The Black Box

friends. You cannot beat that.”
    The alcohol flows freely in the bars and at the pool edge. Celebrations of the Allied victory are many. Men on board the ship are more than women by fifteen to one—reflecting the composition of the U.S. troops in the Gulf. It is not just men on the Saudi Princess who wish the sides were more even.
    “I haven’t had to buy a drink for the time I’ve been here,” said Charlotte Jackson, a soldier from Atlanta, Georgia. “But the guys constantly hitting on you gets olden. I wish I had brought a good book to read. I’d be in my cabin right now.”
    Based on the comment from Beau Bentley about being in a firefight only a week before, Bosch figured the story had been written and then held almost a week by the BT before publication. That meant Anneke Jespersen had probably been on board the ship sometime during the first week of March.
    Bosch had initially not viewed the Saudi Princess story as significant. But now with the connection established between Jespersen and the members of 237th Company on the ship,things were different. He realized he was looking at the names of two potential witnesses. He pulled his phone and called Chu. The call went to message. Chu was off duty and had probably shut down for the night. Bosch left a message in a low voice so he wouldn’t disturb the other patrons in the restaurant.
    “Dave, it’s me. I’m going to need you to take a stab at a couple names. I got them out of a nineteen ninety-one news story, but what the hell, give it a try. The first name is Beau Bentley and he is or was from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The second is Charlotte Jackson. She was listed as from Atlanta. Both were soldiers in Desert Storm. I don’t know what branch. The story didn’t say. Bentley was twenty-two then, so he’s forty-two or forty-three now. I’ve got no age on Jackson, but she could be anywhere from, I’d say, thirty-nine to maybe fifty years old. See what you can do and let me know. Thanks, partner.”
    Bosch disconnected and looked toward the front door of the restaurant. Still no sign of Hannah Stone. He went back to his phone and shot a quick text to his daughter to ask if she had gotten something to eat, then went back to the file folder.
    He leafed through the biographical material his partner had drawn up on the five men. Four of the reports contained a driver’s license photo at the top. Drummond’s DL was not included, because his law enforcement status kept him out of the DMV computer. Bosch stopped on the sheet for Christopher Henderson. Chu had handwritten DECEASED in large letters next to the photo.
    Henderson had survived Desert Storm and the L.A. riots as a member of the Fighting 237th, but he didn’t survive an encounter with an armed robber at a restaurant he managedin Stockton. Chu had included a 1998 newspaper account reporting that Henderson had been accosted while he was alone and locking up at a popular steakhouse called the Steers. An armed man wearing a ski mask and a long coat forced him back inside the restaurant. A passing motorist saw the incident and called 9-1-1, but when police arrived shortly after the emergency call came in, they found the front door unlocked and Henderson dead inside. He had been shot execution-style while kneeling in the kitchen’s walk-in refrigerator. A safe where the restaurant’s operating cash was kept at night was found open and empty in the manager’s office.
    The newspaper report said that Henderson had been planning to leave his job at the Steers to open up his own restaurant in Manteca. He never got the chance. According to what Chu could find on the computer, the murder was never solved and no suspects were ever identified by the Stockton police.
    Chu’s bio on John James Drummond was extensive because Drummond was a public figure. He joined the Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Department in 1990 and rose steadily through the ranks until he challenged the incumbent sheriff in 2006 and won an upset election. He successfully ran for reelection in 2010 and was now setting his sights on Washington, DC. He was campaigning for Congress, hoping to represent the district that encompassed both Stanislaus and San Joaquin counties.
    A political biography that was circulated online during his first run for sheriff described Drummond as a local kid who made good. He grew up in a single-parent family in the Graceada Park neighborhood of Modesto. As a deputy he served in all capacities in the