The Black Box

Like the Jespersen case, most RCTF investigations were based on incomplete or almost nonexistent crime scene investigations. The lack of forensic evidence was crippling.
    “Most cases, we didn’t know where to start,” Harrod had told Bosch. “We were running around in the dark. So we put up billboards and offered rewards and primarily that’s what we worked off of. But we didn’t get much, and at the end of the day we didn’t break any new ground. I don’t remember a single case that we closed. So frustrating. It was one of the reasons I pulled the pin at twenty. I had to get away from L.A.”
    Bosch couldn’t help but think that the city and the department had lost a good man. His hope was that if he was able to close out the Jespersen case, then Harrod would find a measure of solace in that.
    “I remember talking to somebody over there,” Harrod said. “It wasn’t her direct boss, because that person couldn’t speak English. So it was more of a general supervisor and I just got general info. I remember there was a uniform up in Devonshire who spoke the language—Danish—and we used him to make some calls over there.”
    This was news to Bosch. There were no reports in the murder book about a phone interview with anyone other than Arne Haagan, the newspaper’s editor in chief.
    “Who was interviewed, do you remember?”
    “I think it was just other people on the newspaper staff, maybe family members, too.”
    “Her brother?”
    “Maybe, but I don’t remember, Harry. It was twenty years ago and a different life for me.”
    “I understand. Do you remember who it was in Devonshire Division that you used on the calls?”
    “It’s not in the book?”
    “No, nothing in the book about any Danish-language interviews. It was just somebody in Devonshire patrol?”
    “Yeah, some guy that was born over there and grew up here and knew the language. I don’t remember the name. Personnel found him for us. But look, if there are no reports in the book, then it didn’t add up to anything, Harry. I would’ve put it in.”
    Bosch nodded. He knew Harrod was right. But it alwaysbothered him when he heard about an investigative move that was not chronicled in the official record, the murder book.
    “Okay, Gary, I’ll let you go. I just wanted to check that out with you.”
    “You sure? Nothing else? Since you called me I’ve been thinking about the case all the time. That one and another one that still sticks, you know?”
    “Which one was that? Maybe I can take a look if nobody’s gotten to it yet.”
    Harrod paused again as his memory jumped from one case to another.
    “I don’t remember the name,” he said. “It was a guy up in Pacoima. He was from Utah, staying in a shitty motel up there. He was part of a construction crew that traveled around the west, building strip malls. He was a tile setter, I remember that.”
    “What happened?”
    “We never knew. He was found head shot in the middle of the street about a block from his motel. I remember the TV was on in his room. He must have been watching on TV. You know, the city coming apart like that. And for whatever reason, he went outside to look. And that’s what always bothered me about that one.”
    “That he went outside?”
    “Yeah, that he went out. Why? The city was burning. There were no rules, just anarchy, and he left safety to go see it. As far as we could ever tell, somebody just drove by and popped him from a car. No witnesses, no motive, no evidence. It was a loser the day I got the case and I knew it. I remember talking to his parents on the phone. They were up in Salt Lake City.They couldn’t understand how this could’ve happened to their boy. They viewed L.A. like it was some other planet that he had gone to. It was beyond their concept.”
    “Yeah,” Bosch said.
    There was nothing else to say.
    “Anyway,” Harrod said, shaking off the memory. “I better wash up, Harry. My wife’s making pasta tonight.”
    “Sounds good, Gary. Thanks for your help.”
    “What help?”
    “You helped. Let me know if you think of anything else.”
    “You got it.”
    Bosch hung up and tried to think if he knew anybody who would have worked in Devonshire twenty years ago. Back then it was the quietest yet geographically largest police division, covering the entire northwest corner of the city in the San Fernando Valley. It was known as Club Dev because the station was new and the workload light.
    Bosch realized that Larry Gandle, a