Trunk Music

concludes time of death was between eleven P.M. Friday and two A.M. Saturday. Is that correct, Detective Bosch?”
    “I don’t know how you got the report, since I haven’t seen it myself yet.”
    “Was the death between eleven and two?”
    “Yes.”
    “Do you have those documents, Dan?” Samuels asked Ekeblad.
    Ekeblad took several pages folded lengthwise from the inside of his jacket and handed them to Samuels. Samuels opened the packet and glanced at its contents and then tossed it across the table to Bosch. Bosch picked it up but didn’t look at it. He kept his eyes on Samuels.
    “What you have there are copies of a page from an investigative log as well as an interview report prepared Tuesday morning by Agent Ekeblad here. There are also two sworn affidavits from agents Ekeblad and Phil Colbert, who will be with us here shortly. What you’ll find if you look at those is that on Friday night at midnight, Agent Ekeblad was sitting behind the wheel of his bureau car in the back parking lot at Caesar’s, just off Industrial Road. His partner Colbert was there next to him and in the back seat, Agent Roy Lindell.”
    He waited a beat and Bosch looked down at the papers in his hands.
    “It was Roy’s monthly meeting. He was being debriefed. He told Ekeblad and Colbert that just that night he had put four hundred and eighty thousand dollars cash from Marconi’s various enterprises into Anthony Aliso’s briefcase and sent him back to L.A. to have it put in the wash. He also, by the way, mentioned that Tony had been in the club drinking and got a little out of line with one of the girls. In his role as enforcer for Joey Marks and manager of the club, he had to get tough with Tony. He cuffed him once and jerked him around by his collar. This, I think, you might agree, would account for the fingerprints recovered from the deceased’s jacket and the antemortem facial bruising noted in the autopsy.”
    Bosch still refused to look up from the documents.
    “Other than that, there was a lot to talk about, Detective Bosch. Roy stayed for ninety minutes. And there is no fucking way in the world he could have gotten to Los Angeles to kill Tony Aliso before two A.M., let alone three A.M. And just so you don’t leave here thinking all three of these agents were involved in the murder, you should know that the meeting was monitored by four additional agents in a chase car also parked in the lot for security reasons.”
    Samuels waited a beat before delivering his closing argument.
    “You don’t have a case. The prints can be explained and the guy you said did it was sitting with two FBI agents three hundred and fifty miles away when the shooting went down. You’ve got nothing. No, actually, that’s wrong. You do have one thing. A planted gun, that’s what you’ve got.”
    As if on cue the door behind Bosch opened and he heard footsteps. Keeping his eyes on the documents in front of him, Bosch didn’t turn around to see who it was until he felt a hand grip his shoulder and squeeze. He looked up into the face of Special Agent Roy Lindell. He was smiling, standing next to another agent who Bosch assumed was Ekeblad’s partner, Colbert.
    “Bosch,” Lindell said, “I owe you a haircut.”
    Bosch was dumbfounded to see the man he had just locked up standing there but quickly assimilated what had happened. Irving and Billets had already been told about the meeting in the parking lot behind Caesar’s, had read the affidavits and believed the alibi. They had authorized Lindell’s release. That was why Billets had asked for the booking number when Bosch had returned her page.
    Bosch looked away from Lindell to Irving and Billets.
    “You believe this, don’t you? You think I found the gun out there in the weeds and planted it just to make the case a slam.”
    There was a hesitation while each one left space for the other to answer. Finally, it was Irving.
    “The only thing we know for sure is that it wasn’t Agent Lindell. His story is solid. I’m reserving judgment on everything else.”
    Bosch looked at Lindell, who was still standing.
    “Then why didn’t you tell me you were federal when we were in that room together at Metro?”
    “Why do you think? For all I knew, you had already put a gun in my bathroom. You think I’m just going to tell you I’m an agent and everything would be cool after that? Yeah, right.”
    “We had to play along, Bosch, to see what moves you’d make and to make sure Roy got