The Black Ice (hb-2)

check if there were beefs on their record, commendations, letters of complaint, anything like that. So Moore had access to his P-file. He went into Personnel a few months back and asked for it because he had just moved and needed to update it with his new address.”
    Bosch held it there a moment, to compose the rest of it in his mind.
    “Okay, okay,” she said.
    “The P– files also contain print cards. Moore had access to the print card Irving took to you on the day of the autopsy. That was the card your tech used to identify the prints. You see? While Moore had the file, he could have switched his card for someone else’s. Then you used the bogus card to identify his body. But, see, it wasn’t his body. It was the other person’s.”
    “Who?”
    “I think it was a man from down here named Humberto Zorrillo.”
    “This seems too farfetched. There were other IDs. I remember that day in the suite. What’s his name, Sheehan, he got a call from SID saying they matched prints in the motel room to Moore. They used a different set than we did. It’s a double-blind confirmation, Harry. Then we have the tattoo. And the dental. How do you explain all of that?”
    “Look, Teresa, listen to me. It all can be explained. It all works. The dental? You told me you only found one usable fragment, part of a root canal. That meant no root was left. It was a dead tooth so you could not tell how long it had been out, only that it matched his dentist’s charts. That’s fine, but one of Moore’s crew told me he once saw Moore get punched during a Boulevard brawl and he lost a tooth. That could’ve been it, I don’t know.”
    “Okay, what about the prints in the room? Explain that?”
    “Easy. Those were his prints. Donovan, the SID guy, told me he pulled prints from the Department of Justice computer. Those would have been Moore’s real prints. That meant he was really in the room. It doesn’t mean it’s his body. Normally, one set of exemplars-the ones from the DOJ computer-would be used to do all the match work, but Irving screwed it up by going to the P-file. And that’s the beauty of Moore’s plan. He knew Irving or someone in the department would do it this way. He could count on it because he knew the department would put a rush on the autopsy, the ID, everything, because it was a fellow officer. It’s been done before and he knew they would do it for him.”
    “Donovan never did a cross-match between our prints and the set he pulled?”
    “Nope, because it wasn’t the routine. He might’ve gotten around to it later when he thought about it. But things were happening too fast on this case.”
    “Shit,” she said. He knew he was winning her over. “What about the tattoo?”
    “It’s a barrio insignia. A lot of people could have had them. I think Zorrillo had one.”
    “Who is he?”
    “He grew up with Moore down here. They might be brothers, I don’t know. Anyway, Zorrillo became the local drug kingpin. Moore went to L.A. and became a cop. But somehow Moore was working for him up there. The story goes on from there. The DEA raided Zorrillo’s ranch last night. He got away. But I don’t think it was Zorrillo. It was Moore.”
    “You saw him?”
    “I didn’t need to.”
    “Is anyone looking for him?”
    “The DEA is looking. They’re concentrating in interior Mexico. Then again, they’re looking for Zorrillo. Moore may never turn up again.”
    “It all seems… You’re saying Moore killed Zorrillo and then traded places with him?”
    “Yeah. Somehow he got Zorrillo to L.A. They meet at the Hideaway and Moore puts him down-the trauma to the back of the head you found. He puts his boots and clothes on the body. Then he blows the face away with the shotgun. He makes sure to leave some of his own prints around to make Donovan bite and puts the note in the back pocket.
    “I think the note worked on a number of levels. It was taken as a suicide note at first. Authenticating the handwriting helped add to the identification. On another level, I think it was something personal between Moore and Zorrillo. Goes back to the barrio. ‘Who are you?’ ‘I found out who I was.’ That part of it is a long story.”
    They were both silent for a while, rethinking all of what Bosch had just said. He knew there were still a lot of loose ends. A lot of deception.
    “Why all the killings?” she asked. “Porter and Juan Doe, what did they have to do with anything?”
    This is where he had few