“Okay, so how did Vincent pay himself too quickly?”
“Well, I am not exactly saying he did. It’s a matter of custom and practice. But it looks from the books that he liked to keep a low balance in operating. He happened to have had a franchise client who paid a large advance up front and that money went through the trust and operating accounts pretty quickly. After costs, the rest went to Jerry Vincent in salary.”
Bosch’s body language indicated I was hitting on something that jibed with something else and was important to him. He had leaned slightly toward me and seemed to have tightened his shoulders and neck.
“Walter Elliot,” he said. “Was he the franchise?”
“I can’t give out that information but I think it’s an easy guess to make.”
Bosch nodded and I could see that he was working on something inside. I waited and he said nothing.
“How does this help you, Detective?” I finally asked.
“I can’t give out that information but I think it’s an easy guess to make.”
I nodded. He’d nailed me back.
“Look, we both have rules we have to follow,” I said. “We’re flip sides of the same coin. I’m just doing my job. And if there is nothing else I can help you with, I’ll get back to it.”
Bosch stared at me and seemed to be deciding something.
“Who did Jerry Vincent bribe on the Elliot case?” he finally asked.
The question came out of left field. I wasn’t expecting it but in the moments after he asked it, I realized that it was the question he had come to ask. Everything else up until this point had been window dressing.
“What, is that from the FBI?”
“I haven’t talked to the FBI.”
“Then, what are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about a payoff.”
“To who?”
“That’s what I’m asking you.”
I shook my head and smiled.
“Look, I told you. The books are clean. There’s-”
“If you were going to bribe someone with a hundred thousand dollars, would you put it in your books?”
I thought about Jerry Vincent and the time I turned down the subtle quid pro quo on the Barnett Woodson case. I turned him down and ended up hanging a not-guilty verdict on him. It changed Vincent’s life and he was still thanking me for it from the grave. But maybe it didn’t change his ways in the years that followed.
“I guess you’re right,” I said to Bosch. “I wouldn’t do it that way. So what aren’t you telling me?”
“This is in confidence, Counselor. But I need your help and I think you need to know this in order to help me.”
“Okay.”
“Then, say it.”
“Say what?”
“That you will treat this information in confidence.”
“I thought I did. I will. I’ll keep it confidential.”
“Not even your staff. Just you.”
“Fine. Just me. Tell me.”
“You have Vincent’s work accounts. I have his private accounts. You said he paid himself the money from Elliot quickly. He-”
“I didn’t say it was Elliot. You did.”
“Whatever. The point is, that five months ago he accumulated a hundred grand in a personal investment account and a week later called his broker and told him he was cashing out.”
“You mean he took a hundred thousand out in cash?”
“That’s what I just said.”
“What happened to it?”
“I don’t know. But you can’t just go into a broker’s and pick up a hundred grand in cash. You have to order that kind of money. It took a couple days to put it together and then he went in to pick it up. His broker asked a lot of questions to make sure there wasn’t a security issue. You know, like somebody being held hostage while he went and got the money. A ransom or something like that. Vincent said everything was fine, that he needed the money to buy a boat and that if he made the deal in cash, he would get the best deal and save a lot of money.”
“So where’s the boat?”
“There is no boat. The story was a lie.”
“Are you sure?”
“We’ve checked all state transactions and asked questions all over Marina del Rey and San Pedro. We can’t find any boat. We’ve searched his home twice and reviewed his credit-card purchases. No receipts or records of boat-related expenses. No photos, no keys, no fishing poles. No coast guard registration – required on a transaction that large. He didn’t buy a boat.”
“What about Mexico?”
Bosch shook his head.
“This guy hadn’t left L.A. in nine months. He didn’t go down to Mexico and he didn’t go anywhere else. I’m telling you, he didn’t buy a boat. We would’ve found it. He bought something else and your client Walter Elliot probably knows what it was.”
I tracked his logic and could see it coming to the doorway of Walter Elliot. But I wasn’t going to open it with Bosch looking over my shoulder.
“I think you’ve got it wrong, Detective.”
“I don’t think so, Counselor.”
“Well, I can’t help you. I have no idea about this and have seen no indication of it in any of the books or records I’ve got. If you can connect this alleged bribe to my client, then arrest him and charge him. Otherwise, I’ll tell you right now he’s off limits. He’s not talking to you about this or anything else.”
Bosch shook his head.
“I wouldn’t waste my time trying to talk to him. He used his lawyer as cover on this and I’ll never be able to get past the attorney-client protection. But you should take it as a warning, Counselor.”
“Yeah, how’s that?”
“Simple. His lawyer got killed, not him. Think about it. And remember, that little trickle on the back of your neck and running down your spine? That’s the feeling you get when you know you have to look over your shoulder. When you know you’re in danger.”
I smiled back at him.
“Oh, is that what that is? I thought it was the feeling I get when I know I’m being bullshitted.”
“I’m only telling you the truth.”
“You’ve been running a game on me for two days. Spinning bullshit about bribes and the FBI. You’ve been trying to manipulate me and it’s been a waste of my time. You have to go now, Detective, because I have real work to do.”
I stood up and extended a hand toward the door. Bosch stood up but didn’t turn to go.
“Don’t kid yourself, Haller. Don’t make a mistake.”
“Thanks for the advice.”
Bosch finally turned and started to leave. But then he stopped and came back to the desk, pulling something from the inside pocket of his jacket as he approached.
It was a photograph. He put it down on the desk.
“You recognize that man?” Bosch asked.
I studied the photo. It was a grainy still taken off a video. It showed a man pushing out through the front door of an office building.
“This is the front entrance of the Legal Center, isn’t it?”
“Do you recognize him?”
The shot was taken at a distance and blown up, spreading the pixels of the image and making it unclear. The man in the photograph looked to me to be of Latin origin. He had dark skin and hair and had a Poncho Villa mustache, like Cisco used to wear. He wore a panama hat and an open-collared shirt beneath what appeared to be a leather sport coat. As I looked more closely at the photograph, I realized why it was the frame they had chosen to take from the surveillance video. The man’s jacket had pulled open as he’d pushed through the glass door. I could see what looked like the top of a pistol tucked into the belt line of his pants.
“Is that a gun? Is this the killer?”
“Look, can you answer one goddamn question without another question? Do you recognize this man? That’s all I want to know.”
“No, I don’t, Detective. Happy?”
“That’s another question.”
“Sorry.”
“You sure you haven’t seen him before?”
“Not a hundred percent. But that’s not a great photo you’ve got there. Where is it from?”