The Black Box

Sheriff’s Department, even aspilot of the agency’s one helicopter, but it was his superior management skills that accelerated his climb. The biography also called him a war hero, crediting him with serving with the National Guard in Desert Storm, as well as noting that he was injured during the 1992 Los Angeles riots while protecting a dress shop from being looted.
    Bosch realized that Drummond accounted for the one injury the 237th Company sustained during the riots. A bottle thrown back then could be one of the little things that got him to Washington now. He also noted that Drummond was already a law officer when called out with the guard to the Persian Gulf and then Los Angeles.
    The self-serving material in the campaign biography also noted how crime across the board in Stanislaus County had dropped during Drummond’s watch. It was all canned stuff and Bosch moved on, next looking at the sheet on Reginald Banks, who was forty-six years old and a lifelong resident of Manteca.
    Banks had been employed for eighteen years as a salesman at the John Deere dealership in Modesto. He was married and the father of three kids. He had a degree from Modesto Junior College.
    On this deeper dig, Chu had also found that in addition to his DUI conviction, Banks also had two other DUI arrests that did not result in conviction. Bosch noted that the one conviction came from an arrest in San Joaquin County, where Manteca was located. But two DUI stops in neighboring Stanislaus County never resulted in charges being filed. Bosch wondered if being foxhole buddies with the Stanislaus County sheriff might have had something to do with that.
    He moved on to Francis John Dowler and read a bio not too different from his pal Banks’s curriculum vitae. Born, raised, and still living in Manteca, he attended San Joaquin Valley College in Stockton but didn’t stick around for the two-year degree.
    Bosch heard a low snickering sound and looked up to see Pino, their usual waiter, smiling.
    “What?” Bosch asked.
    “I read your paper, I am sorry.”
    Bosch looked down at the data sheet on Dowler and then back at Pino. He was Mexican-born but posed as Italian since he worked in an Italian restaurant.
    “That’s okay, Pino. But what’s so funny?”
    The waiter pointed at the top line of the data sheet.
    “It say there he was born in Manteca. That is funny.”
    “Why?”
    “I thought you speak Spanish, Mr. Bosch.”
    “Just a little. What is Manteca ?”
    “It is the lard. The fat.”
    “Really?”
    “ Sí.”
    Bosch shrugged.
    “I guess they must’ve thought it sounded nice when they named the place,” he said. “They probably didn’t know.”
    “Where is this town called Lard?” Pino asked.
    “North of here. About five hours.”
    “If you go, take a picture for me. ‘Welcome to Lard.’”
    He laughed and moved away to check on customers at other tables. Bosch checked his watch. Hannah was now a half hour late. He thought about calling to check on her. He pulled outhis phone and noticed that his daughter had answered his text with a simple ordered in pizza . That was pizza for the second night in a row while he was out for a supposedly romantic dinner with salad and pasta and wine. A wave of guilt hit him again. He seemed incapable of being the father he knew he should be. The guilt turned to self-directed anger and it gave him all the resolve he needed for what he planned to ask Hannah—if she ever showed up.
    He decided he would give it another ten minutes before he pestered her with a call, then went back to his work.
    Dowler was forty-eight years old and had logged exactly half of his life in the employ of Cosgrove Ag. His job description was listed on the sheet as Contract Transport and Bosch wondered if that meant he was still a truck driver.
    Like Banks, he also had a DUI bust without subsequent filing on his record in Stanislaus County. He also had an arrest warrant that had been sitting on the computer for four years for unpaid parking tickets in Modesto. That would be understandable if he resided in L.A. County, where thousands of minor warrants idled in the computer until the wanted person happened to be stopped by a law officer and their ID was checked for wanteds. But it seemed to Bosch that a county the size of Stanislaus would have the personnel and time to pursue local scofflaws wanted on warrants. The duty to execute a warrant pickup would, of course, fall to the county sheriff’s office. Once again