The Reversal

They had talked an hour earlier after Maggie McPherson had gotten them safely to a friend’s home in Porter Ranch. He had told his daughter about Jessup being out there and what had happened at Royce’s office. She didn’t know about Jessup’s nocturnal visit to their house two weeks earlier.

“So they didn’t catch that guy yet?”

“We’re working on it and I’m in the middle of stuff here. Stay close to Aunt Maggie and stay safe. I’ll come get you as soon as this is over.”

“Okay. Here, Aunt Maggie wants to talk to you.”

McPherson took the phone.

“Harry, what’s the latest?”

“Same as before. We’re out looking for him and sitting on all the known locations. I’m with Wright at Sarah’s hotel.”

“Be careful.”

“Speaking of that, where’s Mickey? He turned down protection.”

“He’s at home right now but said he’s coming up here.”

“Okay, sounds good. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Keep us posted.”

“I will.”

Bosch closed the phone and went back into the office. Wright was still at the window.

“I think we’re wasting our time and should shut this down,” he said.

“Why? What’s going on?”

“Just came over the radio. They found the car Jessup was using. In Venice. He’s nowhere near here, Bosch.”

Bosch knew that dumping the car in Venice could merely be a misdirection. Drive out to the beach, leave the car and then double back in a cab to downtown. Nonetheless, he found himself reluctantly agreeing with Wright. They were spinning their wheels here.

“Damn it,” he said.

“Don’t worry. We’ll get him. I’m keeping one team here and one on your house. Everybody else I’m moving down into Venice.”

“And the Santa Monica Pier?”

“Already covered. Got a couple teams on the beach and nobody’s gone in or out of that location.”

Wright went on the SIS band on the radio and started redeploying his men. As Bosch listened he paced the room, trying to figure Jessup out. After a while he stepped back out to the hallway so as not to disturb Wright’s radio choreography and called Larry Gandle, his boss at RHD.

“It’s Bosch. Just checking in.”

“You still at the hotel?”

“Yeah, but we’re about to clear and head to the beach. I guess you heard they found the car.”

“Yeah, I was just there.”

Bosch was surprised. With four victims at Royce’s office, he thought Gandle would still be at the murder scene.

“The car’s clean,” Gandle said. “Jessup still has the weapon.”

“Where are you now?” Bosch asked.

“On Speedway,” Gandle said. “We just hit the room Jessup was using. Took a while to get the search warrant.”

“Anything there?”

“Not so far. This fucking guy, you see him in court wearing a suit and you think… I don’t know what you think, but the reality was, he was living like an animal.”

“What do you mean?”

“There are empty cans all over the place, food still rotting in them. Food rotting on the counter, trash everywhere. He hung blankets over the windows to black it out like a cave. He made it like a prison cell. He was even writing on the walls.”

All at once it hit him. Bosch knew who Jessup had prepared the dungeon under the pier for.

“What kind of food?” he asked.

“What?” Gandle asked.

“The canned food. What kind of food?”

“I don’t know, fruits and peaches-all kinds of stuff you can get fresh in any store you walk into. But he had it in cans. Like prison.”

“Thanks, Lieutenant.”

Bosch closed the phone and walked quickly back into the office. Wright was off the radio now.

“Did your people go under the pier and check the storage room or just set up surveillance?”

“It’s a loose surveillance.”

“Meaning they didn’t check it out?”

“They checked the perimeter. There was no sign that anybody went under the wall. So they backed out and set up.”

“Jessup’s there. They missed him.”

“How do you know?”

“I just know. Let’s go.”

Forty-three

Thursday, April 8, 6:35 P.M.

I stood at the picture window at the end of my living room and looked out at the city with the sun dropping behind it. Jessup was out there someplace. Like a rabid animal he would be hunted, cornered and, I had no doubt, put down. It was the inevitable conclusion to his play.

Jessup was legally to blame but I couldn’t help but think about my own culpability in these dark matters. Not in any legal sense, but in a private, internal sense. I had to question whether consciously or not I had set all of this in motion on the day I sat with Gabriel Williams and agreed to cross a line in the courtroom as well as within myself. Maybe by allowing Jessup his freedom I had determined his fate as well as that of Royce and the others. I was a defense attorney, not a prosecutor. I stood for the underdog, not for the state. Maybe I had taken the steps and made the maneuvers so that there would never be a verdict and I would not have to live with it on my record and conscience.

Such were the musings of a guilty man. But they didn’t last long. My phone buzzed and I pulled it from my pocket without looking away from my view of the city.

“Haller.”

“It’s me. I thought you were coming up here.”

Maggie McFierce.

“Soon. I’m just finishing up here. Everything all right?”