On the screen both José Esquivel and his son were behind the counter in the pharmacy section. They were setting up for the day, as the farmacia opened at ten o’clock each day except Sunday. José Sr. was at the counter, going through a plastic basket with several small white bags in it — packaged prescriptions waiting for pickup. José Jr. was standing at a computer at the end of the counter, apparently checking for new prescriptions sent by medical offices. There were no other employees in the store. It had been determined through interviews the day before that the father and son were the only full-time employees. There was a part-time employee who worked on the busiest days of the week or when one of the Esquivels was off, but she was not a pharmacist and she functioned primarily as a cashier.
At 10:14, according to the timer on the video, the front door of the pharmacy opened and two men entered, already with ski masks pulled down and holding their weapons with gloved hands at their sides. They didn’t run but walked quickly as they separated into two of the retail aisles and moved toward the counter at the rear of the store.
José Sr. looked up first and saw the man in an aisle leading directly toward his position. It could not be known from the camera angle if he realized there were two men. But he immediately moved to his right and pushed a forearm into his son’s side, shoving him away from the computer and alerting him to the approaching danger.
Though the video was silent, it was clear that José Sr. yelled something to his son. José Jr. then turned to his right toward the half door that led to the hallway and the rear exit. It appeared that he did not realize that this put him in the path of the man moving down the other aisle. José Jr. started to run into the hallway. The gunman emerged from the aisle and followed, both of them disappearing off camera into the rear of the pharmacy.
The other gunman continued without hesitation toward the counter and raised his weapon. José Sr. raised his hands palms out in surrender. The gunman extended the gun between Esquivel’s raised hands and shot him nearly point-blank in the chest, a through-and-through shot that tore into the cabinets behind him. José Sr. took a step back and bumped into the cabinets, then collapsed to the floor, his arms still extended up by his shoulders.
“Holy shit, that’s cold,” said Sisto, who had not seen the video previously.
No one responded. They watched in stunned silence.
Moments after Esquivel went down, the second gunman appeared in the doorway, coming from the rear hallway, presumably after shooting and killing José Jr. He moved to the counter and reached underneath to a white plastic trash can. He dumped its contents on the floor and then started moving among the drug cabinets, opening drawers and dumping the stores of pills and capsules into the trash can. The other gunman kept his eyes trained on the front door, two hands on his weapon and ready to use it. Bosch again realized how lucky it was that there had not been more victims — customers wandering into the store, not knowing the danger awaiting them. These killers were clearly not going to leave witnesses.
It could have been a massacre.
Ninety seconds after the gunmen had entered through the front door, they moved into the back hallway and disappeared for good, having gone out the rear exit.
“We think they must’ve had a car and driver in the alley,” Lourdes said. “Anybody want to see it again?”
“No, thanks,” Trevino said. “Any video from where the son got hit?”
“No, the rear hallway wasn’t covered by camera,” Lourdes said.
“What about the street?” Trevino pressed. “We have anything that shows those two bastards without masks on?”
“Nothing,” Luzon said. “There are cameras on both ends of the mall but they didn’t pick up shit.”
“We think they were dropped off in the alley and went in the back door of the Three Kings,” said Sisto, using the English name for the bar located two doors down from the pharmacy.
“They walked through the bar and out the front door,” Luzon said. “Then down to La Familia and pulled down their masks before going in.”
“They knew what they were doing,” Sisto added. “And where the cameras were.”
“We get descriptions out of the Kings?” Trevino asked.
“Not a very cooperative group in there, Captain,” Luzon said. “We got nothing other than the bartender saying he saw two guys walk through real quick. He said they were white and that’s about it.”
Trevino frowned. He knew full well that the Tres Reyes was the source of frequent patrol calls because of fighting, gambling, drunk and disorderly conduct, code violations, and other disruptive issues. The establishment was a sore spot on the mall, and the department had for years been under community pressure to do something about it. Chief Valdez routinely visited roll calls at the station and singled out the establishment for proactive enforcement, meaning he wanted patrol officers to walk through the bar several times a shift — a practice not welcomed by anyone on either side of the bar. Subsequently, the relations between the police and the bar’s management and clientele were not good. There would not be much help coming from the Tres Reyes on this case.
“Okay, what else?” Trevino asked. “This match up with any recent cases in the city?”
He meant Los Angeles. Most residents of San Fernando referred to it as the town and Los Angeles as the city.
“We have two similars,” Sisto said. “Both in the city. I’m getting details and video today. But the basics are the same — two white men in ski masks, driver waits outside. Only difference is, nobody got hurt in those. They were straight robberies — one in Encino and the other in West Hills.”
Bosch involuntarily shook his head and Trevino noticed.
“Not our suspects?” the captain asked.
“I don’t think so,” Bosch said. “I think our suspects wanted us to think that. But this was a hit.”
“Okay,” Trevino said. “Then where’s our focus?”
“On the son,” Lourdes said.
“How so?” the captain asked.
“Well, as far as we can tell, the kid was a straight shooter. He graduated last year from the pharmacy school at Cal State — Northridge. No arrest record, no known gang affiliation. ‘Most likely to succeed’ in his high school class. But Mrs. Esquivel said he was going through a rough patch relating to the family business and his living at home.”
“Do we know any more than that and how it might connect?”
“Not at the moment but we’re working on it. I need to take another run at Mrs. Esquivel. Last night was not the right time.”
“Then why do we think it’s about the kid?”
Bosch pointed to the screen where the image was frozen on a shot that showed José Sr. sprawled dead on the floor of his business.
“The video,” he said. “It looks like the father recognized what was about to happen and tried to get his son out of there. Then you have the overkill — the father shot once, the kid shot three times.”
“Plus nothing says it’s personal like a shot up the ass,” added Sisto.
Trevino computed all of this and nodded.
“Okay, what about next moves?” he asked.
The caseload was then chopped up, with Luzon assigned the autopsies and ballistics, with a rush order to find out what weapons were used in the killings and if they matched other cases in the databases containing ballistic profiles. Sisto got video duty, with instructions to go back through video from the farmacia to look for indications that the two gunmen had cased the place earlier in the month as well as to study the relationship between father and son. Sisto would also check in with the LAPD about the two similar pharmacy robberies and see if he could look at video from those crimes.