Trunk Music

hesitated a moment but then held the phone under his chin while he reopened his briefcase and got the number from the booking receipt. He gave Billets the number and once again asked what was going on. She once again ignored the question.
    “Detective,” she said, “I want you to come over to Parker right away. The sixth-floor conference room.”
    The sixth floor was administration level. It was also where the Internal Affairs offices were. Bosch hesitated again before finally answering.
    “Sure, Grace. You want Jerry, too?”
    “Tell Detective Edgar to go back to Hollywood Division. I’ll contact him there.”
    “We’ve only got the one car.”
    “Then tell him to take a cab and put it on his expense account. Hurry it up, Detective. We are waiting for you here.”
    “We? Who’s waiting?”
    She hung up then and Bosch just stared at the phone for a moment.
    “What is it?” Edgar asked.
    “I don’t know.”
    Bosch stepped off the elevator into the deserted sixth-floor hallway and proceeded toward the conference room he knew was behind the last door before the entrance to the police chief’s office at the end of the hall. The yellowed linoleum had been recently polished. As he walked toward his destiny with his head down, he saw his own dark reflection moving just in front of his steps.
    The door to the conference room was open and as Bosch stepped in all eyes in the room were on him. He looked back at Lieutenant Billets and Captain LeValley from the Hollywood Division and the recognizable faces of Deputy Chief Irvin Irving and an IAD squint named Chastain. But the four remaining men gathered in chairs around the long conference table were strangers to Bosch. Nevertheless, he guessed from their conservative gray suits that they were feds.
    “Detective Bosch, have a seat,” Irving said.
    Irving stood up, ramrod straight in a tight uniform. The dome of his shaven head shone under the ceiling fluorescents. He motioned to the empty seat at the head of the table. Bosch pulled the chair out and sat down slowly as his mind raced. He knew that this kind of showing of brass and feds was too big to have been caused by his affair with Eleanor Wish. There was something else going on and it involved only him. Otherwise, Billets would have told him to bring Edgar along.
    “Who died?” Bosch asked.
    Irving ignored the question. When Bosch’s eyes traveled across the table to his left and up to Billets’s face, the lieutenant glanced away.
    “Detective, we need to ask you some questions pertaining to your investigation of the Aliso case,” Irving said.
    “What are the charges?” Bosch responded.
    “There are no charges,” Irving replied calmly. “We need to clear some things up.”
    “Who are these people?”
    Irving introduced the four strangers. Bosch had been right, they were feds: John Samuels, an assistant U.S. Attorney assigned to the organized crime strike force, and three FBI agents from three different field offices. They were John O’Grady from L.A., Dan Ekeblad from Las Vegas and Wendell Werris from Chicago.
    Nobody offered to shake Bosch’s hand, nobody even nodded. They just stared at Bosch with looks that transmitted their contempt for him. Since they were feds, their dislike of the LAPD was standard issue. Bosch still couldn’t figure out what was going on here.
    “Okay,” Irving said. “We’re going to get some things cleared up first. I’m going to let Mr. Samuels take it from here.”
    Samuels wiped a hand down his thick black mustache and leaned forward. He was in the chair at the opposite end of the table from Bosch. He had a yellow legal tablet on the table in front of him but it was too far away for Bosch to be able to read what was on it. He held a pen in his left hand and used it to hold his place in his notes. Looking down at the notes, he began.
    “Let’s start with your search of Luke Goshen’s home in Las Vegas,” Samuels said. “Exactly who was it who found the firearm later identified as the weapon used in the killing of Anthony Aliso?”
    Bosch narrowed his eyes. He tried looking at Billets again, but her eyes were focused on the table in front of her. As he scanned the other faces, he caught the smirk on Chastain’s face. No surprise there. Bosch had hooked up with Chastain before. He was known as Sustained Chastain by many in the department. When departmental charges are brought against an officer, an Internal Affairs investigation and Board of Rights hearing