Echo Park

reluctantly nodded.
    “The car was public information,” he said. “The media was all over it. But the bag of carrots was our ace in the hole. Nobody knew about that except me, my partner at the time and the evidence tech who opened the bag. We held it back because that’s where we ended up thinking she crossed his path. The carrots came from a Mayfair Supermarket on Franklin at the bottom of Beachwood Canyon. Turned out it was her routine to stop there before going up to the stables. The day she disappeared she followed the routine. She came out with the carrots and probably her killer as a trailer. We found witnesses who put her in the store. Nothing else after that. Until we found her car.”
    O’Shea nodded. He pointed to the letter, which was still on the desk in front of Bosch and Rider.
    “Then this is looking good.”
    “No, it’s not,” Bosch said. “Don’t do this.”
    “Don’t do what?”
    “Don’t make the deal.”
    “Why shouldn’t we?”
    “Because if he is the one who took Marie Gesto and killed her and he killed those eight other people, maybe even chopped them up like the two they caught him with, then he isn’t someone who should be allowed to live, whether in a prison cell or not. They ought to strap him down, put the juice in him and send him on down the hole to where he belongs.”
    O’Shea nodded as if it were a valid consideration.
    “What about all of those open cases?” he countered. “Look, I don’t like the idea of this guy living out his life in a private room at Pelican Bay any more than you do. But we have a responsibility to clear those cases and provide answers to the families of those people. Also, you have to remember, we have announced that we are
seeking
the death penalty. That doesn’t mean it’s automatic. We have to go to trial and win and
then
we have to do it all over again to get the jury to recommend death. I’m sure you know that there are any number of things that could go wrong. It only takes one juror to hang a case. And it only takes one to stop the death penalty. It only takes one soft judge to ignore the jury’s recommendation, anyway.”
    Bosch didn’t respond. He knew how the system worked, how it could be manipulated and how nothing was a sure thing. Still, it bothered him. He also knew that a life sentence didn’t always mean a life sentence. Every year people like Charlie Manson and Sirhan Sirhan got their shot. Nothing lasts forever, not even a life sentence.
    “Plus, there is the cost factor,” O’Shea continued. “Waits doesn’t have money but Maury Swann took the case for publicity value. If we take this to trial he will be ready for battle. Maury’s a damn good lawyer. We can expect experts to cancel out our experts, scientific analysis to cancel out our analysis—the trial will last months and cost the county a fortune. I know you don’t want to hear that money is a consideration here but that is the reality. I have the budget management office already on my back about this one. This proffer could be the safest and best way to make sure this man harms no one else in the future.”
    “The best way?” Bosch asked. “Not the right way, if you ask me.”
    O’Shea picked up a pen and drummed it lightly on his desk before responding.
    “Detective Bosch, why did you sign out the Gesto file so many times?”
    Bosch felt Rider turn and look at him. She had asked him the same thing on more than one occasion.
    “I told you,” he said. “I pulled it because it had been my case. It bothered me that we never made anybody for it.”
    “In other words, it has haunted you.”
    Bosch nodded hesitantly.
    “Did she have family?”
    Bosch nodded again.
    “She had parents up in Bakersfield. They had a lot of dreams for her.”
    “Think about them. And think about the families of the others. We can’t tell them that Waits was the one unless we know for sure. My guess is that they will want to know and that they are willing to trade that knowledge for his life. It’s better that he plead guilty to all of them than that we get him for only two.”
    Bosch said nothing. He had registered his objection. He now knew it was time to go to work. Rider was on the same vibe.
    “What is the time frame on this?” she asked.
    “I want to move quickly,” O’Shea said. “If this is legit, I want to clean it up and get it done.”
    “Gotta get it in before the election, right?” Bosch asked.
    He then immediately regretted it.