The Burning Room

18



They had driven separately to LAX the day before because they didn’t know the circumstances of their return and Soto lived south of the airport in Redondo Beach, while Bosch lived in the opposite direction, in the hills above the Cahuenga Pass.

They landed at 9:30, and as they walked toward the exit doors of Terminal 4, they discussed their schedule and agreed that they would meet at the office the next morning at eight and work half a day. This was perfect for Bosch because Sunday was his daughter’s sacred day for catching up on sleep. If undisturbed, she would sleep till noon and then want breakfast. He would be able to get a solid four hours of work in on their cases before meeting up with Maddie.

They crossed the airport pickup lanes and entered the parking structure and then went their separate ways. Bosch felt excited. The short trip had been extremely profitable in terms of information gathered and case momentum. Even the plane ride home counted. Soto had identified their next investigative target, Charles Broussard.

As Bosch was driving down Century Boulevard after exiting the airport, he thought of something that he decided shouldn’t wait—even until the next morning. He pulled his phone and called his daughter’s line. She answered right away.

“What are you up to?” he asked.

“Just got up,” she said.

“Have a plan for the day?”

“Homework.”

“It’s a beautiful day. You should be out having fun.”

“You mean you’re back already?”

“Just landed. But I might have to go in for a little bit. I’ll be home before dinner.”

“Dad, you said you’d be back on Sunday.”

“I said I thought I would. What’s wrong with getting home a day early?”

“I have a date tonight because I thought you wouldn’t be here.”

“You mean a date at the house?”

He failed to keep the concern out of his voice.

“No,” she said quickly. “I meant, I said yes to this guy because I didn’t think you’d be home. I’ll call him up and say I changed my mind.”

“No, look, don’t do that. Go out. Have fun. Who is the guy? What’s his name?”

“You don’t know him. His name is Jonathan Pace and I know him from Explorers.”

“He’s not the sergeant in charge, is he?”

There had been a scandal once and he had warned her.

“No, Dad, gross! He’s seventeen, just like me.”

“But he knows your dad’s a cop?”

It wasn’t her first date but she had not had many. Bosch required her to inform all suitors that her father was a police detective who always carried a gun. It sent the proper message every time.

“Yes, he knows exactly who you are and what you do. He wants to be a detective, too.”

“Really? Sounds like a keeper. When do you leave?”

“We’re meeting at the Grove at seven to see a movie.”

“By yourselves?”

“No, we’re meeting other Explorers.”

“Boys and girls?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, I’ll be home before you leave. And you know what?”

“What?”

“There’s a bookstore in that place right next to the movie theaters. Why don’t you kids check that out, too?”

“Dad.”

They had reached a level where she could simply say Dad and Bosch would read it as synonymous with Stop. This was one of those times.

“Sorry, I thought books were fun.”

“It’s Saturday night. We’re not going to sit in a bookstore, reading. We want to have some fun. We read books all week at school. I have to read for homework right now.”

“Okay, got it. Is Jonathan Pace involved in the alcohol sting on Tuesday?”

“Yes, we all are.”

“Okay. Maybe I’ll meet him then.”

“Dad, you already said you’re not going to come! That would be so embarrassing that my father had to check on us like we’re children.”

“Okay, okay, message received. I won’t be there if you don’t want me there. Just be safe then and be safe tonight. I’ll see you in a little while.”

After hanging up, Bosch called directory assistance to get the number to the newsroom at the Times. The operator made the connection, and while he waited for the call to go through, he turned onto the circular entrance ramp to the 405 north. Depending on how this call went, he would either take the freeway up the Sepulveda Pass to Mulholland or jog east on the 10 toward downtown and the PAB.

The call was answered by someone who did not give a name but simply said, “Newsroom.”

“Yes,” Bosch said. “I’m looking for Virginia Skinner.”

“She’s off today. Can I take a message?”

“Can you get her a message? I don’t have her number with me. I need to talk to her today and she’ll want to talk to me.”

There was a short pause and then an answer.

“I can try but I can’t promise anything. What’s the message?”

Bosch gave his first name only and his number, and the message was that Skinner needed to call him today or she would miss the story.

“That all?”

“That’s it.”

Bosch disconnected. Virginia Skinner was one of the few veteran reporters the Times had left in its downtown newsroom. Bosch knew her because twenty years earlier, when she had gotten the Times job after spending most of her twenties in journalism’s minor leagues, she was placed on the police beat. She wanted nothing to do with covering cops and crime but it was the starter position and she was smart enough to know that the better she was at it, the faster she’d get promoted to the next slot.

She was right and she was good, and in two years she was on to the next beat, which was city hall. Covering local and state politics and government was what she wanted all along and where she had stayed to this day. And her name was perfect for the job, too. She specialized in political profiles that usually stripped candidates down to the bone and in many cases eviscerated their election chances.

But during those first two years, Bosch took a liking to her because of her accuracy and fairness. She had crossed his path on several stories and he spoke to her on and off the record, and never once did she burn him. In the following years, they had minimal contact, but there were always stories here and there where police and politics crossed. She would check in and he would give her what he knew and what he could say. Bosch certainly didn’t like the idea of being any reporter’s source, but at least he had never had cause to mistrust Virginia Skinner. He did have her phone number but it was hidden in his desk. He was not foolish enough to carry it in the contacts list on his phone. If his phone ever fell into the wrong hands and it was revealed that he had a direct connection to her, the ramifications in the Department could be career threatening. Command staff frowned upon media sympathizers—especially if the media was the L.A. Times.

As he drove, Bosch tried to recall the last time he had spoken to Skinner and what the story was. He couldn’t remember. It had probably been two or three years before.

There was no callback by the time he got to the decision-making point on the freeway. He knew that because his daughter would be out during the evening, he could flip things around and go home now to spend some time with her, then go back down to the PAB to work at night. He struggled with this choice as he looked at the approaching eastbound lanes and then was saved by the phone. A call marked “private number” was coming in. He answered, putting the phone on speaker.

“Harry, it’s Ginny Skinner. What’s so important on a Saturday?”

“Thanks for calling. Let’s start by saying all of this is off the record. You can’t write anything about it.”

“I don’t know what it is, so it’s hard for me to agree to that.”

It was the typical catch-22 with all reporters. They wouldn’t agree to hold something back until they knew what it was. But what if, upon knowing what the story was, they said they couldn’t hold it back? Now Bosch had to carefully choose his words.

“Well, you know I work cold case homicides, right?”

“Right, and I also read my own newspaper. I know you are on the mariachi case.”

Bosch frowned. He was hoping she would not know what case he was on.

“I have many cases working at once, Ginny. You know that.”

“Well, cut to the chase, then, Harry. It’s Saturday and a beautiful day outside. I’m turning fifty tomorrow and I want a last margarita before that happens. What do you want?”

“Really? You? Fifty?”

“Yes, really, and that’s all I want to say about it. I shouldn’t have even brought it up. What do you need?”

“Well, you guys write about campaign finance and all of that, right? Do you keep all of those records from elections past?”

“Depends on how far back you want to go and which race. What are we talking about here?”

“I’d like to see donation lists for the mayoral elections going three back.”

He thought that by spreading wide the net he was casting, it would be harder for her to figure out what his true target was.

“Ooh,” she said. “That’s a lot. We have all of this stuff computerized, but you’re not asking to search for a needle in a haystack, you’re asking for the whole haystack. You’ve got to tell me what you really want, Harry. Be specific.”

Bosch considered ending the call and waiting until Monday to get the information he needed through proper channels. But his urgency to keep the case moving won out and he tried one more time to strike a deal.

“I can’t be more specific without you agreeing it’s off the record. For now. You’d obviously be first in if it comes to anything.”

“And it is political? I cover politics, not crime.”

Bosch ran into a slowdown across all eight lanes of the freeway as the traffic came to the 110 split. He thought maybe there was an event at the convention center. It was too early for a game or concert at Staples.

“It’s both,” he said.

“Politics and murder—that’s always a good story,” she said. “Okay, I give. We are off the record, on deep background. I do nothing with anything you give me until I get the high sign.”

Deep background meant there would be no story until Bosch gave the okay. He was almost satisfied.

“You don’t even tell your editor,” he said. “You tell no one.”

“I don’t trust my editor,” she said. “He’d tell everyone in the news meeting and act like it was his work. Agreed.”

Bosch paused. It was the point of no return with a reporter. He felt he could trust Skinner, but the halls of the PAB were littered with the carcasses of cops who thought they could trust reporters.

He slowly merged onto the 110. His exit was less than a mile ahead but it might take him fifteen minutes to get there in the wall-to-wall traffic.

“Are you there, Harry?”

“Yes, I’m here. Okay, this is what I want. Do you know of a guy named Charles Broussard?”

“Of course. People call him Brouss, like the name Bruce. He’s a money man. He owns a company that puts those concrete barriers on the freeways when there’s construction, and there’s always construction. What about him?”

“Do you personally know him?”

“No, but I may have talked to him once or twice for a quote or something. He was tight with Zeyas during that regime. I think he’s on the outs at city hall now because he backed the wrong horse the last time around. So I get it now. Broussard was close to Zeyas, and Zeyas was close to this mariachi guy who got shot. I wrote about that guy during the first campaign. I was assigned to Zeyas, remember?”

“Look, don’t jump to conclusions. Can you meet me now? I want to know who Broussard gave money to in the past few campaigns. And I want to know about Broussard. Anything you might know.”

“Meet you now? Can’t we do this Monday?”

“If I wait till Monday, I don’t need you, Ginny. I can get this stuff on my own then.”

Now it was Skinner who paused.

“Come on,” Bosch urged. “Do this and then I’ll buy you a margarita for your last day as a forty-niner. They have to make a good margarita somewhere over there in the Pueblo.”

“That’s tempting,” she finally said. “Okay, I’ll meet you at the Spring Street entrance at one o’clock.”

Bosch checked his watch. That was nearly two hours away.

“I’ll be there,” he said.