Echo Park

sleeves were tight on his arms, and tattoo ink was visible on his left biceps. Black barbed wire wrapped the muscles of the arm.
    “He came in voluntarily. He came in looking like he was headed to a day at the beach. Anyway . . .”
    He brought up the sound. On the screen, Garland was looking all around the room with a slight smile on his face.
    “So this is where it happens, huh?” he asked.
    “Where what happens?” Bosch asked.
    “You know, you break the bad guys down and they confess to all the crimes.”
    He smiled coyly.
    “Sometimes,” Bosch said. “But let’s talk about Marie Gesto. Did you know her?”
    “No, I told you I didn’t know her. Never saw her before in my life.”
    “Before what?”
    “Before you showed me her picture.”
    “So if somebody told me you knew her, then they’d be lying.”
    “Fucking-A right. Who told you that shit?”
    “But you knew about the empty garage at the High Tower, right?”
    “Yeah, well, my girlfriend had just moved out and so, yeah, I knew the place was empty. That doesn’t mean I stashed the car in there. Look, you asked me all of this stuff at the house. I thought there was something new going on here. Am I under arrest or something?”
    “No, Anthony, you are not under arrest. I just wanted you to come down so we could go over some of this stuff.”
    “I’ve already gone over it with you.”
    “But that was before we knew some other things about you and about her. Now it’s important to go over the same ground again. Make a formal record of it.”
    Garland’s face seemed to momentarily contort in anger. He leaned across the table.
    “What things? What the fuck are you talking about? I had nothing to do with this. I’ve told you that at least twice now. Why aren’t you out there looking for the person who did it?”
    Bosch waited until Garland calmed a bit before answering.
    “Because maybe I think I’m with the person who did it.”
    “Fuck you, man. You’ve got nothing on me because there’s nothing to get. I’ve told you this from day one. I’m not the guy!”
    Now Bosch leaned across the table. Their faces were a foot apart.
    “I know what you told me, Anthony. But that was before I went to Austin and talked to your girlfriend. She told me some things about you that, frankly, Anthony, require me to pay a little more attention.”
    “Fuck her. She’s a whore!”
    “Yeah? If she’s all of that, then why’d you get angry with her when she left you? Why did she have to run from you? Why didn’t you just let her go?”
    “Because nobody leaves me. I leave them. Okay?”
    Bosch leaned back and nodded.
    “Okay. So in as much detail as you can remember, tell me what you did on September ninth of last year. Tell me where you went and who you saw.”
    Using the remote, Bosch started fast-forwarding the tape.
    “He didn’t have an alibi for the time we believed Marie was grabbed outside the supermarket. But we can skip ahead here because that part of the interview took forever.”
    Rachel was now sitting up in the bed behind him with the sheet wrapped around her. Bosch looked back at her.
    “What do you think of this guy so far?”
    She shrugged her bare shoulders.
    “He seems like a typical rich asshole. But that doesn’t make him a murderer.”
    Bosch nodded.
    “This now is two years later. The lawyers from his daddy’s firm slapped a TRO on me and I could only interview the kid if he had counsel present. So there’s nothing much here but there’s one thing I want you to see. His lawyer in this is Dennis Franks, an associate of Cecil Dobbs, a big-shot Century City guy who handles things for T. Rex.”
    “T. Rex?”
    “The father. Thomas Rex Garland. Likes to be called T. Rex.”
    “Figures.”
    Bosch slowed the fast-forward down a notch so he could better see where the action on the tape was. On the screen was Garland sitting at a table with a man right next to him. As the image moved in fast motion the lawyer and his client conferred many times in mouth-to-ear communications. Bosch finally slowed it to normal speed and the audio came back up. It was Franks, the lawyer, doing the talking.
    “My client has fully cooperated with you but you continue to harass him at work and home with these suspicions and questions that have not one ounce of evidentiary support.”
    “I’m working on that part of it, Counselor,” Bosch said. “And when I get it, there won’t be a lawyer in the world who can help him.”
    “Fuck