Bosch waited but Irving didn’t say anything.
“That’s right,” Bosch said. “I might have Roland Mackey’s blood on my hands but you’ve got Rebecca Verloren’s on yours. You want to go to the media and IAD with it? Fine, take your best shot and we’ll see how it all comes out.”
A pinched look formed in Irving ’s eyes. He took a step toward Bosch until their faces were only inches apart.
“You are wrong, Bosch. All of those kids back then, they were cleared of involvement in Verloren.”
“Yeah, how? Who cleared them? Green and Garcia sure didn’t. They were pushed away from them by you. Just like the girl’s father. You and one of your dogs scared him away from it, too.”
Bosch pointed a finger at his chest.
“You let murderers walk so you could keep your little deal intact.”
An urgency entered Irving ’s voice when he responded.
“You are completely wrong on this,” he said. “Do you really think that we would let murderers walk?”
Bosch shook his head, stepped back and almost laughed.
“As a matter of fact, I do.”
“Listen to me, Bosch. We checked alibis on every last one of those boys. They were all clean. For some of them, we were the alibi because we were still watching them. But we made sure every member of that group was clean on this, then we told Green and Garcia to back off. The father was told, too, but he wouldn’t stand down.”
“So you pushed him down, right, Chief? Pushed him into a hole.”
“Things had to be done. The city was very tense back then. We couldn’t have her father running around saying things that weren’t true.”
“Don’t give me that good-of-the-community bullshit, Chief. You had your deal, that’s all you cared about. You had Ross and IAD in your pocket and you wanted to keep it that way. Only you were dead wrong. The DNA proves it. Mackey was good for Verloren and your investigation was for shit.”
“No, wait just a minute. It only proves one thing. That he had the gun. I read the story you planted in the paper today, too. The DNA connects him to the gun, not to the murder.”
Bosch waved him off. He knew there was no sense going back and forth with Irving. His only hope was that his own threat to go to the media and IAD would neutralize Irving ’s threat. He believed they were at a stalemate.
“Who checked the alibis?” he asked calmly.
Irving didn’t answer.
“Let me guess. McClellan. He’s got his prints all over this.”
Again Irving didn’t answer. It was like he had drifted off into the memory of seventeen years before.
“Chief, I want you to call your dog. I know he still works for you. Tell him I want to know about the alibis. I want details. I want reports. I want everything he’s got by seven a.m. today or that’s it. We do what we have to do and we see where the chips fall.”
Bosch was about to turn away when Irving finally spoke.
“There are no alibi reports,” he said. “There never would have been any.”
Bosch heard the elevator open and Rider soon rounded the corner, carrying a file. She stopped dead when she saw the confrontation. She said nothing.
“No reports?” Bosch said to Irving. “Then you better hope he’s got a good memory. Good night, Chief.”
Bosch turned and started down the hall. Rider hurried to catch up to him. She looked back over her shoulder to make sure Irving was not following. After they turned in through the double doors to RHD, she spoke.
“Are we in trouble, Harry? Is he going to turn this against the man up on six?”
Bosch looked at her. The mix of dread and fear on her face told him how important his answer was going to be.
“Not if I can help it,” he told her.
34
WILLIAM BURKHART and Belinda Messier were being held in separate interview rooms. Bosch and Rider decided to take Messier first so that Burkhart would have to sit and wait and wonder. It would also give them time to let Marcia and Jackson get the warrant and get into the house on Mariano. What they found might be helpful during the interview with Burkhart.
Belinda Messier had come up in the investigation before. The number on the cell phone Mackey carried around was registered to her. In the briefing Kehoe and Bradshaw had given Bosch and Rider upon their arrival she was described as Burkhart’s girlfriend. She had volunteered as much when the RHD detectives had taken both of them into custody. She told them little else after that.
Belinda Messier was a petite woman with mousy blonde hair that framed her face. Her look belied the hard case she turned out to be. She asked to see an attorney the moment Rider and Bosch entered the room.
“Why do you want to see an attorney?” Bosch asked. “Do you think you are under arrest?”
“Are you telling me I can leave?”
She stood up.
“Sit down,” Bosch said. “Roland Mackey was killed tonight and you could be in danger, too. You’re in protective custody. That means you’re not getting out of here until we get some things straight.”
“I don’t know anything about it. I was with Billy all night until you people showed up.”
Over the next forty-five minutes Messier gave up information only grudgingly. She explained that she knew Mackey through Burkhart and that she agreed to apply for cell phone service and turn the phone over to Mackey because he didn’t have a viable credit report. She told the detectives that Burkhart did not work and lived off a damages award he had received after a car accident two years before. He bought the house on Mariano Street with the payout and charged Mackey rent. Messier said she didn’t live in the house but spent many nights there visiting Burkhart. When asked about Burkhart and Mackey’s past ties to white power groups, she feigned surprise. When asked about the tiny swastika tattooed on the webbing between her right thumb and forefinger, she said she thought it was a Navajo good luck symbol.
“Do you know who killed Roland Mackey?” Bosch asked after the long preamble of questions.
“No,” she said. “He was a real nice guy. That’s all I know.”
“What did your boyfriend say after Mackey called him?”
“Nothin’. He just told me he was going to stay up and talk to Ro about something when he came home. He said they might go out for some privacy.”
“That’s all?”
“Yeah, that’s what he said.”
They went at her several times and from several different angles, with Bosch and Rider trading the lead back and forth, but the interview produced nothing of real value to the investigation.
Burkhart was next, but before going into the interview Bosch called Marcia and Jackson for an update.
“You guys in the house yet?” Bosch asked Marcia.
“Yeah, we’re in. We haven’t found anything yet.”
“What about a cell phone?”
“No cell phone so far. Do you think Burkhart could have slipped out on Kehoe and Bradshaw?”
“Anything’s possible but I doubt it. They weren’t sleeping.”
They were silent a moment as they thought about things and then Marcia spoke.
“How long was it between the time Mackey got it and you called Kehoe and Bradshaw and told them to take Burkhart in?”
Bosch reviewed his actions on the freeway before answering.
“It was pretty quick,” he finally said. “Ten minutes max.”
“Then there you go,” Marcia said. “Getting from the one eighteen in Porter Ranch all the way to Mariano Street in Woodland Hills in ten minutes max? And without being seen by our guys? No way. It wasn’t him. Kehoe and Bradshaw are his alibi.”
“And no cell phone in the house…”
They all already knew that the landline in the house was not used to make a call because it would have registered on the monitoring equipment at ListenTech.