The Burning Room

35



On Thursday morning Bosch finally beat Soto into the office, arriving before dawn with a coffee in hand from a twenty-four-hour Starbucks. He found the call-in tip sheets on her desk and immediately went to work preparing a search warrant application that would allow them to locate the cell phone used by the anonymous caller who had repeatedly complained of a cover-up in regard to the shooting of Orlando Merced.

The advent of the cellular phone had brought a sea change in law enforcement in the prior two decades. The Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act of 1994 had been updated and expanded almost annually to accommodate the rapidly changing electronic landscape and the many ways it was exploited by criminals. The law required manufacturers and service carriers of telecommunication devices to include surveillance capabilities in all designs and systems. That was where pinging came into play. An unregistered or throwaway cell phone might appear to be the perfect tool for anonymous communications, whether legal or not, but the device could be traced and located by its constant connection with cell towers and the cellular network. With a court-approved search warrant, the LAPD’s tech unit would be able to send an electronic pulse to the phone—a process called “pinging”—and pinpoint its location to within fifty yards by longitude and latitude coordinates. The tech unit worked quickly. Once a ping order was in hand, the process would begin within two hours.

That was why Bosch had come in early. The plan was to have a warrant on Judge Sherma Barthlett’s desk before she got the chance to convene court for the day.

Bosch was not new to the process of pinging cell phones. It had become a useful tool in running down suspects in cold case murders. Often, finding the suspects was more difficult than identifying them after many years. The process started with a database where all cellular numbers were listed, along with the service provider behind them. Under the CALEA law, even the service providers on throwaway phones had to be listed. It took Bosch less than five minutes to ascertain the service provider on the number belonging to the anonymous caller. He then used a search warrant template to begin writing the warrant on his computer.

Once he had printed out the warrant, he was good to go. He first called the tech unit to alert the sergeant in charge that he would be coming in with a priority-level ping order later in the morning. Murder investigations always jumped to the front of the line, which was primarily stacked with orders relating to drug cases. The throwaway cell was the favored tool of drug dealers around the world.

The plan now was to swing by the nearby Starbucks for a cup of coffee and a pastry that he would take to the judge along with the warrant. Bosch wrote a note for Soto and put it on her desk, but he almost walked into her when he was going through the squad room door.

“Harry, you’re in early.”

“Yeah, I wanted to get the ping going. I left you a note. I’m going to see my judge and hopefully we’ll be in business before lunch.”

“Great.”

“We should think about what we’re going to tell the captain about Acevedo and Bonnie Brae. I figure we’ll go talk to him while the tech unit’s doing their thing with this.”

He held up the file containing the warrant he had just authored.

“Okay, sounds good.”

“You okay, Lucy?”

She looked tired and out of it, as if all the long hours of the past week and a half had finally caught up with her.

“Yeah, fine. I just need coffee.”

“I’m heading to Starbucks to get something to smooth my way in with the judge. You want to go?”

“No, I’m good. I’m just going to drop off my stuff and go downstairs.”

“The machine. You sure?”

“Yes, you go. Get that warrant.”

“Okay, I’ll be back.”





Bosch carried a latte and a straight coffee on a cardboard tray that locked the cups into place and guarded against spilling in the crowded courthouse elevator. He wasn’t sure how the judge took her coffee. He also had a slice of banana nut bread and a blueberry muffin in a bag. It would be judge’s choice.

Judge Barthlett was in Department 111, the courthouse adhering to its long tradition of referring to courtrooms as departments. The room was empty save for the judge’s clerk, who was in her pod to the right of the bench. She had her head down as she worked on the morning’s schedule and didn’t notice Bosch’s approach.

“Meme?” he said.

She almost jumped out of her chair.

“I’m sorry,” Bosch said quickly. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I was wondering if I could get in to see the judge real quick. I brought her a coffee or a latte.”

“Um, the judge drinks tea and brews her own,” Meme said.

“Oh.”

“But I’d take a latte.”

“Sure.”

Bosch pulled the cup out of its mooring and put it down on her desk.

“Think she’ll want a muffin or some banana nut bread?” he asked.

“She’s on a diet,” Meme said.

Bosch wordlessly put the bag down on the desk.

“Let me go ask if she can see you now,” Meme said.

“Thanks,” Bosch said.





An officer in the tech unit named Marshall Flowers was assigned to Bosch’s ping order. His job was to make contact with the service carrier for the phone in question and initiate the pinging. The Department was charged for this service and the tech unit had a budget. Subsequently the pinging of the cell phone was intermittent, usually twice an hour until it was determined if the phone was in motion and would have to be tracked on a shorter interval.

Flowers told Bosch that results could start coming in within a couple hours and that he should go back to his squad room and wait. When coordinates for the phone were determined, they would be e-mailed to him with a link to the location on Google Maps. Bosch had given his partner’s e-mail address as the contact since Soto was more adept at maneuvering on Google Maps than he. Besides, Bosch planned on being the wheelman when they started tracking the phone.

Bosch returned to the squad room, where Soto was at her desk. She told him that Captain Crowder wanted to see them as soon as he returned. When they got to the office, they found Lieutenant Samuels waiting with the captain.

“Okay, let’s hear it,” Samuels said. “You two have been all over the state the past couple days. What do you have to show for it?”

Samuels was Crowder’s dog and he had obviously been allowed off the leash. The fact that he opened the meeting made it clear that Crowder had deferred supervision of the Bosch/Soto team to the dog because he was tired of waiting on results.

On the way over to the office, Bosch and Soto had split responsibilities for the report. Soto would take Bonnie Brae and Bosch would handle the update on Merced.

Captain Crowder said he wanted to start with Bonnie Brae; it was, after all, the bigger case.

“I’ll take that,” Soto said. “Yesterday we think we identified an individual who was an accomplice on the EZBank robbery that occurred almost simultaneously to the fire. As you know from our last update, we are working on a theory that the fire was started by the robbers as a diversion. We now just need to find her.”

“That’s what you were doing yesterday?” Samuels said. “Looking for her all over hell and back?”

“Part of the day, Lieutenant. But we determined she is out of the country and we’ll await her return.”

Neither Samuels nor Crowder responded and Bosch quickly jumped in.

“Unless, Captain, you want to authorize a trip to Acapulco. We think she’s down there somewhere in the state of Guerrero. Up in the mountains. We could fly into Acapulco and hire a guide and a Jeep.”

Bosch could tell by the captain’s face he wasn’t interested in flying a team of detectives to Acapulco, even if their final destination was the treacherous mountain region of Guerrero. Just the thought of putting it into a budget report that would be reviewed on the tenth floor was enough to make the sweat pop on his forehead.

“Is she scheduled to return soon?” Samuels asked.

“Within two weeks,” Soto said.

“Then I think we can wait,” Crowder said. “You two have plenty to do in the meantime. In fact, let’s move on to the Merced case. Where do we stand?”

Bosch took it from there.

“We’ve got a thing working today,” he said. “There’s somebody out there who we think has some information. She’s repeatedly called the tip line anonymously—or so she thought—and she left a blind comment on the story that ran yesterday in La Opinión. We got a ping order about an hour ago and we’re hopefully going to run that down today and talk to her face-to-face.”

“What do you think she knows?” Crowder asked.

“Well, she seems to think that the ex-mayor knows who’s behind the shooting and that there’s a cover-up,” Bosch said.

“You’re talking about Armando Zeyas?” Crowder asked. “She sounds like a loon. Don’t tell me this is coming down to you two chasing crazies.”

“She’s adamant about it,” Bosch said. “There’s enough there that we need to find this woman and talk to her. It’s probably a long shot but sometimes long shots pay off.”

“Probably a long shot?” Samuels said. “You’re telling us after more than a week on this case, all you’ve got is a long shot? Some crazy who’s probably just making a beef to try and collect some reward money? Who do you think you’re kidding, Bosch?”

“We have other leads and are closing in on a suspect,” Bosch said calmly. “But the investigation dictates we identify and talk to this woman. That’s what we’re—”

“You’re wasting resources, is what you’re doing,” Samuels interjected. “Who’s this suspect you’re telling us about for the first time?”

“Willman, the man who owned the murder weapon,” Bosch said. “It’s in the reports.”

“Your report said he’s dead,” Samuels said.

“He is, but we still think he took the shot,” Bosch countered.

“Why did he take the shot? For who?”

“We’re working on that,” Bosch said. “The other firearms we collected from his house have come back tied to other killings in San Diego and Las Vegas. It’s looking like this guy was a killer for hire.”

“So who hired him to take the shot at Mariachi Plaza?” Crowder asked.

“That’s what we’re working on,” Bosch said. “We’re tying up loose ends and this anonymous caller is one of them.”

Samuels wasn’t mollified. He shook his head disdainfully.

“You two have till end of watch Friday,” he said. “You put something together on this case or I’ll put a team on it that gets results.”

“Fine,” Bosch said. “That’s your call.”

“Damn right it’s my call,” Samuels said. “You two can go now.”

Bosch and Soto walked silently back to their cubicle. Bosch realized his teeth were clenched so tightly that his jaw was beginning to ache. He tried to relax but couldn’t. He wanted to turn around, go back to the captain’s office, and throw Samuels through the glass window next to the door. The guy wasn’t a detective. He had never worked cases. He was an administrator who believed the best way to motivate people was to belittle their efforts and show zero patience with difficult cases. He would be just the type of bureaucrat Bosch wouldn’t miss for a minute once he left the job.

When they got back to their desks, Bosch sat down and put his hands flat on the blotter and drummed his fingers on the surface, hoping it would somehow dissipate some of the bad energy he was carrying.

“I thought you didn’t want to tell them about the firearms yet,” Soto said to his back.

Bosch answered without turning to her.

“I had to give them something,” he said. “Just to get out of there.”

Bosch looked over toward the captain’s office. Samuels was still in there, talking to Crowder, gesturing with both hands.

“Hey, Harry!” Soto said. “We got our first ping from the tech unit.”

Bosch turned and pushed himself in his chair over to her desk. Soto had clicked on the link provided in the e-mail from Marshall Flowers. It went to a Google Maps page, and Bosch saw that the address in question was on Mulholland Drive between Laurel Canyon Boulevard and the Cahuenga Pass.

“Go to Street View,” he instructed.

Soto clicked her wireless mouse on the appropriate tab and soon her screen showed a street-angle photograph of the address from which the first ping on the anonymous caller’s cell phone had emanated. The image was of a roadway with a guardrail and beyond it a wide-angle view of the city sprawled below.

“There’s nothing here,” Soto said.

She was about to manipulate the image with her mouse when Bosch put his hand on her arm.

“Wait,” he said. “That’s Broussard’s house.”

“What? There’s no house. How do you know?”

“Because I’ve been there. I’ve driven by. That’s his house. You go down the drive from Mulholland. The house is below and you can’t see it from the street.”

“Oh, man. That means the phone’s in his house. The anonymous calls came from…it’s his wife! All this time, she’s been trying to rat him out.”