The Black Echo

An undisclosed amount of property was stolen from the WestLand National Bank in downtown during the three-day holiday weekend, authorities said Tuesday. The burglary, being investigated by the FBI and the Los Angeles Police Department, was discovered when managers of the bank located at the corner of Hill Street and Sixth Avenue arrived Tuesday and found the safe-deposit vault had been looted, FBI Special Agent John Rourke said. Rourke said an estimate on the loss of property had not been made. But sources close to the investigation said more than $1 million worth of jewels and other valuables stored in the vault by customers of the bank was taken. Rourke also declined to say how the burglars entered the vault but did say that the alarm system was not working properly. He declined to elaborate. A spokesman for WestLand declined Tuesday to discuss the burglary. Authorities said there were no arrests or suspects.

Bosch wrote the name John Rourke in his notebook and went on to the next newspaper story, which was much longer. It had been published the day after the first and had been bannered across the top of the front page of the Metro section. It had a two-deck headline and was accompanied by a photograph of a man and woman standing in the safe-deposit vault looking down at a manhole-sized opening in the floor. Behind them was a pile of deposit boxes. Most of the small doors on the back wall were open. Bremmer’s byline was on the story.

AT LEAST $2 MILLION TAKEN IN BANK TUNNEL JOB;

BANDITS HAD HOLIDAY WEEKEND TO DIG INTO VAULT

The article expanded on the first story, filling in the detail that the perpetrators had tunneled into the bank, digging an approximately 150-yard line from a city storm main that ran under Hill Street. The story said an explosive device had been used to make the final break through the floor of the vault. According to the FBI, the burglars probably were in the vault through most of the holiday weekend, drilling open the individual safe-deposit boxes. The entry tunnel from the stormwater main to the vault was believed to have been dug during seven to eight weeks before the heist.

Bosch made a note to ask the FBI how the tunnel had been dug. If heavy equipment was used, most banks’ alarms, which measured sound as well as earth vibrations, would have picked up the ground movement and sounded. Also, he wondered, why hadn’t the explosive device set off alarms?

He looked then at the third article, published the day after the second. This one wasn’t written by Bremmer, though it still had been played on the front of Metro. It was a feature on the dozens of people lining up at the bank to see if their safe-deposit boxes were among those pried open and emptied. The FBI was escorting them into the vault and then taking their statements. Bosch scanned the story but saw the same thing over and over again: people angry or upset or both because they had lost items that they had placed in the vault because they believed it was safer than their homes. Near the bottom of the story Harriet Beecham was mentioned. She had been interviewed as she came out of the bank, and she told the reporter she had lost a lifetime’s collection of valuables bought while traveling the world with her late husband, Harry. The story said Beecham was dabbing at her eyes with a lace handkerchief.

“I lost the rings he bought me in France, a bracelet of gold and jade from Mexico,” Beecham said. “Whoever they were that did this, they took my memories.”

Very melodramatic. Bosch wondered if the last quote had been made up by the reporter.

The fourth story in the file had been published a week later. By Bremmer, it was short and had been buried in the back of Metro, behind where they stuffed the Valley news. Bremmer reported that the WestLand investigation was being handled exclusively by the FBI. The LAPD provided initial backup, but as leads dried up, the case was left in the bureau’s hands. Special Agent Rourke was quoted again in this story. He said agents were still on the case full-time but no progress had been made or suspects identified. None of the property taken from the vault, he said, had turned up.

Bosch closed the file. The case was too big for the bureau to slough off like a bank stickup. He wondered if Rourke had been telling the truth about the lack of suspects. He wondered if Meadows’s name had ever come up. Two decades earlier Meadows had fought and sometimes lived in the tunnels beneath the villages of South Vietnam. Like all the tunnel fighters, he knew demolition work. But that was for bringing a tunnel down. Implosion. Could he have learned how to blow through the concrete-and-steel floor of a bank vault? Then Bosch realized that Meadows would not necessarily have needed to know how. He was sure the WestLand job had taken more than one person.