and it didn't play the town is going back to what plays and what plays is what pays now is that the missing link that connects these six guys i don't know maybe we never will still gelson is uneasy about jumping to any conclusions that would link the missing men to the changing image of las vegas first of all remember they didn't all disappear from las vegas he said and second to that there are not enough facts to substantiate any theory at the moment i think we have to sit back and let the mystery resolve itself before we jump on any bandwagons the missing men are gordon stansley 41 of los angeles missing since may 17 2001 he checked into the mandalay bay resort and casino in las vegas but his bed was never slept in and his suitcase never unpacked he is married and has two children john edward dunn 39 of ottawa canada who was driving from his home to los angeles on a vacation he never made it to his intended destination his brother's home in granada hills dunn's 30-foot recreational vehicle was found december 29th 2001 at an rv park in laughlin that was twenty days after his expected arrival in granada hills lloyd rockland 61 disappeared from las vegas on june 17 his plane from atlanta arrived at 11 a.m at mccarran international airport he picked up a hertz rental car but he never checked into the mgm grand where he had a reservation his car was returned to the hertz rental car center at the airport at 2pm the next day but nobody seems to remember the father of four and grandfather of three being the one who returned it fenton weeks 29 of dallas texas was reported missing january twenty fifth two thousand three after he did not return from a business trip to las vegas police determined he had checked into the golden nugget in downtown las vegas and attended the first day of an electronics exposition held at the las vegas convention center but was not in attendance on the second and third days his wife reported him missing he has no children joseph o'leary 55 of birwin pennsylvania disappeared may 15th of last year from the bellagio where he was staying with his wife alice o'leary left her husband in the casino playing blackjack while she went to spend the day at the resort spa several hours later her husband failed to return to their suite o'leary a stockbroker was reported missing the next day rogers eberlin 40 of los angeles disappeared november first while on a day off from his work as a graphic designer at the disney studios in burbank his car was parked in the lot outside the buffalo bills casino in prim nevada just across the california border on the interstate 15 freeway investigators say there are few leads in the investigation they point to rockland's rental car as possibly being the best clue they have the car was returned 27 hours after it was picked up by rockland it had been driven 328 miles during that period according to hertz records whoever returned it to the hertz airport center dropped it off without waiting for a receipt or to speak to a hertz clerk they just pulled in got out of the car and walked away ritz said nobody remembers anything they process about a thousand cars a day in that center there are no cameras and there is no record but the rental record and it is those 328 miles that ritz and the other detectives wonder about that is a lot of miles said detective peter eichardt ritz's partner that car could have gone a lot of places you figure 164 out and 164 back in and you've got a hell of a big circle to cover nevertheless the investigators are trying to do just that hoping their efforts will uncover a clue that makes the circle smaller and possibly leads to the answers to the six missing family men it's tough said ritz these guys all have families and we're doing our best for them but at the moment we have lots of questions and not any answers the article was nicely drawn with the time signature method of finding larger significance to a story than the story itself in this case it was theorizing that the disappearance of these men was symptomatic to the newest permutation of las vegas as an adult playground it reminded me of a time i was working a case in which a man who owned an auto garage cut the hydraulic lines on a lift and a seven thousand pound cadillac came down and crushed his long time partner beneath it a times reporter called me up for the details for a story and then asked that the killing was symptomatic of the tightening economy in which money woes turned partners against partners i said no i thought it was symptomatic of one guy not liking his partner screwing his wife larger implications aside the story was a plant i could tell that i had done the same thing with the same reporter in my time ritz was trolling for information since half the missing men were either from or going to los angeles why not call the times plant a story with the cop reporter and see who and what pops up one person who popped up was terry mccaleb he obviously read the story on january seventh the day it was published because his first set of notes on the file flap was dated as such the notes were short and cryptic at the top of the flap the name ritz and a phone number were the 702 area code had been jotted down beneath this mccaleb had written 1 7 44 average 41 39 40. find intersection cycle disruption there are more car 328 triangle theory one point gives three dd check desert one nine callback png 22 hinton 702-259-405-0 nc story 228 z6 possible how miles written along the side border of the file were two more phone numbers with 702 area codes these were followed with the name william bing i reread the notes and looked at the clipping again i noticed for the first time that mccaleb had circled two things on the newspaper article the mention of the 328 miles found to have been put on the rental car and the word circle in icard's comment about the circle of the investigation being 164 miles in any direction i didn't know why he had circled these two things but i did know what most of the notes in the flap meant i had spent more than seven hours reading through mccaleb's files i had seen notation after notation in file after file the ex-agent used a shorthand of his own invention but one that was decipherable because in some files he spelled out what he chose to abbreviate in others immediately recognizable to me was what he meant by the use of dd it meant definitely dead a classification and conclusion mccaleb made on the wide majority of the missing cases he reviewed also easy to decipher was png which meant persona non-grata meaning mccaleb's offer to help with the investigation was not received well or not received at all mccaleb had also found some significance in the age of the missing men he wrote down an average age and then pulled out three of the victims ages because they were within two years of each other and very close to the average this appeared to me to be notes relating to a victim profile but there wasn't one in the file and i didn't know if mccaleb ever proceeded past the note stage the find intersection reference seemed also to be part of this profile mccaleb was referring to a geographic or lifestyle intersection of the six missing men just as the metro detective had put forth in the times article michaela was operating under the belief that there had to be a connection between these men yes they were from as far apart as ottawa and los angeles and did not know one another but there had to be a point where they came together in some way cycle disruption there are more i suspect it was a reference to the frequency of the disappearances if someone was abducting and killing these men as michaela believed there would usually be a recognizable time cycle serial killers operate this way in most cases with violent psychosexual urges building and then subsiding after a kill mccaleb had apparently worked out the cycle and found holes in it missing victims he believed there were more than six men missing what puzzled me most about the notes was the reference to triangle theory and the phrase one point gives three below it this was something i had not seen come up in the previous files and i did not know what was meant by it it was noted in conjunction with references to the car and the 328 miles that had been put on it but the more i played with it the more puzzled i became by it it was code or shorthand for something i didn't know it bothered me but there was nothing i could do about it with what i currently knew the january ninth reference was to a call back from ritz mccaleb but probably called and left a message and the vegas detective had called back listened to his pitch and maybe his profile and had said not interested this was not surprising the fbi was often unwanted by the locals the clash of egos between feds and locals was a routine part of the job a retired bureau man would likely be treated no differently terror mccaleb was persona non grata that might have been it for this file and this case but then came the february 2nd notation a name and a number i opened my cell phone and called the number not caring about how late it was or early depending on how you looked at it i got a recording of a female voice this is cindy hinton of the las vegas sun i can't take your call right now but it is important to me please leave your name and number and i will call you back as soon as i can thank you there was a beep and i hesitated not sure i wanted to make contact yet but i went ahead anyway uh yes hello my name is harry bosch i'm an investigator from los angeles and would like to talk to you about terry mccaleb i left my cell phone number and closed the phone still not sure i had made the right move but thinking that leaving it short and cryptic was the best way to go it might get her to call me back the last reference in the notes was the most intriguing of all my caleb had written z six and then asked if it was possible and if so how this had to be a reference to z-six road this was a leap a giant leap mccaleb had received photos from someone who had watched and photographed his family that same person had taken photographs at zizex road near the california nevada border somehow mccaleb saw a possible link and was asking himself if one mystery could be related to the other could he have set something in motion by calling vegas metro and offering to help with the missing men case to be able to make the leap to such questions was impossible it meant i was missing something i was missing the bridge the piece of information that made the jump possible mccaleb had to have known something that wasn't noted in the file but that it made the possibility of a link seem real to him the last notations to check were the two las vegas phone numbers written on the border of the file along with the name william bing i opened my cell again and called the first number the call was picked up by a recorded voice announcing that i had reached the mandalay bay resort and casino i hung up as the voice began to list a number of options i could choose from the second number was followed by the name i punched it into the phone prepared to awaken william bing and asked him what his connection to terry mccaleb was but the call was answered after several rings by a woman who said las vegas memorial medical center how would you like me to direct your call i wasn't expecting that to gain some time while i thought about what to do i asked you for the hospital's location by the time she was finished giving me the address on blue diamond road i had come up with a valid question do you have a doctor on staff named william bing after a moment the answer came back negative do you have any employee named william bing no we don't sir how about a patient there was another pause as she consulted a computer not currently no did you formally have a patient there named william bing i don't have access to that kind of information sir i thanked her and closed the phone i thought about the last two numbers in mccaleb's notes for a long moment my conclusions were simple terry mccaleb was a heart transplant recipient if he were to travel to another city he would need to know where to go and who to ask for if there was an emergency or any medical problem my guess was that michaela but called information to get the two numbers noted on the file he then made a reservation at the mandalay bay and checked in with a local hospital as a precaution the fact that there was no william bing on staff at las vegas memorial medical center did not preclude that he might be a cardio specialist who handled patients there i opened the phone checked the time on the display screen and called graciela anyway she answered quickly her voice alert though i could tell she had been sleeping graciela sorry to call so late i have a few more questions can i answer them tomorrow just tell me did terry go to las vegas within the month before he died las vegas i don't know why what do you mean you don't know he was your husband i told you we had separated he was staying on the boat i know he went over to the mainland a few times but if he went to vegas from there i wouldn't have any way of knowing unless he told me and he didn't tell me what about credit card bills and cell phone records atm withdrawals things like that i paid them but i don't remember anything like that like a hotel or anything do you have those records still of course i have them here at the house somewhere they're probably packed already find them and i'll come for them in the morning i'm already in bed then find them in the morning first thing it's important graciela okay i will and look the one thing i can tell you is that usually if terry was going to the mainland he took the boat across so he had a place to stay while he was there if he was going across but wasn't going to be in la or was going to be staying at cedars for tests or something he would take a ferry because otherwise it would cost too much in boat fuel okay well there was one trip in that last month i think he was gone for like three days yes three days two nights he took the ferry so that meant he was either going across and then somewhere else or to the hospital and i'm pretty sure it wasn't the hospital i think he would have told me and i know everybody in cardio at cedars anyway they would have let me know he was there and what was going on i had that place wired okay graciela that's good that helps do you remember exactly when that was not exactly it was the end of february i think maybe the first couple days of march i remember it was build time i called him on his cell to talk about money and he said he was on the mainland he didn't say where he just said he was over there and he'd be back in a couple days i could tell he was driving when we talked and i knew he hadn't taken the boat because i was on the balcony looking at it in the harbor when we talked why were you calling him do you remember yes we had bills to pay and i didn't know what if anything he had taken in on the boat in february the credit card payouts were sent directly here but terry had a bad habit of walking around with personal checks and cash from customers in this wallet when he died and i got his wallet back there were three checks in there for nine hundred dollars that he'd had in there for two weeks he wasn't very good at business she said it as though it was one of her husband's endearing and humorous qualities though i was pretty sure that during his life she didn't smile at these oversights a couple more things i said do you know if it would be his routine to check in with a hospital in a city he was going to in other words if he was going to las vegas would he set things up at a local hospital in case he needed anything there was a pause before she answered no that doesn't sound like anything he would do are you saying he did that i don't know i found a phone number in one of the files and a name the number was for vegas memorial and i'm trying to figure out why he would call there vegas memorial has a transplant program i know that but i don't know why he would call there what about the name william bing does that mean anything could it be a doctor he was recommended to i don't know that something about that name is familiar but i can't place it it could be a doctor maybe that's where i heard it i waited a moment to see if it came to her but it didn't i pressed on okay one last thing where is terry's car it should be over there at cabrillo at the marina it's an old jeep cherokee there's a key on the ring i gave you but he also has a key because he uses it sometimes he basically takes care of it for us i mean me now okay i'm going to check that out in the morning so i'll need to keep the key do you know when the first ferry goes back across not till 9 15. then can we meet at 7 30 or 8 at your house i want to get those records and also show you a few things it won't take too long and then i'll grab the first fairy um can we make it eight i should be back by then i usually walk raymond to school and take cece to daycare no problem i'll see you at 8. we ended the conversation and i immediately called buddy lockridge again one more time rousing him from sleep buddy it's me again he groaned did terry go to las vegas the month before he died like maybe around march first i don't know man he said in a tired annoyed voice how would i know that i can't remember what i did marge first think buddy he made a road trip around then he didn't bring the boat across where did he go did he tell you anything about it he didn't tell me jack but i remember that trip now because the jeep came back dirtier than had salt or some all over it and i was the one who was left to wash it did you ask him about it yeah i said where have you been out off-roading and he said yeah something like that and that was it that's all he said i washed the car what about the inside did you clean that out no i'm just talking about the outside i took it over to the drive-thru in pedro and power sprayed the thing that's all i did i nodded as i concluded i had gotten everything i needed from lockridge for the time being are you gonna be around tomorrow yep i'm always around these days got nowhere to go all right i'll see you then after ending the conversation i made one more call punching in the number michaela had written at the top of the file flap after the name of ritz the detective quoted in the times article the call was picked up by a tape announcing that the vegas metro's missing persons unit was open from 8am to 4pm monday through friday the message advised anyone with an emergency to hang up and dial 9-1-1 i closed the phone it was late and i had an early start in the morning but i knew i wasn't going to sleep anytime soon i had the wire in the blood now and knew from long experiences sleep was not an option not yet i was marooned on a boat with two flashlights to see by but there was still work to be done i opened my notebook and started constructing a chronological record of the dates and times of events in the weeks and months before terry mccaleb's death i put everything on the page the important and not important the real connections and imagined connections just as experience had taught me about sleep and the ability to go long stretches without it i knew the details were important the answer is always in the details what is seemingly not important now is all important later what is cryptic and unconnected now becomes the magnifying glass through which things become clear later end of disc three disc four chapter 14 you can always tell who the locals are they're the ones who sit inside and work crossword puzzles while the ferry makes the 90-minute crossing the tourists are usually up top or lining the bow or stern with their cameras and last glimpses of the island as it shrinks in the mist behind them on the first boat out the next morning i was inside with the locals but i was working a puzzle of a different kind i sat with the file in which terry mccaleb had made his case notations open on my lap i also had the chronology i had worked up the night before i studied it hoping to commit as much of it as i could to memory an instant command of case details is required for the successful completion of an investigation january 7th mcsee reads about missing men in nevada calls vegas metro january 9th vegas metro not interested february 2nd hinton vegas sun who called who february 13th half day charter with jordan shandy february 19th charter with finder february 22nd gps stolen sheriff's report february 27th mcsee creates photophile march 1st mcsee on mainland for three day period march 28th last charter mcsee on the following sea with meds march 31st mcsee dies i now added what i had learned an hour earlier from graciela the same credit card records i had asked her to gather in regard to her husband's movements contained her purchases as well there was a visa charge attributed to a nordstrom department store on february 21st when i asked about it she said she had made the purchase at the promenade i asked if she had been back since then and she said no as i added the date into the chronology i noted that it was the day before the gps device was reported stolen from the following sea this meant it was likely the same day it was stolen the photo stalker had been on the ferry with graciela on the way back to the island could he have been the one who snuck on board the following sea that night and took the gps device if so why and if so could this also have been the night that terry mccaleb's medicine was tampered with real capsules exchanged for dummies i circled the letters gps on the chronology what was the significance of this device and this theft i wondered if i was putting too much emphasis on it perhaps buddy lockridge's theory was the correct one the device had simply been stolen by finder a competitor perhaps that was all it was but the proximity to the mall stalking of graciela made me think otherwise my instincts told me there was a connection i just didn't have it yet despite that i felt as though i was getting close to something the chronology was very helpful in allowing me to see connections and the timeliness of things there was more still to add and i remembered i had intended to follow up with phone calls to las vegas this morning i opened my cell phone and checked the battery i had been unable to recharge it on the following sea now i was running out of juice i had maybe one last call on it before it died i punched in the number for the missing persons unit at vegas metro the call went through and i asked for detective ritz i was put on hold for nearly three minutes during which time the phone started to beep every minute warning me it was running low on power this is detective ritz how can i help you detective my name is bosh i'm lapd retired homicide mostly i'm doing a favor for a friend her husband passed away last month and i'm sort of putting his things in order i came across a file of his that had your name and number in it and a newspaper article about one of your cases what case the six missing men and what was your friend's husband's name terry mccaleb he was fbi retired he worked oh him you knew him i taught him on the phone once that doesn't qualify as knowing him you talked about the missing men look what did you say your name is harry bosh well listen harry bosch i don't know you and i don't know what you are doing but it is usually not my practice to talk about open cases over the phone with strangers i could come see you that wouldn't change things you know he's dead don't you mccaleb i heard he had a heart attack and he was out on his boat and nobody could get to him in time it sounded stupid what's a guy with a heart transplant doing 25 miles out in the middle of nowhere making a living i guess look some things have come up about that and i'm checking into what terry was into at the time to sort of see if he might have drawn someone's eye if you know what i mean all i want actually i don't know what you mean you talking voodoo somebody put the hex on him and gave him a heart attack i'm kind of busy here bosh too busy for that you retired guys think us working stiffs have all the time in the world for you and your long shot voodoo theories well guess what we don't is that what you said to him when he called you didn't want to listen to his theory or his profile of the case you called it voodoo look man what good is a profile those things don't narrow down they're and that's what i told him and that was his last word was cut off by my phone's warning beep what was that he asked are you recording this no it's my phone's low battery warning terry didn't come over there to talk to you about this nope i think he ran to the newspaper with it instead typical fed move there was a story about his take on this and the sun i wouldn't call it that i think they pretty much thought he was full of too that line revealed an untruth if ritz thought michaela and his theory were full of he had to have listened to it in order to make such a determination i believe that it revealed that ritz had discussed the case with mccaleb possibly at length let me ask you one last thing and then i'll leave you alone did terry mention something about a triangle theory something about one point giving three does any of that make sense the laugh i heard over the phone wasn't pleasant it wasn't even good natured that was three questions bosh three questions three sides of a triangle and three strikes in your the phone went dead its battery drained out i said completing ritz's line i knew it meant he was not going to answer my question i closed the phone and dropped it back into my pocket i had a charger in my car i'd have the phone back up and running as soon as we got across the santa monica bay there was still the reporter at the sun to talk to but i doubted i'd be having further conversations with ritz i got up and walked out onto the stern to have the cool morning air refresh me catalina was far in the distance just a jagged gray rock sticking up in the mist we were more than halfway across i heard a little girl exclaim there very loudly to her mother and i followed her pointed finger out to the water where a school of porpoises were breaking the surface in the boat's wake there must have been 20 of them and soon the stern became crowded with people in their cameras i think maybe some of the locals even came out to look the porpoises were beautiful their gray skin shining like plastic in the morning light i wondered if they were just having fun or had mistaken the ferry for a fishing boat and were hoping to feed on the debris of the day's catch soon the show wasn't enough to hold everyone's attention and the passengers returned to their former positions the little girl who first sounded the alert stayed at the gunnel and watched and so did i until the porpoises finally dropped off the wake and disappeared in the blue black sea i went inside and took up mccaleb's file again i reread everything he and i had written no new ideas came up i then looked at all the photos i had printed out the night before i had shown the photos of the man named jordan shandy to graciela but she didn't recognize him and hit me with more questions and answers about him questions i didn't want to try to answer just yet next in the review were the credit card and phone records i had already looked at these in graciela's presence but wanted to check them more thoroughly i paid closest attention to the end of february and the beginning of march when graciela was sure her husband had been on the mainland but there was no purchase with a credit card nor phone call made on his cell that gave any indication of where he was let alone in los angeles or maybe las vegas it was almost as if he wanted to leave no trail a half hour later the boat pulled into the los angeles harbor and docked next to the queen mary a permanently moored cruise ship that had been turned into a hotel and convention center as i was walking through the parking lot to my car i heard a shriek and turned around to see a woman bouncing and swaying upside down from the end of a bungee cord extending down from a jumping platform at the stern of the queen mary she had her arms clamped to the sides of her torso and i realized that the reason she had screamed was not because of the fear and adrenaline rush of the free fall but because her t-shirt had apparently threatened to fall down over her shoulders and head exposing her to the crowd that lined the railing of the cruise ship i turned away and headed on to my car i drive a mercedes-benz sport utility vehicle the kind some people think helps keep terrorists in business i don't get involved in such debates but i do know that the people who go on talk shows to argue such things usually pull up and stretch limos as soon as i got into the car and cranked it i plugged my phone into the charger and waited for it to come back to life when it did i saw i had gotten two messages in the 45 minutes the phone had been out of commission the first was from my old partner kisman rider who now handled administrative and planning duties in the chief of police's office she left no message other than a request for me to call her this was curious because we hadn't talked nearly a year and that conversation had not been the most pleasant her usual christmas card to me had carried her signature only and not the usual cordial note and promise to get together soon i wrote her direct number down at least i still rated that and saved the message the next message was from cindy hinton the sun reporter she was simply returning my call i started the bands and headed toward the freeway so i could loop over to san pedro and the cabrillo marina where terry mccaleb's jeep was waiting for me i called hinton back on the way and she answered immediately yes i was calling about terry mccaleb i said i'm sort of recreating his movements in the last couple months of his life i assume you had heard he passed away i remembered that the sun carried an obituary yes i knew you said on your message last night that you are an investigator an investigator for what agency actually i'm a state licensed private detective but i was a cop for almost thirty years is this related to the missing person's case in what way i don't know you called me i don't understand what it is you want well let me ask you a question first of all i know from detective ritz over at metro that terry had taken an interest in the missing persons case he studied the facts that were available to him and called on detective ritz offering his time and expertise to work on the case or provide investigative theories you with me so far yes i know all of this okay good terry's offer to ritz in vegas metro was rejected what my question is is what happened next did he call you did you call him did you write a story that said he was investigating this case and why is it that you want to know these things sorry hold on a second i had realized i should not have made the call while driving i should have expected hinton to be cagey with me and should have known the call would need my undivided attention i glanced at the mirrors and cut across two lanes to go down an exit i didn't even see the sign and didn't know where i was going i found myself in an industrial area where trucking depots and warehouses lined the street i pulled to a stop behind a tractor trailer parked in front of the open garage doors of a warehouse okay sorry i'm back you asked why i wanted to know the answers to these questions well terry mccaleb was my friend and i'm picking up some of the things he was working on i want to finish his work there sounds like there is something else something you're not telling me i thought for a moment of how to handle this giving a reporter information especially a reporter you didn't know was risky business it could snap back on you in bad ways i had to figure out a way to give her what she needed in order to help me but then i needed to take it all back hello are you still there uh yeah tell you what can we go off the record here off the record we're not even talking about anything here i know i am going to tell you something if i can tell it to you off the record meaning you can't use it sure fine whatever we're off the record could you please get to the point or whatever this important information is because i need to write a story this morning terry mccaleb was murdered uh no actually he wasn't i read the story he had a heart attack he had a heart transplant like six years before he i know what was put out in the press and i'm telling you it is wrong and it will come out that it is wrong and i'm trying to find out who killed him now can you tell me whether or not you put out a story that had his name in it she seemed exasperated when she answered yes i wrote one story that he was in for like a paragraph or two okay just a paragraph what did it say it was a follow-up to my story on the missing men i did a follow-up to see what had come in you know what new leads if any caleb was mentioned that's all i said he came forward and offered his help and a theory but metro said no thanks it was worth throwing in because the story was dry as a bone and he was sort of famous because of the movie in clint eastwood and all of that does that answer your question so he didn't call you technically yes he did i got his number from ritz and called him i left a message and he called me back so technically he called me if that's how you want it what is it you think happened to him anyway did he tell you what his theory was the one ritz wasn't interested in no he said he didn't want to comment at all and he asked me to keep his name out of the paper i talked to my editor and we decided to keep it in like i said he was famous did terry know you put his name in the story i don't know i never spoke to him again in that one conversation you had did he say anything about the triangle theory triangle theory no he didn't now i answered your questions you answer mine who says he was murdered is that official now it was time to back out i needed to stop her in her tracks make sure she wouldn't hang up and immediately start making calls to check me or my story out well not really not really are you well what exactly makes you say this well because he was in perfect shape and he had a young person's heart in him so what about organ rejection and infection a thousand different things could have do you have any official finding about this or confirmation is there an official investigation no that would be like asking the cia to investigate the kennedy assassination the third one it would just be a cover-up what are you talking about the third what the third kennedy the son john john you think his plane just dove into the water like they said there were three witnesses in new jersey who saw men carrying their bodies onto that plane before it took off the witnesses have disappeared too it was part of the triangle theory and then okay mister thanks a lot for your call but i'm on deadline right now and i need to she hung up before finishing her own sentence i smiled i thought i was safe and was particularly proud of my creativity i reached over to the passenger seat and lifted the file i opened it and looked at the chronology terry had noted the conversation with hinton on february 2nd the story probably ran in the next day or two as soon as i got to the library with a computer i would be able to look the story up and get the exact date and read what had been written in the one reference to mccaleb for the time being i listed it on the chronology on february third i studied what i had for a few moments and started putting my own case theory into form mccaleb sees the january 7th los angeles times story on the missing men he gets interested he sees something in the story that the cops may have missed or misinterpreted he works up a theory in his thoughts and calls ritz at metro two days later ritz gives him the cold shoulder but happens to mention the call to hinton when she does a follow-up after all it serves ritz to keep the story circulating in the press and dropping a celebrity investigator's name might help do so hinton's follow-up story with the mention of mccaleb runs in the sun the first week of february less than two weeks later february 13th mccaleb is alone on his boat when jordan shandy shows up on a water taxi and asks for a half day charter mccaleb grows suspicious of the man while they are fishing and surreptitiously takes photos of him a week later shandy is at the promenade mall stalking mccaleb's family and surreptitiously taking photographs the same thing michaela had done to him that same night someone takes the gps device from the following sea and possibly tampers with mccaleb's medicine by february 27th mccaleb has received the photos of his family at the mall the origin or method of delivery of the photos is unknown but this date is documented by the creation record of the photo file on his computer just two days after putting the photos into his computer he leaves catalina for the mainland his destination is unknown but his cars returned in dirty condition as if he had been off-road with it there is also a record of him having phone numbers for a hospital in las vegas and the mandalay bay resort one of the last known locations of one of the missing men possibilities and interpretations abounded my guess was that everything turned on the photos i believe that it was seeing those photos that drew mccaleb across to the mainland i believed that his car came back dirty after three days because he had gone into the desert at zx road he had taken the bait whether knowingly or not and gone to the desert i looked at my chronology again and concluded the mention of mccaleb in the follow-up story in the sun had drawn a response shandy was somehow involved in the disappearances if so he would probably keep an eye on the media for any updates on the investigation when he saw mccaleb's name in the follow-up he came to catalina to check him out on the boat that morning during the four-hour charter he could have seen mccaleb taking his medicine seen the capsules and hatched a plan to eliminate the threat that left the question of the gps device and why it was taken during the february 21st boat break-in i now believed it was simply taken as cover shandy could not be sure his entry to the boat to change terry's meds would go unnoticed so he took the device so mccaleb wouldn't wonder further about the intentions of the intruder if he discovered there had been a break-in the larger question was why mccaleb was seen as a threat if his triangle theory was not revealed in the sun story i didn't know i thought there was a possibility that he wasn't seen as a threat at all that he was just a celebrity whom shandy liked outwitting by killing it was one of the unknowns it was also one of the contradictions my theory certainly had contradictions if the first six men disappeared without a trace why was mccaleb killed in such a way that there were witnesses and a body that could possibly reveal the truth this was in congress my only answer was that if mccaleb simply disappeared then it would spark an investigation and perhaps a second look at his view and theory of the missing men case this could not be allowed by shandy so mccaleb was eliminated in a way that would hopefully seem natural or accidental and below the radar of suspicion my theory was built on speculation and this made me uncomfortable when i carried a badge relying on speculation was like putting sand in your gas tank it was the road to ruin i felt ill at ease at how easily i had slipped into building theories upon interpretation and speculation instead of the bedrock of fact i decided then to put theories aside and go back to concentrating on facts i knew that zizek's road in the desert were real and part of the chain of facts i had the pictures to prove it i didn't know if terry mckayla had actually gone there or what he might have found if he had but i now knew i was going there and that too was a fact chapter 15 buddy lockridge was waiting in the parking lot at cabrillo marina when i got there i had called him and told him i was on the move and in a hurry my plan to hook up with him for further discussion would be delayed i told him i just wanted to quickly go through mccaleb's cherokee and then move on i knew what my destination was whether or not i found anything in the car that pointed me toward the desert and las vegas what's all the hurry he asked as i pulled up and got out velocity i told him main thing about an investigation is to keep your velocity up you slow down and you slow down i don't want that before returning the boat keys to graciela i had taken the cherokees key off the ring i now used it to unlock the driver's door i leaned in and began a general observation of the car before getting in where you headed lockridge said from behind me san francisco i lied just to see if i'd get a reaction san francisco what's up there i don't know but i think that's where he went on that last trip must have taken the dirt roadway maybe there was nothing readily apparent in the cherokee that gave me a second thought the car was in clean condition there was a faintly sour odor it smelled like the windows had been left open during a rainstorm at some point i opened the compartment between the two front seats and found two pairs of sunglasses a pack of breath freshening gum and a small plastic action figure toy i handed it out the door behind me to lockridge you left your superhero in here buddy he didn't take it funny that's from mcdonald's there ain't one over there on the island so the first thing they do when they get over here is take the kids to mickey d's it's like crack man they get the kids hooked on those french fries and early and then they're hooked for life there are worse things i put the plastic hero back into the compartment and closed it i leaned further in so i could reach across to open the glove box hey you want me to come with you maybe i could help no that's okay buddy i'm leaving right from here hell i could be ready in five minutes i mean i'll just put some clothes in a bag the glove box contained another plastic figure and operating manuals for the car there was also a box containing a book on tape called the tin collectors there was nothing else this stop was turning into a bust all i was getting out of it was buddy pushing to be my partner i pulled back out of the car and straightened up i looked at lockridge no thanks buddy i'm working this alone hey i helped terry man it wasn't like in the movie where i was made out to be the creep who yeah yeah i know buddy you told me all of that this has got nothing to do with that i just work alone even with the cops that's the way i was that's the way i am i thought of something and leaned back into the car checking the windshield on the passenger side for a sticker like the one seen in the photo of the z6 road sign on mccaleb's computer there was no sticker or anything else in the lower corner of the windshield it was another confirmation that michaela had not taken the photo i backed out of the car walked around and opened the rear hatch the storage compartment was empty except for a pillow shaped like a cartoon character named spongebob squarepants i recognized it because my daughter was a spongebob fan and i too enjoyed watching the show with her i guess he was a favorite in the mccaleb home too i then went to one of the rear doors and looked into the passenger compartment clean again but i noticed in the pocket behind the front passenger seat there was a map book that could be reached from the driver's seat i pulled it out and paged through it careful not to let buddy see what i was looking at on the page for southern nevada i noticed that the map included parts of contiguous states in california near the southwest corner of nevada someone had drawn a circle around the mojave preservation area and on the right border of the map someone had jotted down several numbers in ink one above the other and then added them together the sum was 86 below this was written actual 92. what is it lockridge asked looking through the car at me from the other passenger door i closed the map book and dropped it on the car seat nothing it looks like he wrote down some directions for one of his trips or something i leaned into the car and then looked down so that i could look under the front passenger seat i saw more mcdonald's toys and some old food wrappers and other debris nothing that looked worthwhile i got out and came around the other side asking buddy to step back so i could do the same thing with the driver's seat beneath the driver's seat there was more debris but i noticed several small crumpled balls of paper i reached under and swept these out so i could see them i opened one up and smoothed it out and saw that it was a credit card receipt for a purchase of gas in long beach it was dated almost a year earlier you don't check under the seats when you clean the car do you buddy they never asked me to he said defensively besides i really just take care of the outside oh i see i started unraveling the rest of the paper balls i didn't expect anything that would help me i had already reviewed the credit card receipts and knew there were no purchases i could use to pinpoint mccaleb's location on his three-day trip but the rule was always to be thorough there were a variety of receipts for local purchases this included food items from safeway and fishing equipment from a san pedro tackle store there was a receipt for a ginseng extract from a health food store called better fit and a receipt from a westwood bookstore for a book on tape called looking for chet baker i never heard of the book but i knew who chet baker was i decided i would check into it later when i had time to read or listen to a book the rule paid off on the fifth paper ball i unraveled a cash receipt from a travel america truck stop in las vegas it was located on blue diamond road the same street as vegas memorial the date of the purchase was march 2nd the purchase was for 16 gallons of gasoline a half liter of gatorade and the book on tape edition of the tin collectors the receipt placed mccaleb in las vegas during his three-day trip it was another confirmation of what i thought i already knew nevertheless my adrenaline kicked in another notch i wanted to get moving again keep that case velocity going you find something lockridge asked i crumpled the receipt and threw it down onto the floor of the car with the others not really i said turns out terry was a big books on tape guy didn't know that yeah he listened to a lot of them out on the boat when he was up on the helm he usually had the earphones on i reached back into the car and took the map book off the seat i'm gonna borrow this i said i don't think graciela is going anywhere where she'll need it i didn't wait for buddy's approval i closed the passenger door hoping that he was buying my act i then closed the driver's door and locked the vehicle that's it buddy i'm out of here you gonna be near your phone if anything comes up and i need you course man i'm around it's a mobile anyway alright then you take care i shook his hand and headed to my black benz half expecting to find him following me but he let me go as i drove out of the lot i checked the mirror and saw him still standing next to the cherokee watching me go i took the 710 up to the 10 and rode that out to the 15 freeway after that it would be a straight shot out of the smog and into the mojave and then on to las vegas i had been making this trip two or three times a month for the past year i always enjoyed the drive i liked the starkness of the desert maybe i drew from it what terry mccaleb drew from living on an island a sense of distance from all the nastiness as i drove it i felt the constrictions lift as if the molecules of my body expanded and got a little more space between each other maybe it was no more than a nanometer but that little narrow space was enough to make a difference but this time i felt different i felt as though this time the nastiness was ahead of me that it was waiting for me in the desert i was settling into the drive letting the case facts rotate in my mind when my cell buzzed my guess was that it would be buddy lockridge making a final plea to be included but it was kiss rider i had forgotten to call her back so harry i guess i don't even rate a call back from you sorry kids i was gonna call you i had a busy morning and sort of forgot busy morning you're supposed to be retired you're not running around on another case are you actually i'm driving to vegas and i'm probably about to lose my signal in the dead zone what's going on well i saw tim marcia this morning when i was getting my coffee he told me you two had talked recently yeah yesterday is this about that three-year deal he told me about it certainly is harry have you thought about it i just heard about it yesterday i haven't had time to think about it i think you should harry we need you back here that's nice to hear especially from you kids i thought i was png with you what does that mean persona non grata come on now it was nothing the cooling off period couldn't cure seriously though we could use you back here you could probably work with tim's unit if you wanna you make it sound like all i have to do is waltz in there and sign on the dotted line what do you think everybody in that building is going to be there to welcome me back are they going to be lined up in the hallway on the sixth floor throwing rice or something while i walk to the chief's office you talking about irving irving got downsized he's running the department of future planning i'm calling to tell you harry that if you want to come back then you are back it's that simple after i talked to tim i went up to six and had my usual nine am with the chief he knows you he knows your work i wonder how that could be since i was gone before he was brought over from new york or boston or wherever it was they got him from he knows because i told him harry look let's not get into an argument over this okay everything is cool all i'm saying is that you should think about it the clock is ticking on it and you ought to think about it you could help us and the city and maybe even help yourself depending on where you're at in the world that last part raised a good question where was i in the world i thought about it for a long moment before speaking okay kids i appreciate it and thanks for putting in the word with the man tell me something when did irving get dumped i hadn't heard about that that happened a few months ago i think the chief thought he had his finger in too many paths he put him to the side i couldn't help but smile not because deputy chief irvin irving had always had me under his heel but because i knew a man like irving wouldn't let anyone put him to the side as kid had said the man carries all the secrets i said i know we're waiting for his move we'll be ready then good luck to you thanks so what's it going to be harry what you want my answer now i thought you just told me to think about it a guy like you i already think you know the answer i smiled again but didn't answer she was wasting her time in administration she should be back in homicide she knew how to read people better than anyone i had ever worked with harry you remember the thing you told me when i first got assigned as your partner um chew your food rush after every meal i'm serious i don't know what everybody counts or nobody counts i nodded and was quiet for a moment do you remember yeah i remember words to live by i guess so well think about that while you're thinking about coming back if i come back i'm gonna need a partner what harry you're breaking up i'm gonna need a partner there was a pause and i think now she was smiling too there's a possibility you she cut out on me i think i knew what she was going to say i bet you miss it as much as me harry you're going into the dead zone call me back when don't take too long okay kiss i'll let you know i was still smiling after closing the phone there is nothing like being wanted or being welcomed being valued but also the idea of having a badge again in order to do what i had to do i thought about ritz at metro and how he had treated me how i had to fight just to get the attention and help of some people i knew a lot of that would go away with the badge again in the last two years i had learned that the badge didn't necessarily make the man but it sure as hell made the man's job easier and for me it was more than a job i knew that badge or no badge there was one thing on this earth i could and should be doing i had a mission in this life just as terry mccaleb had spending the day before in his floating shop of horrors studying his cases and his dedication to his mission made me realize what was important and what i had to do in his dying my silent partner may have saved me after 40 minutes of mulling over my future and considering my choices i came to the sign i had seen in the photo on terry's computer zizex rode one mile it was not the exact sign i could tell by the horizon behind it the photo had been taken from the other side by someone heading to la from vegas nevertheless i felt a deep tug of anticipation everything i had seen or read or heard since graciela mccaleb had called me led to this place i put on the blinker and took the exit off the freeway chapter 16 mid-morning on the day after rachel walling's arrival the agents assigned to what had been labeled the z-six road case gathered in person and by phone in the squad room on the third floor of the john lawrence bailey building in las vegas the room was windowless and poorly ventilated a photograph of bailey an agent killed during a bank robbery 20 years earlier looked upon the proceedings the agents in attendance sat at tables lined in rows facing the front of the room at the front was randall alpert and a two-way television that was connected by phone and camera to a squad room in quantico virginia on the screen was agent brasilia duran waiting to provide her report rachel was at the second row of tables sitting off by herself she knew her place here and outwardly tried to show it albert convened the meeting by graciously introducing those present rachel thought that this was a nicety allowed for her but soon realized that not everyone in attendance in person or by audio visual hookup knew everyone else albert first identified duran also known as brass on the line from quantico where she was handling the collating of information and acting as liaison to the national lab he then asked each person seated in the room to identify themselves and their specialty or position first was sheree day who said she was the case agent next to her was her partner tom zego next was john cates a representative agent from the local fo and the only non-white person in attendance the next four people were from the science side and rachel had seen and met two of them at the site the day before they included a forensic anthropologist named greta cox who was in charge of excavations two medical examiners named harvey richards and douglas sundeen and a crime scene specialist named mary pond ed gunning another agent from behavioral sciences in quantico brought their introductions around to rachel who was last agent rachel walling she said rapid city field office formerly with behavioral i have some familiarity with the case like this okay thanks rachel albert said quickly and so he thought rachel was going to mention robert backus by name this told rachel that there were people in the room who had not been informed of the major fact of the case she guessed that would be kate's the token agent from the fo she wondered if some of the science team or all of it was in the dark as well let's start with the science side albert continued first of all brass anything from out there not on science i think your crime scene people have all of that hello rachel long time hello brass rachel said quietly too long she looked at the screen and their eyes met rachel realized that it had probably been eight years since she had actually seen duran she looked weary her mouth and eyes drawn down her hair short in a cut that suggested she didn't spend much time with it she was an empath rachel knew and the years were taking their toll you look good duran said i guess all that fresh air in open country agrees with you albert stepped in and saved rachel from delivering a false compliment in return greta harvey who wants to go first he asked stepping all over the electronic reunion i guess i will since everything starts with the dig greta cox said as of 7 pm yesterday we have fully excavated eight bodies and they are nellis this afternoon when we get back there we will begin with number nine what we saw with the first excavations is holding true with the latter the plastic bags in each incidence and the greta we have a tape going here albert interrupted let's be fully descriptive as if speaking to an uninformed audience don't hold back except when it comes to mentioning robert backus rachel thought okay sure cox said um all eight bodies excavated and exhumed so far have been fully clothed decomposition is extensive hands and feet bound by tape all have plastic bags over the head which in turn have been taped around the neck there is no variation on this methodology even between victims one and two which is unusual late the day before rachel had seen the photos she had gone back into the command rv and looked at the wall of photos it seemed clear to her that the men had all been suffocated the plastic bags had not been clear plastic but even in their opaqueness she could see the features of the faces and the miles wide open and searching for air that wasn't going to come they reminded her of photos of wartime atrocities disinterred bodies from mass graves in yugoslavia or iraq why is that unusual albert asked because what we most often see is that the killing plan evolves for lack of a better way of describing it the killing gets better the unsub learns from victim to victim how to do it better that is usually seen in the data we have rachel noted that cox had used the word unsub short for unknown subject it most likely meant she was out of the loop and didn't know that the subject was very much known to the fbi okay so the methodology was set from day one albert said anything else greta just that we will probably be finished with the excavations the day after tomorrow unless we get another hit with the probes are we still probing yes when we have the time but we've gone 60 feet past the last hit with the probes and haven't gotten anything we also got another flyover from nellis last night there was nothing new from thermal imaging so we feel pretty comfortable at this time that we've got them all and thank god for that harvey what have you got for us richards cleared his throat and leaned forward so that his voice would be heard by the electronic pickups wherever they were greta's right we have all eight excavated so far in the morgue at nellis so far the veil of secrecy is holding up i think people there think we're bringing in aliens off a crashed saucer in the desert this is how urban legends start people only alpert cracked a smile richards continued we've conducted full autopsies on four so far and initial exams of the others similar to what greta said we're not finding a hell a lot of difference from body to body this guy's a robot no variation on theme it's almost like the killings themselves are of no import perhaps it is the hunt that juices this guy or perhaps the killings are just part of a larger plan we don't know about yet rachel stared pointedly at albert she hated that people working so closely on the case were still working in the dark but she knew if she said anything she would quickly be on the outside looking in she didn't want that you have a question rachel he'd caught her off guard she hesitated why are the bodies being taken to nellis instead of here or l.a she knew the answer before asking the question but needed to say something to escape the moment it's easier to keep a lid on things this way the military knows how to keep a secret his tone suggested an unspoken final line do you he swung his view back to richard's doctor go on rachel picked up on the subtle difference alpert had called richard's doctor whereas he had simply addressed greta cox by her first name it was a character trait alpert either had trouble with women in positions of power and knowledge or he didn't respect the science of anthropology she guessed it was the former well we're looking at suffocation as the cause on these richard said it's pretty obvious from what we've got there's not a lot left to work with on most of them but with what we've got we're not seeing other injuries the unsub overpowers in some way tapes wrists and ankles and then puts the bag in place over the head the taping around the neck we think is significant that is indicative of a slow death in other words the unsub was not holding the bag in place he took his time pulled it over the head taped it and then could step back to watch doctor rachel asked was the tape applied from the front or back the ends are at the back of the neck indicating to me that the bag may have been pulled over from behind possibly when the victim was in a sitting position and then taped in place so he the um may have been ashamed or afraid to face his victims when he did this quite possibly how are we doing on identification albert asked richards looked at sundeen and he took over still just the five that were included in the las vegas investigation we assume the sixth from their group will be one of the final two excavations the others we have nothing on so far we've got no usable prints we forwarded the clothing what's left of it to quantico and perhaps brass has an update on that meantime we no no update duran said from the television screen okay sundeen said we have the dental data just going into the computer today so maybe we'll get a hit there other than that we're just waiting for something to happen he nodded at the completion of his report albert took back the lead i want to go to brass last so let's hear about the soil mary pond took it from there we've sifted all the sights and it's all come up clean except for one piece we got yesterday that is exciting in excavation 7 we found a wad of gum in a wrapper juicy fruit according to the wrapper it was between 24 and 30 inches down in a three foot grave so we really feel it is related and could be a good break for us dental albert asked yes we have dental can't tell you what yet but it looked like three good impressions i boxed it and sent it to brass yes it is here duran said from the television came in this morning i put it in motion but i don't have anything on it yet either maybe late today i agree though from what i saw will get at least three teeth out of it maybe even dna could be all we need albert added excitedly even though she distinctly remembered that bob backus had a habit of chewing juicy fruit gum rachel was not excited the gum in the grave was too good to be true she thought there was no way that bacchus would allow himself to leave such important evidence behind he was too good as both a killer and agent for that she could not properly express this doubt in the meeting however because of her agreement with albert not to bring up backus in front of other agents it's got to be a plant she said albert looked at her a moment weighing the risk of asking her why a plant why do you say that rachel because i can't see why this guy who was burying a body in the middle of nowhere probably in the middle of the night would take the time to put his shovel down take the gum out of his mouth wrap it in its foil which he had to take out of his pocket and then drop it i think if he'd been chewing gum he would have just spit it out but i don't think he was chewing gum i think he picked that little wad up somewhere brought it to the grave and dropped it in so we would spin our wheels with it when he decided to lead us to the bodies with his gps trick she glanced around the room she had their eyes but she could tell she was more of a curiosity to them than a respected colleague the silence was broken by the television i think rachel is probably right duran said we have been manipulated from day one on this why not with the gum it does seem like an incredible mistake for such a well-planned action rachel noticed duran wink at her one piece of gum one mistake in eight graves said gunning one of the agents from quantico i don't think that is such a long shot we all know nobody's ever committed the perfect crime yes people get away but they all make mistakes well alfred said let's wait and see what we get with this before we jump to any conclusions one way or the other marry anything else not at this time then let's go to agent cates to see how the locals are doing with the id's kate's opened a leather bound folder on the table in front of him it contained a legal pad with notes on it that he had such a nice inexpensive holder for a basic legal pad told rachel that he was very proud of his work and what he did either that or the person who gave him the folder had those feelings either way it made rachel like him right away it also made her feel like she was missing something she no longer carried that kind of pride in the bureau or what she did okay we started sniffing around vegas metro on their missing persons case we're handicapped by the need for secrecy so we're not going in there like gangbusters we've just made contact and said we're interested because of the state line thing victims from multiple states and even one other country that gives us an in but we don't want to show our hand by blasting in there so we're supposed to have a sit down with them later today once we reach the beach so to speak we'll start back tracing those individuals and looking for the common denominator keep in mind these guys have been on this for several weeks and as far as we know don't have agent kate's albert said the tape oh excuse my language there they don't have anything as what i meant to say very good agent cates keep me informed and only silence followed albert continued to smile warmly at kate's until the local agent got the message oh um you want me to leave i want you out there working on those victims albert said no sense wasting time in here listening to us hash things around to no end okay then kate's got up if he had been a white man the embarrassment would have been more recognizable on his face thank you agent cates alfred said to his back as he went through the door albert then turned his attention back to the table i think mary greta harvey and doug can all be excused as well we need you guys back in the trenches i'm afraid no pun intended there was that administrative smile again actually mary pond said i'd like to stay and hear what brass has to say it might help me in the field albert lost his smile at the challenge no he said firmly that won't be necessary an uneasy silence engulfed the room until it was finally punctuated by the sounds of the science team's chairs being pushed back from their tables the four of them got up and left the room without speaking it was painful for rachel to watch the unchecked arrogance of command staffed was endemic in the bureau it was never going to change now where were we albert said easily morphing past what he had just done to five good people brash your turn now i have you down here for the boat the tape and bags the clothes the gps device and now you have the gum which we all know will lead nowhere thank you very much agent walling he said the word agent like it was synonymous with idiot rachel raised her hands in surrender sorry i didn't know half the field team is in the dark on the suspect funny but when i was in behavioral we never did it that way we pulled information and knowledge we didn't hide it from one another you mean when you were working for the man we are looking for right now look agent albert if you are trying to taint me with that brush then you this is a classified case agent walling that is all i'm trying to get across to you as i told you before it is need to know obviously albert turned away from her as if dismissing her from memory and looked at the television screen brass can you begin please alfred made sure he stood between rachel and the screen to further underline her position as outsider on the case okay duran said i have something significant and well strange to begin with i told you about the boat yesterday the initial fingerprint analysis of manageable surfaces came back negative it had been out there in the elements for who knows how long so we took it another step agent alpert approved disassembly of the evidence and that was done in the hangar at nellis last night on the boat there are grip locations hand holds for moving the boat this at one time was a navy lifeboat built in the late and probably sold off as military surplus after world war ii as duran continued day opened a file and pulled out a photo of the boat she held it for rachel to see since rachel had never actually seen the boat it was already at nellis by the time she had gotten to the excavation site she thought it was amazing and typical that the bureau could amass so much information about a boat said adrift in the desert but so little about the crime it was attached to we could not get into the interior of the grip holes with our first analysis when we disassembled the piece we were able to get in there this is where we got lucky because this little hollow was protected from the elements for the most part and albert asked impatiently he obviously wasn't interested in the journey he just wanted the destination and we got two prints out of the port side grip on the bow this morning we ran them through the data banks and we got a hit almost right away this is going to sound strange but the prince came from terry mccaleb can that be asked day albert didn't say anything his eyes stared down at the table in front of him rachel sat quiet as well her mind racing to catch up with and understand this latest piece of information at some point he put his hand into the grip hole on the boat that's the only way it can be duran said but he's dead albert said what rachel exclaimed everyone in the room turned and looked at her day slowly nodded he died about a month ago heart attack i guess the news didn't get to south dakota duran's voice came from the speaker rachel i am so sorry i should have gotten word to you but i was too upset about it and went out to california right away i'm sorry i should have told you rachel looked down at her hands terry mccaleb had been her friend and colleague he was one of the empaths she felt a sudden and deep sense of loss despite the fact that she had not spoken to him in years their shared experiences had left them bonded for life and now that life for him was gone okay people let's take a break here alfred said 15 minutes and then back in here brass can you call back i will i've got more to report talk to you then they all filed out to get coffee or use the restrooms to leave rachel alone are you all right agent walling alfred asked she looked up at him the last thing she would take would be comfort from him i'm fine she said moving her eyes back to the blank tv screen end of disc four disc five chapter 17 rachel remained in the conference room by herself her initial shock gave way to a wave of guilt coming up behind her like a following sea terry mccaleb had attempted to contact her over the years she had gotten the messages but had never responded she had sent him a card and a note when he was in the hospital recovering from the transplant that had been five or six years ago she couldn't remember she did remember specifically deciding not to put a personal return address on the envelope at the time she told herself it was because she wasn't going to be stuck in minot for very long but she knew then as she knew now that the real reason was she didn't want the connection she didn't want the questions about the choices she had made she didn't want that link to the past now she didn't have to worry the link was forever gone the door opened and cherie day looked in rachel do you want a bottle of water sure that would be nice thank you tissues no that's all right i'm not crying be right back they closed the door i don't cry rachel said to no one she put her elbows on the table and held her hands over her face in the darkness she saw a memory she and terry on a case they weren't partners but backers had put them together on this one it was a crime scene analysis a bad one a mother and daughter tied up and thrown into the water the girl squeezing so hard on a crucifix that left its full impression on her hand the mark was still there when the bodies were found terry was working with the photos and rachel went to the cafeteria to get coffee when she came back she could tell he had been crying that was when she knew he was an empath that he was her kind they came back into the room and put a bottle of spring water in a plastic cup down in front of her you okay yes fine thanks for the water it was quite a shock i didn't really know him and it bowled me over when the word spread rachel just nodded she didn't want to talk about it the speaker phone rang and rachel reached for it ahead of day she picked up the handset rather than push the teleconference button this way she could speak privately at first to duran at least duran's side of it would not be overheard brass rachel hi i am so sorry i did it's all right it isn't your job to keep me informed of everything i know but this i should have told you about it was probably in one of the bulletins and i just missed it it's just strange finding out about it this way i know i'm sorry so you went to the funeral the service she has it was out on the island where he lived catalina it was really beautiful there and really sad were there many agents no not too many it's kind of hard to get to you have to take a ferry but there were a few and there were some cops and family and friends clint eastwood was there i think he took his own helicopter out the door opened and albert came in he seemed renewed as if he had been sucking on pure oxygen during the break the other two agents zigo and gunning followed him in and sat down we're ready to start rachel said to duran i've got to put you on the screen now okay rachel we'll talk later rachel handed the phone to alpert who set up the teleconference duran appeared on the screen looking more tired than before okay albert said we ready to continue after no one said a word he continued all right then what do these prints on the boat mean it means we've got to find out when and why mccaleb was out in the desert before he died day said and it means we've got to go over to la and take a look at his death gunning said just to be sure a heart attack was a heart attack agree with that but there is a problem duran said he was cremated that sucks said gunning was there an autopsy albert said blood and tissue taken i don't know about that duran said all i know is that he was cremated i flew out for the service the family let his ashes go over the side of his boat albert looked at the faces around the room and stopped at gunning's ed you're on it go over there and see what you can come up with do it quick i'll call the fo over there and tell them to give you the people you need and for god's sake keep it out of the press mccaleb was a minor celebrity because of the movie thing if the press gets a whiff of this they'll be honest like the jacket on a book got it other ideas suggestions nobody said anything at first then rachel cleared her throat and spoke quietly you know bacchus was terry's mentor too there was a pause of silence and then duran said that's right when they started the mentoring program terry was the first one back as picked i was next after that and what is the significance of that to us now albert asked rachel shrugged who knows but back has called me out with the gps maybe he called terry out before me everybody paused for a moment to think about that i mean why am i here why did he send the package to me when he knows i'm not in behavioral anymore there's a reason backus has some kind of plan maybe terry was the first part of it albert slowly nodded his head i think it is an angle we need to be aware of he could be watching rachel duran said well let's not jump ahead of ourselves here albert said let's stay with the facts agent walling i want you to exercise all caution of course but let's check out the mccaleb situation and see what we've got before we start jumping meantime brass what else have you got they waited as duran looked down and off camera at some paperwork and apparently shifted gears from michaela back to the rest of the evidence we've got something that might tie in with mccaleb but let me go down my list and get this other stuff out of the way first um first we're just starting now with the tape and the bags recovered with the bodies give us another day on that and i'll have a report let's see on the clothes they're probably going to be in the drying room for another week before they're ready for analysis so nothing there the gum we already talked about we'll put the dental profile into the bitemark database by the end of the day which leaves the gps rachel noticed that everyone in the room was staring intently at the television screen it was as if duran was in the room with them we're making some good progress here we traced the serial number to a big five sporting goods store in long beach california agents from the los angeles fo went to the store yesterday and obtained a store sales record showing the purchase of this gulliver 100 model by a man named aubry snow turns out mr snow is a fishing guide and was out on the water yesterday last night when he finally returned to dock he was questioned at length about his gulliver he told us that he lost the device about 11 months ago in a poker game with several other guides it was valuable because at the time it had several waypoints corresponding to his favorite or most productive fishing spots along the coast of southern california and mexico did he give us the guy who won it albert asked quickly unfortunately no it was an impromptu game there was bad weather at the time and business was slow a lot of guides were stuck in dock and they were getting together to play poker almost every night different nights different players a lot of drinking mr snow could not remember a name or much else about the man who won the gps he didn't think he was from the marina where mr snow keeps his boat because he hasn't seen the man since the fo was supposed to get together with snow and an artist today so they can try to come up with a picture of this guy but even if they get a good drawing that area has marinas and fishing charters all over the place i was already told that the fo has only two agents to spare on this i'll make a call and change that albert said when i call to get ed set up on the mccaleb thing i'll get more bodies on this i'll go right to rusty havershaw rachel knew the name havershaw was the special agent in charge of the los angeles field office that'll be a help duran said you said this connects to mccaleb how so well did you see the movie actually no i didn't get around to it well mccaleb was running a fishing charter out of catalina i don't know how plugged in he was to that community but there is a possibility that he knew some of the guides in those poker games i see it's a stretch but it is there ed keep that in mind got it there was a knock on the door but albert ignored it sheree day got up and answered it rachel could see it was agent kate's he whispered something today anything else brass albert asked not at the moment i think we need to shift emphasis to l.a and find excuse me day said bringing kate's back into the room listen to this kate's flicked his hands up like he was signaling that this was no big deal um i just got a call from the checkpoint out at the site they're holding a man there who just drove up he's a private detective from l.a his name is harambas bosh he you mean hieronymous bosh rachel asked like the painter yeah that's it i don't know about any painter but that is how my guy said it anyway this is the deal they put him in one of the rvs and took a look in his car without him knowing he had a file on the front seat there are notes and stuff but there also are photos one of the photos is of the boat you mean the boat from out there albert asked yeah the one that marked the first grave there also was a news article on the six missing men albert looked at the others in the room for a moment before speaking sheree and tom call nellis and have them get ready with a chopper he finally said get out there and get going and take agent walling with you 18 they put me in an rv and told me to make myself at home there was a kitchen and a table and a sitting area there was a window but the view was of the side of another rv the air conditioning was on and that kept the smell out for the most part when i asked questions they hadn't answered them they told me that other agents were coming soon to speak to me an hour went by and it gave me time to think about what i had stumbled into there was no doubt that this was a body recovery site the smell that unmistakable smell was in the air besides that i had seen two unmarked vans with no windows on the sides or back that told me something right there body movers and there was more than one body to be moved at the 90 minute mark i was sitting on the couch reading a month old fbi bulletin i had picked up off the coffee table i heard a helicopter fly over the rv and then its turbines revved down and quit after it landed five minutes later the rv's door opened and the agents i had been waiting for came in two women and a man one of the women i recognized right off but i couldn't place from where she was late thirties tall and pretty with dark hair there was a deadness in her eyes that i had seen before too she was an agent and that meant there could have been a lot of places where our paths had crossed mr bosh said the other woman the one in charge i'm special agent cherie day this is my partner tom zygo and this is agent walling thank you for waiting for us oh i had a choice i didn't realize that of course i hope they didn't tell you that you had to stay she smiled disingenuously i decided not to argue the point and get things off to a bad start do you mind if we move into the kitchen and sit at the table day asked i think it will be best to talk there i shrugged like it didn't matter but i knew it did they were going to sit me down and then corner me one sitting across from me and then one on either side i got up and took the seat i knew they'd want me in the one where my back would be to the wall so they said after sitting down across the table from me what brings you out to the desert mr bosh i made the shrug again i was getting good practice at it i was just on my way to vegas and pulled off to look for a place to take care of some business what kind of business i smiled i had to take a leak agent day now she smiled oh and then you just happened to stumble onto our little outpost here something like that something like that it's hard to miss how many bodies you got out there what makes you ask that who said anything about bodies i smiled and shook my head she was going to play it hard all the way do you mind if we take a look inside your car mr bosh she asked i think you probably already have and what makes you think that i was a cop in la i worked with the fbi before and so you know it all put it this way i know what a body dig smells like and i know you've looked in my car you just want to get my permission now to cover your ass i'm not giving it to you stay out of my car i looked at zeigle and then over at walling it was then that i placed her and a whole profusion of questions came up out of the depths i remember you now i said it's rachel right excuse me walling asked we actually met once a long time ago in la in hollywood division you were out from quantico you were chasing the poet and you thought one of the guys on the table was the next target all the time you were right there with the poet you worked homicides that's right how is ed thomas like me he retired but ed went and opened a bookstore down in orange sells mystery novels if you can believe it i can you're the one who shot backus right in the house on the hill she didn't answer her eyes went from mine to agent days there was something i didn't get walling was playing the lesser role here but she obviously should have had seniority on day and her partner zygo then i put it together she had probably been knocked down a notch or two in the scandal that came in the aftermath of the poet investigation that leap led to another i took a shot in the dark that was a long time ago i said even before amsterdam walling's eyes flared for a split second and i knew i had hit something solid how do you know about amsterdam day asked quickly i looked back over at her i pulled out the shrug again and gave it to her i just know i guess is that what this is about is that the poet's work out there he's back isn't he day looked at saigon and signaled him to the door he got up and left the rv they then leaned forward so that i would not misunderstand the severity of the situation and her words we want to know what you are doing here mr bosh and you are not going anywhere until we get what we want i mirrored her posture by leaning forward our faces were two feet apart your guy at the checkpoint took my license i'm sure you took a look at it and know what i do i'm working a case and it's confidential zygo came back in he was short in the squad must have just made it in over bureau rags his hair was cut short like a military man's he carried terry mccaleb's file on the missing men in his hand i knew inside it were the photos i had printed from terry's computer zygo put the file down in front of day and she opened it the photo of the old boat was on top she lifted it and slid it across to me where did you get this that's confidential who are you working for that's confidential she flipped through the photos and came to the surreptitious shot terry had taken of shandy she held it up to me who is this i don't know for sure but i'm thinking it's the long lost robert backus what walling exclaimed she reached over and grabbed the photo out of day's hands i watched her eyes flick back and forth as she studied it jesus christ she whispered she got up and walked with the photo over to the kitchen counter she put it down and studied it some more rachel day asked don't say anything else they turned back to the file she spread the other photos of shandy out on the table she then looked back up at me there was fire in her eyes now where did you take these photos i didn't who did and don't say it's confidential again bosh or you're going to find yourself in a deep dark hole until it becomes unconfidential this is your last chance i had been in one of the fbi's deep dark holes before i knew if i had to i could take her best shot but the truth was i wanted to help i knew i should help i had to balance that desire with what would be the best move for graciela mccaleb i had a client and i had to protect her tell you what i said i want to help and i want you to help me let me make a phone call and see if i can't get released from confidentiality how does that sound you need a phone i have one i just don't know if it works out here it will we put up a repeater that's nice you guys think of everything make your call i need to do it in private then we'll leave you here five minutes mr bosh i was back to mr bosh with her that was an improvement actually i would rather you wait here while i took a walk out in the desert more private that way suit yourself just do it i left rachel standing at the counter staring at the photo and day at the table looking at the file i was escorted out of the rv and out to the open desert near the makeshift helicopter landing pad zygo stopped and let me walk on out by myself he lit a smoke and kept his eyes on me i pulled out my phone and checked the screen showing my last 10 calls i chose buddy lockridge's number and called it i knew i had a good shot at reaching him because his phone was a cell yeah it didn't sound like him buddy yeah who is this it's bosh where are you i'm in bed man you always call me in bed i looked at my watch it was past noon well get up i'm putting you to work his voice immediately took on an alertness i'm up what do you want me to do i tried to quickly put together a plan on the one hand i was annoyed with myself for not bringing my caleb's computer with me but on the other hand i knew that if i had brought it then it would be in the bureau's hands now and not much use to me i need you to get to the following sea as fast as you can in fact take a helicopter and i'll pay you back just get over there and get on the boat not a problem then what go on terry's computer and into the photos print out the front and side shots of shandy can you do that yeah but i thought you already print i know buddy i need you to do it again print those out then go up into the file boxes on top i forget which box but one of them has a file on a guy named robert backus it's a the poet yeah i know which one of course you do i almost said okay good take the file and the photos and bring them to las vegas vegas i thought you were in san francisco for a moment that confused me but then i remembered how i lied to him to throw him off my track change my mind bring it all to las vegas check into a hotel and wait for my call make sure your phone is charged but don't call me i'll call you how come i can't call you when i get in because in another 20 minutes i may not have this phone get moving now buddy you're going to pay for all of this right i'll pay i'll also pay you for your time you're on the clock buddy so get moving all right i'm on it you know there's a ferry in 20 minutes i could take that and save you a bunch of money you know take a chopper you'll beat the ferry by an hour i need that hour okay man i'm gone and buddy don't tell anybody where you're going and what you're doing right he hung up and i checked zygo before disconnecting the agent head on dark glasses now and it appeared he was watching me i faked like i had lost the signal and yelled hello a few times into the phone i then closed it and reopened it and called graciela's number my luck was holding she was home and answered graciela it's hairy some things are happening and i need your permission to talk with the fbi about terry's death and my investigation the fbi harry i told you i couldn't go to them first not until i i didn't go to them they came to me i'm out in the middle of the desert graciela things i found in terry's office led me out here and the fbi was already here i think it is safe to talk i think the person they are looking for here is the one who hurt terry i don't think this is going to come back on you now i think i should talk to them tell them what i've got it might help catch this guy who is it robert backus do you know the name did terry mention it there was silence while she thought about it i don't think so who is it a guy he used to work with an agent yes he was the one they called the poet did you ever hear terry talk about the poet yes a long time ago i mean three or four years i remember he was upset because i think he was supposed to be dead but it looked like he wasn't something like that it must have been around the time that bacchus had supposedly resurfaced in amsterdam terry had probably just gotten the internal files on the investigation nothing since then no i can't remember anything okay graciela so what do you think i cannot talk to them unless you allow it i think it's okay then go ahead if you think it will help it means he'll be coming out there soon fbi agents they'll probably take the following sea back to the mainland to go over it what for evidence this guy was on the boat first as a charter and then he came back and snuck on that was when he changed the meds oh and they'll also come to the house they'll want to talk to you just be honest graciela tell them everything don't hold anything back and it'll be all right are you sure harry yes i'm sure so you're alright with this i'm alright we said goodbye and disconnected as i was walking back towards zygo i opened my phone again and called my home number i then disconnected and repeated the process nine more times wiping out any record on my phone of the calls to buddy lockridge and graciela mccaleb if things went wrong in the rv and day wanted to know who i called it wouldn't be easy for her she'd get nothing off my phone she'd have to go to the phone company with a warrant as i approached zygo saw what i was doing he smiled and shook his head you know bosh if we wanted your phone numbers we would have picked them out of the air is that right that's right if we wanted to wow you guys are really rather special aren't you zygo looked at me over his sunglasses don't be an bosh it gets tiring after a while you should know chapter 19 zygo escorted me back in without another word agent a was waiting at the table rachel walling still stood by the counter i calmly sat down and looked at day how'd it go she asked in a pleasant tone it went fine my client says i can talk to you but it's not going to be a one-way street we trade i answer your questions you answer mine she shook her head uh-uh that's not how it works this is an fbi investigation we don't trade information with amateurs you're saying i'm an amateur i bring you a photo of the long-lost robert backus and i'm the amateur i saw a movement and looked over to rachel she had brought her hand up to her face to hide a smile when she saw me looking at her she turned toward the counter and acted like she was studying the photo of bacchus again we don't even know if that is bacchus day said you've got a guy with a beard a hat and dark glasses it could be anybody and it could be the guy that is supposedly dead but somehow managed to kill five men in amsterdam a few years ago and now what six men here or is it more than the six listed in that newspaper story day gave me a tight unpleasant smile look you may be impressing yourself with all of this but we're still not impressed it still comes down to one thing you want to get out of here then start talking to us now you have your clients permission i suggest you start by telling us who this client is i leaned back she was a fortress i didn't think i could break through but if nothing else i'd gotten that smile from rachel walling that told me i might have a shot at climbing over the fbi barricade with her later my client is graciela mccaleb terry mccaleb's wife widow i mean day blinked and quickly recovered from the surprise or possibly it wasn't surprise possibly it was a confirmation of some sort and why did she hire you because somebody switched out her husband's medicine and killed him that brought a momentary silence rachel slowly stepped away from the counter and came back to her chair with few questions or any direction from day i told them the story of how i had come to be called by graciela the details of her husband's tainted medications and my investigation up until the point i reached the desert i began to believe i was not surprising them with anything rather it seemed more like i was confirming something or at least telling a story they already knew parts of when i was finished day hit me with a few clarifying questions related to my movements zygo and walling asked nothing so day said after the story was finished that's an interesting story a lot of information why don't you put it into context for us now what does it all mean to you you're asking me that i thought that's what quantico does puts it all into the blender and pours out a case profile and all of the answers don't worry we will but i'd like your view of it well i said but then didn't continue i was trying to put it all together and into my own blender adding robert bacchus in as the newest ingredient well what sorry i was just trying to put it together just tell us what you were thinking did anybody here know terry mccaleb we all did what does that have to do with i mean really know him i did once rachel said we worked cases but i hadn't been in touch i didn't even know he was dead until today well you should know and we'll know once you go over there and check his house and his boat and everything else that he was still working cases he couldn't let it go he worked some of his own old unsolves and he worked new cases he read the papers and watched tv he made calls to cops on cases that interested him and offered to help out and this got him killed they asked i nodded eventually i think so in january the la times ran that story in the fire you have there terry read it and got interested he called over to vegas metro to offer his services they shined him on not interested but they weren't above dropping his name in the local paper when it ran a follow-up story on the missing men when was that beginning of february i'm sure you can check anyway that story his name in that story drew the poet to him look we're not confirming anything about the poet do you understand that sure whatever you want you can take this whole thing as a hypothetical if you want go on with it somebody was abducting those men and we know now burying them in the desert like all good serial killers he kept his eye on the media to see if anybody was putting two and two together and getting close he sees the follow-up story and he sees mccaleb's name it's an old colleague my guess is he knew michaela back in the day at quantico before terry came out to set up the behavioral sciences outpost in la before he went down with the bad heart actually terry was the first agent back as mentored in the unit walling said they looked at her like she had betrayed some trust walling ignored her and i liked that about her there you go i said they had that connection backus sees the name in the paper and one of two things happened he took it as a challenge or he knew mccaleb was relentless and was going to keep coming despite the apparent lack of interest in him from metro so he went after mccaleb day said right and he had to eliminate him in a way that would not raise questions rachel added right i looked at zygo it was time for him to chime in but he said nothing so he went over there and checked him out i continued he had the beard the hat the glasses probably a little plastic surgery to go with it he hired terry to take him fishing and terry didn't know it was him rachel said terry got suspicious of something but i'm not sure of what those photos were part of a series terry knew something was up with the guy and took extra photos but i think that if he knew then that the guy was backus he would have done something about it he didn't and that makes me think he wasn't sure what he had or who the guy was i looked at rachel you looked at the photo can you tell is it him i mean in a hypothetical sort of way i can't say hypothetically or not i can't see his eyes or enough of his face if it's him he was cut his nose is different so are his cheeks easily changeable i said come to la sometime i'll take you to a guy i know in hollywood who does work for the escort trade he's got some before and after photos that will make you praise the wonders of medical science i'm sure day said even though i was talking to rachel then what once he switched mccaleb's meds i wanted to consult my chronology but my notebook was in my coat pocket they hadn't searched me yet so i wanted to keep the notebook out of it maybe get out of there with it um about two weeks after the charter terry's boat was broken into whoever it was took a gps device but i think that was just as a cover in case terry realized somebody had what is it i had watched their reactions the gps meant something what kind of gps was it rachel asked rachel day cut in quickly you're an observer remember a gulliver i said i don't remember the exact model the sheriff's report is on the boat it actually wasn't terry's it was his partner do you know the partner's name day asked yeah buddy lockridge don't you remember him from the movie i didn't see it do you know anything more about the history of this gps device but he told me he wanted in a poker game it had a lot of good fishing spots marked on it he was pissed off when it got stolen thought it was another fishing guide who took it i could tell by their reactions that i was hitting every pitch the gps was important it had not been taken simply as a cover i was wrong about that it took me a minute but then i put it together i get it i said that's how you found this place isn't it baca sent you people the gps with this place marked he led you here like he did with terry this is not about us day said it's about you but i glanced at rachel and saw the confirmation in her eyes i took the next jump and figured it had been sent to her that's why she was here as an observer backus called her out just as he had called out terry you said terry was the first agent back as mentored in the unit who was the second let's move on day said rachel didn't answer but she gave me that slight smile that looked so sad with those dead eyes she was telling me i had it right she came after terry mccaleb in the mentoring program i hope you are taking appropriate precautions i said quietly day open the file on the table that's actually no business of yours she said now there are some things in your notes here i want to ask you about first of all who is william bing i looked at day she thought that it was my file and my notes i don't know just a name i came across where i think terry had written it down i haven't figured out who it is yet and this reference to the triangle theory what does it mean what does it mean to you mr bosh don't annoy me don't play cute cherie rachel asked what i think those are probably terry's notes day looked down at the file and realized rachel was right i looked at rachel like i was hurt that she had ratted me out day closed the file abruptly right of course she looked up at me you know what that means no but i think you'll tell me it means we'll take it from here you can head on back to la now i'm not going to la i'm going to las vegas i have a place there you can go wherever you want but stay away from this investigation we are officially taking it over you know i don't work for any police department agent day you can't take anything over from me unless i want you to i'm a private operator she nodded like she was understanding of my situation that's fine mr bosh we'll be speaking to your employer later today and you'll be unemployed before sunset i'm just trying to make a living i'm just trying to catch a killer so understand me your services are no longer required stay away from it you're out you're finished can i be any clearer think maybe you could put it in writing too you know what i think you should get out of here and go home while you still can tom would you get mr bosh's license and keys and escort him to his car gladly zigo said his first word uttered in the motor home i reached for the file but she snatched it away from my grasp and we'll be keeping this sure happy hunting agent day thank you i followed zigo toward the door i glanced back and nodded to rachel and she did the same to me i think i saw a trace of light enter her eyes chapter 20 the three agents were still talking about bosch when the helicopter lifted off the desert floor and they began the 40-minute journey back to las vegas the three agents wore headphones so they could communicate to each other despite the noise of the rotor wash day clearly remained annoyed with the private detective and rachel thought that maybe cherie felt that somehow bosh had gotten something over on her rachel remained amused she knew they hadn't seen the last of bosh he hadn't seen it all twice eyes and that nod at the end told her he wasn't going to just fold up his tent and go home what about the triangle theory dey said rachel waited for zigo to go first but as usual he said nothing i think terry was probably on to something she said somebody should go to work on it at the moment i don't know if we have the bodies to chase all of this stuff i'll ask if she's got anybody and this william bing that name hasn't come up before my guess is that he is a doctor terry was coming over here and probably wanted to have a name in case something went wrong rachel when we get back can you just run that down i know what albert said you're an observer and all but if it's just a loose end then it'll be good to nail it down no problem i can do it for my hotel room if you don't want him seeing me working a phone no stay in the fo if albert doesn't see you he'll start wondering what you're up to day who was in the front passenger seat turned and looked back at rachel who was behind the pilot seat what was with you two anyway what do you mean you know what i mean you and bosh all the looks the smiles i hope you are taking appropriate precautions what's going on with that rachel look he's outnumbered here okay it's natural that he'd pick one of us to play to it's covered in the manual on interview techniques and tendencies check it out sometime and what about you are you playing to him is that in the manual too rachel shook her head as if to dismiss the whole discussion i just like his style he acts like he still has the badge you know he didn't stand down to us and i think that's sort of cool you've been out in the boonies too long rachel or you wouldn't say that we don't like people who won't stand down to us maybe i have so does that mean you think he's going to be a problem definitely said zigo probably added rachel they shook her head i don't have the people for all of this i can't spend my time watching this guy you want me to keep tabs on him rachel asked you volunteering i'm looking for something to do so yeah i'm volunteering you know before 9 11 in homeland security we used to get whatever we needed bagging cereals were the best headlines the bureau got now it's terrorists 24 7 and we can't even get over time rachel noted how day pointedly did not say whether she wanted her to check up on bosch or not a nice way to have deniability if something went wrong she decided that once back at the field office she would get day alone and get her to run a check on whether bosch really had a home in las vegas she would try to find out what he was up to and keep a loose watch on him she looked out her window and down at the black asphalt ribbon that cut through the desert they were following it back to the city at that same moment she saw a black mercedes suv heading in the same direction it was dirty from off-roading in the desert she knew it was bosh making his way to vegas then she noticed the drawing on the roof of the mercedes he had used a rag or something to draw a happy face in the white dust on the roof the drawing made her smile too day's voice came in through the earphones what is it rachel what are you smiling at nothing i'm just thinking about something yeah i wish i could smile knowing that there might be a psycho agent out there waiting to put a plastic bag over my head rachel looked at day annoyed by such a snide and brutal remark day apparently saw something in her eyes sorry i just think you better start taking this more seriously rachel looked at her until day had to look away you really think i'm not serious about this i know you are i shouldn't have said anything rachel looked back down at the i-15 freeway they were long past the black mercedes bosch was gone far behind them she studied the terrain for a while it was all so different yet all the same a moonscape carpet of rock and sand she knew it was full of life but all life was hidden the predators were underground waiting to come out at night ladies and gentlemen the pilot's voice said in her ear switch to channel three you've got an incoming call rachel had to take her headset off to figure out how to change the frequency she thought that the headset had a stupid design when she put the set back on she heard brass duran's voice she was talking rapid fire the way rachel remembered she always did when something big came up sent integrity it definitely came from him what rachel said i didn't hear any of that brass day said start again i said we got a match from the bitemark database with the gum it's got 95 integrity which is one of the highest matches i've ever seen ooh rachel asked rach you are going to love this ted bundy that gum was chewed by ted bundy that's impossible day said first of all bundy's been dead for years long before any of these men went missing and he was never known to have gotten to nevada or california or to have targeted men something's wrong with the data brass it was a bad read we ran it twice both times it came up bundy no rachel said it's right day turned and looked back at her rachel was thinking about bundy the ultimate serial killer handsome smart and vicious he was a biter too he had been the only one to really give her the creeps the others she just felt a loathing and disgust for how do you know it's right rachel i just know 25 years ago backus helped set up the vicap database brass remembers over the next eight years the data was collected agents from the unit were sent out to interview every serial killer and rapist who was incarcerated in the country that was before i was there but even later when i was there we kept doing interviews and adding to the base bundy was interviewed several times mostly by bob right before his execution he called bob down to rayford and bob took me with him we spent three days interviewing him i remember that ted kept borrowing gum from bob it was juicy fruit that's what bob chewed then what he'd spit it back into bob's hand zigo asked incredulously no he'd throw it in the trash can we interviewed him in the death house captain's office there was a trash can when we were done each day bundy was let out there were many points when bob was alone in that office he could have just taken the gum out of the can so you're saying bob more or less went dumpster diving for ted bundy's gum and then held on to it so he could put it in a grave all these years later i'm saying he took the gum out of that prison knowing it had bundys teeth marks in it maybe it was just a souvenir then but it became something else later something maybe to taunt us with and where'd he been keeping it in the fridge maybe that's where i'd keep it day turned back around in her seat what do you think brass she asked i think i should have thought of it myself i think rachel is on to something i think bob and ted actually got along he went down there several times to talk to him sometimes alone he could have gotten the gum any one of those times rachel watched day not her head in agreement zygo cleared his throat and spoke so this was just another way of him coming out and telling us he did this and how smart he was about it to taunt us first the gps with the prince and now the gum that's what i would say duran agreed it wasn't that simple rachel knew she unconsciously shook her head and zygo sitting next to her picked up on it you disagree agent walling she noted that zygo must have attended the randall alpert school of building relations among fellow colleagues i just don't think it is as simple as that you are looking at it from the wrong angle remember the gps and his prince came to us first but that gum was in that grave first he might have intended for the gum to be found first before there was any direct connection to him if that was the case what was he doing they asked i don't know i don't have the answer i'm just saying don't assume at this point we know what the plan or even the sequence was supposed to be rachel you know we always keep an open mind on things we take things as they come and never stop looking from all angles that sounded like a line taped to the wall in the public information office in quantico where agents always had pithy policy and procedure statements to deliver over the phone to reporters rachel decided to step back from tangling with day on this she had to be careful not to outstay her welcome and she said she was nearing that point with her former student yes i know she said okay brass anything else new day asked that was it that was enough okay then we'll talk to you at the next one meaning the next conference room case session duran said goodbye and broke off and then the onboard communication link remained silent as the helicopter crossed the dividing line between the harsh undeveloped landscape and the beginning of the sprawl of las vegas as rachel looked down she knew it was merely a trading of one form of desert for another down there beneath all the barrel tile and gravel roofs predators still waited to come out at night to find their victims chapter 21 the executive extended stay motel was off the south end of the strip it had no neon lights flashing in front of it it had no casino and no floor show in fact no executive stayed there it was a place populated by the fringe dwellers of vegas society the addicted gamblers the takeoff men the sex trade workers the kind of people who can't leave the place but at the same time can't put down permanent roots either people like me often when you meet a fellow tenant at the double x as the long-timers call the place they'll ask you how long you've been there and how long you're staying as if you're working off jail time i believe that many of the tenants of the motel have had the real experience of jail time and i chose such a place for two reasons one was that i still carried a mortgage in los angeles and could not afford to stay over time at a place like the bellagio or the mandalay bay or even the riviera and two was that i didn't want to get comfortable in las vegas i didn't want things to feel right there because i knew when it was time for me to go i just wanted to turn in the key and leave i got to vegas by three and knew my daughter would be home from daycare and i could go to my ex-wife's home to see her i wanted to but i also wanted to wait i had buddy lockridge coming in and i had things to do the fbi had let me out of the rv with my notebook still in my pocket and terry mccaleb's map book still in my car i wanted to put them to good use before agent day maybe realized her mistake and came back to me i wanted to see if i could make the next step in the case before she did i pulled into the double x and parked in my usual spot near the fence that separated the motel from the private jet stalls on the mccarran tarmac i noticed that a gulf stream nine that was parked there when i left vegas three mornings earlier was still in place there was also a smaller but sleeker looking black jet parked next to it i don't know what kind of jet it was only that it looked like money i got out and walked up the steps to my one bedroom efficiency on the second floor it was neat and functional and i tried to spend as little time there as i had to the best thing about it was the small balcony off the living room in the brochures they offered in the rental office it was called a smoking balcony it was too small a place to actually fit a chair but i could stand out there and lean on the extra high railing and watch the billionaire's jets come in and i found myself doing that often i found myself standing there and even wishing that i still smoked oftentimes one of the tenants from the apartment on either side of my unit would be standing on their balcony smoking when i was out there on one side was a card counter or an advantage player as he called it and on the other a woman of indeterminate means of income my conversations with them were perfunctory nobody wanted to ask or answer too many questions at this place the last two days editions of the sun were on the worn rubber mat outside my door i hadn't cancelled it because i knew the woman who lived next door liked to sneak over and read the paper after which she would refold it and put it back in his plastic bag she didn't know that i knew this inside i dropped the newspapers on the floor and put mccaleb's map book down on the dinette table i took the notebook out of my pocket and put that down too i went over to the sliding door and opened it to let some of the stuffiness out whoever had the place before me didn't use the smoking balcony and the place seemed to have a permanent nicotine funk after plugging my phone's charger into the wall below the dinette i called buddy lockridge's number but the call rang through to voicemail i disconnected before leaving a message i next called graciela mccaleb's number and asked if the fbi had shown up yet they just left she said they went through a lot of stuff here and they just went down to the boat you were right they're going to take the boat with them i don't know when i'll get it back have you seen buddy around today buddy no was he supposed to come by no i was just wondering are you still with the fbi no they let me go a couple hours ago i'm at my place in vegas i'm gonna keep working on the case graciela why it seems the agents told me it was a priority investigation now they think that agent changed his meds backus what she was asking was what it was i could do that the august powers of the federal bureau of investigation couldn't do the answer of course was nothing but i remembered what terry had said to graciela about me that he would want me on the case if anything ever happened to him it left me unable to walk away because it's what terry wanted i said but don't worry if i come up with anything the bureau doesn't have i'll give it to them just like today i'm not trying to compete with them i'm just working the case graciela okay but you know you don't have to tell them that if they ask they might not be happy about it i know thank you graciela i'll call if anything comes up thank you harry good luck i'll probably need it after disconnecting i tried buddy lockridge once more but got voicemail again i guess that maybe he was on a plane with his phone turned off i hoped anyway i hoped he had gotten onto the boat and then off before the bureau agent saw him i put the phone down and went to the refrigerator i made a quick sandwich of processed cheese and white bread i had both in the box in case my daughter should want a grilled cheese sandwich when she visited it was one of her staples i skipped the grilling and just stood at the counter and quickly ate the tasteless sandwich to fill the void in my stomach i then sat at the table and opened my notebook to a new page i used a couple of self relaxation exercises i had learned years ago in hypnosis class in my mind i saw a blank chalkboard pretty soon i picked up the chalk and started writing in white across the black surface of the board as best i could i recreated terry mccaleb's notes from the missing men file the notes the fbi had taken away when i had as much as i could remember on the board i started rewriting it all in my notebook i thought that i got most of it except for the phone numbers and i didn't care so much about them because i could recover them by simply dialing information through the open balcony door i heard the high pitched wine of jet engines another plane was parking out there i heard the engines quit and it got peaceful again i opened mccaleb's map book i checked every page and found no handwritten notations other than those on the page illustrating southern nevada and the contiguous sections of california and arizona again i looked at what michaela had done he had circled the mojave preservation area which i knew included the zxx road exit and the location of the fbi's body excavation scene on the outside margin of the map he had written a column of numbers and added them up to 86. beneath this he had drawn a line and written actual 92. my guess was that these numbers corresponded to miles i looked at the map and found that it noted mile counts between distances on all significant roadways in a matter of seconds i found numbers that match the column michaela had written on the side of the page he had added up the mileage counts between las vegas and a point on i-15 in the middle of the mojave z-six road was too small and inconsequential to be listed on the map by name but my guess was that it was the unnamed point on the 15 from which michaela had started to add up the mileage in my notebook i wrote and added the numbers myself mccaleb got it right 86 miles according to the map but then he had disagreed or charted a different route coming up with 92 miles my guess was that he had driven the route himself and gotten a different count from the map on his car's odometer this conflict would have occurred because in las vegas he would have had a specific destination the map's mileage counts would have used a different end point in the city mccaleb's destination was unknown to me i had no idea when the markings on the map page had been made or whether they were in any way connected to the case but i thought they were because he began his count at z six road that could not be a coincidence there are no coincidences from the balcony i heard a cough i knew it was the woman next door smoking on her balcony i found her very curious and kept somewhat of a watch on her whenever i was staying at the double x she wasn't much of a smoker and she seemed to go out on the balcony only when a private jet was coming into a parking stall sure some people liked to watch planes but i thought she was up to something and that made me all the more curious i thought maybe she was spotting marks for the casinos or maybe other gamblers i got up and walked out through the door as i stepped out i looked to my right and saw my neighbor throwing something backward into her apartment something she didn't want me to see jane how you doing fine harry i haven't seen you around lately i've been gone a couple days what do we have out here i looked across the parking lot to the tarmac another sleek black jet had parked next to its twin a matching black limo was waiting near the jet stairs a man wearing a suit sunglasses and a maroon turban was coming out of the plane i realized i was ruining jane's surveillance if that was a camera or a set of binoculars she tossed back into her place when she saw me the salt and the swing i said just to be saying something probably she said she took a drag on her cigarette and coughed again i knew she wasn't a smoker she smoked so it would look plausible for her to be on the balcony watching rich men in their airplanes she also didn't have brown eyes i had seen her on the balcony one day when she'd forgotten to put in the tinted contacts and her henna black hair was probably not the real color either i wanted to ask her what she was up to what the game or the con or the scheme was but i also liked our balcony to balcony conversations and i wasn't a cop anymore and the truth was that if jane i didn't know her last name was in the business of separating those rich men from some of their riches then deep down i couldn't work up a good deal of outrage over it the whole city was built on the same principle you roll the dice in the city of desire and you get what you deserve i sense something intrinsically good about her damaged but good one time when i brought my daughter to the apartment we ran into jane on the steps and she stopped to talk to maddie the next morning i found a little stuffed panther on the doormat next to my paper how's your daughter she asked as if she knew my thoughts she's good the other night she asked me if the burger king and the dairy queen were married jane smiled and i saw that sadness in her eyes again i knew it had something to do with kids i asked her something i had been thinking about for a long time you got kids one she's a little older than yours i'm not with her anymore she lives in france that was all she said and i left it at that feeling guilty because of what i had in my life and because i knew before i asked the question that i was tempting the grief in her but my question prompted her to ask one she had been probably holding on to for a while too are you a cop harry i shook my head was in l.a how'd you know that just to guess i think it was the way i saw you walking with your daughter out to your car like you were ready to jump on anything that moved anything bad i shrugged she had pegged me i thought that was kind of nice she added what do you do now nothing really i'm thinking about it you know yes we were suddenly becoming more than neighbors exchanging superficial conversation what about you i asked me i'm just waiting on something so much for that i knew that was the end of the line in that direction turned from her and watched another sultan or sheik start his way down the jet steps the limo driver was waiting with the door open it looked to me like the driver had something under his jacket something he could pull out if the going got tough i looked back at jane i'll see you jane okay harry say hi to her for me i will you be careful you too end of disc five disc six back at the dinette i tried buddy lockridge once more and got the same result nothing i picked up the pen and drummed it impatiently on my notepad he should have answered by now i wasn't getting concerned i was getting annoyed the reports on buddy were that he was unreliable that was not something i had time for i got up and went to the kitchenette and took a beer out of the under the counter refrigerator there was a bottle opener on the door jamb i cranked the bottle open and took a long draw the beer cut through the desert dust and tasted good going down i figured i deserved it i went back to the balcony door but didn't step out i didn't want to spook jane again staying inside i glanced out and saw that the limousine was gone and the new jet was buttoned up tight i leaned out and checked jane's balcony she was gone i noticed that in the ashtray perched on top of the railing she had butted out her smoke after only a quarter burn somebody ought to tell her that was a giveaway a few minutes later the beer was gone and i was back at the dinette looking at my notes in mccaleb's map book i knew i was missing something i just couldn't touch it it was there it was close but i just couldn't reach out to it yet my cell phone rang finally it was buddy lockridge did you just call me yeah i did but i told you not to call me at this number i know but you just called me i thought that meant it was safe what if it hadn't been me i've got caller id i knew it was you yeah but how did you know it was me what if it was someone else with my phone oh yeah oh is right buddy look if you're gonna work for me you gotta listen to what i tell you all right all right i understand good where are you vegas man like you told me you get the stuff off the boat got it no fbi nah man everything's cool where are you right now as i was speaking i noticed something on my notes and remembered something else about the time story on the missing men rather i remembered the circle terry had drawn on the newspaper clip i'm at the b lockridge said the b where's the b the big b man buddy what are you talking about where are you he whispered his reply i thought everything was on the qt man like they might be listening buddy i don't care if they're listening quit with the code what is the big b the bellagio it's a simple code dude simple code for a simple mind you telling me you checked into the bellagio on my tab that's right well check out what do you mean i just got here i'm not paying for the bellagio check out and come here and get a room where i'm at if i could afford to put you in the bellagio i'd be staying there myself no expense account huh none alright where are you at i gave him the name and address of the double x and right away he knew i was in a fringe location they got pay-per-view there they don't have just get over here well look i already checked in here they're not going to give me my money back they already charge my card and besides i already crapped in the toilet that's like implied ownership of the room you know i'll stay one night here and then i'll come stay over there tomorrow there's only going to be one night i thought but didn't say then everything above what this dump costs is coming out of your pay man i didn't tell you to check into the most expensive place on the strip all right all right dock my pay if you want be that way i don't care all right i will you got a car no i took a cab okay go down the elevator and get another one and bring that stuff over here to me can i get a massage first buddy jesus christ if you don't i'm kidding i'm kidding can't you take a joke harry i'm on my way good i'm waiting i disconnected without saying goodbye and immediately dropped the conversation from my radar screen i was excited i moved on i thought i had inexplicably solved one of the mysteries i look to my recreation of mccaleb's file notes and at one line in particular triangle theory one point gives three on the newspaper story he had also circled the word circle in the metro's detectives quote about the mileage on the rental car of one of the missing men giving the investigators a large circle in which to look for clues as to what happened to the missing man i now believe that mccaleb may have circled the word because he thought it was wrong the search zone was not a circle it was a triangle meaning that the miles on the rental car formed the three sides of a triangle point one was the airport the origin the renter picked up the car and drove to point two point two was the place where he crossed paths with the abductor and point three was the place where the abductor took his victim afterward the car was returned to point one completing the triangle when michaela had written his notes he didn't know about z six road he had one point the airport car rental return so he wrote one point gives three because he knew that if one more point on the triangle was identified it would lead to the remaining point as well one more point of the triangle means we can figure out all three i said out loud translating mccaleb's note from shorthand i got up and started pacing i was jazzed and thought i was getting close it was true that the abductor could have made any number of stops with the rental car thereby leaving the triangle theory worthless but if he didn't if he avoided distractions and single-mindedly took care of the business at hand then the triangle theory would hold his thoroughness might contain his weakness that would make seasick's road point three on the triangle because that would have been the last stop for the car before it was returned to the airport and that would make point to the remaining unknown it was the intersection the place where predator and prey came together its location was not known at the moment but thanks to my silent partner i knew how to find it chapter 22 bacchus saw rachel pull out of the side lot of the fbi building in a dark blue crown victoria she turned left onto charleston and headed toward las vegas boulevard he hung back he was sitting behind the wheel of a 1997 ford mustang with utah plates he had taken the car from a man named elijah willows who no longer needed it his eyes left rachel's car and held on the street scene watching for movement a grand am with two men in it pulled out into traffic from the office building next to the fbi building it went in the same direction as rachel's car there's one baca said to himself he waited and then he watched a dark blue suv with triple antennas pull out of the fbi lot and turn right onto charleston going in the opposite direction as rachel another grand am pulled out behind it and followed there's two and three backus knew it was what was called a sky-bird surveillance one car to maintain a loose visual surveillance while the subject was tracked by satellite rachel whether she knew it or not had been given a car with the gps transponder on it all of this was okay with backus he knew he could still track her all he needed to do was follow the follow car and he would get there just the same he started the mustang before pulling out onto charleston to catch up to the grand am following rachel he reached over and opened the glove compartment he was wearing rubber surgeons gloves size small so they would stretch across his hands and be almost unnoticeable from a distance back is smiled sitting in the glove box was a little two-shot vest gun that would nicely complement his own remaining weapon he knew he had sized elijah willows up perfectly when he had first seen him leaving the slots of fun on the downside of the strip yes he was what bacchus had been looking for physically same size and build but he also sensed a detachment about the man he was someone who dwelled alone and on the edge the gun in the glove box seemed to prove that it gave back his confidence in his choice he hit the gas and pulled loudly out onto charleston he did this purposely he knew that on the off chance there was a fourth car a trailer the car they would find the least suspicious would be the one with the driver boldly drawing attention to himself chapter 23 it came down to basic high school geometry i had two of the three points on a triangle and i needed the third it was that simple and that difficult at the same time to get that point i had the total distances of all three sides of the triangle to work with i sat down opened my notebook to a new page and went to work with mccaleb's map i recalled from the times article that the mileage recorded on the rental car of one of the missing men was 328 miles under what i believed mccaleb's theory to be that mileage count would equal the total of all three sides of the triangle i knew thanks to the notations on the map page that one side of the triangle z6 to the airport in vegas was 92 miles that left 236 miles for the remaining two sides that number could be divided in a variety of ways putting the missing point of the triangle in a myriad of possible positions on the map what i needed was a charting compass to accurately plot the triangle but i may do with what i had according to the maps legend one inch equaled 50 miles of terrain i took out my wallet and removed my driver's license holding one of its short edges to the legend i was able to determine that the side of the license equaled 100 miles on the map working with that i composed a number of triangles that approximated the remaining 236 miles of roadway i planted points both north and south of the baseline i had drawn from zizex road to las vegas i spent 20 minutes working the possibilities my plotting taking the third possible point of the triangle down into arizona and as far as the grand canyon and then north into the bombing and gunnery ranges under the command and restriction of nellis air force base i soon grew frustrated realizing the possibilities were endless and that i could have already identified the missing point of the triangle and not even know it i got up and went to the half fridge for another beer still annoyed with myself i opened the cell and called buddy lockridge the call went through to voicemail without being answered buddy where the hell are you i slammed the device closed it wasn't like i needed buddy there that moment i just needed to yell at somebody and he was the easy target stepped back out onto the balcony and checked for jane she wasn't there and i felt a glimmer of disappointment she was a mystery and i liked talking to her my eyes swept across the parking lot and the jets beyond the fence and caught on the figure of a man standing in the far corner of the lot he had on a black baseball hat with gold lettering i couldn't read he was clean-shaven and wore mirrored glasses in a white shirt his lower half was hidden by the car he stood behind he seemed to be looking right at me the man in the hat did not move for at least two minutes and neither did i i was tempted to leave the apartment and go down into the lot but was afraid if i lost sight of the man for even a few seconds he would disappear we stood locked in our stairs until the man suddenly broke from position and started walking across the lot as he came out from behind the car i saw he wore black shorts and some sort of equipment belt that was also when i could make out the word security on his shirt and realized he apparently worked for the double x he walked into the passageway that separated the two buildings that made up the double x and was gone from my sight i let it go it was the first time i had seen a security man at the place in daylight but it still wasn't that suspicious i checked the next door balcony for jane again there was no sign of her and went back inside to the dinette table this time i approached the geometry differently i ignored the miles and just looked at the map my prior exercise had given me a general idea of how far and wide the triangle could stretch on the map i started studying the roadways and towns in this zone each time a location interested me i measured the distances to see if i could come up with a triangle of approximately 328 miles i had measured out nearly two dozen locations failing to get even close on the approximation of mileage each time when i came across a town on the north side of the baseline that was so small that it was denoted by only a black dot the smallest demarcation of a population center in the map legend it was a town called clear i knew of this place and i suddenly got excited in a moment of flash thought i knew that it fit the poet's profile using my driver's license i measured the distances clear was approximately 80 miles north of las vegas on the blue diamond highway it was then another 150 miles approximately on rural routes across the california border and down through the sandy valley to the 15 freeway and the third point of the triangle at z6 adding in the baseline mileage between z6 and the airport in vegas i had a triangle of approximately 322 miles just six miles shy of the total put on the rental car belonging to one of the missing men my blood started to jump in my veins clear nevada i'd never been there but i knew it was a town of brothels and whatever community and outside services are spawned by such businesses i knew of it because on more than one occasion in my career as a cop i had traced suspects through clear nevada on more than one occasion a suspect who voluntarily surrendered to me in los angeles reported that he had spent his last few nights of freedom with the ladies of clear nevada it was a place where men would go privately taking care to leave no trail that would reveal them as having dipped in such murky moral waters married men men of success or religious piety in a strong way it was much like the red light district in amsterdam a place where the poet had previously found his victims much of cop work is pursuing gut instinct and hunches you live and die by the hard facts and evidence there is no denying that but it is your instinct that often brings those crucial things to you and then holds them together like glue and i was following instinct now i had a hunch about clear i knew i could sit at the dinette table and plot triangles and map points for hours if i wanted to but the triangle i had drawn with the town of clear at the top was the one that held me still at the same time the adrenaline was jangling in my blood i believed i had drawn my caleb's triangle no more than believed it i knew it my silent partner using his cryptic notes as direction i now knew where i was going using my license as a straight edge i added two lines to the map completing the triangle i tapped each point on the map and stood up the clock on the wall in the kitchenette said it was almost five i decided it was too late to go north tonight i would arrive in near darkness and i didn't want that that could be dangerous i quickly put a plan in motion to leave it dawn and have almost an entire day to do what i needed to do and clear i was thinking about what i would need for the trip when there was a knock on my door that startled me even though i was expecting it i walked over to let buddy lockridge in chapter 24 harry bosch opened the door and rachel could tell he was angry he was about to say something when he saw it was her and checked himself that told her he was waiting for somebody and that that somebody was late agent walling expecting someone um no not really she saw his eyes flick past her and check the rear parking lot can i come in sorry sure come on in he stepped back and held the door she entered a sad little efficiency apartment that was sparsely furnished in depressing colors on the left was a dinette table circa 1960s and she saw on it a bottle of beer a notebook and a road atlas opened to a map of nevada bosch moved quickly to the table and closed the atlas and his notebook and stacked them one on top of the other she then noticed his driver's license was on the table as well so what brings you over here to this swell place he asked just wanted to see what you were up to she said leaving suspicion out of her voice i hope our little welcome wagon wasn't too difficult for you today nope comes with the territory i'm sure it does how'd you find me she stepped further into the room you're paying for this place with a credit card bosch nodded but didn't seem surprised by the speed or questionable legality of her search for him she moved on nodding at the map book on the dinette table planning a little vacation there i mean now that you're not working the case anymore a road trip yeah we're too not sure yet she smiled and turned toward the open balcony door she could see an expensive looking black jet on the tarmac beyond the motel's parking lot according to your credit card records you've been renting a place here for nearly nine months on and off but mostly on yeah they give me the long-term discount comes out to like 20 bucks a day or something that's probably too much he turned and surveyed the place as if for the first time yeah they were both still standing rachel knew he didn't want her to sit down or stay because of the visitor he was expecting so she decided to push things she sat down without being asked on the threadbare couch why have you had this place for nine months she asked he pulled a chair away from the dinette and brought it over and sat down it's got nothing to do with this if that's what you mean no i didn't think it did i'm just curious that's all you don't look like a gambler to me i mean not with money and this looks like a place for hardcore types he nodded it is that in people with other addictions i'm here because my daughter lives out here with her mother i've been trying to get to know her i guess she's my addiction how old is she she'll be sick soon that's nice her mother being eleanor wish the former fbi agent that's her what can i do for you agent walling she smiled she liked bosh he got to the point he apparently didn't let anybody or anything intimidate him she wondered where that came from was it from carrying a badge or carrying other baggage you can call me rachel for starters but i think it's more like what can i do for you you wanted me to contact you didn't you he laughed but not with any humor attached to it what are you talking about the interview the looks the nods and smiles all that he chose me as sort of a pen pal in there tried to connect try to even it up turn it from three against one to a game of two on two boss shrugged and looked out the balcony that was just sort of a shot in the dark i uh i don't know i just sort of thought you weren't getting a fair shake in there that's all and i guess i know what that's like it's been eight years since i got a fair shake from the bureau he looked back at her all because of bacchus that and other things i made some mistakes and the bureau never forgets i know what that is like too he stood up i'm having a beer he said do you want one or is this a duty visit i could use one duty or not he got up and took the open beer off the dinette table and went to the small efficiency kitchen he put the bottle in the sink and got two more out of the refrigerator he cranked off the caps and brought them out to the seating arrangement rachel knew she had to be careful and alert there was a thin line between who played whom in these situations this place comes with glasses in the cabinet but i wouldn't trust them he said handing her a bottle bottle's fine she took hers and made sure she clinked it off his she then took a short pull on the bottle sierra nevada it tasted good she could tell he was watching to see if she was really drinking she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand even though she didn't have to that tastes right sure does so what part of this are they giving you or do you have to stand around and just keep quiet like agents ego rachel gave him a short laugh yeah i don't think i've heard him utter a full sentence yet but then again i've only been here a couple days basically they brought me in because they didn't have much of a choice i've got my little back story with bob backus and the gps was sent to me at quantico even though i haven't set foot there in years as you picked up on in the rv this could be about me maybe maybe not but it cuts me in and where did they bring you in from rapid city bosch grimaced no that's good she said before that it was my not north dakota a one agent office i think in my second year there they actually had a spring man that hurts in la what they do if they want to get rid of you is give you what they call freeway therapy transfer you to the division furthest from where you live so you have to fight the traffic every day couple years of two hour commutes and guys turn in their badges is that what happened to you no but you probably already know what happened to me she didn't respond to that moving quickly back the other way in the bureau they have the whole country and then some they don't call it freeway therapy they call it hardship posting they send you where nobody wants to go there are a lot of places like that places they can bury an agent if they want to in my knot it was all reservation stuff and on the res they don't take so kindly to those of us of the fbi persuasion rapid city is only a small improvement at least there are other agents in the office my fellow outcasts we actually have a good time because the pressure's off know what i mean yeah how long have you been up there eight years altogether geez she waved her free hand dismissively as if it was all water under the bridge she knew she was drawing him in revealing herself would make him trust her she wanted his trust tell me he said was it because you were the messenger because you shot backus or because he got away all that and other things consorting with the enemy chewing gum in class the usual stuff he nodded why didn't you just walk away rachel well harry because i didn't want them to win he nodded again and she could see a gleam in his eyes she had connected on that answer she knew it could feel it and it felt good can i tell you something off the record harry sure my assignment right now is to keep an eye on you me why i don't know if you were listening in that rolling field office today but i was kind of kicked off the case yes and i'm sure you just packed it in and are quitting she turned and looked toward the table at the map book and his notebook she then turned back to him and spoke in a stern but even tone my assignment is to watch you and to shut you down hard if you come anywhere near this investigation look agent walling i don't think don't suddenly go formal on me here okay rachel then if this is some kind of threat then all right message received i get it but i don't think you i'm not threatening you i'm here to tell you i don't plan to carry out my assignment he paused and studied her for a long moment what do you mean i mean i've checked you out you were right about that i know about you and i know about what kind of cop you were i know what has happened with you in the bureau in the past i know all of that and i know you're more than meets the eye and my guess is that you're on to something that you told us just enough today to get out of that rv in one piece she stopped and waited and finally he responded hey look if all of that is a compliment then i'll take it but what's your point my point is that i have a history too and i'm not going to sit on the sideline while they go after bacchus and leave me back in the fo making coffee not on this one i want to get there first and since this is a betting town i'm betting on you bosh didn't move and he didn't say anything for a long moment she watched his dark eyes as he turned through everything she'd said she knew she was taking an incredible risk with him but eight years in the badlands had made her look at risks much differently than she had when she was in quantico let me ask you something he finally said why is it they don't have you in a hotel room with two guards on the door you know in case backus shows up like he said this could all be about you first terry mccaleb then you she shook her head dismissing the idea because maybe they're using me maybe i'm bait are they she shrugged i don't know i'm not privy to everything about this investigation either way it doesn't matter if he is coming at me let him come i'm not going to hide out in a hotel room not when he's out there and not as long as i have my pals sig and glock with me oh a two gun agent that's interesting most of the two gun cops i knew had a little too much testosterone to go with all the extra bullets i didn't like working with those guys he said it was a sort of smile in his voice she knew he was close to being hooked i don't carry them both at once one's on the job one's off and you're trying to change the subject which is your next move look you know how they say it in the movies we can do this the hard way or we can itch in the face with a phone book exactly you're working alone against the grain but you obviously have good instincts and probably know things about this we don't know yet why not work together and what happens when agent day and the rest of the fbi hear about this i take the risk i take the fall but it won't be too hard what are they going to do to me send me back to minot big deal he nodded she watched him tried to look through those dark eyes to see how his mind worked her take on bosch was that he put case sense ahead of vanity and petty things he would churn through it and ultimately know this was the way to go he finally nodded again and spoke what are you doing tomorrow morning watching you why where you staying the embassy suites on paradise near harmon i'll pick you up at 8 and where are we going to the top of the triangle what do you mean where i'll explain tomorrow i'm thinking i can trust you rachel but let's take it one step at a time are you going with me all right bosh i'll go with you you getting formal with me now just a slip i don't want to get formal with you she smiled and she watched him try to read it alright then i'll see you tomorrow he said i have to get ready now to go see my kid he stood up and so did she she took one more drink from her beer and put it down half finished on the dinette table eight o'clock tomorrow she said do you pick me up right you sure you don't want me to drive uncle sugar pay for the gas that's all right can you get the photos of the missing men i had them on the newspaper clip but agent day took it from me i'll see what i can do there's probably a six-pack that won't be missed at the fo and one other thing bring both your friends what friends sagan glock she smiled and shook her head at him you can't carry a weapon now can you legally anyway no i can't i don't must feel naked yeah you could say that she gave him another smile well i'm not giving you a weapon harry no way he shrugged had to ask he opened the door and she walked out after he closed it she walked down the steps to the parking lot and looked back up at the door she wondered if he was watching her through the peephole she got into the crown vic she had signed out of the carpool she knew she was close to the edge of trouble what she had revealed to bosh and agreed to do the next day with him guaranteed the final stage of the destruction of her career if things went sideways but she didn't care it was a gambling town she trusted bosh and she trusted herself she would not let them win as she backed the crown vic out she noticed a cab pulled to a stop in the parking lot a chubby man with sun bleached hair and a loud hawaiian shirt got out and studied the numbers on the doors of the rooms he was carrying a thick envelope or a file folder that looked yellowed and old rachel watched as he bounded up the steps and walked to number 22 bosch's door the door was opened before he had to knock rachel backed out and drove out of the lot onto koval she drove around the block and parked in a spot that gave her a good view of both of the parking lot eggs at sebas sorry motel she was sure bosh was up to something and she was going to find out what it was chapter 25 bacchus had caught only a glimpse of the man who answered the motel room door when rachel walling knocked but he thought he recognized him from a time many years before he felt his pulse quicken if he was right about the man she was meeting in room 22 then the stakes had grown considerably higher he studied the motel and his situation he had located the three bureau surveillance cars the agents were hanging back one agent had deployed and was sitting across kovale on a bus bench he looked out a place wearing a gray suit and supposedly waiting for a bus but that was the fbi style that left the motel clear for backus to move about it was l-shaped with parking on all sides he realized that if he was on the other side of the building he might catch another glimpse of the man rachel was with through a rear window or balcony he decided not to risk moving the car from the front parking lot to the rear it might draw the attention of the bench warmer across the street instead he cracked the door and slipped out of his car he had the interior light switched off so there was no threat of exposure he crab walked between two other cars and straightened up pulling a baseball cap over his head and yanking the brim down as he emerged the hat had unlv on it bacchus walked through the breezeway on the bottom floor of the two-story motel he passed the soda and candy machines and came out on the other side and started walking through the rear parking lot as if looking for his car he glanced up at the lighted balcony that he believed corresponded with the door to room 22 where he had seen rachel enter he could see the sliding door was open glancing around as if looking for his lost car baca saw that the agent on the bench did not have a visual angle on the rear lot no one was watching him here he casually moved to a position directly below the balcony of room 22. he tried to listen for any verbal morsel that would spill through the open slider he heard rachel's voice but could not make out the words until he very clearly heard her say must feel naked this confused and intrigued him he was thinking about the possibility of climbing up to the second level so that he could hear the conversation in room 22. the sound of a door shutting ended that idea he guessed rachel had just left bacchus returned to the breezeway and hid behind a coke machine when he heard a car's ignition fire he waited and listened he detected the sound of another car entering the lot he moved from the coke machine to the corner and glanced out a man was getting out of a taxi and backus recognized him too it was terry mccaleb's charter partner there was no doubt backus felt like he had just tripped across a treasure of intrigue and mystery what was rachel up to how had she connected with the charter partner so quickly and what was the lapd doing here he looked past the taxi and saw rachel's crown victoria pull out onto the street and drive away he waited a moment and saw one of the grand dams stop and pick up the man on the bus bench and then take off backus yanked the brim of his hat down again and stepped out of the breezeway he walked toward his car chapter 26 i was looking through the people thinking about agent walling and wondering how the brutal terrain of the fbi and the dakotas had not robbed her of her fire and sense of humor i liked her for that and sensed a connection i was thinking that i might be able to trust her at the same time i was thinking i had just been played by a pro i was sure she hadn't told me everything she was up to nobody ever does but she had told me enough we wanted the same thing maybe for different reasons but i wasn't second guessing my decision to take on the extra rider in the morning the view through the peephole was suddenly filled with the concave image of buddy lockridge i opened the door before he could knock and quickly pulled him inside i wondered if walling had seen him on her way out perfect timing buddy did anybody talk to you or stop you out there where here yeah here no i just got out of the cab okay then where you been he explained his lateness by saying there were no cabs at the bellagio a story i didn't believe i saw one of the pockets of his jeans bulging when i took from him the two files he carried that's buddy cabs can be hard to find in this town but not at the bellagio there are always cabs there i reached over and slapped my hand against his full pocket you stopped to play didn't you you've got a pocket full of chips there look i stopped to play a couple quick shots of blackjack before coming but i got lucky man i couldn't lose look at this he reached into the pocket and pulled out a handful of five dollar chips i was kicking ass and you can't walk away from good luck yeah great that will help you pay for that room you've got but he looked around my place taking it in through the open balcony there was traffic and jetliner noise gladly he said i'm gonna stay here i almost laughed considering what i had seen of his boat well you're welcome to stay wherever you want because i don't need you out here anymore thanks for bringing the files his eyes widened what i've got a new partner the fbi so you can go back to la as soon as you want or you can play blackjack until you own the bellagio i'll pay the airfare like i said and for the chopper ride to the island and 40 bucks toward the room that's the daily rate at this place i held up the files i'll throw in a couple hundred for your time getting these and getting here no way man i came all the way out here man i can still help i've worked with the agents before when me and terry worked the thing that was then buddy this is now come on i'll give you a ride back to your hotel i hear cabs are scarce and i'm going that way anyway after closing the balcony door i walked him out of the apartment and locked up i brought the files with me for reading later as we were walking down the steps to the parking lot i looked around for the security man but didn't see him i looked around for rachel walling and didn't see her either i did see my neighbor jane putting a shoe box into the trunk of a car a white monte carlo from my angle on the steps i could see the trunk was crowded with other larger boxes you're better off with me but he said protest still clinging to his voice you can't trust the bureau man terry was in it and he didn't even trust them i know buddy i've been dealing with the bureau for 30 years he just shook his head i watched jane get in her car and back out i wondered if it was the last time i would see her i wondered if my telling her i had been a cop that spooked her and made her split maybe she had heard some of my conversation with agent walling through the thin walls buddy's comments about the bureau reminded me of something you know when you get back there they're going to want to talk to you about what about your gps they found it wow great you mean it wasn't finder it was shandy think so but the news isn't all that great buddy how come i unlocked the mercedes and we got in i looked at buddy as i was starting the engine all your way points were wiped out there's only one on it now and you won't catch any fish there ah god damn it i should have known anyway they're gonna ask you all about it and all about terry in that last charter just like i did so they're running behind you huh playing catch-up you're the man harry not really i knew what was coming but he turned in a seat and leaned toward me take me with you harry i'm telling you i can help i'm smart i can figure things out put your seat belt on buddy i jumped into reverse before he got a chance and he almost went into the dashboard we headed over to the strip and slowly made our way down to the bellagio it was early evening and the sidewalks were cooling off and getting crowded i saw that the overhead trams and walkways were becoming full the neon from every facade on the street was lighting dusk up like a brilliant sunset almost but he continued to lobby me for a part in the investigation but i offended him off at every turn after we pulled in around the huge front fountain and under the casino's giant entry portico i told the valet man that we were just picking somebody up and he directed me to a curb telling me not to leave the car unattended who we picking up but he asked new life in his voice nobody i just said that tell you what you want to work with me buddy then stay here in the car for a few minutes so they won't towed away i need to run in here real quick what for to see if somebody's here who i jumped out of the car and closed the door without answering his question because i knew with buddy that every answer led to another question and then another and i didn't have time for that i knew the bellagio like i knew the turns on mulholland drive this was where eleanor wish my ex-wife made her living and where i had watched her do so on more than one occasion i quickly made my way through the plush casino around the orchard of slot machines into the poker room there were only two poker tables working it was very early i quickly scanned the 13 players and did not see eleanor i checked the podium and saw the table manager was a man i knew from coming here with eleanor and then hanging out and watching while she played i went over freddy what's shaking a lot of ass shaking around here tonight that's good gives you something to look at i'm not complaining do you know is eleanor coming in it was eleanor's habit to let the table managers know if she intended to come in and play on a particular night sometimes it would save places at tables of high rollers or higher skilled players sometimes they would set up private games in a way my ex was a secret vegas attraction she was an attractive woman who was damn good at poker that presented a challenge to men of a certain kind the smart casinos knew this and played to it eleanor was always treated well at the bellagio if she needed anything from a drink to a sweet to a rude player removed from a table she got it no questions asked and that was why she usually played here on the night she played yeah she's coming in freddy told me i don't have anything for her right now but she'll be coming along i waited before hitting him with another question i had to finesse this i leaned on the railing and casually watched the dealer at the holdem table put down the final deal of the hand the card scraping on the blue felt like quiet little whispers five people had stayed in for the whole ride i watched a couple of their faces when they looked at the last card i was watching for towels but didn't see any eleanor had told me once that the real players call the last card and hold them the river because it gives you life or takes it away with it if you played the hand through to the seventh card everything rides on it three of the five players folded right away the remaining two went back and forth to a call and one of the men i had watched took the pot with three sevens what time did she say she was coming in i asked freddie uh she said the usual time around eight despite my attempt of being casual about it i could tell freddie was getting hesitant realizing his allegiance should be to eleanor and not her ex-husband i had what i needed so i thanked him and walked away eleanor was planning on putting our daughter to bed and then coming into work maddie would be left with the live-in nanny watching over her when i got back to the casino entrance my car was empty i looked around for buddy and spotted him talking to one of the valet men i called to him and waved goodbye but he came running over and caught me at the door of the mercedes you taken off yeah i told you i was just going in for a couple minutes thanks for staying with the car like i asked he didn't get it no problem he said you find him find who whoever you were going in there to see yeah buddy i found him i'll see you come on man let's do this thing together terry was my friend too that gave me pause buddy i understand but the best thing you can do right now if you want to do something for terry is go back home wait for the agents to show up and then tell them every single thing you know don't hold back anything you mean including that you sent me over there to the boat to steal the file and get the photos now he was just trying to taunt me because he finally understood that he was out i don't care if you tell them i said i told you i'm working with them they'll know it before you even meet them but just so you have it straight i didn't tell you to steal anything i'm working for graciela that boat and everything in it belongs to her including those files and those photographs i poked him hard in the chest got it buddy he physically backed off yeah i got it i was just good i then put my hand out we shook hands but there wasn't anything very pleasant about it i'll catch you later buddy he let go of my hand and i got in and closed the door i started it up and drove away in the mirror i watched him go in through the revolving door and knew he would lose all his money back to the casino before the night was over he had been right he should never have walked away from luck the dashboard clock told me that eleanor would not be leaving her house for the night's work at the casino for another 90 minutes i could head over there now but i knew it would be best to wait i wanted to see my daughter but not my ex-wife to her everlasting credit eleanor had been kind enough to allow me full visiting privileges while she was working so that would not be a problem and i didn't care if mattie was awake or not i just wanted to see her hear her breathing and touch her hair but it seemed that every time eleanor and i crossed paths we skidded sideways and anger from both of us ruled the moment i knew it was best this way to come to the house when she was not there i could have gone back to the double x and spent an hour reading the poet file but instead i drove paradise road was much less congested than the strip it always is i took harmon over and then turned north and almost immediately into the parking lot of the embassy suites i thought maybe rachel walling might want a cup of coffee and a fuller explanation of the next day's excursion i cruised through the parking lot looking for a bureau car that would be obvious to me because of its cheap hubcaps and government plate but i didn't see one i pulled out my cell called information and got the number for the embassy suites i called and asked for rachel walling's room and was put through the phone rang repeatedly but was not answered i hung up and thought for a moment i then reopened my phone and called the cell number she had given me she answered right away hey it's bosh what are you up to i said as casually as i could nothing just hanging out you at the hotel yeah why what's up nothing i just thought you might want a cup of coffee or something i'm out and about and have some time to kill i could be at your hotel in a couple minutes oh well thanks but i think i'm going to stay in tonight of course you can't come out i thought you're not even there i'm kind of jet-lagged to tell you the truth it always hits me the second day plus tomorrow we've got the early start i understand no it's not that i don't want to maybe tomorrow okay okay are we still on for eight i'll be out front we hung up and i felt the first weight of doubt in my stomach she was up to something playing me in some way but then i tried to dismiss it her assignment was to keep tabs on me she'd been up front about that maybe i had this latest thing all wrong i made another circuit around the parking lot looking for a crown vic or an ltd but didn't see one i quickly drove out of the lot then and back on to paradise road at flamingo i turned west and went back across the strip and over the freeway i pulled into the lot of a steakhouse near the palms the casino favored by many of the locals because it was off the strip and it drew a lot of celebrities the last time eleanor and i had talked civilly she told me she was thinking of switching her allegiance from the bellagio to the palms the bellagio was still where the money went but most of that went into baccarat and pie gao and craps poker was a different skill and it was the only game where you weren't playing against the house she had heard through the local grapevine that all the celebrities and athletes that came over from la to the palms were playing poker and losing lots of cash while they learned in the steakhouse bar i ordered a new york strip and a baked potato the waitress tried to talk me out of ordering the steak medium well but i remained firm and the places i had grown up i never got any food that was pink in the middle and i couldn't start enjoying it now after she took the order back to the kitchen i thought about an army kitchen i once wandered into at fort benning there were complete sides of beef being boiled gray through and through and a dozen huge vats a guy with a shovel was scooping oil off the surface of one of the vats and dumping it in a bucket that kitchen was the worst thing i had ever smelled until i went into the tunnels a few months later and one time crawled into a place where the vc hid their dead from the army statistic takers i opened the poet file and was settling into a thorough read when my phone buzzed i answered without checking the id screen hello harry it's rachel you still want to get that coffee i changed my mind my guess was that she had hurried to the embassy suites so she could be there and not be caught in a lie um i just ordered dinner on the other side of town i'm sorry well that'll teach me you by yourself yeah i've got some stuff to work on here well i know what that's like i pretty much eat by myself every night yeah me too if i eat really what about your kid i was no longer comfortable or trusting while talking to her i didn't know what she was doing and i didn't feel like going over my sad marital or parental history um listen i'm getting a look from somebody here i think cell phones are against the rules well we don't want to break the rules i'll see you tomorrow at 8 then okay eleanor goodbye i was about to close the phone when i heard her voice harry what i'm not eleanor what you just called me eleanor oh that was a mistake sorry do i remind you of her maybe sort of not now but from a while back oh well i hope not from too far back she was referring to eleanor's fall from grace in the bureau a fall so bad that even the hardship posting in my knot was out of the question i'll see you tomorrow rachel good night harry i closed the phone and thought about my mistake it had shot up right out of the subconscious but now that it was out in the open it was obvious i didn't want to think about that i wanted to retreat into the file in front of me i knew i would be more comfortable studying the blood and madness of some other person and time chapter 27 at 8 30 i knocked on the door of eleanor wish's house and the salvadorian woman who lived there and took care of my daughter answered marisol had a kind but worn face she was in her fifties but looked much older her story of surviving was devastating and whenever i thought about it i was left feeling lucky about my own story since day one when i had unexpectedly showed up at this house and discovered i had a daughter marisol had treated me kindly she had never viewed me as a threat and was always completely cordial and respectful of my position as both father and outsider she stepped back and let me in she's sleeping she said i held up the file i was carrying that's okay i have work i just want to go sit with her for a while how you doing marisol oh i am fine eleanor went to the casino yeah she go and how was maddie tonight maddie she a good girl she play marisol always kept her reports to a minimum i tried speaking to her in spanish before thinking the reason she spoke so little was because of her english skills but she said little more to me in her native language preferring to keep her reports on my daughter's life and activities to a few words in any language okay well thank you i said if you want to go to bed i'll just let myself out later i'll make sure the door is locked i had no key to the house but the front door would lock after i closed it yes he's okay i nodded and headed down the hallway to the left i entered maddie's room and closed the door there was a nightlight plugged into the far wall and it cast a blue glow across the room i made my way to the side of her bed and turned on the bed table light i knew from experience that maddie would not be disturbed by the light the five-year-old's dreams were so deep she could seemingly sleep through anything even a lakers playoff game on the television or a 5.0 earthquake the light revealed a nest of tangled dark hair on the pillow her face was turned away from my view i used my hand to sweep the ringlets back off her face and i leaned down and kissed her cheek i turned my head sideways so my ear was closer to her i checked for the sound of breathing and was rewarded one little moment of unfounded fear fell away from me i walked over to the bureau and turned off the baby monitor the other half of which i knew was in the tv room or marisol's bedroom there was no need for it now i was there maddie slept in a queen-sized bed with a cover spread that had all manner of cats printed on it with her little body taking up so little space in the bed there was plenty of room for me to prop the second pillow against the headboard and climb on next to her i slipped my hand under the covers and placed it gently on her back i waited without moving until i could feel the slight rise and fall of her breathing with the other hand i opened the poet file and started to read at dinner i had gotten through most of the file this included the suspect profile authored in part by agent rachel walling as well as the investigative reports and crime scene photos that accumulated while the investigation was current and the bureau was tracking the killer dubbed the poet across the country that was eight years earlier when the poet killed eight homicide detectives traveling from east to west before his run came to an end in los angeles now as my daughter slept next to me i began with the reports that came after fbi special agent robert backus had been identified as the suspect after he had been shot by rachel walling and then disappeared the summary from the autopsy of a body found by a department of water and power inspector in a storm water tunnel in laurel canyon was included here the body was found almost three months after bacchus was shot and had fallen through a window of a cantilevered home near the canyon and disappeared into the darkness and brush below fbi credentials and a badge belonging to robert backus were found on the body the deteriorated clothing was also his a suit hand tailored for backus in italy when he'd been sent over to consult on an investigation of a serial killer in milan however scientific identification of the body was inconclusive the remains were badly decomposed leaving fingerprint analysis impossible and parts of the body were even missing initially presumed to have been taken by rats and other animals foraging in the tunnels the entire lower mandible and upper bridge were missing precluding a comparison to the dental records belonging to robert backus cause of death could not be determined either though a gunshot wound channel was found in the upper abdomen the area agent walling reported seeing her bullet strike and the rib was fractured possibly by the force of a bullet no bullet fragments were recovered however suggesting a through-and-through wound and so no comparison to a bullet from walling's weapon was possible no dna comparison or identification was ever made after the shooting when it was thought that backus might still be alive and on the run agents descended on the fugitive's home in office but they were in search of evidence to the crimes he had committed and clues as to why they did not plan for the possibility that they might one day need to identify his putrified remains in a gaffe that would haunt the investigation and leave the bureau open later to charges of malfeasance and cover-up no potential dna receptors air and skin from the shower drain saliva from the toothbrush fingernail clippings from the waste cans dandruff and hair from the back of the desk chair were ever collected and three months later when the body was found in the storm water tunnel it was too late those receptors were compromised or non-existent the building where backus had owned a condo mysteriously burned to the ground three weeks after the bureau had finished with it and back as his office had been taken over and completely renovated and redecorated by an agent named randall alpert who took his place in the behavioral sciences unit a search for a blood sample from backus proved futile and once again embarrassing for the bureau when agent walling shot bacchus in the house in los angeles a small amount of blood spattered the floor a sample was collected but then inadvertently destroyed in the lab in los angeles when medical waste was disposed of a search for blood that backus may have given during personal medical examinations or as donations to blood banks proved fruitless through his own cunning planning luck and bureaucratic malfeasance bacchus had disappeared without leaving anything of himself behind the search for bacchus officially ended with the discovery of the body in the drainage tunnel even though scientific confirmation of identity was never made the credentials badge and italian suit were enough for bureau command to act swiftly in announcing closure to a case that had held wide sway in the media and had severely undercut the bureau's already tarnished image but meantime a quiet investigation continued into the psychological backgrounding of the killer agent these were the reports i now read led by the behavioral sciences section the very unit in which back has worked this investigation seemed more concerned with the question of why he did what he did than with the question of how he was able to do it under the noses of the top experts in the killing field this investigative direction was probably a protective measure they looked at the suspect not the system the file was replete with reports of investigations into agent bacchus's early nurturing adolescence and upbringing despite the number of crisply written observations speculations and summaries there was very little there just a few threads unraveled from the full fabric of personality backus remained an enigma his pathology a secret he was the case that the best and brightest ultimately couldn't crack i sorted through the threads backus was the son of a perfectionist father a decorated fbi agent no less and a mother he never knew the father was reported to have been physically brutal to the boy possibly blaming him for the mother's abandonment of the family and punished him severely for infractions that included bedwetting and taunting of neighborhood pets one report came from a seventh grade classmate who reported that backus had once confided that when he was young his father punished him for bedwetting by handcuffing him to a towel rack in the bathroom shower enclosure another former classmate reported that bacchus once claimed that he slept each night with a pillow and a blanket in a bathtub because he feared the punishment that wetting the bed might bring a childhood neighbor reported suspicions that it had been backus who had killed a pet dachshund by cutting the dog in half and leaving its parts in a vacant lot end of disc six disc seven as an adult bacchus exhibited obsessive compulsive tendencies he had fixations on cleanliness and order many testimonials in this regard came from fellow agents in behavioral sciences bacchus was well known in the unit for delaying scheduled meetings for many minutes while he was in the restroom washing his hands no one ever saw him eat anything for lunch in the cafeteria at quantico but a simple grilled cheese sandwich every day a grilled cheese sandwich he also compulsively chewed gum and would take great pains to make sure he was never out of the juicy fruit brand he liked one agent described his chewing as measured meaning he believed that bacchus may have counted the number of times he chewed each stick of gum and when a specific number was reached he would then remove the gum and start over with a fresh stick there was a report on an interview with a former fiancee she told the reporting agent that bacchus required her to shower often and extensively particularly before and after they made love she said that while house hunting before the nuptials he told her he would want to have his own bedroom and bathroom she called off the marriage and ended the relationship when one time he called her a slob because she had kicked off her high heels in her own living room the reports were just glimpses of a damaged psyche they weren't really clues to anything whatever bacchus's strange habits were they still didn't fully explain why he began killing people thousands of people suffer from mild to severe forms of obsessive compulsive disorder they don't add killing to their list to personal tics thousands were abused as children they do not then all become abusers mccaleb had acquired far fewer reports on the reappearance four years later of the poet bacchus in amsterdam all that was in the file was a nine-page summary report in which the facts of the killings and the forensic findings were recounted i had skimmed this report before but now read it closely and found aspects of it tying in with the theory i was formulating about the town of clear in amsterdam the five known victims were men who were tourists traveling alone this put them in the same profile as the victims known to be buried in zizex with the exception of one man who was in las vegas with his wife but away from her when she spent the day in the hotel spa in amsterdam the men were last seen in the city's ross aboard zone where legalized prostitution is carried out in small rooms behind the neon framed windows where women in provocative clothing offer themselves to passers-by in two of the incidents the dutch investigators located prostitutes who reported being with the victims the night before their bodies were found floating in the nearby amstel river though the bodies were found in different locations in the river the reports indicated that the point of entry into the water for all five victims was believed to have been the area around the sixth house this location was a property owned by an important family in amsterdam history i found this of interest partly because sixth house and z six sounded a bit alike to me but also because of the question of whether the killer had chosen the sixth house randomly or in some attempt to flaunt his crimes at authority by choosing a structure that symbolized it the dutch detectives never got much further with the investigation they never found the mechanism by which the killer got to the men controlled them and killed them backus would have never even made a blip on their suspect radar if he hadn't wanted to be noticed he sent the police the notes that asked for rachel walling and led to his identity the notes according to the summary report contained information about the victims and crimes that seemingly only the killer would know one note contained the passport of the last victim to me the connection between amsterdam's rasa bert and clear nevada was obvious both were places where sex was legally exchanged for money but more important they were places where i assumed men might go without telling others or they might even take measures to avoid leaving a trail in some ways this made them perfect targets for a killer and perfect victims it added an extra degree of safety to the killer i finished my survey of mccaleb's file on the poet and started through it once more hoping that i had missed something maybe just one detail that would bring the whole picture into focus sometimes it happens that way a missed or misunderstood detail becomes the key to the whole puzzle but i didn't find that detail on the second go-round and soon the reports just seemed repetitive and tedious i grew tired and somehow i ended up thinking about that kid handcuffed in the shower i kept picturing that scene and i felt bad for the kid and angry for the father who did it and the mother who never cared to know about it did this mean i felt sympathy for a killer i didn't think so backus had taken his own tortures and turned them into something else and then turned it on the world i had an understanding of that process and i felt sympathy for the boy he had been but i felt nothing for bacchus the man but a cold resolve to hunt him down and make him pay for what he did 28 the place smelled horrible but backus knew he could live with it it was the flies that repulsed him the most they were everywhere dead and alive carrying germs and disease and dirt as he huddled under the blanket his knees drawn up he could hear them buzzing in the darkness flying blind hitting the screens and the walls making little sounds they were out there everywhere he realized he should have known that they would come that they were part of the plan he tried to block out their sounds he tried to think and concentrate on the plan it was his last day here time to move time to show them he wished he could stay to watch to bear witness to the event but he knew that there was much work to do he stopped breathing he could feel them now the flies had found him and were crawling on the blanket looking for a way in a way to get to him he had given them life but now they wanted to get to him and eat him his laugh broke sharply from beneath the blanket and the flies that had alighted on it scattered he realized he was no different from the flies he too had turned against the giver of life he laughed again and he felt something go down his throat he wretched he coughed he tried to get it out a fly a fly had gone down his throat backus jumped up and almost tripped as he climbed out he ran to the door and out into the night he shoved his finger down his throat until everything came up and came out he dropped to his knees gagged and spit it all out he then pulled the flashlight from his pocket and studied his effluent with the beam he saw the fly in the greenish yellow bile it was still alive its wings and legs mired in the swamp of human discharge baca stood up he stepped on the fly and then nodded to himself he wiped the bottom of his shoe on the red dirt he looked up at the silhouette of the rock outcropping that rose a hundred feet above him it was blocking the moon at this hour but that was all right that just made the stars all the brighter chapter 29 i put the thick file aside and studied my daughter's face i wondered what she could be dreaming about she had experienced so little in her life what inspired her dreams i was sure there were only good things waiting for her in that secret world and i wished it would always stay that way i grew tired myself and soon closed my eyes to rest for a few minutes and soon i too dreamed but in my dream there were shadow figures and angry voices there were sudden and sharp movements in the darkness i didn't know where i was or where i was going and then i was grabbed by unseen hands and pulled up out of it back to the light harry what are you doing i opened my eyes and eleanor was pulling the collar of my jacket hey eleanor what is it for some reason i tried to smile at her but i was still too disoriented to know why what are you doing look at this all over the floor i was beginning to register that she was angry i pulled myself forward and looked over the edge of the bed the poet file had slid off the bed and spilled on the floor the crime scene photos were spread everywhere prominently displayed were three photos of a denver police detective who had been shot by bacchus in a car the back of his head was obliterated blood and brain matter all over the seat there were other photos of bodies floating in canals photos of another detective whose head was taken off with a shotgun oh you can't do this eleanor said loudly what if she woke up and saw this she'd have nightmares the rest of her life she's going to wake up if you don't keep your voice down eleanor i'm sorry okay i didn't mean to fall asleep i slid off the bed and knelt on the floor quickly gathering the file together as i did so i checked my watch and saw it was almost 5 am i had slept for hours no wonder i was so groggy seeing the time also told me that eleanor was home late she usually didn't play this long it probably meant she'd had a bad night and had tried to chase her losses a bad gambling strategy i quickly gathered the photos and reports and slid them back into the file then i stood up sorry i said again god damn it it's not what i need to come home and find i didn't say anything i knew it was a no-win situation for me i turned and looked back at the bed maddie was still sleeping with her brown ringlets across her face again if she could sleep through anything then i hope she could sleep right through the roaring silence of her parents anger toward each other eleanor walked quickly out of the room and in a few moments i followed her i found her in the kitchen leaning against a counter with her arms folded tightly in front of her bad night don't blame my reaction to this on what kind of night i had i raise my hands and surrender i'm not i blame it on me i messed up i just wanted to sit with her for a little while and i fell asleep maybe you shouldn't do that anymore what come visit her at night i don't know she moved to the refrigerator and took out a bottle of spring water she poured a glass and then held the bottle up for me i told her i didn't want any what is that file anyway she asked are you working a case here yes a murder it started in la and came over this way i have to go up into the desert today what a nice convenience for you along the way you get to drop in here and scare your daughter come on eleanor it was stupid and i'm an idiot but at least she didn't see anything she could have maybe she did maybe she woke up and saw those dreadful pictures and then went back to sleep she's probably having a horrible nightmare look she hasn't moved all night i can tell she's been down for the count it won't happen again so can we just leave it at that sure fine look eleanor why don't you just tell me about your night no i don't want to talk about it i just want to go to bed i'll tell you something then what i hadn't planned on bringing this up but it all sort of snowballed and i knew i needed to tell her i'm thinking about going back to my job what do you mean the case no the cops the lapd has a program old guys like me can come back in they're looking for experience if i do it now i won't even have to go back to the academy she took a long drink of water and didn't respond what do you think about that eleanor she shrugged like she didn't care whatever you want to do harry but you won't see your daughter as much you'll get involved in cases and and you know how that goes i nodded maybe and maybe it won't matter she hasn't had you around for most of her life and whose fault is that look let's not open that can of worms again if i had known about her i would have been here i didn't know i know i know i'm the one it's all my fault i'm not saying that i'm i know what you're saying you don't even have to say it we were both quiet for a moment letting the anger ebb i looked down at the floor maybe she could come over there too i said what are you talking about what we talked about before about this place about her growing up here she shook her head very deliberately and i haven't changed my mind about that what do you think that you're going to raise her by yourself you with middle of the night call outs long hours long investigations guns in the house crime scene photos spread all over the floor is that what you want for her you think that's better than vegas no i was thinking maybe you could come over there too forget it harry i'm not talking about this again i'm staying here and so is madeleine you make whatever decision is best for you but you don't make it for me and maddie before i could respond marisol stepped into the kitchen her eyes creased with sleep she was wearing a white bathrobe with bellagio written in script on the pocket very loud she said you're right marisol eleanor said i'm sorry marisol went to the refrigerator and got out the water bottle she poured herself a glass and then put the bottle away she left the kitchen without further word i think you should go eleanor said to me i'm too tired to talk about this right now all right i'm just going to check on her and say goodbye don't wake her up no kidding i went back into my daughter's bedroom we had left the light on i sat on the side of the bed closest to her and just watched her sleep for a few moments then i brushed back her hair and kissed her cheek i smelled the scent of baby shampoo in her hair i kissed her again and whispered good night i turned off the light and then sat there for another couple minutes watching and waiting for what i don't know i guess maybe i was hoping eleanor would come in and sit on the bed too that maybe we could watch our sleeping daughter together after a while i got up and turned the monitor on again i left the room to head out the house was quiet as i walked back through to the front i didn't see eleanor she had gone off to bed not needing to see me again i pulled the front door closed and made sure it was locked as i went out the loud snap of steel on steel was a finality that had ricocheted through me like a tumbling bullet chapter 30 at eight that morning i was in my mercedes in front of the lobby entrance of the embassy suites on paradise road i had two large starbucks coffees and the cup holders and a bag of donuts i was freshly showered and shaved i had changed the clothes i slept in i had gassed up the car and maxed out my withdrawal limit at the station's atm i was ready for a day in the desert but rachel walling did not come out through the glass doors after waiting five minutes i was about to call her when my phone rang first it was her give me five minutes where are you i had to go into the fo for a meeting i'm driving back now what meeting i'll tell you when i see you i'm on paradise now all right i closed the phone and waited looking at the billboard on the back of a cab that was waiting in front of me it was an advertisement for a floor show at the riviera it showed the beautifully proportioned rear ends of a dozen women standing side by side and naked it made me think about the changing nature of vegas and what had been mentioned in the times article on the missing men i thought about all the people who had moved here on the family ticket only to have that ticket punched with this and a thousand other billboards just like it after they got here a basic g car a crown victoria pulled up next to me from the opposite direction and rachel put down the window you want me to drive i want to drive i said thinking it would give me a little slice of control over things she made no argument she pulled the crown vic into a parking space and got into my car i didn't move the mercedes are you going to drink both of those coffees she asked me no one's for you sugar's in the bag they didn't have cream to go i don't use it she lifted one of the coffees and drank from it i looked forward out through the windshield then i checked the rear view and i waited well she finally said are we going i don't know i think we need to talk first what about about what is going on what do you mean what were you doing at the field office so early what's going on agent walling she let out her breath and annoyance look harry you are forgetting something here this investigation is of high importance to the bureau you could say the director is directly involved and and so when he wants a 10 a.m briefing that means us agents in quantico and out in the field get together at nine a.m to make sure we know what we're telling him and that there's not going to be blow back on anybody i nodded now i got it and 9 am in quantico is 6 a.m in vegas you got it so what happened to 10 did you all tell the director that's fbi business i looked at her and she was waiting with a smile but i will tell you because you are about to tell me all of your secrets too the director is going to go public it's too risky not to it will look like a cover-up if this comes out later in uncontrolled fashion it's all about managing the moment harry i put the car in drive and headed toward the parking lot exit i had already plotted my route i'd take flamingo to the 15 and then a quick jog over to the blue diamond highway then it would be a straight shot north to clear what's he going to say he'll hold a press conference late this afternoon he'll announce that backus is apparently alive and we're out looking for him he'll hold up the picture terry mccaleb took of the man who called himself shandy did they check all of that out yet yes there's no trace line on shandy yet it was probably just a name he gave terry but photographic analysis and comparison of the photos terry took in photos of bacchus are underway as we speak the initial report is they're going to come in as a match it was backus and terry didn't recognize him well he obviously recognized something he took the pictures so there was some sort of suspicion but the guy had a beard hat and glasses the analyst on it said he'd also changed his nose and teeth and maybe had cheek implants there's a lot of things he could have done even a surgery that would have changed his voice look i looked at the photos and i didn't see it for sure and i worked directly with bacchus for five years much longer than terry terry got moved out to la to man the behavioral sciences outpost any idea where he got all of that done we're pretty sure we know about six years ago the bodies of a surgeon and his wife were found in their burnt out home in prague the home had a surgical suite and the doctor was the subject of an interpol intelligence file the wife was his nurse he was suspected of being a face man a surgeon who would change her face for a certain price the theory was that someone he changed murdered him and his wife to cover the trail all records he might have kept on the faces he changed were lost in the fire it was ruled an arson what connected back is to him nothing for sure but as you can imagine everything backus did or touched as an agent was gone over once he was revealed his entire case history was audited as much as possible he did a lot of consulting on cases abroad part of the fbi image machine he went to places like poland yugoslavia italy france you name it he went to prague she nodded he went to prague on a case to consult young women disappearing and ending up in the river prostitutes the doctor the face man was questioned in the investigation because he did the breast augmentations on three of the victims bacchus was there he helped question the doctor and he could have been told about the doctor's suspected sideline exactly we think he knew and we think he went there to change his face that wouldn't have been easy his real face was on the front of every newspaper and magazine back then look bob backus is a psychopathic killer but he is a very smart psychopath outside of the made up guys and books and movies nobody's ever been smarter at this not even bundy we have to assume that he had an escape plan all along from day one when i put him out that window eight years ago you better believe he already had a plan in place i'm talking about money ids whatever he would need to reinvent himself and get away he probably carried it with him we assume from la he made his way back east first and then split to europe he burned down his condo i said right we give him credit for that which puts him in virginia three weeks after i shot him in la that was a shrewd move he torched the place and then got to europe where he could lie low for a while change his face and then start again amsterdam she nodded the first killing in amsterdam occurred seven months after the face man burned in prague i nodded it all seemed to fit together then i thought of something else how is the director going to announce the surprise that bacchus is alive when four years ago you had amsterdam he's got all kinds of deniability on that first and most important that was another director's watch so he can lay anything he needs to off on him that's fbi tradition but realistically that was another country and it wasn't an investigation we were running and it was never absolutely confirmed we had handwriting analysis but that was really it and that is not in the same league as fingerprinting or dna when it comes to confirming so the director can simply say nothing was for sure about bacchus in amsterdam either way he's safe he just has to worry about the here and the now manage the moment fbi 101 and you people are going along with his going public no we asked for a week he gave us the day the press conference is at 6 p.m eastern time like anything's going to happen today yeah we know we're backus will probably go under change his face again and not turn up for another four years probably but the director won't get hit with any blow back on it he'll be safe we were silent for a few moments thinking about that i could understand the director's decision but it certainly helped him more than it helped the investigation we were on the 15 and i was pulling into the exit lane for the blue diamond highway what happened at the 9 a.m before the director's meeting the usual round-robin updates from every agent and and there's not a lot that is new a few things we talked about you mostly i'm counting on you harry for what for a new lead here where are we going do they know we're riding together or are you still supposed to be watching me as in watching me i think they would prefer the latter in fact i know they would but that would be boring and besides like i said what are they going to do to me if they find out i'm riding with you send me back to my knot bfd i got to like that place my knot might not be a big deal but maybe they'll send you someplace else don't they have bureau offices in guam and places like that yes but it's all relative i heard guam isn't that bad a lot of terrorism angles which is all the rage and after eight years in minot and rapid city a change like that might not be bad no matter what the investigations are about what was said about me at the meeting it was mostly me since you were my assignment i told them i ran a check through the la field office and got your pedigree i gave them that and told them you went behind the wall last year what do you mean that i retired no homeland security you ran a foul of them went behind the wall and came back out again that impressory day made her more willing to let you run a little i had been wondering about that actually i had been wondering why agent day had not simply put the clamps on me what about terry mccaleb's notes i asked what about them better minds than mine must have gone to work on them what did they come up with what was their take on the triangle theory it is an established pattern with serials that they commit what we call triangle crimes we see it often that is the victim can be traced through three points of a triangle there is their point of origin or entry their home or in this case the airport then there is what we call the point of prey the place where killer and victim come into contact where they crisscross and then there is the point of disposal with cereals the three points are never the same because it is the best way for them to avoid detection that is what terry saw when he read the newspaper story he circled it because the metro guy was going the wrong way with it he wasn't thinking triangle he was thinking circle so is the bureau working on the triangle now of course they are but some things take time right now there is a higher emphasis on crime scene analysis but we've got somebody in quantico working the triangle the fbi is effective but sometimes slow harry i am sure you know this sure it's a tortoise and hair race where the tortoise you're the hare what are you talking about you're moving faster than us harry something tells me you figured out the triangle theory and are taking a shot at the missing point the point to pray i nodded whether i was being used or not didn't matter they were allowing me to stay in the hunt and that was what was important to me you start with the airport and you end with z6 that leaves one more point the intersection of predator and prey and i think i've got it we're going there then tell me first tell me one more thing about mccaleb's notes i think i already told you everything they're being analyzed william bing who's that she hesitated but only for a moment that's a no-go a dead end also william bing is a heart transplant patient who was in vegas memorial getting a checkup in some tests we think terry knew him and when he was over here he visited him in the hospital did you people talk to bing yet not yet we're trying to track him seems odd what that he would visit a guy no not that i mean that he would write that on the file if it wasn't connected to the case terry wrote stuff down it's pretty obvious from all his files and notebooks that he wrote stuff down if he was coming over here to work on this then maybe he wrote bing's name and the hospital number down on the file so he wouldn't forget to visit or call him could be a lot of reasons i didn't respond i still had trouble seeing it how did he know the guy we don't know maybe the movie terry got hundreds of letters from transplant people after that movie came out he was sort of a hero to a lot of people in the same boat as he was as we headed north on blue diamond i saw a sign for the travel america truck stop and remembered the receipt i had found in terry mccaleb's car i pulled in even though i had gassed up the mercedes after leaving eleanor's house that morning i stopped the car and just looked at the travel complex what is it you need gas no we're fine it's just that caleb was here what is this you getting a psychic reading or something no i found a receipt in his car i wonder if this means he went up to clear to clear what no the town of clear that's where we're going well we might never know unless we get up there and ask some questions i nodded and pulled the car back onto blue diamond and started north again along the way i told rachel my theory of the theory that is my take on mccaleb's triangle and how clear fit into it i could tell that my telling it drew her interest she may have even been excited about it she agreed with my take on the victims and how and why they may have been chosen she agreed that it appeared to mirror the victimology her word in amsterdam we brainstormed for an hour on it and then grew quiet as we started to get close the barren rugged landscape was giving way to outposts of humanity and we began to see billboards advertising the brothels that waited just ahead have you ever been to one of these rachel asked me nah i thought about the steam and cream tents in vietnam but didn't bring them up i didn't mean like as a customer but as a cop still no but i tracked a few people through them and by that i mean by credit cards and other means we're not going to find the people here overly cooperative at least i never did by phone and calling in a local sheriff is a joke the state collects taxes from these joints a big chunk of it goes back to the home county i get it so how do we handle it almost smiling because she had used the word we i threw the question back at her i don't know she said i guess we just go in through the front door meaning we play it straight and just go in and ask our questions i wasn't sure it was the right way to go but she had a badge and i didn't we cleared the town of parump and in another 10 miles came to an intersection where a sign with clear on it and an arrow to the left was posted i turned and the asphalt soon gave way to a crushed rock road that kicked up a flume of dust behind my car the town of clear could see us coming from a mile away that is if it was looking for us but the town of clear nevada turned out to be little more than a trailer park the gravel road led us to another intersection and another sign with an arrow we turned north again and soon came to a clearing where an old trailer sat with rust dripping from its rivets a sign running along the top edge of the trailer said welcome to clear sports bar open rooms for rent there were no cars parked in the clearing in front of the bar i drove on past the welcome wagon and the new road curved into a neighborhood of trailer homes baking like beer cans in the sun few were in better shape than the welcome wagon eventually we came to a permanent structure that appeared to be a town hall as well as the location of the spring the town was named for we kept going and were rewarded by another arrow on another sign this one reading simply brothels nevada licenses over 30 brothels across the state in these places prostitution is legal controlled and monitored we found three of those state licensed businesses at the end of the road and clear the gravel road widened into a large turnaround where three similar looking and designed brothels sat waiting for customers they were called sheila's front porch tawny's high five ranch and miss delilah's house of holies nice rachel said as we surveyed the scene why are these places always named after women as if women actually own them you got me i guess mr dave's house of holies wouldn't go over so well with the guys rachel smiled you're right i guess it's a shrewd move name a place of female degradation and slavery after a female and it doesn't sound so bad does it it's packaging slavery last i heard these women were volunteers some of them are supposedly housewives who come up from vegas if you believe that then you are naive bosh just because you can come and go doesn't mean you're not a slave i nodded thoughtfully not wanting to get into a debate with her about this subject because i knew it would bring me back to examining and questioning things in my own past rachel apparently wanted to drop it there too so which one do you want to start with she asked i pulled the car to a stop in front of tony's high five ranch it didn't look like much of a ranch it was a conglomeration of three or four trailers that were connected by covered walkways i looked to my left and saw that sheila's front porch was of similar design and configuration and it had no front porch miss delilah's to my right was the same and i got the distinct impression that the three seemingly separate brothels were not competitors but rather branches of the same tree i don't know i said looks like eeny meeny miny moe to me rachel cracked her door open wait a second i said i've got this i handed her the file of photos buddy lockridge had brought to vegas the day before rachel opened it and saw the front and side shots of the man known as shandy but presumed to be robert backus i'm not going to even ask where you got these fine but you carry them it will have more weight coming from you since you've got the badge for the moment at least did you bring the photos of the missing men yes i've got them good she took the file and got out of the car i did likewise we both walked around to the front of the car where we stopped for a moment and surveyed the three brothels again there were a few cars parked in front of each there were also four flat head harleys lined up like a row of mean chrome in front of miss delilah's house of holies airbrushed on the gas tank of one of the bikes was a skull smoking a joint with a smoke ring forming a halo above it let's take delilah's last i said maybe we'll get lucky before we need to go there the bikes yeah the bikes they're road saints i say let sleeping dogs lie good enough for me leading the way rachel marched toward the front door of sheila's she didn't wait for me because she knew i would be following in her wake chapter 31 inside sheila's we were greeted by the sickly sweet smell of perfume mixed with too much incense we were also greeted by a smiling woman and a purple kimono who did not seem the least bit surprised or put out by the idea of a couple coming into the brothel her mouth drew into an edge as straight and sharp as a guillotine's when she saw the fbi credentials rachel flipped open that's nice she said with a falsely pleasant note in her voice now let me see the warrant no warrant today rachel replied evenly we would just like to ask a few questions i don't have to speak with you unless you have a court order telling me to i run a legal and fully licensed business here i noticed two women dressed in a page from victoria's secret sitting on a couch nearby they were watching a television soap opera and seemingly uninterested in the verbal skirmish brewing at the front door they were both attractive in a certain way but worn down around the eyes and mouths the scene suddenly reminded me of my mother and some of her friends the way they looked to me when i was a boy and i watched them getting ready to go out at night and work i suddenly felt completely ill at ease in this place and wanted to go i even hoped the woman in the kimono would succeed in sending us out no one is doubting the legality of your operation rachel said we simply need to ask a few questions of you and your staff and then we'll be gone get the court order and we'll be happy to oblige are you sheila you can call me that you can call me anything you want as long as you're saying goodbye when you do it rachel raised the ante by going to her don't with me boys if i go for that court order i'm going to first call for a sheriff's unit and i will have that car sit out in front of this trailer until i get back you might run a legal operation here sheila but which one of these places are all the guys going to pick when they see the sheriff sitting on this one i figure two hours back to vegas a few hours waiting to get in to see the judge and then two hours back i'm off at five so i probably won't be back till tomorrow that okay with you sheila came back hard and swift if you call the sheriff ask him to send out dennis or tommy they know the place real well and they're also customers she smirked at rachel and held firm she'd called her bluff and rachel had nothing left they just stared at each other as the moments went by i was about to step in and say something when one of the women on the couch beat me to the punch she the one closest to us offered let's just get it over with sheila broke her stare from rachel and looked at the woman on the couch she then backed down but her anger remained barely below the surface i'm not sure there was any other way to handle it once sheila jumped on us like that but it was clear to me that all the posturing and threatening was going to end up getting us nothing we set up in sheila's small office and interviewed the women one by one starting with sheila and ending with two women who were working when we first entered the establishment rachel never introduced me to anyone so the problem of my standing in the investigation never came up uniformly the women could not or would not identify any of the missing men who ended up in the ground in xizix and the same went for the photographs of shandy on mccaleb's boat at the end of a half hour we were out of there with nothing to show for it but an incense intoxication headache for me and stress fractures and rachel's outlook disgusting she said as we walked down the pink sidewalk toward my car what that place i don't know how anyone could do that i thought you said they were slaves look it's not your job to throw things back at me right what are you so upset about i didn't see you in there saying anything to her you were a big help that's because i wouldn't have done it that way two minutes into that place i knew we wouldn't get anything oh and you would have no i'm not saying that i told you these places are like rocks it's hard to get water and bringing up the sheriff was definitely the wrong way to go i told you half his pay probably comes from the brothels in his territory so you just want to criticize and not offer any solution look rachel point your gun at somebody else i'm not the one you're angry with all right if you want to try something different in this next place i'll give it a shot go right ahead all right then give me the photos and you wait in the car what are you talking about i'm going in this is not the place for the pomp and circumstance rachel i should have realized that when i invited you but i didn't think you'd be shoving your badge down people's throats as soon as you walked in so you're going to go in there and finesse it i'm not sure i'd call it finesse i'm just going to do it the old-fashioned way does that mean taking off your clothes no it means taking out my wallet the fbi doesn't buy information from potential witnesses that's right i'm not the fbi if i find a witness this way the fbi won't have to pay a thing i put my hand on her back and gently directed her to the mercedes i opened the door for her and ushered her in i gave her the keys turn on the air conditioner either way this shouldn't take too long i rolled the file up with the photos and put it into my back pocket under my jacket the sidewalk leading to the door of tawny's high five was also made of pink cement and i was beginning to see the appropriateness of that the women we had encountered in sheila's were hard cases with pink lining and so was rachel i was beginning to feel like my feet were in buckets of pink cement i buzzed the door and was let in by a woman who was dressed in cut off blue jeans and a halter top that barely contained her apparently surgically enhanced breasts come on in i'm tammy thanks i stepped into the front room with the trailer where there were two couches facing each other on opposite walls three women sat on the couches and looked at me with practice smiles this is georgette and gloria and mecca tammy said and i'm tammy you can choose one of us now or wait for tawny she's in the back with the customer i looked at tammy she seemed the most eager she was very small and top heavy and had short brown hair she would be considered attractive to some men but not to me i told her she would do just fine and she led me back through a hallway that turned to the right and into another trailer there were three private rooms on the left and she went to the third one and used a key to open it we went in and she closed the door but didn't lock it there was barely enough room to stand because a king-sized bed took up most of the space tammy sat down on the bed and patted the spot next to her i sat and she reached to a shelf full of well-thumbed mystery novels and pulled down what looked like a restaurant menu and gave it to me it was a thin folder with a caricature drawing on the front it showed a naked woman on her hands and knees and bent over turning to look back and wink at the man who was entering her from the rear man was naked too except for a cowboy hat and the holstered sick shooters on his hips one hand was up in the air and holding a the rope rose above the couple and formed the words tawny's high five you can get a t-shirt with that on it tammy informed me 20 bucks great i said as i opened the folder it turned out that it was a menu of sorts it was personalized to tammy it contained a single sheet of paper with two columns on it one listed the sexual act she was willing to perform and the links of individual sessions and the other listed the prices these services would cost the customer after two of the listed sexual acts were asterisks at the bottom it was explained that an asterisk denoted a personal specialty so i said staring at the columns i think i might need a translator for some of these i'll help you which ones how much is it just to talk what do you mean like talk dirty to you will you talk dirty to me no just talk i want to ask you about a guy i'm looking for he's from around here her posture changed she sat up straighter and in doing so put a couple inches of space between us which was fine because her perfume was searing my already incense burned nasal plates i think you better talk to tony when she's finished i want to talk to you tammy i've got a hundred bucks for five minutes i'll double it if you give me a line on this guy she hesitated as she thought about it 200 bucks wouldn't even cover an hour's work according to the menu but i had a feeling the menu prices were negotiable and besides there was nobody lined up on the pink cement to get in here somebody's going to take my money here i said it might as well be you okay but it has to be quick if tawny finds out you ain't a paying customer she's going to kick you out and put me at the back of the line now i understood she had answered the door because she was up i could have picked from any of the women on the couches but tammy got the first shot of me i reached into my pocket for my money and gave her the hundred i kept the rest in my hand as i pulled out the file and opened it rachel had made a mistake asking the women at sheila's if they recognized any of the men in the photos that was because she didn't have the confidence i had i was more certain of my theory and didn't make that mistake with tammy the first photo i showed her was the front shot of shandy on terry mccaleb's boat when was the last time you saw him around here i asked tammy looked at the photo for a long moment she didn't take it from me though i would have given it to her to hold after what seemed like an interminable moment when i thought the door would swing open and the woman named tawny would order me out she finally spoke i don't know at least a month maybe more he hasn't been around i felt like climbing on the bed and bouncing but i kept my cool i wanted her to believe i knew everything she was telling me she would feel more comfortable that way and be more forthcoming do you remember where it was you saw him just out front i walked a customer out and tom was there waiting uh-huh did he say anything to you no he never does he doesn't even know me really then what happened nothing happened my guy got in the car and they drove away i was beginning to get a picture tom had a car he was a driver who called him was it you or had the client already done that it was tawny probably i don't really remember because it happened all the time yeah but he hasn't been around in what a month yeah maybe more is that enough of a lead i mean what do you want she was looking at the second hundred in my hand two things you know tom's last name no okay how does somebody get a hold of him if they need a ride call him i guess can he get me the number just go over to the sports bar that's where we call him i don't know the number off hand it's up there next to the phone in front the sports bar okay i didn't give her the money one last thing you keep saying that i know but i mean it this time i showed her the six-pack of photos rachel had brought of the missing men these were better and much clearer than the photos that had run with the newspaper article these were full color candids given to vegas metro by their families and then turned over as a courtesy to the fbi any of these guys your customers look mister we don't talk about customers we're very discreet and don't give out that kind of information they're dead tammy it doesn't matter her eyes widened and then lowered to the photos in my hand these she took and she looked through them like they made up a hand of cards i could tell by the way her eyes flared that she'd been dealt an ace what well this one guy looks like a guy that was here he was with mecca i think you could ask her i heard a horn honk twice i knew it was from my car rachel was getting impatient go get mecca and bring her back here i'll give you the rest of the money then tell her i've got some money for her too don't tell her what i want tell her i just want two girls at once all right but that's it you pay me i will she left the room and i sat on the bed looking around while i waited the walls were paneled with fake cherry wood there was one window with a frilly curtain i leaned across the bed and pulled the curtain open the view was of nothing but barren desert the bed in the trailer might as well have been sitting on the moon the door opened and i turned back ready to give tammy the rest of her money and to dive into my pocket for mecca's share but there weren't two women in the doorway there were two men they were big one larger than the other and their arms below their black t-shirts were completely carved up with jailhouse ink on the bigger man's bulging biceps was a skull with a halo above it and that told me who they were what's up duck said the bigger one you must be tawny i said without a word he reached down and grabbed two fists full of my jacket he pulled me up off the bed and tossed me out into the hallway to the waiting arms of his partner the new one shoved me down the hallway in the opposite direction i had come into the trailer from i realized that the horn honk from rachel had been a warning not a sign of impatience i was wishing i had read that right when big and little steroids shoved me through a back door and on to the rocky terrain of the desert i went down to my hands and knees and was gathering myself and getting up when one of them put his boot on my hip and shoved me down again i tried to get up again and this time they let me up i said what's up doc you got business here i was just asking questions and i was willing to pay for the answers i didn't think that was a problem well pal that is a problem they were advancing on me the big man first he was so big i couldn't even see his little brother behind him i was taking a step backward for everyone they took forward and i had a bad feeling that that was what they wanted they were backing me towards something maybe a hole in the ground out there in the sand and rock who are you boy i'm a private detective from la i'm just looking for a missing man that's all yeah well people who come here don't want to be looked for i understand that now i'll just clear out of here and you won't excuse me we all stopped it was rachel's voice the bigger man turned back toward the trailer and his shoulder lowered a few inches i could see rachel coming out the back door of the trailer her hands were at her sides what's this you bring your mother big steroid said something like that while he was looking at rachel i clasp my hands together and swung a sledgehammer into the back of his neck he went forward and into his partner but the blow was nothing more than a surprise attack he didn't go down he wheeled on me and started coming at me bawling his fists into twin sledgehammers i saw rachel move her arm under her blazer and flip it back to get to her gun but her hand caught momentarily in the material and she was late getting to her weapon hold it she yelled but the steroid boys didn't stop i ducked under the bigger man's first punch but when i came up behind him i was right in front of little brother he grabbed me in a bear hug and lifted me off the ground for some reason at this point i noticed that there were women watching from the three back windows of the rear trailer i had drawn an audience to my own destruction my arms were trapped inside of my attacker's embrace and i was feeling severe pressure building on my spine at the same time the air was crushed out of my lungs just then rachel finally freed her weapon and fired two shots into the air i was dropped to the ground and i watched as rachel crabb walked away from the trailer to make sure no one could get up behind her fbi she shouted on the ground both of you on the ground the big men complied as soon as i got some air back into my lungs i got back up i tried to dust some of the dirt off my clothes but all that did was spread it around i looked at rachel and nodded she kept her distance from the men on the ground and signaled me over with her finger what happened i was interviewing one of the women and asked her to bring in another but then these guys showed up and dragged me out here thanks for the warning i did try to warn you i honked i know rachel take it easy that's what i'm thanking you for i just misread it so what do we do i don't care about these guys cut them loose but there are two women inside tammy and mecca we need to take them one knows shandy and the other i think can i d one of the missing men as being a customer rachel computed this and slowly nodded good is shandy a customer no he's some sort of driver we need to get over to the sports bar and ask around there then we can't just cut these two loose they might just come meet us again over there besides there were four bikes out front where are the other two i don't know hey come on big steroid yell we're breathing sand over here rachel approached the two men on the ground okay get up she waited until they were up and staring at her with malevolent eyes she dropped her gun down to her side and spoke calmly to them as if this was the way she normally got to know people where are you guys from why why because i'm trying to get to know you i'm deciding whether to arrest you for what he started it not what i saw i saw two big men assaulting a smaller man he was trespassing last i checked trespassing was not a valid defense of assault if you want to see if i'm wrong then keep trump what pa-romp and you own these three operations no we're just security i see well i'll tell you what if you two find the other two whose bikes are out front and go back to prompt then we'll let bygones be bygones here that's not fair he was in there asking i'm the fbi i'm not interested in what's fair take it or leave it after a moment the bigger man broke from his stance and started walking toward the trailer the smaller big man followed where you going rachel barked we're leaving like you told us good make sure you put on your helmets gentlemen without looking back the bigger man raised a brawny arm and shot us a bird as he walked the smaller big man saw this and did the same rachel looked at me and said i hope this works chapter 32 the women in the back seat were angry but rachel didn't care this was the closest she had been the closest anybody had been to bacchus since that night in los angeles the night she had watched him crash backwards through the glass and into the void that seemed to swallow any trace of him until now and the last thing she was going to let bother her were the protests of the two prostitutes in the back seat of basha's car the only thing that bothered her was her decision to let bosh drive they now had two custodies and were transporting them in a private car it was a security issue and she wasn't sure yet how they were going to handle the stop at the sports bar i know what we'll do bosch said as he drove away from the three brothels at the end of the road so do i rachel said you stay with them while i go in no that won't work you'll need backup we just proved that we shouldn't split up then what i'll turn on the child locks on the back doors they won't be able to open them and what's to stop them from climbing over to the front seat and getting out look where they going to go they have no choice right ladies he looked up into the rear view mirror you answered the one named mecca you can't just do this we're not the ones who committed any crimes actually as i explained before we can rachel said in a board tone you have been taken into federal custody as material witnesses in the criminal investigation you will be formally interviewed and then release well just do it now and get it over with rachel had been surprised to learn when she looked at the woman's driver's license that her name really was mecca mecca mcintyre what a name well mecca we can't i already explained that too bosh pulled into the gravel lot in front of the sports bar there were no other cars he lowered all the windows a couple of inches and turned off the car i'm gonna put the alarm on he said if you climb over and open the door it will set off the alarm will then come out and chase you down so don't bother okay we won't be gone long rachel got out and closed the door she checked her cell phone again and was still not getting service she saw bosh check his and shake his head she decided she would commandeer the phone in the sports bar if there was one and call the vegas fo to report what she had she expected cherie day to be very angry and pleased by the way boss said as they came to the ramp leading up to the door of the trailer do you carry an extra magazine for your zig of course wear on your belt that's right why nothing i just saw back there behind the trailer that your hands sort of got caught in your jacket it didn't get caught i just what's your point nothing i was just gonna say that i always carried my extra in my jacket pocket it gave it some weight you know so when you had to flip it back the extra weight carried it all the way back and out of the way thanks for the tip she said evenly can we concentrate on this now sure rachel you going to take the lead here if you don't mind not at all he followed her up the ramp she thought she saw a smile on his face in the reflection on the glass of the trailer's door she opened it engaging an overhead bell that announced their arrival they stepped into a small and empty bar room to the right was a pool table its green felt faded by time and stained by drink spills it was a small table but still did not have enough clearance in the small space even breaking a rack would probably require holding a queue at a 40 degree angle end of disc 7 disk eight to the left of the door was a six stool bar with three shelves of glasses and take your pick poison behind it there was no one in the bar but before rachel and bosh could call out a hello a set of black curtains to the left of the bar split and the man stepped out his eyes creased with sleep even though it was almost noon can i help you kind of early in it rachel hit him with the credentials and that seemed to crack his eyes open a little wider he was in his early 60s she guessed though his unkempt bed hair and the unshaven white stubble on his cheeks may have skewed her estimate he nodded as though he had just solved some sort of internal mystery so you're the sister right he asked excuse me your tom's sister right he said you might come tom who tom wallen who do you think we're looking for a man named tom who drives customers from the brothels is that tom walling that's what i'm telling you tom wallin was my driver he told me that one day his sister might come here looking for him you never said she was no fbi agent rachel nodded trying to cover the jolt it wasn't necessarily the surprise that buzzed her it was the audacity and the deeper meaning the magnitude of bacchus's plan what is your name sir billings red i own this place and i'm also the mayor around here the mayor of clear that's right rachel felt something tap her arm and looked down to see the file containing the photos bosch was giving it to her but staying back he seemed to know things had suddenly swung this was now more about her than terry mccaleb or even bosch she took the file and removed one of the photographs michaela had taken of the fishing client known to him as jordan shandy she showed it to billings red is that the man you knew of as tom walling rhett spent only a few seconds looking at the photo that's right right down to that dodger's hand we get all the games here on the dish and tom was dodger blue through and through he drove a car for you the only car i'm not that big of an operation and he told you his sister would come here no he said she might and he gave me something he turned and looked at the shelves behind the bar he saw what he was looking for and reached up to the top shelf he pulled down an envelope and handed it to rachel the envelope left a rectangle in the dust on the glass shelf it had been up there a while the envelope had her full name on it she turned her body slightly as if to shield it from bosch and started to open it rachel bosh said should you process it first it doesn't matter i know it's from him she tore the envelope open and pulled out a three by five card she started to read the handwritten note on it dear rachel if as i hope you are the first to read this then i have taught you well i hope this finds you in good health and spirits most of all i hope this means you have survived your internment within the bureau and are back on top i hope he who taketh away can also give it back it was never my intention rachel to doom you it is my intention now with my last act to save you goodbye rachel r she reread it quickly and then handed it over her shoulder to bosh as he read she continued with billings rat when did he give you that and what exactly did he say it was about a month ago give or take a few days and it was one he told me he was leaving he paid me the rent said he wanted to keep the place and he gives me the card and says that it's for his sister and that she might come by looking for him and here you are i'm not his sister she snapped at him when did he first come to clear hard to remember three or four years ago why did he come here rhett shook his head beats me why do people go to new york city everybody's got their reasons he didn't share his particular reason with me how did he end up driving for you he was in there shooting balls one day and i asked him if he needed some work he said he wouldn't mind and it went from there it's not a full-time gig just when we get a call from somebody looking for a ride most people drive themselves up there and back then three or four years ago he told you his name was tom walling no he told me that when he rented the trailer from me that was when he first got here what about a month ago did you say he paid rent and then left yeah he said he'd be back and wanted to keep the place he rented it up through august but he went traveling and i haven't heard from him from outside the trailer an alarm sounded the mercedes rachel turned to bosh but he was already heading to the door i got it he said he went through the door leaving rachel alone with rhett she turned back to him did tom walling ever tell you where he came from no he never mentioned it he didn't talk much and you never asked honey you don't ask questions in a place like this people that come here they don't like answering questions tom he liked to do the driving and pick up a few bucks every now and then and then he'd come in and shoot a game by himself he didn't drink he just chewed gum you never messed with the and he was never late on a pickup all that was fine by me the guy got driving now he's always i don't care about the guy you've got now the bell rang behind her and she turned to see bosh coming through he nodded to her telling her everything was all right they tried the door i guess the child lock doesn't work she nodded and turned her attention back to rhett proud mayor of a brothel town mr rhett she asked where is tom walling's place he's got the single wide on the ridge west of town rhett smiled revealing a rotten tooth on the front lower row and continued he liked being outside of town he told me he didn't like being so close to all the excitement around here so i set him up out there behind titanic rock titanic rock you'll know when you get there if you saw the movie one of these smart ash rock climbers that comes out here marked it too you'll see it just take the road behind this place west and you'll be alright just look for the ship going down chapter 33 i was outside with the two women in the mercedes running the air conditioning and cooling them down rachel was still inside on the bar's phone talking to cherie day and coordinating the arrival of backup my guess was that agents would soon drop out of the sky in helicopters and descend on clear nevada in force the trail was fresh they were close i tried to talk to the two girls it was hard to think of them as women despite what they did for a living and even though they were old enough they probably knew everything there was to know about men but they didn't seem to know anything about the world in my mind they were just girls who had taken wrong turns or been kidnapped and taken away from womanhood i was beginning to understand what rachel had said earlier did tom walling ever come into the trailer and hire any of the girls i asked not that i seen tammy said somebody said he was probably queer or something mecca added why did they say that because he lived like a hermit or something mecca replied and he never wanted no even though tawny would have thrown him some on the house like with the other drivers are there a lot of drivers he was the only one from around here tammy said quickly apparently not liking mecca in the lead the others come up from vegas some work for the casinos but if there are drivers down there how come somebody would hire tom to go all the way down and get them they didn't mecca said sometimes they did tammy corrected well sometimes the dummies but mostly we call for tom if somebody got dropped off and stayed a while or rented one of old billings trailers and then needed a ride back because his ride was long gone the casino rides don't win around too long unless you're one of those high rollers and then probably and then what then you wouldn't come to clear in the first place they got prettier girls than parump tammy said matter of factly as if it was strictly a business disadvantage and not something that bothered her personally and it's a bit closer and the pussycar small mecca said so what we get up and clear as your cost-conscious consumer spoken like a true marketing expert i tried to get the conversation back on track so for the most part tom walling came over and drove customers back to las vegas or wherever they came from right right and these guys these customers could have been totally anonymous you don't check ids right the customers could use whatever name they wanted when they came in here uh-huh unless they look like maybe they ain't 21 yet right we checked the idea of the young ones i could see how it could be done how backers could have sized up brothel customers as his victims it appeared they had taken measures to guard their identities and hide that they had made the trip to clear then they had inadvertently made themselves perfect victims it also played into what was known about the demons that drove his killing spree the profile work in the poet file indicated that bacchus's pathology was wrapped up in his relationship with his father a man who on the outside held the vaunted image of fbi agent hero and good man but on the inside was a man who abused his wife and son to the extent that one fled the home because she could while the one who couldn't get away was left to retreat into a world of fantasies involving the killing of his abuser i realized there was something missing lloyd rockland the victim who had rented a car how did he fit in if he didn't need a driver i opened the file rachel had left in the car and pulled out the photo of rockland i showed it to the women this guy do either of you recognize him his name was lloyd was mecca asked yeah that's right was lloyd rockland he's dead do you recognize him neither of them did i knew it was a long shot rocklin disappeared in 2002. i tried to think of an explanation that would allow rockland to fit into the theory you serve alcohol in there right if the customer wants it we can provide it mecca said we got license okay what happens when a guy drives all the way up from vegas and gets too drunk to drive home he can sleep it off she responded he can take a room if he pays for what if he wants to get back what if he needs to get back he can call over here and the mayor will take kevin the driver will take him back in his car and then the driver just catches a ride back like with one of the casino cars or something it works out i nodded it worked out for my theory as well rocklin could have gotten drunk and had to be driven back by the driver backus only he wasn't driven back to vegas i knew i would have to ask rachel to check the remains identified as rocklin's for a high alcohol level it would be another confirmation mister we're gonna have to stay in here all day mecca asked i don't know i said as i looked up at the trailer door rachel tried to keep her voice low because billings read was at the other end of the bar acting like he was doing a crossword puzzle when she knew he was trying to listen to and understand everything she was saying and that could be heard from the phone what's the eta she asked will be in the air within twenty and then another 20 to you cherie day said so sit tight rachel got it and rachel i know you i know what you will want to do stay out of the suspect's trailer until we can go in there with an ert let them do their job rachel almost told dave that the fact was that she didn't know her that she couldn't begin to understand the first thing about her but she didn't got it she said instead what about bosh day asked next what about him i want him kept away from this that would be sort of hard since he found the place this is all because of him i understand that but we would have gotten there eventually we always do we'll thank him but we have to brush him aside after that well you get to tell him that i will so are we set i've got to get over to nellis all set see inside the hour rachel one last thing why didn't you drive up there it was baja's hunch he wanted to drive what's the difference you were giving him control of the situation that's all that's second guessing after the fact we thought we might get a line on the missing men not be led right to that's fine rachel i shouldn't have brought it up i have to go day hung up on her end rachel couldn't hang up because the phone was stretched from the back wall and over the bar she held it up to rhett and he put down his pencil and came over he took the phone and hung it up thank you mr red in about an hour a couple helicopters are going to land here probably right in front of this trailer agents will want to talk to you more formally than i did they will probably talk to a lot of people in your town not good for business probably not but the faster people cooperate the faster they'll take off and be out of here she didn't mention anything about the horde of media that would also probably descend on the place once it was revealed publicly that the little brothel town in the desert was where the poet had holed up unnoticed for all these years and had chosen his latest victims if the agents ask where i am tell them i went up to tom walling's trailer okay sounded like you were getting told not to go up there mr rhett just tell them what i asked you to tell them will do by the way have you been up there since he came in here and told you he was leaving for a while no i have managed to get up there he paid the rent on the place so i didn't think it was my business to snoop around his things that's not the way we are here and clear rachel nodded okay mr rhett thanks for your cooperation he shrugged as if to say either he had no choice or his cooperation was minimal rachel turned from the bar and headed for the door but just as she got there she hesitated she reached inside her blazer and pulled the extra magazine for her sig sauer off her belt she hefted its weight once in her hand and then slipped it into the pocket of her blazer she then went out the door and got into the mercedes next to bosch so he said is agent day mad nope we just brought in the case break how could she be mad i don't know some people have the ability to be mad no matter what you bring them are we just going to sit here all day mecca asked from the back seat rachel turned around to look back at the two women we're going over to the western ridge to check out a trailer you can go with us and stay in the car or you can go into the bar and wait more agents are on the way you'll probably be able to get your interviews over with here and not have to go into vegas thank god mecca said i'll wait here me too said tammy bosh let them out of the car just wait here rachel called to them if you go back to your trailer and go anywhere else you won't get far and it will just make them mad they didn't acknowledge this cautioning rachel watched them walk up the ramp and into the bar bosch got back in and put the car into reverse you sure about this he asked my guess is that agent day told you to sit still until the reinforcements got here she also said one of the first things she was going to do was send you on your way you want to wait for that or do you want to go see this trailer don't worry i'll go i'm not the one with the career to worry about such as it is we followed the dirt road billings red had directed us to and it ranged west from the settlement of clear and up a sloping landscape for a mile the road then leveled off and curved behind a reddish-orange outcropping of rock that was exactly as rhett had described it it looked like the tail end of the great passenger ship as it drew upward out of the water at a 60 degree angle and then plunged downward into the sea according to the movie anyway the rock climber rhett mentioned had climbed to the appropriate spot at the top and had used white paint to scrawl titanic across the rock's surface we didn't stop to appraise the rock or the paint work i drove the mercedes around it and we soon came to a clearing where there was a small trailer sitting on concrete blocks there was a junk car on four flats next to it and an oil drum used to burn trash nearby on the other side was a large fuel tank in a power generator to preserve possible crime scene evidence i stopped just outside the clearing and killed the engine i noticed that the generator was silent there was a stillness about the whole scene that seemed ominous in some way i had a real sense that i had come to the end of the world a place of darkness i wondered if this was where bacchus had taken his victims if this was the end of the world for them probably i concluded it was a place of waiting evil rachel broke the silence well are we just going to look at it are we going to check it out just waiting on you to make the move she opened her door and then i opened mine we met at the front of the car that was when i noticed that the trailer's windows were all open not what i would expect someone would do if they were leaving their home for a long period of time after that recognition came the odor you smell that she nodded death was in the air it was much worse much stronger than at zxx i instinctively knew that what we would find here would not be the buried secrets of the killer not this time there was a body in that trailer at least one that was open to the air and decomposing with my last act rachel said what the card what he wrote on the card i nodded she was thinking suicide you think i don't know let's check we walked slowly forward neither saying a word after that the smell grew stronger and we both knew that whatever and whoever was dead inside the trailer had been baking in there for a long time i broke from her side and walked to a set of windows to the left of the trailer's door cupping my hands to the screen i tried to look into the darkness within my hands hitting the screen set off an alarm of buzzing flies within the trailer they were bouncing against the screen looking to get out as if maybe the scene and the smell inside were too much even for them there was no curtain across the window but i couldn't see much from the angle i had at least not a body or an indication of one it looked like a small sitting area with a couch and a chair there was a table with two stacks of hardback books on it behind the chair was a bookcase with its shelves full of books nothing i said i stepped back from the window and looked up the length of the trailer i saw rachel's eyes focused on the door and then the doorknob something came to me then something that didn't fit rachel why did he leave the note for you at the bar what the note he left it at the bar why there why not here i guess he wanted to make sure i got it if he hadn't left it there you would have still come up here you would have still found it here she shook her head what are you saying i don't get don't try the door rachel let's wait what are you talking about i don't like this why don't you look around the back see if there's another window you can see in or something okay i will you just wait she didn't answer me i walked around the left side of the trailer stepped over the hitch and headed toward the other side but then i stopped and walked out to the trash barrel the barrel was one-third full with the charred remains of burnt refuge there was a broom handle on the ground that was charred on one end i picked it up and dug around in the ashes in the barrel as i was sure bacchus had done while the fire was burning he had wanted to make sure everything got burned it appeared to be mostly paperwork and books that had been burned there was nothing recognizable until i came across a blackened and melted credit card there was nothing i recognized on it but i guess that the forensics experts might be able to connect it to one of the victims i dug around further and saw pieces of melted black plastic then i noticed one book that was burned beyond recognition on the outside but still had some partially intact pages on the inside with my fingers i lifted it out and gingerly opened it it looked like it was poetry though it was hard to be sure since all the pages were partially burned away between two of these pages i found a half burned receipt for the book at the top it said book car but the rest was burned away bosch where are you it was rachel i was out of her sight i placed the book back into the barrel and stuck the broom handle in as well i headed toward the back side of the trailer i saw another open window hold on a second rachel waited she was growing impatient she was listening for the distant sound of helicopters crossing the desert she knew as soon as she heard them that her chance would be over she would be pushed back possibly even punished for how she had handled bosch she looked back down at the doorknob she thought about bacchus and whether this could be his last play was four years here in the desert enough did he kill terry mccaleb and send her the gps only to lead her eventually to this she thought about the note he had left he's telling her he had taught her well an anger welled up inside her an anger that wanted her to throw open the door and we've got a body it was bosh calling from the other side of the trailer what where come around i've got a view there's a bed and i see one body two three days old i can't see the face okay anything else she waited he didn't say anything she put her hand on the knob it turned the door's not locked rachel don't open it bosh called i think i think there is gas i smell something besides the body something besides the obvious something underneath rachel hesitated but then turned the knob fully and opened the door an inch nothing happened she slowly pulled the door all the way open nothing happened fly saw the opening and buzzed by her and into the light she waved them away from her eyes bosh i'm going in she stepped up into the trailer more flies they were everywhere the smell hit her fully then invading her and tightening her stomach her eyes adjusted to the dimness after the brightness outside and she saw the photos they were stacked on tables and taped to the walls and refrigerator photos of the victims alive and dead tearful pleading pitiful the table in the trailer's kitchen had been turned into a workstation there was a laptop connected to a printer on one side and three separate stacks of photos she picked up the largest stack and started to flip through it again recognizing some of the men in the photos as the missing men whose photos she had carried with them to clear but these weren't the sort of family photos she had carried these were shots of a killer and his victims men whose eyes pleaded to the camera asking forgiveness and mercy rachel noticed that all of the shots were at a downward angle with the shooter backus in the dominant position focusing down on his victims as they hoped and pleaded for their lives when she could look no more at them she put the photos down and took up the second stack there were fewer photos here and these were mostly focused on a woman and two children as they moved through a shopping mall she put them down was about to move the camera weighing down the third stack of photos when boss stepped into the trailer rachel what are we doing don't worry we have five maybe ten minutes we'll back out as soon as we hear the choppers and let the evidence recovery team take over i just want to see i'm not talking about beating other agents to the punch i don't like this the door being left open something's not he stopped when he caught his first glimpse of the photos she turned back to the table and lifted the camera that rested on the last stack of photos she looked down at a photo of herself it took her a moment to place it but then realized where she had been photographed he was with me all the way she said what are you talking about bosh asked this is o'hare my layover bacchus was there watching me she quickly shuffled through the photos there were six of them all shots of her on the day she traveled the last shot was of rachel and cherie day greeting each other in baggage claim cherie holding a sign down in her side that said bob backus on it he's been watching me like he watched terry bosh reached to the princess tray and used a finger from each hand to lift a photo by its edges and without leaving a print it apparently was the last image backus had printed here it showed the front of a two-story house of no particular design in the driveway was a station wagon an old man stood next to the driver's door and was looking at a key chain as if searching for the key to unlock the car bosch proffered the photo to rachel who's this she looked at it for a long moment i don't know the house never seen it before bosch carefully put the photo back in the tray so that it would be found in its original position by the evidence team rachel moved behind him and walked down the hallway toward a closed doorway before she reached it she stepped through the open door of a bathroom it was neat except for the dead flies covering all surfaces in the bathtub she saw two pillows and a blanket arranged as if for sleeping she remembered the intelligence gathered on backus and felt a physical repulsion building in her chest she stepped out of the bathroom and went to the closed door at the end of the hallway is this where you saw it she asked bosh turned and watched her approach the door rachel rachel didn't stop she turned the knob and pulled the door open i heard a distinct metallic sound that my mind did not associate with any door lock rachel stopped her movement and her posture stiffened harry i started moving toward her what is it harry she turned toward me in the close confines of the wood paneled hallway i looked past her face and saw the body on the bed a man on his back a black cowboy hat canted down on his head to obscure his face a pistol in his right hand a bullet wound to the upper left chest flies were buzzing all around us i heard a louder hissing sound and pushed further by her and saw the fuse on the floor i recognized it as a chemical fuse a braiding of wires treated with chemicals that would burn anywhere under any condition even under water the fuse was burning fast we could not stop it there were maybe four feet of it coiled on the floor and then it disappeared under the bed rachel bent down and reached for it to pull it no don't that could set it off there's nothing we have to get out of here no we can't lose this scene we need rachel no time go run now i pushed her back up the hallway and turned my body to block any attempt by her to return i started moving backward my eyes fixed on the figure on the bed when i thought rachel had given up i turned and she was waiting she shoved by me we need dna she yelled i watched her move into the room and leap onto the bed her hand came up and grabbed the hat off the dead man's head revealing a face that was distorted and grey with decomposition she then backed off the bed and headed toward the doorway even in the moment i admired her thinking and what she had just done the hat brim would most definitely contain skin cells that would hold the body's dna she carried the hat past me and started running for the door i looked down to see the burn point on the fuse line disappear under the bed i started to run behind her was it him she yelled over her shoulder i knew what she meant was the cadaver on the bed the man who showed up on terry mccaleb's boat was it backus i don't know just go go go i hit the door two seconds behind rachel she was already on the ground heading directly away in the direction of titanic rock i followed her lead i had taken maybe five strides when the explosion ripped through the air behind me i was hit with the full force of the deafening concussion and knocked forward to the ground i remembered the tuck and roll maneuver from basic training and it served to give me a few more yards distance from the explosion time became disjointed and slow one moment i was running the next i was on my hands and knees my eyes opened trying to raise my head something momentarily eclipsed the sun and i managed to look up to see the shell of the trailer thirty feet in the air over me its walls and roof intact it seemed to float and almost hang up there then it came crashing down 10 yards in front of me it splintered aluminum sides as sharp as razors it made a sound like a five-car pile up when it hit the ground i checked the sky for more incoming and so i was clear i turned to look back at the trailer's original location and saw intense fire and thick black smoke billowing into the sky nothing was recognizable on the trailer pad everything had been consumed by the blast and fire the bed and the man in it were gone backus had planned this exit perfectly i got to my feet but was unsteady because my eardrums were still reacting and my equilibrium was off it sounded as though i was walking through a tunnel with trains speeding by me on both sides i wanted to put my hands over my ears but knew that it would do no good the noise was reverberating from inside rachel had been only a few feet from me before the blast but now i couldn't see her i stumbled around in the smoke and started to think that maybe she was under the trailer skin but finally i found her on the ground to the left of the trailer debris she was lying still in the dirt and rocks the black hat was on the ground next to her like a sign of death i moved as quickly as i could to her rachel i got down on my hands and knees and first examined her without touching her she was lying face down and her hair had fallen forward to further hide her eyes from my view i was suddenly reminded of my daughter as i used a hand to gently pull the hair back as i did this i noticed blood on the back of my palm and for the first time realized i was wounded in some minor way i decided i would worry about that later rachel i couldn't tell if she was breathing or not it seemed that my senses were working on the domino theory with my hearing gone at least temporarily the coordination of the other senses was gone as well i patted her cheek lightly come on rachel wake up i didn't want to turn her over in case there were unseen injuries that i might aggravate i patted her cheek again this time harder i put my hand on her back hoping that i would feel the rise and fall of breath as i could with my daughter nothing i put my ear to her back but this was laughable considering my condition it was just instinct moving ahead of logic i was thinking that i had no choice and had to turn her over when i saw the fingers of her right hand twitch and then form a fist rachel suddenly lifted her head off the ground and groaned it was loud enough that i could hear it rachel are you all right i have there's evidence in the trailer we need it rachel there is no trailer anymore it's gone she struggled to turn over and sit up her eyes opened wide at the side of the burning debris of what had been the trailer i could see that her pupils were dilated she had a concussion what did you do she asked in an accusatory tone it wasn't me the place was rigged to go up when you opened the bedroom door oh she turned her head back and forth as if working a kink out of her neck she saw the black cowboy hat on the ground next to her what is this his hat you grabbed it on the way out dna hopefully though i'm not sure what good it'll be she looked back at the flaming trailer bed we were too close i could feel the heat of the fire but i still wasn't sure she should be moving rachel why don't you lie back down i think you have a concussion you might have other injuries yeah i think that's a good idea she put her head down on the ground and just looked up at the sky i decided that wasn't a bad position and did the same it was like we were at the beach or something if it had been night we could have counted the stars before i could hear them coming i felt the approach of the helicopters a deep vibration in my chest made me look to the southern sky and i saw the two air force choppers coming over the top of titanic rock i weakly raised an arm and waved them in chapter 34 what the hell happened out there special agent randall albert's face was rigid and almost purple he had been waiting for them in the hangar at nellis when the helicopter landed his political instincts had apparently told him not to go to the scene himself at all costs he had to be able to distance himself from the blowback that would rise from the explosion in the desert and possibly reach all the way to washington rachel walling and cherie day stood in the huge hangar and braced for the onslaught rachel didn't answer his question because she thought it was only the opener on a tirade she was reacting slowly her head still a bit fuzzy from the blast agent walling i asked you a question he had rigged the trailer cherie day said he knew she i asked her not you albert barked i want agent walling to tell me exactly why she could not follow orders and how this whole thing has gotten completely up beyond recognition rachel raised her hands palms out as if to signify there was not a damn thing she could have done about what happened out there in the desert we were going to wait for the ert she said as agent day instructed we were on the periphery of the location and that's when we realized it smelled like there was a body in there and then we thought maybe there could be someone alive in there somebody hurt and how the hell did you get that idea simply because you smelled a dead body bosh thought he heard something oh here we go the old cry for help routine no he did but it was the wind i guess out there it picks up the windows were left open it must have created a sound that he heard and what about you did you hear it no i didn't albert looked at day and then back at rachel she could feel his eyes burning through her but she knew it was a good story and she wasn't going to blink she and bosh had worked it out bosh was beyond albert's reach if she was acting on bosch's alarm she could not be faulted either albert could rant and rave but could do nothing more than that you know what the problem with your story is it's with your first word we you said we there is no we you were given an assignment of maintaining a cover on bosch not joining him in the investigation not joining him in his car and driving up there not questioning witnesses together and entering that trailer together i understand that but given the circumstances i decided it was in the best interest of the investigation to pool our knowledge and resources quite frankly agent alpert bosch was the one who found that place we wouldn't have what we have right now if not for him don't kid yourself agent walling we would have gotten there i know that but velocity was a factor you said so yourself after the morning briefing the director was going before the cameras i wanted to push the case so that he would have as much information as possible well forget about that now now we don't know what we have he postponed the news conference and has given us until noon tomorrow to figure out what we have out there cherie day cleared her voice and risked intruding again that's impossible she said that's a well done crispy critter out there they're using multiple bags to get it out of there id and cause of death are going to take weeks if an id and cause of death are even possible luckily it appears that agent walling was able to obtain a dna sampling from the body and that would speed things but we have no comparative evidence we maybe you weren't listening 10 seconds ago albert said but we don't have weeks we've got less than 24 hours he turned away from them and put his hands on his hips striking a pose that showed the burden that weighed upon him as the only intelligent and savvy agent left on the planet then let us go back up there rachel said maybe in the debris we'll find something that no albert yelled he spun back around to them that won't be necessary agent walling you have done enough i know bacchus and i know the case i should be out there i decide who should be and shouldn't be out there i want you to get back to the field office and start the paperwork on this fiasco i want it on my desk by 8 am tomorrow i want a detailed listing of everything you saw inside that trailer he waited to see if she would argue the order rachel remained silent and this seemed to please him now i've got the media all over this what do we put out that doesn't give away the store and won't upstage the director tomorrow day shrugged nothing tell them the director will address it tomorrow end of story that won't work we have to give them something don't give them back us rachel said tell them agents wanted to speak to a man named thomas walling about a missing person's case but walling had rigged his trailer and it exploded while agents were on the premises albert nodded it sounded good to him what about bosch i'd leave him out of it we don't have any control over him if a reporter got to him he might lay the whole thing out and the body do we say it was walling we say we don't know because we don't id is forthcoming so on and so forth that should be enough if the reporters go to the brothels they'll get the whole story no they won't we never told anyone the whole story by the way what happened to bosh they answered that one i took his statement and released him last i saw he was driving back to vegas he'll keep quiet about this they looked at rachel and then back at albert put it this way he isn't going to be looking to talk to anybody about it and as long as we keep his name out of it there will be no reason for anyone to go looking for him albert nodded he dug a hand into one of his pockets and came out with a cell phone when we are finished here i have to call washington got reaction time was that bacchus in that trailer rachel hesitated not wanting to respond first at this point there is no way to tell day said if you are asking if you should tell the director that we got him my answer right now is no don't tell the director that that could have been anybody in that trailer for all we know it was an eleventh victim and we may never know who it was just somebody who went to one of the brothels and was intercepted by bacchus albert looked at rachel expecting her take the fuse she said what about it it was long it was like he wanted me to see the body but not get too close but he also wanted me to get out of there and on the body there was a black cowboy hat i remember there was a man on my plane from rapid city in a black cowboy hat for christ's sake you were flying from south dakota doesn't everybody wear cowboy hats there but he was there with me i think this whole thing was a setup the note in the bar the long fuse the photos in the trailer and the black hat he wanted me to get out of there in time to tell the world he was dead albert didn't respond he looked down at the phone in his hands there's too much we don't know yet randall day offered he shoved the phone back into his pocket very well agent day is your car here yes take agent walling to the field office now they were dismissed but not before albert looked at rachel and threw one more grimace at her remember agent walling my desk by eight you got it rachel said chapter 35 eleanor wish answered my knock and that surprised me she stepped back to let me in don't look at me that way harry she said you have this impression that i'm never here and that i work every night and leave her with marisol i don't i work three or four nights a week and that's usually it i raised my hands and surrender and she saw the bandage around my right palm what happened to you cut myself on a piece of metal what metal it's a long story that thing up in the desert today i nodded i should have known is that going to hurt you playing the saxophone bored with retirement i had started taking lessons the year before from a retired jazz man i had come across on a case one night when things were good between eleanor and me i had brought the instrument with me and played her a tune called lullaby she had liked it actually i haven't been playing anyway how come i didn't want to tell her that my teacher had died and music had dropped out of my life for a while my teacher wanted me to switch from alto to tenor as in 10 or 15 miles away from him she smiled at the lame joke and we left it at that i had followed her through the house and into the kitchen where the table was actually a felt covered poker table with cereal milk stains on it thanks to maddie eleanor had dealt six hands face up for practice she sat down and started gathering up the cards don't let me stop you i said i just came by to see if i could put maddie to bed where is she marisol's giving her a bath but i was counting on putting her to bed tonight i've worked the last three nights oh well that's fine i'll just say hello then and goodbye i'm driving back tonight then why don't you do it i got a new book to read to her it's on the counter no eleanor i want you to do it i just want to see her because i don't know when i'll get back are you still working a case no that all sort of ended up there today the tv news didn't have much on it when i watched what is it it's a long story i didn't feel like telling it once again i walked over to the counter to look at the book she had bought it was called billy's big day and his cover showed a monkey standing on the highest step at an olympic-style award ceremony the gold medal was being put around his neck a lion had received the silver and an elephant the bronze are you going back to join the department again i was about to open the book but i put it down and looked at eleanor i'm still thinking about it but it's looking that way she nodded as though it was a done deal any further thoughts from you on it no harry i want you to do what you want i wondered why it was that when people tell you what you want them to tell you it always comes with suspicion and second guessing attached did eleanor really want me to do what i wanted to do or was her saying that a way of undermining the whole thing before i could say anything my daughter came into the kitchen and stood at attention she wore blue and orange striped pajamas and her dark hair was wet and slicked back on her head presenting a little girl she said eleanor and i both broke out the smiles and simultaneously offered our open arms for hugs maddie went to her mother first and that was all right with me but it felt a little like when you hold out your hand to someone to shake and they don't see it or just plain ignore it i lowered my arms and after a few moments eleanor saved me go give daddy a hug maddie came to me and i lifted her up into a hug she was no more than forty pounds it is an amazing thing to be able to hold everything that is important to you in one arm she put her damp head against my chest and i didn't mind that she was getting my shirt wet that was no problem at all how are you baby i'm fine i drew your picture today you did can i see it put me down i did as instructed and she ran off out of the kitchen her bare feet slapping on the stone tiles as she headed to the playroom i looked at eleanor and smiled we both knew the secret no matter what we had or didn't have for each other we would always have madeleine and that might be enough the running of tiny feet could be heard again and soon she was back in the kitchen towing a piece of paper held high like a kite i took it from her and studied it it showed the figure of a man with a mustache and dark eyes he had his hands out and in one hand was a gun on the other side of the page was another figure this one was drawn in reds and oranges and had eyebrows drawn in a severe black v to indicate he was a bad guy i crouched down to my daughter's height to look at the drawing with her is this me with the gun yes because you were a policeman i nodded she had said it like pleasement and who is this mean guy she pointed a tiny finger at the other figure on the drawing that is mr demon i smiled who is mr demon he's a wrestler mommy says you wrestle with demons and he's the boss of all of them i see i looked over her head at eleanor and smiled i wasn't mad about anything i was simply in love with my daughter and how she viewed her world the literal way in which she took it all in and took it on i knew it wouldn't last long and so i treasured every moment i saw and heard of it can i keep this picture how come because it is beautiful and i want to always have it i have to go away for a while and i want to be able to look at it all the time it will remind me of you where are you going i'm going back to the place they call the city of angels she smiled that's silly you can't see angels i know but look mommy has a new book to read you about a monkey named billy so i'm going to say good night now and i'll get back to see you as soon as i can is that okay baby okay daddy i kissed her on both cheeks and hugged her tight then i kissed the top of her head and let her go i stood up with my picture and handed her the book eleanor would read to her marisol eleanor called marisol appeared within a few seconds as if she had been waiting in the nearby living room for her cue i smiled and nodded to her as she received her instructions why don't you take maddie in and get her set up and i'll be right in after saying goodnight to her father i watched my daughter leave with her nanny i'm sorry about that eleanor said what the picture don't worry about it i love it it's going on my refrigerator i just don't know where she picked it up i didn't directly say to her that you fight demons she must have overheard me on the phone or something somehow i would have liked it better knowing she had said it directly to our daughter the idea that eleanor was talking about me in such a way to someone else someone she didn't mention at the moment bothered me i tried not to show it it's all right i said look at it this way when she goes to school and kids say their dad is a lawyer or fireman or a doctor or something she's got the trump card she'll tell them her daddy fights demons eleanor laughed but then cut it off when she thought of something i wonder what she'll say her mother does i couldn't answer that so i changed the subject i love how her view of the world is uncluttered by deeper meanings i said as i looked at the picture again it is so innocent you know i know i love that too but i can understand if you don't want her thinking you're out there literally wrestling with demons why didn't you explain it to her i shook my head and thought of a story when i was a kid and i was still with my mother there was this time she had a car a two-tone plymouth belvedere with push-button automatic transmission i think her lawyer gave it to her to use or something for a couple years anyway she suddenly decided she wanted to go cross country on a vacation so we packed the car and just took off her and me anyway somewhere in the south i don't remember where we stopped for gas and there were two water fountains on the side of this service station there were signs you know one said white and the other said colored and i just sort of went up to the one marked colored because i wanted to see what color the water was before i got to it my mom yanked me back and sort of explained things to me i remember that and sort of wish you just let me see the water and didn't explain anything eleanor smiled at the story how old were you i don't know about eight she stood up then and came over to me she kissed me on the cheek and i let her i put my arm loosely around her waist good luck with your demons harry yeah if you ever change your mind about things i'm here we're here i nodded she's gonna change your mind eleanor you wait and see she smiled but in a sad way and gently caress my chin with her hand will you make sure the door is locked when you leave always i let go of her and watched her walk out of the kitchen i then looked down at the drawing of the man fighting his demon in the picture my daughter had put a smile on my face chapter 36 before going up to my efficiency at the double x i stopped by the office and told mr gupta the nightman that i would be checking out he told me that because i had been keeping the place on a weekly basis my credit card had already been dinged for the entire week and i told him that was fine i was still leaving i told him i would leave the key on the dinette table after i gathered up my belongings i was about to leave the office when i hesitated and then asked him about my neighbor jane yes she is going to same thing what do you mean same thing we charge her for a week but she not stay a week hey do you mind me asking what was her full name i never got it she is jane davis you like yeah she was nice we talked on the balconies i didn't get to say goodbye she didn't leave a forwarding address or anything like that did she gupta smiled at the prospect of this he had very pink gums for someone with such dark skin no address he said not that one i nodded my thanks for the information he had given me i left the office and went up the stairs and then down the walkway to my room it took me less than five minutes to gather my things i had some shirts and pants on hangers i then took out of the closet the same box in which i had brought everything and filled it with the rest of my belongings and a couple of toys i kept in the place for maddie buddy lockridge had been close calling me suitcase harry but beer box harry would have been better before leaving i checked the refrigerator and saw i had one bottle of beer left i took it out and cranked it open i figured one beer for the road wouldn't hurt me i had done worse in the past before a drive i thought about making another cheese sandwich but skipped it when the thought reminded me of bacchus's routine of eating grilled cheese sandwiches each day at quantico i went out into the balcony with the beer for one last look at the rich men's jets it was a cool and crisp evening the blue lights on the far runway twinkled like sapphires the two black jets were gone their owners either quick winners or losers the big gulfstream remained in place red dust caps over the intakes on its jet engines it was settled in i wondered what the jets might have had to do with jane davis in her stay at the double x i looked over at jane's empty balcony just four feet from my own the ashtray was sitting on the railing and i could see it was still filled with half smoked butts her unit had not been cleaned yet and that gave me an idea i looked around and down at the parking lot i saw no human movement except for out on kovale where the traffic was stalled at a traffic light i saw no sign of the night security man or anyone else in the parking lot i quickly hoisted myself up onto the railing and was about to climb across to the next balcony when i heard a knock on my door i quickly dropped back down and went in and answered the door it was rachel walling rachel hello is something wrong no nothing that catching backers couldn't cure can i come in sure i stepped back to let her enter she saw the box with my belongings piled into it i spoke first how did it go today when you got back into town well i got the usual tongue lashing from the sac did you lay it all on me as planned he fumed and fussed but what's he going to do i don't want to talk about him right now then what well for starters do you have another one of those she meant the beer actually no i was just finishing this one and was going to take off then i'm glad i caught you you want to split it i'll get you glass you said you wouldn't trust the glasses here well i could wash she reached over for the bottle and took a sip from it she handed it back her eyes staying on mine she then turned and pointed to the box so you're leaving yeah back to la for a while you'll miss your daughter i guess a lot you come back to see her as often as i can that's nice anything else what do you mean i asked though i thought i knew what she meant will you be coming back for anything else no just my daughter we stood there looking at each other for a long moment i held the beer out to her but when she came forward it was for me she kissed me on the lips and then quickly we put our arms around each other i know it had something to do with the trailer are nearly dying together out there in the desert that made us press so hard against each other and moved toward the bed that made me reach over and put the beer bottle on the table so i could use both my hands as we pulled at each other's clothes we fell onto the bed and made survivors love it was quick and maybe to some degree even brutal on both our parts but most of all it satisfied the primal urge in both of us to fight death with life when it was over we were entwined on top of the bed covers she on top of me my fists still tangled in her hair she leaned to her left and reached for the beer bottle knocking it over first and spilling most of what was left on the bed table and floor there goes my security deposit i said there was enough left in the bottle for her to take a draw and then pass it to me that was for today she said as i drank i gave her the rest what do you mean after what happened out there we had to do this yeah gladiator love that's why i came here to catch you i smiled thinking of a gladiator joke from an old movie i liked but i didn't tell her and she probably thought i was smiling at her words she leaned down and put her head on my chest i held up some of her hair more gently this time to look at the singed ends i then moved my hands down and rubbed her back thinking it was strange that we were being so gentle with each other now just moments after being gladiators i don't suppose you'd be interested in opening a branch of your private investigations office in south dakota would you i smiled and stifled a laugh in my chest how about north dakota she asked i could be going back there too you have to have a tree to have a branch she hit me with a gentle fist on the chest i didn't think so i shifted my body so that i came out of her she groaned but stayed on top of me does that mean you want me to get up and get off and get out of here no rachel not at all i looked over her shoulder and saw that the door was unlocked i had a vision of mr gupta coming up to see if i had left yet and finding the two-backed monster on the bed in the supposedly empty unit i smiled i didn't care she raised her face up to look at me what nothing we left the door unlocked somebody could come in you left it unlocked this is your place i kissed her realizing i had not kissed her lips during the entire time we had made love another strange thing you know what bosh what you're good at this i smiled and told her thanks a woman can play that card anytime and every time and always get the same response i mean it she dug her nails into my chest to underline her point with one arm i held her tightly to me and we rolled over i figured i had at least ten years on her but i wasn't worried about it i kissed her again and got up gathering my clothes off the floor and walking over to the door to lock it i think there's one last clean towel in there i said you can use it she insisted i take the first shower and i did then while she showered i left the unit and walked across koval to a convenience store to pick up two more beers i was going to limit it to that because i was driving that night and didn't want alcohol to slow me down getting to the road or while on it end of disc 8 disc 9 i was sitting at the dinette when she came out of the bathroom fully dressed and smiling when she saw the two bottles i knew you'd make yourself useful she sat down and we clicked bottles to gladiator love she said we drank and just were quiet for a few moments i was trying to figure out what the last hour now meant to me and to us what are you thinking about she asked about how this could get complicated it doesn't have to we can just see what happens that didn't sound the same to me as being asked to move to the dakotas okay i better get going where to back to the fo i guess see what's shaking did you hear what happened to the fire barrel out there after the blast i forgot to look no why i looked in it when we were out there for just a minute it looked like he had been burning credit cards maybe ids the victims probably he burned books in it too books why do you think he did that i don't know but it's strange inside the trailer he had books all over the place so he burned some and some he didn't burn seems strange well if there's anything left of the barrel the ert will get to it why didn't you mention it before when you were interviewed out there because my head was ringing and i sort of forgot i guess short-term memory loss associated with concussion i don't have a concussion i meant the blast could you tell what books they were not really i didn't have time there was one i picked out it was the least burned of what i could see it looked like it was poetry i think she looked at me and nodded but didn't say anything what i don't get is why he burned the books he set the whole trailer to go up but he takes the time to go out to the barrel and burn some books almost like i stopped talking and tried to put the pieces together almost like what harry i don't know like he didn't want to leave the trailer thing to chance he wanted to make sure those books were destroyed you are assuming that both things are together who knows maybe he burned the book six months ago or something you can't just connect the two things i nodded she was right about that but still the incongruity bothered me the book i found was near the top of the barrel i said it was burned the last time the barrel was used there was also a receipt in it half burned but maybe they can trace it when i get back i'll check it out but i don't remember seeing that barrel after the blast i shrugged neither do i she stood up and so did i there's one other thing i said as i reached into the inside pocket of my jacket i pulled out the photo and handed it to her i must have grabbed it while i was in the trailer and then sort of forgot about it i found it in my pocket it was the photo taken from the printer tray the two-story house with the old man out front next to the station wagon great harry how am i going to explain this i don't know but i figured you'd want to try to id the place or the old man what's the difference now come on rachel you know it's not over no i don't know that it bothered me that she could not talk to me after we had been so intimate just a few minutes before okay i picked up my box and the clothing i had on hangers wait a minute harry you're just going to leave it like that what do you mean it's not over i mean we both know that wasn't bacchus in there if you and the bureau aren't interested in it that's fine but don't me rachel not after we went through today and not after what we just did she relented look harry it's out of my hands okay right now we are waiting on forensics to make a call on it the bureau's official position probably won't be formulated until tomorrow when the director holds a press conference i'm not interested in the official position of the bureau i was talking to you harry what do you want me to say i want you to say you are going to get this guy no matter what the director says tomorrow i headed to the door and she followed we left the efficiency and she pulled the door closed for me where's your car i asked i'll walk you over she pointed the way and we went down the steps into her car parked near the office after she opened the door we turned and faced each other i want to get this guy she said more than you could know okay good i'll be in touch well what are you going to do i don't know when i do i'll let you know okay see you bosh goodbye rachel she kissed me and then she got in the car i walked to my car ducking between the two buildings that made up the double x to get to the other parking lot i was pretty sure was not the last time i would see rachel walling chapter 37 on the way out of town i could have avoided the traffic of the strip but i decided not to i thought all the lights might cheer me up i knew i was leaving my daughter behind i was going to los angeles to rejoin the department i would see my daughter again but i wouldn't be able to spend the kind of time with her i needed and wanted to i was leaving to join the depressing legions of weekend fathers the men who have to compress their love and duty into 24-hour stands with their children the thought of it raised a dark dread in my chest that a billion kilowatts of light could not cut through there was no doubt i was leaving las vegas as a loser once i cleared the lights and the city limits the traffic grew sparse and the skies dark i tried to ignore the depression my choice had put upon me instead i worked the cases i drove following the logic of the moves from the perspective of bacchus grinding it down until the story was smooth powder and i had only unanswered questions left i saw it the same way the bureau did bakus having adopted the name tom walling was living in clear and preying on the customers he drove from the brothels he operated with impunity for years because he chose the perfect victims that is until the numbers went against him and investigators from vegas started to see a pattern and put together their list of six missing men backus probably knew that it was only a matter of time before the connection might be made to clear he probably knew that that time would be even shorter once he saw terry mccaleb's name in the newspaper maybe he even got wind that michaela had gone to vegas maybe michaela but even gone up to clear who knows most of the answers died with mccaleb and then in that trailer in the desert there were so many unknowns in this story but what did seem obvious from this point was that backus had closed up shop he had made plans to end his desert run in a blaze of glory to take out his two proteges mccaleb and rachel in a pathological display of mastery and to leave behind in his trailer a burned and destroyed body that would beg the question of whether he was alive or dead in recent years saddam hussein and osama bin laden had gotten good mileage by leaving behind the same question maybe baka saw himself on the same stage the books in the fire barrel bothered me the most despite rachel's dismissing them because the circumstances of their burning were unknown it still seem like an important piece of the investigation to me i wished i had spent more time studying the book i had pulled out maybe even identifying it the burn book gave an indication of a part of the poet's plan nobody knew about yet remembering the partial receipt i had seen in the book i opened my cell phone check to make sure i had service and called information for las vegas i asked if there was a listing for a business called bookcar and the operator told me there was not i was about to hang up when she told me there was however a listing for a store called book caravan on industry road i told her i would try it and she connected me i guess that the store would be closed because it was late i was hoping for a message machine on which i could ask the owner to call me in the morning but the call was answered after two rings by a gruff voice you're open 24 hours how can i help you i got an idea what kind of store it was by the hours i took a shot anyway you don't sell any books of poetry there do you the gruff man laughed very funny he said there once was a man from timbuktu as far as poetry goes you he laughed again and hung up on me i closed the phone and had to smile at his on-the-spot rhyming skill book caravan seemed like a dead end but i would call rachel in the morning and tell her it might be worth checking for connections tobaccos a green highway sign came out of the darkness and into the spray of my headlights zizex road one mile i thought about pulling off and driving down the bouncing desert road into the darkness i wondered if there was still a forensic crew on duty at the burial site but what would the point of going down that road be other than to engage with the ghosts of the dead the mile came and went and i drove on by the exit leaving the ghosts alone the beer and a half i'd had with rachel proved to be a mistake by victorville i was growing fatigued too much thinking with the added mix of alcohol i pulled off for coffee in a mcdonald's that was open late and designed to look like a train depot i bought two coffees and two sugar cookies and sat in a booth and an old train car reading through terry mccaleb's file on the poet investigation i was getting to know the order of reports and their summaries just about by heart after one cup of coffee i had nothing going and closed the file i needed something new i needed either to let it go and hope and believe the bureau would get the job done or find a new angle to pursue i'm not against the bureau my take is that it's the most thorough well-equipped and relentless law enforcement agency in the world its problems lie in its size and the many cracks in communication between offices squads and so on down the line to the agents themselves it only takes a debacle like 911 to make clear to the world what most people in the law enforcement world including the fbi agents already know as an institution it cares too much about its reputation and it carries too much weight in politics going all the way back to j edgar hoover himself eleanor wish once knew an agent who had been assigned to washington headquarters back during the time j edgar ruled the place he said the unspoken law was that if an agent was in an elevator and the director got on the agent was not allowed to address him even to say hello and was required to immediately step off so the big man could ride alone and ponder his great responsibilities the story always stuck with me for some reason i think because it carries the perfect arrogance of the fbi the bottom line was i didn't want to call graciela mccaleb and tell her that her husband's killer was still out there and that the fbi would handle it i still wanted to handle it i owed that to her and to terry and i always paid what i owed back on the road the coffee and sugar got me going again and i pressed on toward the city of angels when i hit the 10 freeway i also hit the rain and traffic slowed to a crawl i flipped on the radio to kfwb and learned it had rained all day and wasn't expected to stop until the end of the week there was a live report from topanga canyon where residents were sandbagging their doors and garages expecting the worst mudslides and flooding were the dangers the catastrophic fires that swept through the hills the year before had left little ground cover to hold the rain or soil it was all coming down i knew the weather would cost me an extra hour getting home i checked my watch it was just past midnight i had planned to wait until getting home to call kiss rider but decided it might be too late to call by then i opened my phone and called her at home she picked up right away kiss it's harry yep sure harry i can't sleep when it rains i know what you mean so what's a good word everybody counts or nobody counts which means i'm in if you're in come on harry don't put that on me i'm in if you're in come on man i'm already in you know what i mean this is your salvation kids we got sidetracked we both did you and i know what we should be doing it's time we both went back to it i waited there was a long period of silence from her then finally she spoke this is going to upset the man he's got me on a lot of things if he's the man you say he is he'll understand he'll get it you'll be able to make him get it more silence okay harry okay i'm in all right then i'll come down tomorrow and sign up all right harry i'll see you then you knew i'd call didn't you put it this way i have the papers you have to fill out sitting on my desk you were always too smart for me i meant what i said about us needing you that's the bottom line but i also didn't think you'd last long out there on your own i know guys who have pulled the pin and gone the pi route sold real estate cars appliances even books it worked fine for most of them but not you harry i figured you knew that too i didn't say anything i was staring into the darkness beyond the reach of my lights something kids had just said triggered the avalanche harry you still there yeah listen kids you just said books you knew a guy who retired and sold books is that ed thomas yeah i came to hollywood about six months before he put in his papers he left and opened a bookstore down in orange i know you ever been there yeah one time he had dean coons signing one of his books there i saw it in the paper he's my favorite and he doesn't sign books too many places so i went down there was a line out the door and down the sidewalk but as soon as ed saw me he ushered me right on up to the front and introduced me and i got my book signed it was embarrassing actually what's the name of it um i think it was strange highways that deflated me i thought i was about to make a leap in logic and connection no actually it was after that kiss said it was soul survivor the plane crash story i realized what she was saying and how we'd gotten confused no kids what's the name of ed's bookstore oh it's called book carnival i think that was what it was called when he bought the business otherwise i think he'd called it something else something mysterious since he sells mostly mystery books there book car as in book carnival i involuntarily press the accelerator down harder kids i gotta go i'll talk to you later i closed the phone without waiting for a goodbye from her glancing between the road and the phone's display i scrolled through my recent calls list and pressed the connect button after highlighting rachel walling's cell number she answered before i even heard it ring rachel it's harry sorry to call so late but it's important i'm in the middle of something she whispered you're at the field office still that's right i tried to think of what would keep her there after midnight on a day that had started so early is it the trash barrel the burn book no we haven't gotten there yet it's something else i have to go her voice was somber and because she had not used my name i got the idea there were other agents present and that whatever she was in the middle of was not good rachel listen i have something you have to come to l.a her tone changed i think she could tell by the urgency in my voice that it was serious what is it i know the poet's next move chapter 38 i'll have to call you back rachel closed her phone and slid it into the pocket of her blazer bash's last words echoed in her heart agent walling i'd appreciate it if you could stay in our conversation she looked up at albert sorry she looked past him at the telecommunications screen where brass duran's face was larger than life she was smiling agent duran continue albert said actually i'm finished that's all we have at this time we can confirm through the latents that robert backus was at that trailer we cannot confirm that he was in it when it exploded what about the dna the dna evidence gathered by agent walling at great danger i might add and later by the ert will only be useful if we have something to compare it with that is if we somehow find the source of robert backus's dna or we use it to identify the body that was in the trailer as someone else what about bacchus's parents can't we extract his dna from we went that route before his father was dead and cremated before we thought of it the science wasn't really there back then and his mother has never been located there is some thought that she might have been his first victim she disappeared some years ago without the proverbial trace this guy thought of everything in the case of the mother it was more likely a revenge thing for her abandonment it is hard to believe that he did something back then in order to prevent later dna extraction all i meant was that we are genuinely i am sorry randall but the science can only go so far i know that agent iran can you tell me anything else anything new i guess not terrific okay so then i will tell the director just that that we know bacchus was in that trailer we have forensics and witness accounts to that effect but as of this time we cannot take the next step and say he is dead and good riddance is there no way we can convince the director to sit tight and give us more time to sew it all up for the good of the investigation rachel almost laughed she knew the good of the investigation would always take second place to political considerations in the hoover building in dc i have already tried alfred said the answer is no there is too much at stake the cat is out of the bag on this thanks to the explosion in the desert if that was back as blown to bits out there then fine we'll eventually confirm it and everything will be fine if that was not backus and he has some other play in mind the director has to get on record with this now or the consequences of the blowback could be fatal so he is going on record with what we know now bacchus was there backus is the suspect in the killings in the desert bacchus may or may not be dead there is no dissuading him at this point alfred had thrown rachel a look when he said the cat was out of the bag as if he held her responsible for everything she thought about revealing what bosh had just told her but in that instant decided against it not yet not until she knew more okay people that's it albert announced abruptly brass we'll see on the big screen tomorrow morning agent walling can you stay behind for a moment rachel watched brass leave the screen and then it went black the transmission ended albert then walked up close to the table where rachel sat agent walling yes your work is done here excuse me you're finished go back to your hotel and pack your bags there's still a lot to do here i want to i don't care what you want i want you out of here you have undermined this investigation since you arrived tomorrow morning i want you on the first plane back to wherever it is you come from understand you are making a mistake i should be part of you are making a mistake arguing with me about it i can't make it any clearer for you i want you out of here turn in your paperwork and get on a plane she stared at him trying to communicate all the anger that was behind her eyes he held a hand up as if to ward something off be careful what you say it could come back to bite you on the ass rachel swallowed back her anger she spoke in a controlled and calm voice i'm not going anywhere alfred looked like his eyes might pop out of his head he turned and waved a out of the room he then turned back to rachel and waited for the sound of the door closing excuse me what did you just say i said i am not going anywhere i am staying on this case because if you put me on a plane i won't go back to south dakota i'll go to the dc headquarters and right into the office of professional responsibility to file on you for what what are you going to file you've used me as bait since the beginning without my knowledge or consent you don't know what you're talking about go ahead go to the opr they'll laugh you back to the badlands and put you down for another 10 years out there cherie made a mistake and then you did too when i called in from clear she asked me why we took basha's car then in the hangar you did the same thing you knew i had gone up there in bosch's car i started thinking about that and then i figured out why you put a gps tag on my car i went underneath it tonight and found it standard bureau issue even has the code label still on it there will be a record of who checked it out i have no idea what you are talking about well i'm sure the opr will be able to figure it out my guess is sheree will help them i mean if i were her i wouldn't tie my career to you i'd tell the truth that you brought me out here as bait that you thought i would draw back us out i bet you had a shadow team on me the whole time there will be a record of that too what about my phone in my hotel room did you bug them rachel saw albert's eyes change he went inward his mind no longer consumed by her accusations but by the future consequences of an ethics complaint in investigation she saw him recognize his own doom one agent bugging and following another agent using her as unwitting bait in a high-stakes gamble under the current climate of media scrutiny and bureau-wide avoidance of any controversy his actions wouldn't hold up it would be he who would go down not her quickly and quietly he would be dealt with maybe if he was lucky he'd end up working side by side with rachel in the rapid city office the badlands are really quite beautiful in the summer she said she stood up and headed to the door agent walling alfred said to her back hold on a second chapter 39 rachel's plane landed a half hour late at burbank because of the rain and wind it had not let up through the night and the city was cast in a shroud of gray it was the kind of rain that paralyzed the city traffic moved at a crawl on every street and every freeway the roads weren't built for it the city wasn't either by dawn the storm water culverts were overflowing the tunnels were at capacity and the runoff to the los angeles river had turned the concrete-lined canal that snakes of the city to the sea into a roaring rapids it was black water carrying with it the ash of the fires that had blackened the hills the year before there was an end of the world gloom about it all the city had been tested by fire first and now rain living in l.a sometimes you felt like you were riding shotgun with the devil to the apocalypse people i saw that morning carried a what's next look in their eyes earthquake tsunami or maybe a disaster of our own making a dozen years earlier fire and rain had been the harbingers of both tectonic and social upheaval in the city of angels i didn't think there was anybody here who doubted it could happen again if we are doomed to repeat ourselves and our follies and mistakes then it is easy to see nature and balance operating on the same cycle i thought about this as i waited for rachel at the curb outside the terminal the rain pounded the windshield turning it translucent and murky the wind rocked the car on its springs i thought about rejoining the cops already second guessing my decision and wondering if i would be repeating myself in folly or if i had a chance this time at grace i didn't see rachel in the rain until she knocked on the passenger side window she then opened the back hatch and threw in her bag she was wearing a green parka with the hood up it must have done her well facing the elements in the dakotas but it looked too large and bulky on her in la this better be good bosh she said as she climbed in and dropped wetley onto the passenger seat she showed no outward sign of affection and neither did i it was one of the agreements we'd made on the phone we were to act as professionals until we played my hunch out why you got alternatives no it's just that i put everything on the line last night with alfred i'm one up short of a permanent posting in south dakota where by the way the weather might actually be nicer than this well welcome to la i thought this was burbank technically after we cleared the airport i dropped down to the 134 and took that east to the five between the rain and the morning rush hour our progress was slow as we skirted around griffith park and pointed south i wasn't ready to begin worrying about time yet but i was getting close for a long time we rode silently because the mix of rain and traffic made the drive intense probably more so for rachel who had to sit and do nothing while i had control of the wheel finally she spoke if only to siphon off some of the tension in the car so are you going to tell me this grand plan of yours no plan just a hunch no you said you knew his next move bosh i noticed that since we had made love on the bed of my efficiency unit she had started calling me by my last name i wondered if this was part of the agreement to act as professionals or some sort of reverse endearment calling someone you had been most intimate with by his least intimate name i had to get you here rachel well all right then i'm here tell it to me it's the poet who has the grand plan bacchus what's he going to do remember the books i told you about yesterday the books in the barrel and the one i pulled out yes i think i figured out what it all means i told her about the partially burned receipt i had seen and how i thought book car was actually book carnival the bookstore operated by retired police detective ed thomas the last intended target of the poet eight years before you think because of this book in the fire barrel that he's here and is going to make good on the killing we took away from him eight years ago exactly that's a stretch bosh i wish you had told me all of this before i risked my ass flying over here there's no such thing as coincidence especially like this okay run the story out for me then give me the profile tell me the poet's grand plan well that's the bureau's job to profile crimes i'm not going to do that but this is what i think he's doing i think the trailer and the explosion were all set up to look like the grand finale and then as soon as the director steps in front of the television cameras and says i think we've got him he's going to take out ed thomas the symbolism would be perfect it's the grand gesture the ultimate you it's checkmate rachel while the bureau is bragging about itself he moves in right under their noses and takes out the guy the bureau was all puffed up about saving the last time and why the books in the barrel how does all of that fit in i think there were books he bought from ed thomas from book carnival by mail order or maybe even in person maybe they were marked in some way and could be traced back to the store he didn't want that so he burned them he couldn't risk that they might survive the trailer blast but then on the other end after thomas is gone and bacchus is split the agents would find his connection to the store and would begin to see how long and hard backus was planning this it would help show his genius that's what he wants right i mean you are the profiler tell me if i'm wrong i was the profiler right now i handle reservation crimes in the dakotas traffic was starting to open up as we pass by downtown the spires of the financial district disappearing in the upper midst of the storm the city always looked haunting in the rain to me there was a foreboding sense about it that always depressed me that always made me feel like something had broken loose in the world and was wrong there was only one thing wrong with all of that bosh what the director is holding a press conference today but he isn't going to say we caught the poet just like you we don't think that was bacchus in that trailer so bacchus doesn't know that he'll watch it on cnn like everybody else but it won't change his plan either way i say he hits ed thomas today either way he makes his point i am better and smarter than you she nodded and thought about that for a long moment okay she finally said what if i'm buying it what is our play have you called ed thomas i don't know what our play is yet and i haven't called ed thomas we're heading toward his store now it's down in orange and he opens up at eleven i called and got his hours off the answering machine why his store all the other cops back is killed were in their homes one in his car because at the moment i don't know where ed thomas lives and because of the book my guess is backus will make his move at the bookstore if i'm wrong and ed doesn't show up at the store then we find out where he lives and go there rachel nodded in agreement with the plan there were three different books written on the poet case i read them all and they all had post scripts on the players they said thomas retired and opened a bookstore i think one even named the store there you go she looked at her watch are we going to make it there before he opens we'll make it did they set a time for the director's press conference three o'clock dc time i checked the dash clock it was 10 am we had an hour before ed thomas opened for business and two hours before the press conference if my theory and hunch were correct we would be in the presence of the poet very soon i was ready and i was juiced i felt the high octane moving in my blood by old habit i dropped my hand off the wheel and checked my hip i had a glock 27 holstered there it was illegal for me to be carrying a weapon and if i ended up using it there could be trouble the kind that could prevent me from rejoining the police department but sometimes the risks you face dictate the other risks you must take and my guess was that this was going to be one of those times chapter 40 the rain made it hard to watch the storm if we had left the windshield wipers on it would have been a dead giveaway so we watched it first through the murk of water on glass we were parked in the lot of a strip shopping center on tustin boulevard in the city of orange book carnival was a small business between a rock shop and what looked like a vacant slot three doors down was a gun store there was a single public entrance before taking our position in the front lot we had driven behind the shopping center and seen a rear door with the store's name on it there was a doorbell and a sign that said ring bell for deliveries in a perfect world we'd have been on the front and back of the store with a minimum of four sets of eyes backus could come in either way posing as a customer through the front or as a delivery man through the back but nothing was perfect about the world on this day it was raining and it was just the two of us we parked the mercedes at a distance from the front of the store but still close enough to see an act if necessary the front counter and cash register were just behind the front window of book carnival this worked in our favor shortly after we watched him open the store for business we watched ed thomas take a position behind the counter he put a cash drawer into the register and made some phone calls even with the rain and the blurring of the windshield we could keep him in view as long as he stayed at the register it was the recesses of the store behind him that disappeared in the gloom on the occasions that he left his post and walked back toward the shelves and displays in the rear we lost sight of him and the tingling sense of panic took hold on the way down rachel had told me about the discovery of the gps tag on her car and the confirmation that she had been used by fellow agents as bait for bacchus and now here we sat watching a former colleague of mine in a way using him as the new bait it didn't sit well with me i wanted to go in and tell ed the crosshairs were on him that he should take a vacation get out of town but i didn't because i knew if bacchus was watching thomas and saw any deviation in the norm then we might lose our only chance at him so rachel and i got selfish with ed thomas's life and i knew in the days ahead i would deal with the guilt from that the only question was depending on how things turned out how much guilt there would be the first two customers of the day were women they arrived shortly after thomas had unlocked the front door and while they were browsing in the store a man pulled up parked in front and went in as well he was too young to be backus so we didn't go to full alert he left in a hurry and without purchasing a book then when the two women left clutching their bags of books i got out of the mercedes and ran across the lot to the overhang in front of the gun shop rachel and i had decided not to bring thomas into our investigation but that wasn't going to stop me from going into the store on a reconnaissance mission we decided that i would go into the store with a cover story nonchalantly reacquaint myself with thomas and see if he might already be alert to the idea that he was being watched so once the first customers of the day had come and gone i made the move i first ducked into the gun store since it was the store closest to where we had parked and it would have looked odd to anyone watching the shopping plaza for me to park on one end and go directly to the bookstore at the other end i took a cursory look at the gleaming firearms displayed in the glass counter and then up at the paper shooting targets on the back wall they had the usual silhouettes but they also had versions featuring the faces of osama bin laden and saddam hussein i guess that these were the big sellers when a man behind the counter asked if i needed help i told him i was just browsing and then walked out of the store i walked down toward book carnival stopping first to check out the empty storefront next door through the soaked glass i could see boxes marked with what i guessed were the titles of books i realized thomas was using the slot for storing books there was a four lease sign and a phone number which i committed to memory in case it played into an angle we would work later i entered book carnival and ed thomas was behind the counter i smiled and he smiled in recognition but i could tell that it took a few seconds for him to place the face he recognized he said once he had it hey ed how you doing we shook hands and his eyes behind the glasses had a warmth to them i liked i was pretty sure i hadn't seen him since his retirement dinner at the sportsman's lodge up in the valley six or seven years before there was more white than not in his hair but he was still tall and thin like i remembered him from the job he had a tendency at crime scenes to hold his notebook up high and close to his face when he was writing this was because his glasses were always a prescription or two behind his eyes the arm's high pose got him the nickname of the praying mantis around the homicide table i suddenly remembered that now i remember the flyer for his retirement party showed a caricature of ed as a superhero with a cape and a mask and a large pea on his chest how's the book business doing it's doing good harry what brings you down here from the big bad city i heard you retired a couple years ago yeah i did but i'm thinking about going back you miss it yeah i sort of do we'll see what happens he seemed surprised and i knew then that he didn't miss a thing about the job he'd always been a reader always had a box of paperbacks in the trunk for surveillances and while sitting on wiretaps now he had his pension and his bookstore he was doing well without all of the nastiness of the job you just passing by no actually i came here for a real reason you remember my old partner kiss writer yeah sure she's been in here before that's what i mean she's been helping me with something and i want to get her a little gift i remember she told me once that your store was like the only place around where you could get a book signed by a writer named dean koontz so i was wondering if you got any of those around i'd like to get her one i think i might have something left in the back let me go check those things go fast but i usually keep a stash he left me at the counter and walked through the store to a door at the back that appeared to lead to a stock room i assumed the rear delivery door was back there when he was out of sight i leaned over the counter and looked at the shelves beneath i saw a small video display tube with its screen cut into four segments there were four interior camera angles showing the cash register area with me leaning over the counter a long view of the entire store a tighter view of a group of shelves and the rear stock room where i could see thomas looking at a similar vdt tube on a shelf i realized he was looking at me leaning over his counter i straightened up my mind quickly trying to come up with an explanation a few moments later thomas came back to the counter carrying a book find what you were looking for harry what oh you mean me looking over the counter i was just sort of wondering if you you know had any protection back there you being a former carpenter you ever worry about somebody coming in here who you knew from back when i take precautions harry don't worry about that i nodded good to hear is that the book yeah does she have this one it came out last year he showed me a book called the face i didn't know if kiss had it or not but i was gonna buy it i don't know did he sign it yeah signed and dated okay i'll take it while he rang up the sale i tried some small talk which really wasn't small talk i saw you have the camera set up underneath there seems like a little much for a bookstore you'd be surprised people like to steal books i got a collectible section back there expensive stuff from the collections i buy and sell i keep a camera right on it and i caught a kid in there just this morning trying to shove a copy of nick's trip down his pants early pelicanos is tough to find that would have been about a 700 loss for me that seemed like an inordinate amount of money for a single book i'd never heard of the book but i guessed that it must have been 50 or 100 years old you call the cops nah i just kicked him in the pants and told him if he came back again i would call the law you're a nice guy ed you must have mellowed out since you left i don't think the praying mantis would have just let the kid slide i handed him two twenties and he gave me the change the praying mantis was a long time ago and my wife doesn't think i'm so mellow thanks harry and tell kids i said hello yeah i will you ever run into anybody else from the table i didn't want to leave yet i wanted more information so i continued the banter i looked up over his head and spotted a small two-camera dome it was mounted up near the ceiling one lens angled down on the register and one taking in the long view of the store there was a small red light glowing and i could see a small black cable snaking from the camera housing and up into the drop ceiling while thomas answered my question i was thinking about the possibility that bacchus had been in the store and was captured on a surveillance tape not really thomas said i sort of left all that behind you say you missed it harry but i don't miss a thing about it not really i nodded like i understood but i didn't thomas had been a good cop and a good detective he took the work to heart there was one reason why the poet had put him in the sights he was paying lip service to something i didn't think he really believed that's good i said hey do you have that kid you kicked out of here on tape from this morning i'd like to see how he tried to rip you off nah i just have live feeds i got the cameras out in the open and a sticker on the door it's supposed to be a deterrent but some people are dumb a setup with a recorder would be too expensive and a pain in the ass and maintenance i just have the lives set up i see listen if kids already has that book i'll take it back i can sell it no that's cool if she already has it i'll keep and read it myself harry when's the last time you read a book i read a book about art pepper a couple months ago i said indignantly he and his wife wrote it before he died non-fiction yeah it was real stuff i'm talking about a novel when was the last time you read one i shrugged i didn't remember that's what i thought thomas said if she doesn't want the book bring it back and i'll get it to somebody who read it ed thanks be careful out there harry i will be you too i was heading to the door when things came together what thomas had told me and what i knew about the case i snapped my fingers and acted like i just remembered something i turned back to thomas hey i got a friend lives all the way in nevada but he says he's a customer of yours mail order probably you do mail order sure what's his name tom walling lives all the way up and clear thomas nodded but not in any happy sort of way he's your friend i realized i might have stepped in it well an acquaintance you could say well he owes me some money really what happened it's a long story but i sold him some books out of a collection i was handling and he paid me very promptly paid with a money order and everything was fine so when he wanted more books i sent them before i got his money order big mistake that was three months ago and i haven't gotten a dime from him if you see this acquaintance of yours again tell him i want my money i will ed that's too bad i didn't know the guy was a ripoff artist what books did he buy he's into poe so i sold him some books out of the broadway collection some old ones pretty nice books then he ordered more when i got another collection in he didn't pay for them my heart rate was kicking into an upper gear what thomas was telling me was confirmation that bacchus was somehow in play here i wanted to stop the charade at that moment and tell thomas what was happening and that he was in danger but i held back i needed to talk to rachel first and form the right plan i think i saw those books in his place i said was it poetry mostly yeah he didn't really care for the short stories did these books have the original collector's name in them rodman no broadway and yes they had his library seal embossed in them that hurt the price but your friend wanted the books i nodded i saw my theory coming together it was more than theory now harry what are you really up to i look to thomas what do you mean i don't know you're asking a lot of a loud ring sounded from the back of the store cutting thomas off never mind harry he said it's more books i need to go take a delivery oh i'll see you later yeah i watched him leave the counter area and head to the back i checked my watch it was noon the director was stepping before the cameras to talk about the explosion in the desert and say that it was the work of the killer known as the poet could this be the moment bacchus chose to strike thomas my throat and chest tightened as though the air had been sucked out of the room as soon as thomas slipped through the doorway to the stockroom i moved back to the counter and leaned over to look at the security monitor i knew if thomas checked the back room monitor he would see that i hadn't left the store but i was counting on him going right to the door on the corner of the screen showing the stockroom i saw thomas lean his face up to the rear door and look through a peephole apparently unalarmed by what he saw he proceeded to turn the deadbolt and open the door i stared intently at the screen even though the image was small and i was viewing it upside down thomas stepped back from the door and a man entered he was wearing a dark shirt and matching shorts he was carrying two boxes one stacked on top of the other and thomas directed him to a nearby work table the delivery man put the boxes down and then took an electronic clipboard off the top box and turned back to thomas for a delivery confirmation signature everything seemed all right it was a routine delivery i quickly got off the counter and went to the door as i opened it i heard an electronic chime sound but i didn't worry about that i headed back to the mercedes running through the rain after putting the autographed book under my raincoat what was all of that with you leaning over the counter like that rachel asked once i was behind the wheel again he's got a security box there was a delivery and i wanted to make sure it was legit before i left it's after three o'clock in dc i know so what did you learn from him or you just in there buying a book i learned a lot tom walling is a customer or was until he stiffed him for an order of edgar allan poe books it was mail order like we thought he never saw him just sent the books out to nevada rachel sat up straight are you kidding me no the books were out of some guy's collection that ed was selling so they were marked and therefore traceable that was why backus burned them all in the fire barrel he couldn't risk that they'd survived the blast intact and be traced back to thomas why because he is definitely in play here he's got to be setting up on thomas i started the car where are you going around back to make sure about the delivery besides it's good to change locations every now and then oh you're giving me surveillance 101 lessons now without responding i drove around to the back of the plaza and saw the brown ups van parked by the open rear door of book carnival we drove on by and during the brief glimpse i had at the back of the truck and the open door of the stock room i saw the delivery man struggling to carry several boxes up a ramp to the back of his truck the returns i guessed i kept driving without hesitation he's legit rachel said yeah you didn't give yourself away with thomas did you no he was suspicious but then i was sort of saved by the bell i wanted to talk to you first i think we need to bring him in on it harry we talked about this if we bring him into it he may change his routine and demeanor it might be a giveaway if bacchus has been watching him any little change could be a tell and if we don't warn him and this thing goes wrong then we i didn't finish we had been over this argument twice before each of us alternately taking the other side it was a classic contradiction of intentions do we ensure thomas's safety at the risk of losing backus or do we risk thomas's safety to ensure getting close to bacchus it was all about the means to an end and neither of us would be happy no matter which way we went i guess that means we can't let anything go wrong she said right what about backup i also think it's too risky the more people we bring into this the greater the chance of tipping our hand i nodded she was right i found a spot on the opposite end of the parking lot from where we had parked and watched before i wasn't kidding myself though there were only so many cars in the lot in the middle of a rainy weekday and we were noticeable i started to think that maybe we were like ed thomas's cameras strictly a deterrent maybe backus had seen us and it had stopped him from moving forward with his plan for now customer rachel said i looked across the lot and saw a woman heading toward the store she looked familiar to me and then i remembered her from the sportsman's lodge that's his wife i met her once i think her name is pat she bringing him lunch you think maybe or maybe she works there we watched for a while but there was no sign of thomas or his wife in the front of the store i grew concerned and took up my cell phone and called the store hoping the call would bring them to the front counter where the phone was but a woman answered right away and there was still no one at the counter i quickly hung up there must be a phone in the stock room who answered the wife should i take a walk and go in no if bacchus is watching he'll recognize you you can't be seen all right then what then nothing they're probably at the table i saw in the back room having lunch be patient i don't want to be patient i don't like just sitting she stopped when we saw ed thomas walk out the front of the store he was wearing a raincoat and carrying an umbrella in a briefcase he got into the car we had seen him arrive at the store in that morning a green ford explorer through the store's front window i saw his wife take a seat on a stool behind the front counter here we go i said where's he going maybe he's going to get lunch not with a briefcase we stay on him right i restarted the car right we watched as thomas pulled out of a parking space in his ford suv he headed toward the exit and turned right on tustin boulevard after his car was absorbed into the passing traffic i pulled up to the exit and followed him into the rain i pulled out my phone and called the store ed thomas's wife answered hi is ed there no he's not can i help you is this pat yes it is who's this it's bill gilbert i think we met at the sportsman's lodge a while back i used to work with ed in the department i was going to be in the area and i thought i'd stop by the store today to say hello will he be back later that's hard to say he went to do an appraisal and who knows it might take the rest of the day with this reign in the distance he has to go an appraisal what do you mean a book collection someone wants to sell his collection and ed just left to go see what it was worth it's all the way up in the san fernando valley and from what i understand it's a big collection he told me i'd probably be closing the store tonight is it more of the broadway collection he told me about that the last time we talked no that's just about all been sold this is a man named charles turentine and he has over six thousand books wow that's a lot he's a well-known collector but i guess he needs the money because he told ed he wants to sell everything strange a guy spends all that time collecting and then he sells it all we see it happen well pat i'll let you go i'll catch ed next time tell him i said hello what was your name again tom gilbert bye now i closed the phone you were bill gilbert at the start of the conversation whoops i recounted the conversation for rachel i then called information in the 818 area code but there was no listing for charles turntine i asked rachel if she had a connection in the bureau's los angeles field office who could get an address for turn time and maybe an unlisted number don't you have somebody in the lapd you can use at the moment i think i've used up all the favors owed me besides i'm an outsider you're not i don't know about that she pulled out her phone and went to work on it and i concentrated on the taillights of thomas's suv just 50 yards ahead of me on the 22 freeway i knew thomas had a choice up ahead he could turn north on the five and go through downtown l.a or he could keep going and take the 405 north both routes would lead him to the valley rachel got a call back in five minutes with the information she had asked for he lives on valerio street in canoga park do you know where that is i know where canoga park is valerio runs east west across the whole valley did you get a phone number she answered by punching in a number on her cell phone and then she held it to her ear and waited after 30 seconds she closed the phone there was no answer i got the tape we drove in silence as we thought about that thomas passed by the exit to the five north and proceeded on toward the 405. i knew he would turn north there and take the sepulveda pass into the valley canoga park was on the west side with the weather we were talking about at least an hour's drive if we were lucky don't lose him bosh rachel said quietly i knew what she meant she was telling me she had the vibe that she thought this was it that she believed ed thomas might be leading us to the poet i nodded because i had it too almost like a humming coming from the center of my chest i knew without really knowing that we were there don't worry i said i won't chapter 41 the rain was getting to rachel the relentlessness of it it never let up never paused it just came down and hit the windshield in a non-stop torrent that overpowered the wipers everything was a blur there were cars pulled off on the shoulders of the freeway lightning cracked the sky to the west somewhere out over the ocean they passed accident after accident and these just made rachel all the more nervous if they got into an accident and lost thomas they would carry an awful burden of responsibility for what happened to him she was afraid that if she looked away from the red glow of the taillights on thomas's car they would lose him in the sea of blurred red bosch seemed to know what she was thinking relax he said i'm not going to lose him and even if i do we know where he is going now no we don't we only know where turntine lives that doesn't mean his books are there six thousand books who keeps six thousand books in their house he probably has him in a warehouse somewhere rachel watched bosh adjust his grip on the steering wheel and add a few more miles to his speed drawing them closer to thomas didn't think about that did you no not really so don't lose him i told you i won't i know it just helps me to say it she gestured toward the windshield how often does it get like this almost never bar said they said on the news that it's a hundred year storm it's like something's wrong something's broken the canyons are probably washing out in malibu landslides in the palisades and the river's probably over its sides last year we had the fires this year maybe it's going to be rain one way or another it's always something it's like you always have to pass a test or something he turned on the radio to pick up a weather report but rachel immediately reached over and turned it off and pointed ahead through the windshield concentrate on this she ordered i don't care about the weather report right get closer i don't care if you're right behind him he won't be able to see you in this mess i get right behind him i might hit him then what do we say just don't lose him yeah i know they drove for the next half hour without a word the freeway rose and crossed over the mountains rachel saw a large stone structure on the top of the mountain it looked like some sort of postmodern castle in the gray and gloom and bosch told her it was the getty museum as they descended into the valley she saw the turn signal flare from the back of thomas's car bosch moved into the turning lane three cars back he's taking the 101 we're almost there you mean to canoga park that's right you'll take this out west and then go north again on surface streets end of disc nine disc 10 bosch grew quiet again as he concentrated on the driving and following in another 15 minutes the turn signal on the explorer flared again and thomas exited on desoto avenue and headed north bosch and walling trailed behind on the exit ramp but this time without the cover of other traffic on desoto thomas almost immediately pulled to the curb in a no parking area and bosch had to drive by him or the surveillance would have been obvious i think he's looking at a map or directions rachel said he had the light on and his head was down okay bosh pulled into a service station circled around the pumps and then drove back out to the street he paused before pulling out looking left down the street at thomas's explorer he waited and after a half minute thomas pulled his explorer back into traffic bosch waited for him to go by holding his cell phone up to his left ear to block any view of his face in case thomas was looking and could see in the rain he let another car go by and then pulled out he must be close rachel said yeah but thomas drove several more blocks before turning right bosh slowed before doing the same valerio rachel said seeing the street sign in the merc this is it when bosch made the turn she saw the brake lights on thomas's car he stopped in the middle of the road three blocks ahead he was at a dead end bosh quickly pulled to the curb behind a parked car the dome light's on rachel said i think he's looking at his map again the river boss said what i told you valerio cuts across the whole valley but so does the river so he's probably figuring out a way to get around it the river cuts off all these streets in here he probably has to get to valerio on the other side i don't see any river up there i see a fence and concrete it's not what you would consider a river in fact technically that isn't the river it's probably either the alisso or browns canyon wash it goes to the river they waited thomas didn't move the river used to flood in storms like this it would wipe out a third of the city so they tried to control it contain it somebody had the idea to capture it in stone put it in concrete so that's what they did and everybody's house and home was supposedly safe after that i guess that's called progress bosch nodded and then re-gripped his hands on the wheel he's moving thomas turned left and once his car was out of sight bosch pulled away from the curb and followed thomas drove north to saturday and then took a right he went over a bridge crossing the wash below as they followed rachel looked down and saw the torrent of water in the concrete channel wow i thought i lived in rapid city bosch didn't answer thomas turned south on mason and came back down to valerio but now he was on the other side of the concrete channel he turned right again on valerio that'll be another dead end bosh said he stayed on mason and drove on by valerio rachel looked through the rain and saw that thomas had pulled into a driveway in front of a large two-story home that was one of the five homes on the dead end street he pulled into a driveway she said he's there jesus it's the house one house the one from the photo in the trailer bakus was so sure of himself he left us a goddamn picture bosch pulled to the curb they were outside of the homes on valerio rachel turned and looked out all of the windows every home around them was dark there must be a power outage around here under your seat there's a flashlight taken rachel reached down and got it what about you i'll be all right let's go rachel started to open her door but then looked back at bosh she wanted to say something but hesitated what he asked be careful don't worry i will actually yes be careful but what i was going to say is that i have my second gun in my bag do you thanks rachel but this time i brought my own she nodded i should have figured that and what are your views on backup now call it in if you want but i'm not waiting i'm going down there the rain felt cold on my face and neck as i got out of the mercedes i pulled the collar on my jacket up and started heading back toward valerio rachel came over and walked next to me without saying a word when we got to the corner we used the wall surrounding the corner property as cover and looked down into the cul-de-sac in the dark house where ed thomas had parked his car there was no sign of thomas or anyone else every window at the front of the house was dark but even in the greyness i could tell that rachel was right it was the house from the photo backus had left for us i could hear the river but not see it it was hidden behind the homes but its furious power was almost palpable even from this distance in storms like this the whole city washed itself out over its smoothed concrete surfaces it snaked through the valley and around the mountains to downtown and from there west to the ocean it was a mere trickle most of the year a municipal joke even but a rain storm would awaken the snake and give it power it became the city's gutter millions and millions of gallons banging against its thick stone walls tons of water raging to get out moving with a terrible force and momentum i remembered a boy who was taken when i was a kid i didn't know him i knew of him four decades later i even remembered his name billy kinsey was playing on the river's shoulder he slipped in and in a moment he was gone they found his body hung up in a viaduct 12 miles away my mother had taught me early and often when it rains stay out of the narrows what rachel whispered i was thinking about the river trapped between those walls when i was a kid we called it the narrows when it rains like this the water moves fast it's deadly when it rains you stay away from the narrows but we're going to the house same thing rachel be careful stay out of the narrows she looked at me she seemed to understand what i meant okay bosh how about you take the front and i take the back fine be ready for anything you too the target house was three properties away we walked quickly along the wall surrounding the first property and then cut up the driveway at the next we skirted the fronts of two houses until we came to the home where thomas's car was parked rachel gave me a last nod and we separated them both of us pulling our weapons in unison rachel moved to the front while i started down the driveway toward the rear the gloom and the sound of the rain and the river channel gave me visual and sound cover the driveway was also lined with squat bougainvillea trees that had been let go for some time without training or trimming but the house behind the windows was dark someone could be behind any glass watching me and i wouldn't know it the rear yard was flooded in the middle of the big puddle stood the rusted twin a frames of a swing set with no swings left on it behind it was a six foot fence that separated the property from the river channel i could see the water was near the top of its concrete siding and was rushing by in a mad torrent it would flood by day's end further upstream where the channels were shallower it probably already had stemmed its sides i turned my attention back to the house there was a full porch off the rear there were no gutters on the roof here and the rain was coming off in sheets so heavy that it obscured everything within backus could have been sitting in a rocker on the porch and i wouldn't have seen him the line of bougainvilleas carried along the porch railing i ducked below the sight line and moved quickly to the steps i took the three steps up in one stride and was in out of the rain my eyes and ears took a moment to adjust and that was when i saw it there was a white rattan couch on the right side of the porch on it a blanket covered with the unmistakable shape of a human form sitting upright but slumped against the left arm dropping to a crouch i moved closer and reached for a corner of the blanket on the floor i slowly pulled it off the form it was an old man he looked like he had been dead at least a day the odor was just starting his eyes were open and bugged his skin was the color of white paint in a smoker's bedroom a snap cuff had been pulled tight too tight around his neck charles turlantine i presumed i also presumed he was the old man in the photo bacchus had taken he had been killed and then left there on the porch like a stack of old newspapers he'd had no business with the poet he'd just been a means to an end i raised my glock and went to the house's back door i wanted to get a warning to rachel but there was no way to do it without revealing my own position and possibly compromising hers i just had to keep moving going further into the darkness of this place until i came across her or bacchus the door was locked i decided i would go around catch up to rachel from the front but as i turned my eyes fell back on the body and i was struck with a possibility i moved to the couch and patted down the old man's pants and i was rewarded i heard the jingle of keys rachel was surrounded stacks and stacks of books lined every wall in the front hallway she stood there gun in one hand and flashlight in the other and looked into the living room to her right more books shelves lined every wall and every shelf was filled to capacity books stacked on the coffee table in the end tables and every horizontal surface somehow it made the place seem haunted it was not a place of life but a place of doom and gloom where bookworms ate through the words of all the authors she tried to keep moving without dwelling on her rising fears she wavered and thought about turning back to the door and leaving before she was discovered but then she heard the voices and knew she must press on where is charles i said sit down the words came to her from an unknown direction the pounding of the rain outside the rage of the nearby river and the books stacked everywhere combined to obliquely camouflage the origin of sounds she heard the voices but could not tell where they came from more sounds and voices came to her murmurs mostly and every few moments a recognizable word sculpted in anger or fear you thought she bent down and left the flashlight on the floor she hadn't used it yet and couldn't risk it now she moved into the deeper gloom of the hallway she had already checked the front rooms and knew the voices were coming from somewhere further into the house the hallway led to a fourier from which doors opened in three different directions as she got there she heard the voices of two men and thought for sure that they came from somewhere to the right write it i can't see then a popping sound a ripping sound curtains being pulled off a window there you see now write it or i'll end it right now all right all right exactly as i say once upon a midnight dreary she knew what it was she recognized the words of edgar allan poe and she knew it was bacchus though the voice was different he was using the poetry again recreating the crime taken from him so long ago bosh had been right she moved into the room to the right and found it empty a billiard table stood in the middle of the room every inch of its surface taken up by stacks of more books she understood what backus had done he had lured ed thomas here because the man who lived here charles turentine was the collector he knew thomas would come for this collection she started to turn in order to retreat to check the next room off the fourier but before she had moved more than a few inches she felt the cold muzzle of a gun pressed against her neck hello rachel robert back has said with his surgically changed voice what a surprise to see you here she froze and in that moment knew that he could not be played in any way that he knew all the plays and all the angles she knew she only had one chance that was bosh hello bob it's been a long time yes it has would you like to leave your weapon here and join me in the library rachel put her sig down on one of the stacks on the billiard table i sort of thought the whole place was a library bob bacchus didn't respond she felt him grab the back of her collar press his gun against her spine and then push her in the direction he wanted her to go they left the room and went into the next which was a small room with two high-backed wooden chairs arranged to face a large stone fireplace there was no fire and rachel could hear rain dripping down the chimney into the hearth she saw that it was creating a puddle there windows on either side of the fireplace had rain washing down them turning them translucent we happened to have just enough chairs bakas said have a seat won't you he roughly brought her around one of the chairs and pushed her down into it he made a quick check of her body for other weapons and then stepped back and dropped something onto her lap rachel looked into the other chair and saw ed thomas he was still alive his wrists were held to the arms of the chair by plastic snap cuffs two more cuffs had been joined and then used to hold him by his neck to the back of the chair he had been gagged with a cloth napkin and his face was overly red with exertion and lack of oxygen bob you can stop this rachel said you've made your point you don't put the cuff around your right wrist and lock it to the chair's arm bob please let do it she wrapped the plastic cuff around the arm of the chair and her wrist she then pulled the tab through the slide lock tight but not too tight i don't want to leave a mark when she was done he told her to put her free arm on the other arm of the chair he then moved in and grabbed the arm to keep it in place while he looped another snap cuff around it and locked it he stepped back to admire his work there bob we did a lot of good work together why are you doing this he looked down at her and smiled i don't know but let's talk about it later i have to finish with detective thomas it's been a long time coming for him and me and just think rachel you get to watch what a rare opportunity for you back has turned to thomas he stepped over and yanked the gag out of his mouth he then reached into his pocket and pulled out a folding knife he opened it and in one swift movement sliced through the cuff holding thomas's right arm to the chair now where were we detective thomas line three i believe more like the end of the line rachel recognized bosh's voice from behind her but when she turned to look for him the chair back was too high i held the gun steady trying to figure out the best way to handle him harry rachel called out calmly he's got a gun in his left and a knife in his right he's right-handed i studied my aim and told him to put the weapons down he complied without hesitation this gave me pause as if he was moving too quickly to plan b was there another weapon another killer in the house rachel ed you all right we're fine rachel said put him on the ground harry he's got snap cuffs in his pocket rachel where's your gun in the other room put him down on the ground harry i took a step further into the room but then pause to study bacchus he had changed again he no longer looked like the man who had called himself shandy no beard no hat over gray hair his face and head were shaved he looked completely different i took another step but stopped again i suddenly thought about terry mccaleb and his wife and his daughter and his stepson i thought about the shared mission and what had been lost how many bad men would roam the world free because terry was taken away a rage as strong as the river built inside me i didn't want to put backus on the ground cuff him and watch him driven away in a patrol car to a life behind bars of celebrity attention and fascination i wanted to take from him everything he had taken from my friend and all of the others you killed my friend i said for that you harry don't rachel said i'm sorry baca said but i've been kind of busy who might your friend be terry mccaleb he was your friend too and you actually i wanted to take care of terry yes he had the potential becoming a stone in my shoe but i shut up bob rachel yelled you couldn't carry terry's lunch harry this is too dangerous put him down do it now i broke off my rage and focused on the moment at hand terry mccaleb retreated in the gloom i stepped toward bacchus wondering what rachel was telling me put him down did she want me to shoot him i took two more steps get on the ground i ordered away from the weapons whatever you say he turned as if to move away from where he had dropped his weapons and to choose the spot to get down do you mind there's a puddle here leaky fireplace without waiting for an answer from me he took a step toward the window and i suddenly saw it i knew what he was going to do back a snow but my words did not stop him he planted his foot and dove head first into the window its framework softened by years of sunlight and rains like this days the window gave way as easily as a hollywood prop wood splintered and glass shattered as his body went through i quickly ran to the opening and saw the immediate muzzle flash from bacchus's second gun plan b two quick pops and i heard the bullet zing by and hit the ceiling above and behind me i ducked back behind the wall and fired off two quick returns without looking i then dropped to the floor crawled beneath the window and came up on the other side i looked out and backus was gone on the ground i saw a little two-shot derringer his second had been a little vest gun and he was now unarmed unless it was a plan c harry the knife rachel called from behind me cut me loose i grabbed the knife from the floor and quickly sliced through her bonds the plastic cut easily i then turned to thomas and put the knife in his right hand so he could free himself i'm sorry ed i said i could give him the rest of the apology later i turned back to rachel who was at the window looking through the gloom she had picked up backus gun see him i joined her there thirty yards to the left was the river wash just as i looked i saw the overflowing torrent carrying a whole oak tree on its surface then there was movement we saw baca's jump from the cover of a bougainvillea and start to scale the fence that kept people away from the river just as he was going over the top rachel raised a gun and fired two quick shots back has dropped down onto the gravel shoulder next to the channel but he then jumped up and started running rachel had missed he can't get across the river i said he's hemmed in he's heading up to the bridge at saturday if bacchus made it to the bridge we would lose him he would cross and disappear in the neighborhood on the west side of the channel or the business district near desoto i'll go from here rachel said you get the car and get there faster we'll trap him at the bridge got it i headed for the door getting ready to run through the rain i pulled my cell phone from my pocket and threw it to thomas as i went ed i called over my shoulder call the cops get us some backup chapter 42 rachel ejected the magazine from bacchus's gun and found it had been fully loaded until she took the two shots at him she slapped it back into place and went to the window you want me to go with you and thomas asked from behind she turned he had cut himself free he was standing holding the knife up and ready do what harry said get his back up she stepped into the sill and jumped out into the rain she quickly moved along the bougainvillea until she found an opening and pushed through to the river fence she put bacchus gun in her holster and climbed up and over snagging her jacket sleeve on the top and tearing it she dropped onto the gravel shoulder two feet from the edge she looked over the side and saw the water was only three feet from the overflow it was cascading against the concrete creating the roaring sound of death she looked away and then further down the track she saw backus running he was halfway to the bridge at satur coy rachel got up and started running she fired a shot into the air so he would think about what was coming behind him not what might be waiting for him at the bridge the mercedes skidded into the curb at the top of the bridge i jumped out not bothering to kill the engine and ran to the railing i saw rachel running toward me gun up on the shoulder of the canal but i didn't see backus i stepped back and looked in all directions but still didn't see him i thought that it would have been impossible for him to have reached the bridge ahead of me i ran down to the gate that sighted the bridge and offered entrance to the channel shoulder it was locked but i could see that the shoulder continued under the bridge it was the only alternative i knew backus had to be hiding under there quickly i climbed over the gate and dropped down to the gravel i came up gun pointed in both hands at the dark opening beneath the bridge i ducked and moved into the darkness the noise of the rushing water echoed loudly beneath the bridge the underside of the bridge was segmented by four large concrete supports backus could easily be hidden behind any one of them bacchus i called out you wanna live come out now nothing only the sound of the water then i heard the far-off sound of a voice and i turned back to see rachel she was still a hundred yards away she was yelling but her words were lost in the water noise back is huddled in the darkness he tried to stave off all the emotions and concentrate on the moment he had been here before cornered in the dark he had survived before and he would survive now what was important now was to concentrate on the moment draw his strength from the darkness he heard his pursuer call out to him he was close now he had the weapon but bacchus had the darkness darkness had always been on his side he pressed back against the concrete and willed himself to disappear in the shadows he would be patient and make his move when the time was right i turned away from the distant figure of rachel and focused back on clearing the bridge i moved forward staying as far back from the concrete shelters as i could without falling into the channel i cleared the first two and glanced back at rachel again she was 50 yards away now she started signaling with her left arm but i didn't understand the hooked movement she was repeating i suddenly realized my mistake i had left the keys in the car backers could come up on the other side of the bridge and get to the car i started to run hoping to get there in time to take a shot at the tires but i was wrong about the car as i passed the third concrete support backus suddenly leaped out at me hitting me solidly with his shoulder i went sprawling backward with him on top of me sliding on the gravel to the edge of the concrete channel he was going for my gun using both hands to tear it from my grip i knew in an instant that if he got the gun everything was over that he'd kill me and then rachel he couldn't get the gun he slammed his left elbow into my jaw and i felt my grip weaken i fired the gun twice hoping i might catch a finger or a palm he yelped in pain but then i felt the pressure even more as he redoubled his effort now fueled by pain and red anger his blood worked its way into my grip and helped loosen it i was going to lose the gun i could tell he had position on me and animal strength my grip was slipping i could try to hang on a few more seconds until rachel got there but by then she could also be running into a death trap instead i took the only alternative i had left i dug my heels into the gravel and flexed my whole body upward my shoulders slid over the concrete edge i replanted my heels and did it again this time it was enough baca seemed to suddenly realize his situation he let go of the gun and reached back to the edge but it was too late for him too together we went over the edge and into the black water rachel saw them fall from just a few yards away she yelled no as if that might stop them she got to the spot and looked down and saw nothing she then ran along the edge and out from beneath the bridge she saw nothing she looked down river for any sign of them in the cascading current then she saw bosh come up and whip his head around as if to check his position he was struggling with something under the water and then she realized it was his raincoat he was trying to take it off she scanned the river but didn't see the bald head of bacchus anywhere she looked back at bosh as he was carried away from her she saw him looking back at her he raised an arm out of the water and pointed she followed and saw the mercedes parked on the top of the bridge she saw its windshield wipers moving back and forth and she knew the keys were still there she started running the water was cold more so than i would have imagined and i was already weak from the struggle with bacchus i felt heavy in the water and found it difficult to keep my face up and clear the water seemed to be alive as if it was gripping me and pulling me down my gun was gone and there was no sign of bacchus i spread my arms and tried to maneuver my body so that i could simply ride the rapids until i had some strength back and could make a move or rachel got help i remembered the boy who had gone into the river so many years before firemen cops even passersby tried to save him hanging down hoses and ladders and ropes but they all missed and he went down eventually they all go down in the narrows i tried not to think about that i tried not to panic i turned my palms down and seemed to be able to keep my face up out of the water better it increased my speed in the current but it kept my head up out of the water it gave me confidence i started to think that i could make it for a while it all depended on when help got to me i looked up into the sky no helicopters no fire department no help yet just the gray void of emptiness up there and rain coming down the 9-1-1 operator told rachel to stay on the line but she couldn't drive fast and well and safely with the phone to her ear she dropped it on the passenger seat without disconnecting when she came to the next stop sign she stopped so short that the phone was hurled into the foot well and out of her reach she didn't care she was speeding down the street checking to her left at every intersection for the next bridge crossing the channel when she finally saw one she sped to it and stopped the mercedes right on top of it in a traffic lane she jumped out and went to the railing neither bosch nor bacchus was in sight she thought she might have gotten ahead of them she ran across the street drawing a horn blast from a motorist but not caring and went to the opposite rail she studied the rolling surface for a long moment and then saw bosh his head was above the surface and canted back his face to the sky she panicked was he still alive or was he drowned in his body just moving in the current then almost as quickly as the fear had grabbed her she saw movement as bosh whipped his head as swimmers often do to get hair and water out of their eyes he was alive and maybe a hundred yards from the bridge she could see him struggling to move his position in the stream she leaned forward and looked down she knew what he was doing he was going to try to catch one of the bridges support beams if he could grab it and hold on he could be extracted and saved right here rachel ran back to the car and threw open the rear hatch she looked in the back for anything that might help her bag was there and almost nothing else she yanked it out to the ground without caring and lifted the carpeted floor panel someone stuck behind the mercedes on the street started honking she didn't even turn to look i hit the middle pier of the bridge so hard that i lost all of my breath and thought i'd broken four or five ribs but i held on i knew this was my shot i held on with everything i had left the water had claws i could feel them as it rushed by me thousands of claws pulling at me grabbing me trying to take me back into the dark torrent the water backed up on me and rose into my face arms on either side of the pier i tried to shimmy up the slippery concrete but every time i gained a few inches the claws would grab me and pull me back down i quickly learned that the best i could do was hold on and wait as i hugged the concrete i thought of my daughter i thought of her urging me to hold on telling me i had to make it for her she told me no matter where i was or what i did she still needed me even in the moment i knew it was an illusion but i found comfort in it i found the strength to hold on there were tools and a spare tire in the compartment nothing that would work then beneath the tire through the design holes in the wheel she saw black and red cables jumper cables she put her fingers through the holes in the wheel and yanked it upward it was large heavy and awkward but she was not deterred she pulled the wheel up and out and just dropped it on the road she grabbed the cables and ran back across the road causing a car to slide sideways as its driver hit the brakes at the railing she looked into the river but didn't see bosh at first then she looked down and saw him clinging to the support beam the water backing up against him as it grabbed and pulled at him his hands and fingers were scratched and bloody he was looking up at her and had what she thought might have been a small smile on his face almost like he was telling her that he was going to be all right not sure how she was going to complete the rescue she dropped one end of the cables over the side they were far too short she knew she had to go over there was a utility pipe running along the side of the bridge she knew if she could get down to that she could lower the cables another five feet down it might be enough lady are you all right she turned there was a man standing there he was under an umbrella he had been crossing the bridge there's a man down there in the river call 911. do you have a cell call 911 the man began pulling a cell phone from his jacket pocket rachel turned back to the railing and started to climb up on it that was the easy part going over the railing and climbing down to the pipe was the risky maneuver she put the cables around her neck and slowly reached one foot down to the pipe then the other she slid down with one leg on either side of the pipe like she was riding a horse this time she knew the cable would reach bosch she started lowering it to him and he reached out for it but just as his hand grabbed it there was a blur of color in the water and bosh was struck by something and knocked loose from the support beam in that moment rachel realized it was bacchus either alive or dead that had knocked him loose she hadn't been ready when bosch was knocked loose he kept his grip on the cable line but his weight in bacchus's weight and the current were too much for rachel the other end of the cable was jerked up out of her grasp and it went down into the water and under the bridge they're coming they're coming she looked up at the man under the umbrella at the top of the railing it's too late she said he's gone i was weak but bacchus was weaker i could tell he didn't have the same strength he'd brought to the confrontation on the river's edge he had pulled me loose from the bridge because i hadn't seen him coming and he'd hit me with all his weight but now he was grabbing at me like a drowning man just trying to hold on we tumbled through the water drawing down to the bottom i tried to open my eyes but the water was too dark to see through i drove him down hard into the concrete floor then shifted behind him i wrapped the cable i still gripped around his neck i did it again and again until his hands let go of me and went to his own neck my lungs were burning i needed air i pushed off him to move toward the surface as we separated he made a last grab for my ankles but i was able to kick away and break his grasp in the last moments bacchus saw his father long dead and burned he appeared alive he had the stern set of eyes that back has always remembered he had one hand behind his back as if he was hiding something his other hand beckoned his son to come forward to come home back his smiled and then he laughed water rushed into his mouth and lungs he didn't panic he welcomed it he knew he would be reborn he would return he knew evil could never be vanquished it just moved from one place to another and waited i surfaced and gulped down air i spun in the water to look for backus but he was gone i was safe from him but not from the water i was exhausted my arms felt so heavy in the water that i could barely bring them to the surface i thought about the boy again about how scared he must have been all alone in the claws grabbing at him up ahead i could see where the wash emptied into the main river channel i was 50 yards away and i knew the river would be wider and shallower but more violent there but the concrete walls were sloped in the main channel and i knew i might have a shot at pulling myself out if i could somehow slow my speed and fine purchase i lowered my eyes and decided to move as close to the wall as i could without getting pushed hard into it then i saw a more immediate salvation the tree i had seen in the channel from the window of turantine's house was a hundred yards ahead of me in the river it must have gotten hung up at the bridge or in the shallows and i had caught up to it using my last reserve of strength i started swimming with the current picking up speed and heading to the tree i knew it would be my boat i would be able to ride it all the way to the pacific if i needed to rachel lost the river the streets took her further away from it and soon she had lost it she couldn't get back to it there was a gps screen in the car but she didn't know how to work it and doubted she'd ever be able to get a satellite fix in this weather anyway she pulled over and banged the wheel angrily with the heel of her palm she felt like she was deserting harry that it was going to be her fault if he drowned then she heard the helicopter it was low flying and moving fast she leaned forward to see through the windshield she didn't see anything she got out in the rain and turned circles on the street looking she could still hear it but she couldn't see it it had to be the rescue she thought in this weather who else would be flying she got a bead on the sound and jumped back into the mercedes she took the first right she came to and started heading to the sound she drove with the window down with the rain coming in but her not caring she listened to the sound of the helicopter in the distance soon she saw it it was circling ahead and to the right she kept going and when she came to recede a boulevard she turned right again and could see there were actually two helicopters one low and the other above it both were red with white lettering on the side not television or radio call letters the helicopters were marked lafd there was a bridge ahead and rachel could see cars stopped and people getting out in the rain to rush to the railing they were looking down into the river she pulled up stopped in the traffic lane and did the same she rushed to the railing in time to see the rescue bosch was in a yellow safety harness being lifted on a wire out of a fallen tree that was stalled in the shallows where the river widened to 50 yards across as he was raised to the helicopter bosch looked down into the raging current below him soon the tree broke free of its catch and tumbled over and over in the cascades it picked up speed and washed beneath the bridge its branches crashing into the support pylons and shearing off rachel watched the rescuers bring bosh into the helicopter not until he was inside and safe and the helicopter started to bank away did she look away and that was only when some of the others on the bridge had started to yell and point down into the river she looked down and saw what it was another man in the water but for this man there would be no rescue he floated face down his arms loose and his body limp red and black jumper cables were tangled around his body and neck his shave and skull looked like a child's lost ball bobbing in the current the second helicopter followed the body from above waiting for it to get hung up like the tree had before any extraction was risked there was no hurry this time as the current thickened to move between the pylons of the bridge the body's fluid travel was disturbed and it turned over in the water just before it went under the bridge rachel caught a glimpse of bacchus's face his eyes were open beneath the glaze of water but it seemed to her that he was looking right at her before he disappeared under the bridge many years ago when i served in the army in vietnam i was wounded in a tunnel i was extracted by my comrades and put on a helicopter back to base camp i remember that as the chopper rose and took me from harm's way i felt an elation that far obscured the pain of my wound and the exhaustion i had felt i felt the same way that day on the river deja vu all over again as they say i had made it i had survived i was out of harm's way i was smiling as a fireman and a safety helmet wrapped a blanket around me we're taking you to usc to get checked out he yelled over the roar of the rotor in the rain eta in ten minutes he gave me the okay sign and i gave it back to him noticing that my fingers were a bluish white and that i was shaking was something more than cold i'm sorry about your friend the fireman yelled i saw he was looking down through a glass panel on the lower part of the door he had just slid closed i leaned over and looked and i could see bacchus in the water below he was face up and moving languidly in the current i'm not sorry i said but not loud enough to be heard i leaned back on the jump seat they had put me on i closed my eyes and nodded to the conjured image of my silent partner terry mccaleb smiling and standing in the stern of his boat chapter 43 the skies cleared a couple of days later and the city started to dry out and dig out there had been landslides in malibu and to panga the coast highway was down to two lanes for the foreseeable future in the hollywood hills there had been flooding in the lower streets one house on fair home drive had broken free and was washed into the street leaving an aging movie star homeless two deaths were attributed to the storm a golfer who had inexplicably decided to get in a few holes between bands of the storm and was hit on a back swing by a bolt of lightning and robert backus the fugitive serial killer the poet was dead the headlines and news anchors said back as his body was fished out of the river at the sepulveda dam cause of death drowning the sea's calm too and i took a morning ferry out to catalina to see graciela mccaleb i rented a golf cart and drove up to the house where she answered the door and received me with her family i met raymond the adopted son and cielo the girl terry had told me about meeting her made me miss my own daughter and reminded me of the new vulnerability i would soon have in my life the house was filled with boxes and graciela explained that the storm had delayed their move back to the mainland in another day their belongings would be shuttled down to a barge and then taken across to the port where a moving truck would be waiting it was complicated and expensive but she had no regrets she wanted to leave the island and the memories it held we went out to the table on the porch so we could talk without the children hearing it was a nice spot with a view of all of avalon harbor it made it hard to believe she wanted to leave i could see the following sea down there and i noticed there was someone in the stern and that one of the deck hatches was open is that buddy down there yes he's getting ready to move the boat the fbi brought it back yesterday without calling ahead i would have told them to take it to cabrillo now buddy has to do it what's he gonna do with it he's going to continue the business he'll run the charters from over there and pay me rent on the boat i nodded it sounded like a decent plan selling the boat wouldn't bring that much in and i don't know terry works so hard on that boat it feels wrong to just sell it to a stranger i understand you know you could probably get a ride back with buddy instead of waiting for the ferry if you want if you're not sick of buddy no but he's fine i like buddy we sat in silence for a long moment i didn't feel i needed to explain anything about the case to her we had talked on the phone because i wanted to explain things before it hit the media and the story had been all over the papers and television she knew the details large and small there was little left to say but i thought i needed to visit with her in person one last time it all started with her i figured it should end with her as well thank you for what you did graciela said are you all right i'm fine just a few scratches and bruises from the river it was a wild ride i smiled the only visible injuries i had were scrapes on my hands and one above my left eyebrow but thank you for calling me i'm glad i got the chance that's why i came just to say thanks and say good luck with everything the sliding door opened and the little girl came out carrying a book mommy will you read this to me now i'm visiting with mr bosh right now in a little while okay no i want you to read it now the girl looked like it was a life-or-death request and her face nodded up ready for a cry it's okay i said mine's like that too you can read it it's her favorite book terry used to read it to her just about every night she pulled the girl up onto her lap and brought the book up to read i saw that it was the same book eleanor had just gotten for my daughter billy's big day with the monkey receiving the gold medal on the cover cielo's copy was worn around the edges from reading and re-reading the cover had been ripped in two places and then taped graciela opened it and started to read one bright summer day the circus animal olympics were held under the big top in ringlingville all the animals had the day off from all of the circuses and were allowed to compete in the many different events i noticed that graciela had changed her voice and was reading the story with an inflection of excitement and anticipation all the animals lined up with the bulletin board outside mr farnsworth's office the list of events was posted on the board there were races and relays and many other contests the big animals got closest to the board and were crowding it so the others couldn't see a little monkey squeezed between the legs of an elephant and then climbed the pachyderm's trunk so that he could see the list billy bing smiled when he finally saw it there was one race called the hundred yard dash and he knew he was very good at dashing i didn't hear the rest of the story after that i got up went to the railing and looked down into the harbor but i didn't see anything down there either my mind was too busy for the external world i was flooded with ideas and emotions i suddenly knew that the name william bing the name terry mccaleb had scrawled on the flap of his file belonged to a monkey and i suddenly knew that the story wasn't finished not by a long shot chapter 44 rachel came to see me at my house later that day i had just gotten in after filing my paperwork with kids rider at parker center and was listening to a phone message from ed thomas he was thanking me for saving his life when all along it was i who owed him an apology for not warning him in the first place i was feeling guilty about that and thinking about calling the bookstore when rachel knocked i invited her in and we went out to the back deck wow nice view yeah i like it i pointed down to the left where a small cut of the river was in the view behind the sound stages on the warner brothers lot there it is the mighty los angeles river she squinted and looked and then found it the narrows looks pretty weak right now it's resting next storm it'll be back how you feeling harry good better i've been sleeping a lot i'm surprised you're still in town well i took a few days i'm actually looking at apartments really i turned with my back to the railing so i could just look at her i'm pretty sure this whole thing will be my ticket out of south dakota i don't know what squad they'll put me on but i'm going to ask for la or i was until i saw what some of these apartments go for in rapid city i pay 550 a month for a really nice and secure place i could find you 550 here but you probably won't like the location you probably have to learn another language too no thanks i'm working on it so what have you been doing i just came back from parker center i put in my papers i'm going back on the job well then i guess this is it for us i heard the fbi and the lapd don't talk yeah there is a wall there but it's been known to come down from time to time i have some friends with the bureau believe it or not i believe it harry i noticed that she was back to calling me by my first name i wondered if that meant the relationship was over so i said when did you know about my caleb what do you mean no what i mean when did you know that bacchus didn't kill him that he killed himself she put both hands on the railing and looked down into the arroyo but she wasn't really looking at anything down there harry what are you talking about i found out who william bing is he's a monkey from the pages of his daughter's favorite book so what's that mean it means she checked himself into the hospital in vegas under a phony name he had something wrong with him rachel something inside i touched the center of my chest maybe he was chasing the case maybe not but he knew something was wrong and he went over there to that hospital to have it checked and to keep it quiet he didn't want his wife and his family to know and so they checked him out and gave him the bad news his second heart was going the way his first one went cardio myo whatever it's called bottom line was he was dying he needed another heart or he was going to die rachel shook her head like i was a fool i don't know how you think you know all of this but you can't pos look i know what i know and i know he already burned through his medical insurance and if he was going to get in line for another heart they would lose everything the house the boat everything everything for another heart i paused and then continued in a quiet and calm voice he didn't want that he also didn't want his family to see him waste away and die on the public dole and he didn't like the idea of another person dying so he could live he had already been through that too i stopped there to see if she would protest again and try to dissuade me she remained silent this time the only things he had left were his life insurance and his pension he wanted them to have that so he was the one who changed out his pills there's a receipt for a health food store under the seat of his car i called there this morning to see if they sell powdered shark cartilage they do he changed out his pills and just kept on taking them he figured as long as he made a show of taking them there'd be no autopsy and everything would work out fine but it didn't did it no but he had a backup plan for that too that's why he waited for the long charter he wanted to die out there on the boat he wanted it to be in waters that would come under federal jurisdiction his hope was that if anything came of it his friends in the bureau would take care of everything for him the only problem with his whole big plan was that he had no idea about the poet he had no idea his wife would come to me or that a few lines scribbled in a file would lead to all that happened i shook my head i should have seen it the med switch wasn't bacchus's style too complicated the complicated ones are usually inside jobs what about the threat to his family whether or not he knew it was bacchus he knew somebody had threatened his family he got those photographs somebody stalking his family you are saying he checked out and left his family at risk that's not the terry mccaleb i knew maybe he thought he was ending the risk the threat to his family was aimed at him if he was gone then so too was the threat rachel nodded but it wasn't in any sort of confirmation if nothing else your fact chain is interesting harry i'll give you that but what makes you think we know about this if nothing else your fact chain is interesting harry i'll give you that but what makes you think we know about this that i know about it oh you know the way you dismiss my questions about william bing for one thing but the other is what you did in that house the other day when i had the gun on back as he was about to say something about terry and you cut him off you jumped all over what he was about to say i think he was about to say he didn't kill terry oh yeah a killer denying one of his victims isn't that unusual her sarcasm sounded defensive to me this time it would have been he was no longer hiding he was out in the open and he would have taken credit if credit was due him you knew that and that's why you cut him off you knew he was going to deny it she came away from the railing and stood in front of me okay harry you think you've got it all figured out you found a sad little suicide hidden in all the murders what are you going to do with it you're going to go out there and announce it to the world the only thing that might do is take the money away from the family is that what you want maybe you can get a piece of it as the whistleblower reward now i turned away from her and leaned down on the railing no i don't want that i just don't like being lied to oh i get it this really isn't about terry it's about you and me isn't it i don't know what it's about rachel well when you do when you figure it all out let me know okay she suddenly came up next to me and kissed me hard on the cheek goodbye posh maybe i'll see you around once the transfer comes through i didn't turn around to watch her go i listened as her angry footsteps crossed the deck and then the maple floor inside i heard the front door slam with a finality that reverberated right through me it was that tumbling bullet again chapter 45 i stood on the porch elbows on the railing for a long time after rachel left my guess was that i would never see her again whether or not she took a transfer to los angeles i felt a loss i felt like something good had been taken from me before i really knew how good it could be i tried to put her out of my mind for a little while terry mccaleb too i looked out at the city and thought it was beautiful the rain had cleaned the sky out and i could see all the way to the san gabriels and the snow-covered peaks beyond the air seemed to be as clean and as pure as the air breathed by the gabriellinos and the padres so many years before i saw what they had seen in this place it was the kind of day you felt you could build a future on the narrows by michael connolly was read by john chancellor and is published by bbc audiobooks

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Keywords: The Narrows, Harry Bosch, Booktrack, Michael Connelly, Len Cariou, michael connelly audiobook full, michael connelly audiobook full harry bosch, harry bosch, michael connelly audiobook, audiobook, lincoln lawyer audiobook

Id: IUeSMefVdG0

Length: 695min 41sec (41741 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 02 2021