RIDER WAS THE WRITER. She had an ease with the computer as well as the language of law. Bosch had seen her put these skills to use on several previous investigations. So their decision was unspoken. She would write the warrants seeking court authorization to trace and listen to calls made by or to Roland Mackey on his cell phone, the office phone at the service station where he worked, and his home if an additional phone existed there. It would be painstaking work; she had to lay out the case against Mackey, making sure the chain of logic and probable cause had no weak links. Her paper case had to first convince Pratt, then Captain Norona, then a deputy district attorney charged with making sure local law enforcement did not run roughshod over civil liberties, and finally a judge who had the same responsibilities but also answered to the electorate should he make a mistake that blew up in his face. They had one shot at this and they had to do it right. Rather, Rider had to do it right.
But all of that came after the initial hurdle of getting Mackey’s various phone numbers without tipping the suspect to the investigation taking form around him.
They started with Tampa Towing, which ran a half-page ad in the yellow pages that carried two 24-hour phone numbers. Next, a call to directory assistance established that Mackey had no hardwired phone listing private or otherwise in his name. It meant he either had no phone at his home or he was living in a place where the phone was registered to someone else. That could be dealt with later once they established Mackey’s residence.
Last and most difficult was Mackey’s cell phone number. Directory assistance did not carry cell listings. To check every cellular service provider for a listing could take days if not weeks because most required a court-ordered search warrant before revealing a customer’s private number. Instead, law enforcement investigators routinely planned ruses in order to get the numbers they needed. This often entailed leaving innocuous messages at workplaces so that the cell phone number could be captured upon callback. The most popular of these was the standard call-back-for-your-prize message, promising a television or DVD player to the first one hundred people who returned the call. However, this involved setting up a non-police line and could also result in long waiting periods with no guarantee of success if the target had masked his or her cell number. Rider and Bosch did not feel they had the luxury of time. They had put Mackey’s name out into the public. They had to move quickly toward their goal.
“Don’t worry,” Bosch told Rider. “I’ve got a plan.”
“Then I’ll just sit back and watch the master.”
Since he knew Mackey was on duty at the service station Bosch simply called the station and said he needed a tow. He was told to hold on and then a voice he believed belonged to Roland Mackey came onto the line.
“You need a tow?”
“Either a tow or a jump. I can’t get it started.”
“Where?”
“The Albertson’s parking lot on Topanga near Devonshire.”
“We’re all the way over on Tampa. You can get somebody closer.”
“I know but I live by you guys. Right off Roscoe and behind the hospital.”
“Okay, then. What are you driving?”
Bosch thought of the car they had seen Mackey in earlier. He decided to use it to pull Mackey off the fence.
“’Seventy-two Camaro.”
“Restored?”
“I’m working on it.”
“It should be about fifteen minutes before I’m there.”
“Okay, great. What’s your name?”
“Ro.”
“Ro? Like row a boat?”
“Like in Roland, man. I’m on my way.”
He hung up. Bosch and Rider waited five minutes, during which Bosch told her the rest of the plan and what part she would play in it. Her goal was to get two things: Mackey’s cell number and his service provider so that a search warrant authorizing the wiretap could be delivered to the proper company.
Following Bosch’s instructions, Rider called the Chevron station and started making a service appointment, going into great detail in describing the screeching her car’s brakes made. While she was in the middle of it, Bosch called the station on the second line listed in the phone book. As expected Rider was put on hold. Bosch’s call was answered and he said, “Do you have a number I can reach Ro on? He’s coming here to give me a jump and I got it started already.”
Mackey’s harried co-worker said, “Try him on his cell.”
He gave Bosch the number and Bosch flashed the thumbs-up across the desk to Rider. She finished her call without breaking the act and hung up.
“One down, one to go,” Bosch said.
“You got the easy one,” Rider said.
With Mackey’s number in hand, Rider took over while Bosch listened on an extension. Putting a disinterested bureaucratic glaze over her voice she called the number and when Mackey answered—presumably while looking for a stalled ’72 Camaro in a shopping center parking lot—she announced that she was his AT&T Wireless provider and that she had some exciting news for savings over his current long-distance minutes plan.
“Bullshit,” Mackey said, interrupting her in the middle of her spiel.
“Excuse me, sir?” Rider replied.
“I said bullshit. This is some sort of scam to make me switch.”
“I don’t understand, sir. I have you listed as an AT&T Wireless customer. Is that not the case?”
“Yeah, that’s not the fucking case. I’m with Sprint and I like it and I don’t even have or want long-distance service. So fuck off. Can you hear me now?”
He hung up and Rider started laughing.
“This is an angry guy we’re dealing with,” she said.
“Well, he just drove all the way across Chatsworth for nothing,” Bosch said. “I’d be angry too.”
“He’s with Sprint,” she said. “I’m ready to rock and roll on the paper. But maybe you should call him, so he won’t be suspicious about you not calling when the guy in the shop tells him he gave out his number.”
Bosch nodded and called Mackey’s number. Thankfully it went to a message; Mackey was probably on the phone angrily telling the guy in the shop he could not find the car he was supposed to tow. Bosch left a message saying he was sorry but he was able to get his car started and was trying to get it home. He closed his phone and looked at Rider.
They talked some more about scheduling and decided that she would work exclusively on the warrant that night and the next day and then babysit it through the approval stages. She said she wanted Bosch with her when it got to the final approval. Having both members of the team in the judge’s chambers would help cement the deal. Until then, Bosch would continue to work the field, tracking the remaining names on their list of people to be interviewed and putting the newspaper story in motion. Timing was going to be the issue. They didn’t want a story about the case in the newspaper until they had taps in place on the phones Mackey used. Finessing all of this would be the key maneuver.
“I’m going home, Harry,” Rider said. “I can get this started on my laptop.”
“Have a good one.”
“What will you do?”
“I’ve got a few things I want to get done tonight. Maybe go down to the Toy District, I think.”
“By yourself?”
“They’re only homeless people.”
“Yeah, and eighty percent of them are homeless because they’ve got faulty wiring, faulty plumbing, the whole bit. You be careful. Maybe you ought to call Central Division and see if they’ll send a car with you. Maybe they can spare the U-boat tonight.”
The U-boat was a single-officer car primarily used as a gopher for the watch commander. But Bosch didn’t think he needed a chaperone. He told Rider he would be all right and that she could go as soon as she showed him how to use the AutoTrack computer.
“Well, Harry, first you have to have a computer. I did it right from my laptop.”
He came around to her side and watched as she went to the AutoTrack website, entered password information and arrived at a template for a name search.
“Who do you want to start with?” she asked.
“How about Robert Verloren?”
She typed in the name and set parameters for the search.
“How fast does this work?” Bosch asked.
“Fast.”
In a few minutes she had located an address trail for Rebecca Verloren’s father. But it stopped short at the house in Chatsworth. Robert Verloren had not updated his driver’s license, bought property, registered to vote, applied for a credit card or had a utilities account in over ten years. He was a blank. He had disappeared—at least from the electronic grid.
“He must still be on the street,” Rider said.
“If he’s even still alive.”
Rider put the names Tara Wood and Daniel Kotchof through the AutoTrack moves and came up with multiple name hits for both of them. But by using their approximate ages and focusing on Hawaii and California they narrowed the searches to two address trails they believed belonged to the correct Tara Wood and Daniel Kotchof. Wood may not have gone to her high school reunion but it wasn’t because she had moved far away. She had only moved from the Valley over the hills to Santa Monica. Meanwhile, it appeared that Daniel Kotchof had returned from Hawaii many years earlier, lived in Venice for a few years and then returned to Maui, where his current address was located.
The last name Bosch gave Rider to run through the computer was Sam Weiss, the burglary victim whose gun was used to murder Rebecca Verloren. Though there were hundreds of hits on the name, it was easy to find the right Sam Weiss. He had never left the home where the burglary had taken place. He even had the same phone number. He had stood his ground.
Rider printed everything out for Bosch and also gave him the number for Grace Tanaka, which they had gotten earlier from Bailey Sable. She then gathered what she would need to work on the search warrant at home.
“If you need me give me a page,” she said as she put her computer into a padded case.
After she was gone Bosch checked the clock over Pratt’s door and saw it was just past six. He decided he would spend an hour or so chasing names before heading down to the Toy District to look for Robert Verloren. He knew he was just procrastinating over a search through the human throwaway zone that would be certain to leave him depressed. So he checked the clock again and promised himself he would spend no more than an hour working the phone.
He decided to go with the locals first but quickly struck out. Calls to both Tara Wood and Sam Weiss went unanswered and connected him with automated message systems. He left a message for Wood identifying himself, giving his cell phone number and mentioning that the call was in regard to Becky Verloren. He hoped that mentioning her friend’s name would be enough to intrigue and draw a response from her. With Weiss he only left his name and number, not wanting to forewarn him that the call was about what might be a source of guilt for the man who had indirectly provided the weapon that killed a sixteen-year-old girl.
Next he called Grace Tanaka’s number in Hayward and she answered after six rings. From the start she seemed put out by the call, as if it had interrupted something important, but her gruff manner and voice softened as soon as Bosch said he was calling about Rebecca Verloren.
“Oh my God, is something happening?” she asked.
“The department has taken an avid interest in reinvestigating the case,” Bosch said. “A name has come up. This is an individual who may have been involved in the case in nineteen eighty-eight and we are trying to figure out if he fit in with Becky or her friends in any way.”
“What’s his name?” she asked quickly.
“Roland Mackey. He was a couple years older than Becky. Didn’t go to Hillside but he lived right there in Chatsworth. Does the name mean anything to you?”
“Not really. I don’t remember it. How was he connected? Was he the father?”
“The father?”
“The police said she was pregnant. I mean, that she had been pregnant.”
“No, we don’t know if he was connected that way or not. So you don’t recognize the name?”
“No.”
“He goes by Ro for short.”
“Still don’t.”
“And you’re saying you didn’t know about the pregnancy, is that right?”
“I didn’t. None of us did. I mean, her friends.”
Bosch nodded even though he knew she couldn’t see this. He didn’t say anything, hoping that she might get uncomfortable with the silence and say something that might be of value.
“Um, do you have a picture of this man?” she finally asked.
It wasn’t what Bosch was looking for.
“Yes,” he said. “I’ll have to figure out a way to get it up there for you to look at, see if it jogs anything loose.”
“Can you just scan it and e-mail it?”
Bosch knew what she was asking him to do, and while he could not do it himself he guessed that Kiz Rider probably could.
“I think we could do that. My partner’s the computer person and she’s not here at the moment, though.”
“I’ll give you my e-mail address and she can send me the picture when she comes back.”
Bosch wrote the address she recited in his small notebook. He told her she’d get the e-mail the following morning.
“Is there anything else, Detective?”
Bosch knew he could end the call and have Rider take a shot at bonding with Grace Tanaka after the photo was sent to her. But he decided not to miss the opportunity to start stirring emotions and memories. Maybe something would break loose.
“I have just a few more questions. Uh, that summer, how would you characterize your relationship with Becky?”
“What do you mean? We were friends. I’d known her since first grade.”
“Right, well, were you the closest to her, do you think?”
“No, I think that would have been Tara.”
Another confirmation that Tara Wood had been tightest with Becky at the end.
“So she didn’t confide in you when she found out she was pregnant.”
“No, I already told you, I didn’t know about it until after she was dead.”
“What about you? Did you confide in her?”
“Of course I did.”
“Everything?”
“Detective, what are you getting at?”
“Did she know you were gay?”
“What did that have to do with anything?”
“I’m just trying to get a picture of the group. The Kitty Kat Club, I think the four of you called—”
“No,” she said abruptly. “She didn’t know. None of them knew. I don’t think I even knew back then. Okay, Detective? Is that enough?”
“I’m sorry, Ms. Tanaka. I’m just trying to get as full a picture as I can. I appreciate your candor. One last question. If Becky was at a clinic after going through the procedure and she needed a ride home because she didn’t think she could drive, who would she have called?”
There was a long silence before Grace Tanaka answered.
“I don’t know, Detective. I would have hoped that it would have been me. That I was that kind of friend. But obviously it was somebody else.”
“Tara Wood?”
“You’ll have to ask her. Good night, Detective Bosch.”
She hung up and Bosch pulled open the yearbook so he could look at her photo. She was a petite Asian and the photo—so many years old—didn’t match the gruff demeanor of the voice he had just heard on the phone.
Bosch wrote a note for Rider that contained the e-mail address and instructions to scan and send the photo of Mackey. He also wrote a short warning about his encountering resistance from Tanaka when he brought up her sexuality. He slid the note over to her desk so she would see it first thing in the morning.
That left one last call, this one to Daniel Kotchof, who lived, according to AutoTrack, in Maui, where it was two hours earlier.
He called the number he had gotten from the AutoTrack search and a woman answered the line. She said she was Daniel Kotchof’s wife and told Bosch that her husband was at work at the Four Seasons Hotel, where he was employed as the hospitality manager. Bosch called the work number she gave him and was put through to Daniel Kotchof. He said he could only talk for a few minutes and put Bosch on hold for five of them while he went to a more private spot in the hotel to talk. When he finally came back on the line the call started out unproductively. Like Grace Tanaka, he did not recognize the name Roland Mackey. He also seemed to treat the call as a nuisance or an intrusion. He explained that he was married and had three children and that he rarely thought about Becky Verloren anymore. He reminded Bosch that he and his family had moved from the mainland a year before her death.
“But I was led to believe that after you moved to Hawaii, you two continued to call each other quite often,” Bosch said.
“I don’t know who told you that,” Kotchof said. “I mean, we talked. Especially at first. I would have to call her ’cause she said her parents told her it was too much money for her to call me. I thought that was kind of bogus. They just wanted me out of the picture is all. So I had to call, but it was like, what’s the use? I was in Hawaii and she was in L.A. It was over, man. And pretty soon I got a girlfriend here—in fact, she’s my wife now—and I stopped calling Beck. That was it until, you know, later, when I heard about what happened and the detective called me.”
“Did you know about it before the detective called?”
“Yeah, I’d heard. Mrs. Verloren called my dad and he broke the news to me. I also got some calls on it from some of my friends out there. They knew I’d want to know about it. It was weird, man, this girl that I knew gets wiped out like that.”
“Yeah.”
Bosch thought about what else he could ask. Kotchof’s story conflicted in small ways with Muriel Verloren’s account. He knew he would need to square the stories at some point. Kotchof’s alibi also continued to bother him.
“Hey, look, Detective, I should get going,” Kotchof said. “I’m at work. Is there anything else?”
“Just a few more questions. Do you remember how long before Rebecca’s death it was that you stopped calling her?”
“Um, I don’t know. Somewhere around the end of that first summer. Something like that. It had been a while, almost a year.”
Bosch decided to try to rattle Kotchof and see what came out. It was something he would rather have attempted in person but there was no time or money for a trip to Hawaii.
“So your relationship was definitely over by the time of her death?”
“Yes, definitely.”
Bosch thought the chances of recovering phone records from back then were not very high.
“When you were still calling was it always at a certain time? You know, like an appointment.”
“Sort of. I was two hours behind so I couldn’t call too late. I usually called right after dinner and that was right before she was going to go to bed. But like I said, it didn’t last too long.”
“Okay. Now I have to ask you something pretty personal. Did you have sex with Rebecca Verloren?”
There was a pause.
“What’s that got to do with this?”
“I can’t explain that, Dan. But it is part of the investigation and it could have a bearing on the case. Do you mind answering?”
“No.”
Bosch waited but Kotchof said nothing else.
“Is that your answer?” Bosch finally asked. “You two never had sex?”
“We never did. She said she wasn’t ready and I didn’t push it. Look, I have to go.”
“Okay, Dan, just a few more. I’m sure you would like for us to catch the guy who did this, right?”
“Yes, right, it’s just that I’m at work.”
“Yes, you said that. Let me ask you, when was the last time you saw Rebecca?”
“I don’t remember the exact date but it was like the day we left. When we said good-bye. That morning.”
“So you never came back from Hawaii once your family moved?”
“No, not at first. I mean, I’ve been back since. I lived in Venice for a couple years after I finished school, but then I came back here.”
“But not between the time your family moved and the time of Rebecca’s murder. Is that what you are saying?”
“Yes, right.”
“So if another witness I have spoken to said she saw you in town that weekend of July Fourth, right before Rebecca disappeared, then she would be wrong about that?”
“Yeah, she’d be wrong. Look, what is this? I told you. I never went back. I had a new girlfriend. I mean, I didn’t even go back for the funeral. Who told you they saw me? Was it Grace? She never liked me—that dyke. She was always trying to get me in trouble with Beck.”
“I can’t tell you who it is, Dan. Just like if you want to tell me something in confidence then I will respect that.”
“Whoever it is, she’s a fucking liar,” Kotchof said, his voice turning shrill. “That is a goddamn lie! Check your records, man! I had an alibi. I was working on the day she was taken, and I was working the next day, too. How could I have gotten there and back? Whoever told you that is totally fucking bogus!”
“It’s your alibi that is bogus, Dan. Your old man could have put your supervisor up to it. That was easy.”
A moment of silence passed before there was a response.
“I don’t know what you are talking about. My father didn’t put anybody up to anything and that’s a goddamn fact. We had the time cards and my boss talked to the cops and that was it. Now you come along seventeen years later with this shit? Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Okay, Dan, take it easy. Sometimes people make mistakes. Especially when you are going back all those years.”
“This is all I need, to be dragged into this. Man, I’ve got a family over here.”
“I said take it easy. You aren’t dragged into anything. This is just a phone call. Just a conversation, okay? Now, is there anything else you can tell me or want to tell me to help with this thing?”
“No. I told you all I know, which is nothing. And I have to go. I mean it this time.”
“So were you upset when Rebecca told you she was pregnant and it was obvious to you that it was with another guy?”
There was no answer at first so Bosch tried to turn the screw a bit.
“Especially since she would never have relations with you when you two were together.”
Bosch realized he had gone too far and tipped his hand. Kotchof realized that Bosch was playing good cop and bad cop with him all at once. When he responded, his voice was calm and modulated.
“She never told me that,” he said. “I never knew until it came out after.”
“Really? Who told you?”
“I can’t remember. One of my friends, I guess.”
“Really? Because Rebecca kept a journal. And you’re all over it, man. And she says she told you and you weren’t too happy about it.”
Now Kotchof laughed and Bosch knew he had really blown it.
“Detective, you are full of shit. You’re the one who’s lying. This is really weak, man. I mean, I watch Law and Order, you know.”
“Do you watch CSI?”
“Yeah, so?”
“Well, we got the killer’s DNA. If we match it to somebody they’re going to take a fall. DNA is the ultimate closer.”
“Good. Check mine and maybe this can all be over for me.”
Bosch knew he was the one backpedaling now. He had to end the call.
“Okay then, Dan, we’ll let you know about that. Meantime, thank you for your help. One last question. What’s a hospitality manager?”
“You mean here at the hotel? I take care of large parties and conferences and weddings and things like that. I make sure it all runs smoothly when these big groups come in here.”
“Okay, well, I’ll let you get back to it. Have a good day.”
Bosch hung up and sat at the desk thinking about the call. He was embarrassed by how he had let the upper hand slip across the line to Kotchof. He knew his interviewing skills had largely been dormant for three years but that did not salve the burn. He knew he had to get better and it had to be soon.
Aside from that, there was a lot of content from the call to consider. He didn’t read much into Kotchof’s angry reaction to supposedly being seen in L.A. right before the murder. After all, Bosch had fabricated the witness and Kotchof’s angry response would certainly be justified. But what was notable was how Kotchof’s anger zeroed in on Grace Tanaka. Their relationship might be worth exploring further, maybe through Kiz Rider.
He also considered Kotchof’s statement about not knowing about Rebecca Verloren’s pregnancy. Bosch instinctively believed him. All in all it didn’t drop Kotchof from the suspect list, but it at least pushed him to a back burner. He would discuss all of Kotchof’s answers with Rider and see if she agreed.
The most interesting information gleaned from the call was in the conflicts between Kotchof’s memories and those of Muriel Verloren, the victim’s mother. Muriel Verloren had said Kotchof had called her daughter religiously, right up until the time of her death. Kotchof said he had done no such thing. Bosch didn’t see any reason for Kotchof to lie about it. If he hadn’t, then Muriel Verloren’s memory was wrong. Or it was her daughter who had lied about who called her every night before bed. Since the girl was hiding a relationship and the pregnancy that came from it, it seemed likely that the phone calls did come in every night but they were not from Kotchof. They were from someone else, someone Bosch started thinking of as Mr. X.
After looking up Muriel Verloren’s number in the murder book Bosch called the house. He apologized for intruding and said he had a few follow-up questions. Muriel said she was not bothered by the call.
“What are your questions?”
“I saw the phone on the table next to your daughter’s bed. Was that an extension of the house phone or did she have her own phone number?”
“She had her own number. A private line.”
“So when Daniel Kotchof called her at night she would be the one who answered the phone, right?”
“Yes, in her room. It was the only extension.”
“So the only way you know that Danny was calling was because she told you.”
“No, I heard the phone ring sometimes. He called.”
“What I mean, Mrs. Verloren, is that you never answered those calls and you never talked to Danny Kotchof, right?”
“That’s right. It was her private line.”
“So when that phone rang and she talked to somebody, the only way you would know who it was on the line was if she told you. Is that correct?”
“Uh, yes, I guess that is right. Are you saying it wasn’t Danny who called all of those times?”
“I’m not sure yet. But I talked to Danny in Hawaii and he said he stopped calling your daughter long before she was taken. He had a new girlfriend, you see. In Hawaii.”
This information was treated with a long pause. Finally, Bosch spoke into the void.
“Do you have any idea who it could have been that she was talking to, Mrs. Verloren?”
After another pause Muriel Verloren weakly offered an answer.
“Maybe one of her girlfriends.”
“It’s possible,” Bosch said. “Anybody else you can think of?”
“I don’t like this,” she responded quickly. “It’s like I’m learning things all over again.”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Verloren. I will try not to hit you with these sorts of things unless it is necessary. But I am afraid this is necessary. Did you and your husband ever come to any conclusion about the pregnancy?”
“What do you mean? We didn’t know about it until after.”
“I understand that. What I mean is, did you think it came out of a hidden relationship or was it simply a mistake she made one day with, you know, someone she was not really in a relationship with?”
“You mean like a one-night stand? Is that what you are saying about my daughter?”
“No, ma’am, I am not saying anything about your daughter. I am simply asking questions. I do not want to upset you but I want to find the person who killed Rebecca. And I need to know all there is to know.”
“We could never explain it, Detective,” she responded coldly. “She was gone and we decided not to delve into it. We left everything to the police and we just tried to remember the daughter we knew and loved. You said you have a daughter. I hope you understand.”
“I think I do. Thank you for your answers. One last question—and there is no pressure on this—but would you be willing to talk to a newspaper reporter about your daughter and the case?”
“Why would I do that? I didn’t before. I don’t believe in putting it out there for the public.”
“I admire that. But this time I want you to do it because it might help us flush out the bird.”
“You mean it might make the person who did this come out from cover?”
“Exactly.”
“Then I’d do it in a heartbeat.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Verloren. I will let you know.”