Suicide Run

snapped his fingers and pointed at Bosch.
    “Blitz. I heard the woman who was cleaning up at that table called Blitz. Is she the homicide?”
    He turned toward a cabinet but kept his eyes on Bosch. He opened it and pulled out three cups. He set them on the counter next to the coffeemaker.
    “Yeah, she’s the one,” Bosch said.
    “She left at the same time as my guy and so the cameras in the parking lot gave you the idea that I was tailing her, not him.”
    “Something like that.”
    Turnbull hit a switch on the brewer and pulled out the glass pot. He poured three cups and asked if anybody wanted sugar or powdered cream. There were no takers.
    “Of course,” he said. “You’re cops.”
    Bosch drank from the cup he was given and the coffee was strong and hot, just like he wanted it. He relaxed a bit. Turnbull was a dead end as far as being a suspect but he could still be useful as a witness.
    “You went out to the parking lot about an hour ahead of your subject,” he said. “How come?”
    “Because I was tired of acting like I belonged in there. I had to start playing or I had to get out of there. I don’t play poker. No interest. So I went out and sat on his car.”
    “See anything unusual out there?”
    “No, just people coming and going.”
    “What about the woman when she came out? Did you see her?”
    “I saw her. My guy had already come out and he was sitting in his car smoking and trying to cool down after dropping all that money. So then she came out with a security guy. I thought that was a good move. She was probably carrying a lot of dough after the way she was playing. She was cleaning everybody out. Not just my guy.”
    Bosch nodded.
    “Then what?”
    “Then nothing. I was watching because my guy was in his car and thought maybe if there was something going on, I was going to see it right there. But she got in her car and left. Then my guy left and I followed him.”
    “Nothing else with her in the parking lot.”
    “Not in the parking lot, no.”
    “Meaning…?”
    “Well, I don’t know if it means anything at all. But I was on the job once, a long, long time ago, and I know you guys want everything about everything. So I’ll give you everything. On the freeway she almost lost control of her car.”
    “How so?”
    “I’m not really sure but I think she was doing something, maybe she dropped something or she was reaching for something, and it made her swerve out of her lane and then back into it. She looked like she was drunk-driving but she wasn’t drunk. When I was watching her in the card room she was drinking bottled water only.”
    “Was it a cell phone? Was she looking down while driving?”
    “I don’t think so. Not a cell phone. I probably would have seen the light. Anyway, when she swerved I was right behind her so I lit her up with my brights to see if she was all right. I didn’t see any phone. She was sort of bent over like she had dropped something down by the bottom of the door. She sat up when I hit her with the brights. She looked back at me in the rearview and I turned them off.”
    Bosch thought about this for a few minutes, wondering what Tracey Blitzstein had been doing. He then realized that maybe she had made the same mistake he had just made, mistaking Turnbull for a follower, and was hiding the money she had won under the seat as a precaution against robbery.
    “Do you think she saw you leaving the casino lot?” he asked.
    “I don’t know. She could have.”
    “Is there a chance she could have thought you were following her? Or a chance that she thought the guy you were following was following her?”
    Turnbull drank some coffee and thought over his answer before voicing it.
    “If she thought anybody was following her, it would have been me. We were all going the same way but my guy got ahead of her. So if she was checking the mirrors, she would have seen me. If I had won that kind of money, I would’ve been checking my mirrors.”
    Bosch nodded and thought about everything for a few moments.
    “When exactly did she make that swerve between the lanes?” he then asked.
    “Almost as soon as we got up on the freeway. Like I said, my guy got ahead of the both of us. So I dropped behind her and was kind of using her car to shield myself from my guy—in case
he
was watching the mirrors. So she easily might’ve thought I was on her instead of him.”
    Turnbull poured more coffee into his cup and then offered the glass pot to Bosch and Gunn but