The Burning Room

37



The chain was no obstacle. Bosch easily opened one of the links and they were in. He and Soto moved around the trash containers and through the storage space to a steel door at the rear. Bosch grasped the handle and found it unlocked. He looked back at Soto and whispered.

“Ready?”

“Ready.”

Bosch pulled his weapon from its holster and held it down against his thigh. Soto followed suit with hers. Bosch opened the door and they stepped out onto the deck surrounding the kidney-shaped pool Bosch had seen from the nearby overlook. There was no one present but he saw a glass containing a drink with ice in it on a table next to a chaise longue. There was an ashtray along with a pack of cigarettes and a disposable lighter as well.

There was no entry to the house on this level. A set of concrete stairs led to the first of three stepped balconies going up the sheer hillside. Bosch looked up and saw no one on any of the balconies. With his gun he pointed toward the stairs and they moved in that direction.

There was a table with an umbrella on the first balcony, as well as a row of French doors and another exterior staircase to the next level. Curtains were open behind the doors and Bosch could see a large bedroom that appeared empty. He moved down the line of doors, checking the handles until he found one that was unlocked. He opened the door, half expecting an alarm to sound.

But there was no alarm. Only the sound of voices from inside the house.

Bosch stepped in, followed by Soto. As they moved across the room, the voices grew louder, one of them angry in tone. But the words were not clear. The unfinished concrete design of the house’s exterior carried into the interior design, leaving the home with concrete walls that created a crosscurrent of echoes and left the words indistinguishable. All Bosch could tell was that a man was yelling at a woman and the woman was barely able to say anything in her defense.

They moved quickly through the bedroom and into a hallway that led to another bedroom, an elevator, and a stairway. The voices were coming from above, so Bosch continued up, Soto following behind him on the stairs.

The stairway led to the middle level of the house, where there was a hallway with three doors. The voices were coming from a room with an open door and now the words were clearer.

“WHAT DID YOU TELL THEM?” the man’s voice boomed.

“I didn’t,” the woman replied. “I don’t—”

There was the sound of flesh striking flesh. More of a slap than a punch. Bosch picked up speed and moved into the room, his gun now up and leading the way.

A dark-haired woman was holding one hand to her face while using the other to gain purchase on a desk as she climbed up from the floor. She wore no uniform but had an apron tied around her waist. A man with his back to the door stood over her, menacing her. He was at least twice her size. Suspender straps crossed his broad back. It was Broussard. As the woman stood up, he raised his right hand to strike her again. Bosch saw his hand wrapped around a black object.

“Please,” she begged.

“TELL ME!” he barked.

“Police!” Bosch yelled. “Stop!”

Suddenly two shots echoed loudly off the concrete walls and in all directions. The bullets hit Broussard center mass, just above the Y formed by his suspenders. He momentarily arched his back at the impact. But then his arm dropped like it was dead weight and he collapsed into an awkward heap on the floor. Bosch knew his spine had been shattered, all the body’s infrastructure crashing in an instant. The object he had been holding had dropped to the floor next to him. It was a stapler he’d grabbed off the desk in his rage.

Bosch looked down at his weapon, unsure if he had fired. Then he turned to Soto, who held her weapon out in a two-handed firing position, her finger on the trigger. She had fired.

His attention was then drawn back to the desk by the shriek from the woman pressed up against it. Looking down at Broussard, she’d brought her hands to her face and released a sound that started low and deep in the throat and then rose into a shrill scream.

“Lucy!” Bosch yelled. “Holster and then get her out of here.”

Soto moved past him as she holstered her weapon and then stepped around Broussard. She gently gripped the woman by the arm and shoulder and ushered her back past Bosch and then out of the room. Bosch didn’t take his eyes off Broussard.

“Secure her and then be ready for the wife,” he said. “She’ll get here any minute.”

“Got it,” Soto said.

Bosch moved forward and crouched next to Broussard. His eyes were open and moving.

Bosch holstered his own weapon and leaned down.

“Broussard, listen to me,” he said. “There isn’t a lot of time. You’re not going to make it. You want to make a dying declaration? You have anything you want to say to me?”

Broussard opened his mouth but said nothing. He only blinked. Bosch waited a moment and then tried again.

“You had Willman shoot Merced, didn’t you? And then you killed Willman. Admit it, Broussard. This is the end. Clear your conscience and go in peace.”

Broussard’s mouth started to move and Bosch heard the air coming out of his lungs. They were shutting down. Bosch leaned in close and heard a whisper.

“Fuck you.”

Bosch pulled back and looked at him and tried one more time.

“Zeyas knew, didn’t he? Your maid told him. She thought she’d get the reward. Only Zeyas used the information to blackmail you. Just nod if I have it right.”

Broussard’s face looked as though he was forming a smile. He then started to whisper again. Bosch leaned down close and turned his ear toward the dying man’s mouth.

“You don’t have shit. You…”

Bosch waited and didn’t move, but nothing else came. He finally turned his head to look at Broussard and saw that his eyes were fixed. Broussard was dead.

Bosch started to get up. He looked around the room and realized by the photos on the walls of Broussard with various politicians and celebrities that this was the man’s home office. He stepped over to the desk to look at its contents. He saw an iPhone on top of some paperwork. He pulled a rubber glove from one of the pockets of his jacket and snapped it on.

The phone was not password protected. He went to the recent call list and saw that Broussard had received a call from a contact that simply said Maria just fifteen minutes earlier. As Bosch had guessed, Broussard’s wife had called him after the encounter with Bosch and Soto at the supermarket. Their mistake had put things in motion. Broussard had confronted the maid in an attempt to find out what she knew and whom she had talked to.

Bosch and Soto had done the rest. Their mistaken focus on the wife instead of the maid had cost them the chance to arrest Broussard and possibly leverage a confession from him that revealed the involvement of Zeyas.

Bosch put the phone down on the desk, backed out of the room, and closed the door. He knew he needed to call in the shooting but he wanted to wait.

“Lucy?”

“Here.”

Her voice came from one of the other rooms on the middle level. Bosch opened a door to a bathroom first and then one that led to a home theater with two rows of plush seating. Soto was standing in front of the maid, who was sitting in the first row. Soto stepped away and signaled Bosch into the hallway.

“Alicia, just stay there,” she said. “I’ll be right out in the hall.”

Soto pulled the door closed so they could talk privately. Soto looked at him anxiously.

“Is he dead?” she asked.

Bosch nodded. Soto’s face blanched.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “It was a good shoot. He was about to hit her. You did what you had to do, Lucia. Are you all right?”

“What was it? What was he holding?”

“A stapler.”

“A stapler? Oh my—”

“It doesn’t matter what it was. He was going to hit her and he could have killed her with it. Are you going to be okay?”

“I think so,” she said. “It was just so fast. Not like last time.”

“Well, you’ll be fine. What about the maid? How is she?”

“Her name is Alicia Navarro. She admits she’s our anonymous caller. She said Broussard got a call—which we know most likely came from his wife—and went ballistic, pushing and slapping her, demanding to know who she had talked to.”

“Did she say she felt scared for her life?”

“Definitely.”

“Okay. Did you ask her about the mayor, about Zeyas?”

“I was just getting into it. But she said she never spoke to or met the mayor. She said it was Spivak. Ten years ago she talked to Spivak about the reward. She said she was in the house and overheard Broussard and his friend Willman talking about the shooting at Mariachi Plaza. That’s how she knew it was him. She got confused when Zeyas put up the reward, and she tried to call him instead of the police. The call somehow went to Spivak. She said he took the information, but there was never a reward. Spivak then threatened her. Told her she was in danger if she spoke up. That if she said a word, he would have every one of her family members deported.”

“That prick,” Bosch said. “He held it back because it didn’t pay for the police to solve the case. They needed Merced to be the perfect victim. Crippled by a shot in a part of town the police didn’t care about. It wouldn’t have worked if we had solved the case.”

“Not only that, but there was the money. Spivak knew he could milk Broussard forever.”

“Every election, probably every year.”

“So what do we do about it?”

“You get her statement on record. We—”

“I already have it. I’ve recorded everything on my phone. Since we got here.”

She reached into the front pocket of her purse and pulled her phone up over the edge.

“You have the shooting?” Bosch asked.

“Yes.”

Bosch didn’t know if that was a good or bad thing. He would have to think about it. But there were more pressing problems to consider right now. He had just heard a door close upstairs. Someone in high heels was crossing the floor on the level above them. Soto’s eyes turned up toward the ceiling. Bosch whispered.

“Go back in and stay with Alicia. I’ll go up for Maria. Once she is secured we need to call out the shooting team.”

“Okay.”

“You will have to stay with them. As soon as I can, I’m going to leave.”

“Where are you going?”

Before he could answer, there was a call from upstairs.

“Brouss? Are you here? Alicia?”

Bosch turned from Soto and headed up the stairs. Before he got to the top, Maria Broussard appeared on the landing, saw him, and screamed.

“What are you doing here? Where’s my husband?”

Bosch rushed up the remaining stairs, raising his hands in a calming gesture. He then put his hands on her shoulders and tried to turn her from the stairs. She struggled to break free.

“Don’t touch me! Where is Charles? Brouss, what did they do?”

Bosch managed to control her by angling her against the wall when she tried to go past him to the stairs. He leaned against her and considered cuffing her if only to control her, but then passed on the idea.

“Mrs. Broussard, you need to calm down.”

“No, I won’t calm down. Not until I see my husband. Brouss!”

She tried once more to get past him but he had her pinned tight against the wall. He gulped down air and then whispered into her ear.

“I am sorry, Mrs. Broussard, but your husband is dead.”

For the second time in ten minutes an earsplitting scream echoed through the house.

Bosch felt Maria Broussard’s body go limp. He pulled away from the wall and partly supported her weight as he walked her toward a couch in the living room. Once she was secured and seated, he pulled his phone so he could start making the calls.