The Black Box

Alex White.”
    Banks shook his head in confusion.
    “Who’s Alex White?”
    “He was one of your customers. Ten years ago you sold him a tractor mower at the dealership.”
    “Okay. What’s that—”
    “The day he took delivery, you called down to the LAPD and used his name to check on the Jespersen case.”
    Bosch saw recognition finally come to Banks’s eyes.
    “Oh, yeah, right, that was me.”
    “Why? Why’d you call?”
    “Because I was wondering what happened with the case. I was reading a paper somebody left in the break room, and there was a story about how it had been ten years since the riots. So I called down and asked about it and I got switched around a few times and then finally some guy talked to me. Only he said I had to give him my name or he couldn’t tell me anything. So, I don’t know, I saw the name on a piece of paper or something and just said I was Alex White. I mean, he didn’t have my number or nothing, so I knew it wouldn’t add up to anything.”
    Bosch nodded, realizing that if Banks hadn’t made the call, then he might not have connected things to Modesto and the case would still be cold.
    “Actually, your number was recorded,” he told Banks. “It’s the reason I’m here.”
    Banks nodded glumly.
    “But there’s something I don’t understand,” Bosch said. “Why did you call? You guys were in the clear. Why risk raising suspicion?”
    Banks shrugged and shook his head.
    “I don’t know. It was sort of spur-of-the-moment. The newspaper made me start thinking about that girl and what happened. I was wondering if, you know, they were still looking for anybody.”
    Bosch checked his watch. It was ten o’clock. It was late but Bosch didn’t want to wait until the morning to drive Banks to Los Angeles. He wanted to keep his momentum.
    He ended the recording and saved it. Being a man whonever trusted modern technology, Bosch then did a rare thing. He used the phone’s email feature to send the audio file to his partner as a just-in-case measure. Just in case his phone failed or the file was corrupted or he dropped the phone in the toilet. He just wanted to be sure he safeguarded Banks’s story.
    He waited until he heard the whisking sound from the phone that indicated the email had been sent and then stood up.
    “Okay,” he said. “We’re done for now.”
    “Are you going to take me back to my car?”
    “No, Banks, you’re coming with me.”
    “Where?”
    “Los Angeles.”
    “Now?”
    “Now. Stand up.”
    But Banks didn’t move.
    “Man, I don’t want to go to L.A. I want to go home. I got kids.”
    “Yeah, when was the last time you saw your kids?”
    That gave Banks pause. He had no answer.
    “I thought so. Let’s go. Stand up.”
    “Why now? Let me go home.”
    “Listen, Banks, you’re going with me to L.A. In the morning I’m going to sit you down in front of a deputy DA who will take your official statement and then probably waltz you in to the grand jury. After that, he’ll decide when you get to go home.”
    Banks still didn’t move. He was a man frozen by his past. He knew that whether or not he escaped criminal prosecution, his life as he knew it was over. Everyone from Modesto to Manteca would know the part he played—then and now.
    Bosch started gathering the photos and documents and returning them to the file.
    “Here’s the deal,” he said. “We’re going to L.A. and you can sit up in the front next to me or I can arrest you and cuff you and put you in the backseat. You make that long drive hunched over like that and you’ll probably never walk straight again. Now, how do you want to go?”
    “Okay, okay, I’ll go. But I gotta take a leak first. You saw how much I was drinking and I didn’t take a piss before I left the post.”
    Bosch frowned. The request wasn’t unreasonable. In fact, Bosch was already trying to figure out how to use the bathroom himself without giving Banks a chance to change his mind on the whole thing and run out the door.
    “All right,” he said. “Come on.”
    Bosch went into the bathroom first and checked the window over the toilet. It was an old louvered window with a crank handle. Bosch was able to pull the handle off easily. He held it up so Banks would see he wasn’t going anywhere.
    “Do your business,” he said.
    He stepped out of the bathroom but left the door open so he would hear any effort by Banks to open or break the window. While Banks urinated, Bosch looked around for a