“We’re going to hit a bit of a snag in the sound room,” Pratt said. “The law still requires that each line be monitored by a single individual-no listening to two lines at once. But we need to monitor three lines with two cops because that’s all we got. So how do we do this and still stay within the law? We alternate. One line is Roland Mackey’s cell. We monitor that full-time. But the other two lines are secondary. That’s where we alternate. They come from the property where he lives and the place where he works. So what we do is we stay with the first line when he is home and then from four to midnight, when he is at work, we switch to the work line. No matter what lines we are actually listening to, we will still get twenty-four-hour pen registers on all three.”
“Can’t we get one more loaner from RHD to cover the third line?” Rider asked.
Pratt shook his head.
“Captain Norona gave us four bodies and that’s it,” Pratt said. “We won’t miss much. Like I said, we have the pen registers.”
Pen registers were part of the telephone monitoring process. While the investigators were allowed to listen in on phone calls on the monitored lines, the equipment also registered all incoming and outgoing calls on all the lines listed in the warrant, even if they were not being monitored. This would provide the investigators with a listing by time and length of call, as well as the numbers dialed on outgoing calls and the originating numbers for incoming calls.
“Any questions?” Pratt asked.
Bosch didn’t think there would be any questions. The plan was simple enough. But then an OU detective named Renner raised his hand and Pratt nodded at him.
“Is this thing OT authorized?”
“Yes, it is,” Pratt replied. “But as was said before, as of now we only have seventy-two hours on the warrant.”
“Well, let’s hope it goes the whole seventy-two,” Renner said. “I gotta pay for my kid’s summer camp in Malibu.”
The others laughed.
Tim Marcia and Rick Jackson volunteered to be the other street team working with Bosch and Rider. The other four got the sound-room detail, with Renner and Robleto taking the day shift and Robinson and Nord taking the same shift as Bosch and Rider. The ListenTech center was nice and comfortable, but some cops didn’t want to be cooped up no matter what the circumstances. Some would always choose the street and, like Marcia and Jackson, Bosch knew he was one of them.
Pratt ended the meeting by handing out copies of a piece of paper with everyone’s cell phone number on it as well as the radio channel they would use during the surveillance.
“For you teams in the field, I’ve got rovers on hold down in the equipment shed,” Pratt said. “Make sure you have the radio on. Harry, Kiz, did I miss anything?”
“I think you got it covered,” Rider said.
“Since our time is short on this one,” Bosch said, “Kiz and I are working something up to sort of push the action if we don’t see any signs by tomorrow night. We have the newspaper article and we have to make sure he sees it.”
“How’s he going to read it if he’s dyslexic?” Renner asked.
“He got a GED,” Bosch said. “He should be able to read it. We just have to make sure it somehow gets in front of him.”
Everybody nodded their agreement and then Pratt wrapped things up.
“Okay, gang, that’s it,” Pratt said. “I will be checking with everybody through the days and nights. Stay loose and be careful with these guys. We don’t want anything turning back on us. You people taking the first shift might want to head home now and get a good night. Just remember, the clock’s ticking on the warrant. We have till Friday night and then it’s pumpkins. So let’s get out there and get what’s to be got. We’re the closers. So let’s close this one out.”
Bosch and Rider stood and small-talked about the case with the others for a few minutes and then Bosch made his way back to their alcove. He pulled the copy of the probation file out of the stack of accumulated case files. He had not gotten a chance to read through it thoroughly and now was the time.
The file was an add-on file, meaning that as Mackey repeatedly was arrested and continued a lifelong trek through the criminal justice system the reports and court transcripts were merely added to the front of the file. Therefore the reports ran in reverse chronological order. Bosch was most interested in Mackey’s earlier years. He went to the back of the file with the idea of moving forward in time.
Mackey’s first arrest as an adult came only a month after he turned eighteen. In August 1987 he was picked up for car theft in what the follow-up reports classified as a joyriding incident. Mackey had been living at home at the time and stole a neighbor’s Corvette. He had jumped in the car and taken off after the neighbor had left it running in the driveway and gone back inside his house for a forgotten pair of sunglasses.
Mackey pleaded guilty and the presentencing report contained in the file cited his juvenile record but made no mention of the Chatsworth Eights. In September 1987 the young car thief was placed on one year probation by a superior court judge, who tried to talk Mackey out of a life of crime.
The transcript of the sentencing hearing was in the file. Bosch read the judge’s two-page lecture, in which he told Mackey he had seen young men like him a hundred times before. He told Mackey he was standing at the same precipice as the others. One simple crime could be a life lesson, or it could be the first step down a spiral. He urged Mackey not to go down the wrong path. He told him to think hard and make the right decision on which way to go.
The words of warning had obviously fallen on deaf ears. Six weeks later Mackey was arrested for burglarizing a neighborhood home while the husband and wife who lived there were at work. Mackey had cut an alarm, but the break in current had registered with the alarm company and a patrol car was dispatched. When Mackey came out the back door carrying a video camera and assorted other electronics and jewelry, two officers were waiting with guns drawn.
Because Mackey had been on probation for the car theft he was held in the county jail while awaiting disposition of the case. After thirty-six days in stir he stood before the same judge again and, according to the transcript, begged forgiveness and for one more chance. This time the presentencing report noted that drug testing indicated that Mackey was a marijuana user and that he had begun hanging around an unsavory group of young men from the Chatsworth area.
Bosch knew that these men were likely the Chatsworth Eights. It was early December and their plan of terror and symbolic homage to Adolf Hitler was just a few weeks away. But none of this was in the PSR. The report simply stated that Mackey was hanging with the wrong crowd. As he sentenced Mackey, the judge would not have known how wrong that crowd was.
Mackey was sentenced to three years of prison reduced to time served. He was also placed on two years probation. The judge, knowing that prison would be just a finishing school for a young criminal like Mackey, was giving him a break and attempting to break him at the same time. Mackey walked out of court free, but the judge had placed a series of heavy restrictions on his probation. They included weekly drug tests, maintaining gainful employment and a requirement that the high school dropout get his general education degree within nine months. The judge told Mackey that if he failed in any part of the probation order he would be sent to a state prison to complete his three-year sentence.
“You may consider this harsh, Mr. Mackey,” the judge said in the transcript. “But I consider it quite kind. I am giving you a last chance here. If you fail me on this, you will without a doubt be going to prison. Society will be through with trying to help you at that point. It will simply throw you away. Do you understand this?”