Bosch remembered that there were more than fifty deaths during the three days of riots in 1992 and very few were ever solved or explained. It had been a free-for-all, a lawless time in the city. He remembered walking down the middle of Hollywood Boulevard and seeing flaming buildings on both sides of the street. One of those buildings probably contained Fitzpatrick’s pawnshop.
“It was an impossible task,” he said.
“I know,” Rider said. “Putting together cases out of that chaos. I can tell from the file on Fitzpatrick that they didn’t spend a lot of time with it. They worked the crime scene with a SWAT line guarding the place. The whole thing was pretty quickly written off as random violence, even when there was some stuff they should have routinely looked at.”
“Like what?”
“Well, for starters, Fitzpatrick looks like he was a straight arrow. He took thumbprints off of everybody who brought in stuff to pawn.”
“His edge against taking in stolen property.”
“Exactly. And what pawnbroker do you know of back then who voluntarily did that? He also kept an eighty-six list-customers who were persona non grata for various reasons and customers who complained or threatened him. Apparently it isn’t uncommon for people to come back in to buy back the property they’ve pawned, only to find they are past the holding period and it’s been sold. They get mad, sometimes they threaten the pawnbroker, and so on. Most of this came from a guy who worked for him in the store. He wasn’t there the night of the fire.”
“So, was the eighty-six list checked out?”
“It looks like they were going down the list when something happened. They stopped and wrote the case off as random violence associated with the riot. Fitzpatrick was set on fire with lighter fluid. Half the stores on the Boulevard that were burned down were started the same way. So they stopped spinning their wheels on it and went on to the next one. There were two guys on it. One’s retired and the other works Pacific. He’s a patrol sergeant now, p.m. watch. I left a message.”
Bosch knew he didn’t have to ask if Raynard Waits was a name on the 86 list. That would have been the first thing Rider said.
“You might have an easier time getting to the retired guy,” Bosch suggested. “Retired guys always want to talk.”
Rider nodded.
“That’s an idea,” she said.
“The other thing is Waits used an alias when he got popped in ’ninety-three on a prowling charge. Robert Saxon. I know you checked for Waits on the eighty-six list. You might want to check Saxon as well.”
“Got it.”
“Look, I know you have all of that going, but do you have time to do an AutoTrack run on Waits today?”
The division of labor in their partnership had her doing most of the computer work. AutoTrack was a computer database that could provide an individual’s address history through utility and cable hookups, DMV records and other sources. It was tremendously useful in tracing people back through time.
“I think I can swing it.”
“I just want to see where he’s lived. I can’t figure out why he was in Echo Park and it looks like nobody else has given it much thought.”
“To dump the bags, I thought.”
“Right, yeah, we know that. But why Echo Park? He lived closer to Griffith Park and that would’ve probably been a better place for burying or dumping bodies. I don’t know, something is missing or doesn’t fit right. I think he was going somewhere he knew.”
“He could have wanted the distance. You know, he thought the farther away from him the better.”
Bosch nodded but he wasn’t convinced.
“I think I’m going to ride over there.”
“And what? You think you’ll find where he was going to bury those bags? You turning psychic on me now, Harry?”
“Not yet. I just want to see if I can get a feel for Waits before we actually talk to the guy.”
Saying the name made Bosch grimace and shake his head.
“What?” Rider asked.
“You know what we’re doing here? We’re helping to keep this guy alive. A guy who cuts women up and keeps them in the freezer until he runs out of room and has to take them out like trash. That’s our job, find the way to let him live.”
Rider frowned.
“I know how you feel, Harry, but I have to tell you, I kind of come down on O’Shea’s side on this. I think it’s better that all the families know and we clear all the cases. It’s like with my sister. We wanted to know.”
When Rider was a teenager her older sister was murdered in a drive-by shooting. The case was cleared and three bangers went away for it. It was the main reason she became a cop.
“It’s probably like you with your mother, too,” she added.
Bosch looked up at her. His mother had been murdered when he was a boy. More than three decades later he solved the crime himself because he wanted to know.
“You’re right,” he said. “But it just doesn’t sit right with me at the moment, that’s all.”
“Why don’t you take that ride and clear your head a little bit. I’ll call you if anything comes up on the AutoTrack.”
“I guess I will.”
He started closing the files and putting them away.
4
IN THE SHADOWS OF downtown’s spires and under the glow of lights from Dodger Stadium, Echo Park was one of L.A.’s oldest and ever-changing neighborhoods. Over the decades it had been the destination of the city’s immigrant underclass-the Italians coming first and then the Mexicans, the Chinese, the Cubans, Ukrainians and all of the others. By day a walk down the main drag of Sunset Boulevard might require skills in five or more languages to read all of the storefronts. By night it was the only place in the city where the air could be split by the sound of gang gunfire, the cheers for a home-run ball, and the baying of the hillside coyotes-all in the same hour.
These days Echo Park was also a favored destination of another class of newcomer-the young and hip. The cool. Artists, musicians and writers were moving in. Cafés and vintage clothing shops were squeezing in next to the bodegas and mariscos stands. A wave of gentrification was washing across the flats and up the hillsides below the baseball stadium. It meant the character of the place was changing. It meant real-estate prices were going up, pushing out the working class and the gangs.
Bosch had lived for a short time in Echo Park when he was a boy. And many years back, there had been a police bar on Sunset called the Short Stop. But cops were no longer welcome there. The place offered valet parking and catered to the Hollywood crowd-two things sure to keep the off-duty officer away. For Bosch the neighborhood of Echo Park had dropped off the radar. To him it wasn’t a destination. It was a drive-through neighborhood, a shortcut on his way to the Medical Examiner’s Office for work or to a Dodgers game for fun.
From downtown he took a quick jog on the 101 Freeway north to Echo Park Road and then took that north again toward the hillside neighborhood where Raynard Waits had been arrested. As he passed Echo Lake he saw the statue known as the Lady of the Lake watching over the water lilies, her hands palms up like the victim of a holdup. As a boy he had lived for almost a year with his mother in the Sir Palmer Apartments across from the lake, but it had been a bad time for her and him and the memory was all but erased. He vaguely remembered that statue but almost nothing else.
At Sunset he turned right and took it down to Beaudry. From there he drove up the hillside to Figueroa Terrace. He pulled to the curb near the intersection where Waits had been pulled over. A few old bungalow homes built in the thirties and forties were still there, but for the most part the houses were postwar concrete-block construction. They were modest with gated yards and barred windows. The cars in the driveways were not new or flashy. It was a working-class neighborhood that Bosch knew would be largely Latino and Asian now. From the back of the homes on the west side there would be nice views of the downtown towers with the DWP Building front and center. The homes on the east side would have backyards that stretched up into the rugged terrain of the hills. And at the top of those hills would be the far parking lots of the baseball stadium complex.
He thought about Waits’s window-washing van and wondered again why he had been on this street in this neighborhood. It wasn’t the kind of neighborhood where he would have customers. It wasn’t the kind of street where a commercial van would be expected at two in the morning, anyway. The two CRT officers had been correct in taking notice.
Bosch pulled over and put the car in park. He stepped out and looked around and then leaned against the car as he contemplated the questions. He still didn’t get it. Why had Waits chosen this place? After a few moments he opened his cell phone and called his partner.
“You run that AutoTrack yet?” he asked.
“Just did. Where are you?”
“Echo Park. Anything come up near here?”
“Uh-uh, I was just looking. The farthest east it puts him is the Montecito Apartments on Franklin.”
Bosch knew that the Montecito wasn’t near Echo Park but it was not far from the High Tower Apartments, where Marie Gesto’s car had been found.
“When was he at the Montecito?” he asked.
“After Gesto. He moved in, let’s see, in ’ninety-nine, and out the next year. A one-year stay.”
“Anything else worth mentioning?”
“No, Harry. Just the usual. The guy moved house every one or two years. Didn’t like staying put, I guess.”