The Narrows (8 page)

“He did good. We’re working this one case now that’s interesting. When the new chief put the squad together we started going back through the open-unsolveds. We linked six cases—body dumps up in the Valley. They had some similar aspects but were never connected before. We copied the files to Terry and he confirmed. He connected them through what he called ‘psychological commonalities.’ We’re still working it but at least we know what we have now. We’re on the track is what I mean. I’m not sure we would be where we are if Terry hadn’t helped us out.”

“Good, I’m glad to hear he helped with it. I’ll tell his wife and I’m sure it will help her to know that.”

“Good. So, Harry, you coming back in?”

I was expecting him to ask what I was really doing with McCaleb’s files, not whether I was coming back to the department.

“What are you talking about?”

“You heard about the three-year ticket the chief instituted?”

“No, what’s that?”

“He knows we lost a lot of talent in recent years. All the scandals and whatnot, good people saying, what the hell, I’m out of here. So he’s opening the door for people to come back. If you reapply within three years of retirement and are accepted you can get back in without having to go to the academy. That’s perfect for old guys like you.”

I heard the smile in his voice.

“Three years, huh?”

“Yeah. What’s it been for you, two and a half?”

“Just about.”

“Well, there you go. Think about it. We could use you here in cold cases. We’ve got seven thousand open-unsolveds. Take your pick, man.”

I didn’t say anything. Out of the blue, I was struck with the idea of going back. In that moment I was blind to the negatives. I only thought about what it would be like to carry the badge again.

“Then again, maybe you’re having too much fun being retired. You need anything else, Harry?”

“Uh, no, that was it. Thanks, man, I appreciate it.”

“Anytime. And think about the three-year plan. We could sure use you, whether it’s here or back in Hollywood or wherever.”

“Yeah, thanks. Maybe I will. I’m going to think about it.”

I closed the phone and sat there surrounded by another man’s obsessions but thinking about my own. I thought about going back. I thought about seven thousand unanswered voices from the grave. That was more than the number of stars you see when you look up into the sky at night.

My phone buzzed while it was still in my hand. It pulled me out of the reverie and I opened it, expecting it to be Tim Marcia calling back and saying that three-year thing had just been a gag. But it was Graciela calling.

“I can see lights on in the boat,” she said. “Are you still there?”

“Yeah, I’m here.”

“Why so late, Harry? You missed the last ferry.”

“I wasn’t going to go back tonight. I was going to stay over and finish up here. Maybe head back tomorrow. I might want to come up and talk to you, too.”

“That’s fine. I’m not working tomorrow. I’ll be here packing.”

“Packing?”

“We’re going to move back to the mainland. We’ll live in Northridge. I got my old job back in the ER at Holy Cross.”

“Is Raymond one of the reasons you’re moving back?”

“Raymond? What do you mean?”

“I was wondering if there were any troubles with the boy. I heard he didn’t like living on the island.”

“Raymond doesn’t have a lot of friends. He doesn’t fit in so well. But the move is not just because of Raymond. I want to go back. I wanted to before Terry was gone. I told you that.”

“Yes, I know.”

She changed the subject.

“Is there anything you need? Did you get something to eat?”

“I found some stuff in the boat’s kitchen. I’m fine.”

She groaned in disgust.

“That all must be old. Check the expiration dates before you eat anything else.”

“I will.”

She hesitated and then asked the question she had called to ask.

“Have you found anything yet?”

“Well, I’ve found some things I am curious about. But nothing that particularly stands out yet.”

I thought about the man in the Dodgers cap. He certainly stood out for me but I didn’t want to bring him up yet with Graciela. I wanted to know more before talking to her about him.

“Okay,” she said. “But keep me informed about things, okay?”

“That’s the deal.”

“Okay, Harry, I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Are you staying in a hotel or on the boat?”

“The boat, I think. If that’s all right with you.”

“It’s fine with me. Do what you want to.”

“Okay. Can I ask you something?”

“Sure, what?”

“You were talking about packing and I’m just curious about something. How often do you go over to the mainland? You know, to go to the mall or restaurants or see family.”

“Usually about once a month. Unless something specific comes up and I need to go.”

“You take the kids?”

“Usually. I want them to be used to it. You grow up on an island where they have golf carts instead of cars and everybody knows everybody . . . it can be strange to suddenly move to the mainland. I’m trying to get them ready for it.”

“I guess that’s smart. What mall is closest to the ferry docks?”

“I don’t know what one is closest, but I always go up to the Promenade on Pico. I just shoot up the four-oh-five from the harbor. I know there are closer malls — Fox Hills, for example — but I like the Promenade. I like the stores there and it’s easy. Sometimes I meet friends from the Valley and it is a good halfway point for all of us.”

And easy to be followed to, I thought but didn’t say.

“Good,” I said, not sure what I was saying was good. “One other thing. I’m running out of light here. The batteries, I guess. Is there a switch or something I should hit to recharge or how do you do that?”

“You didn’t ask Buddy?”

“No, I didn’t know I was going to run out of light when I was with Buddy.”

“Oh, Harry, I’m not sure. There’s a generator that has to run. I’m not sure even where it is.”

“Okay, well, don’t worry about it. I can call Buddy. I’ll let you go, Graciela. I ought to get back to work while I still have some light.”

I hung up and wrote the name of the mall down in my notebook, then left the room and went around the boat turning off all the lights but the one on the desk in the forward berth in an effort to conserve power. I called Buddy on the cell after that and he answered in a groggy voice.

“Hey, Buddy, wake up. It’s Harry Bosch.”

“Who? Oh. What do you want?”

“I need your help. Is there like a generator or something on this boat that will give me some light? The batteries are dying on me.”

“Man, don’t let those things drain all the way down. You’ll kill them.”

“Then what do I do?”

“You’ve got to crank the Volvos, man, and then turn on the generator. The thing is it’s near midnight. Those folks sleeping on their boats in line with you aren’t going to take so kindly to hearing that.”

“All right, forget it. But in the morning I should do it, so what do I do, use a key?”

“Yeah, just like a car. Go to the helm in the salon, put in the keys and turn them to the ON position. Then above each key is the ignition toggle. Flip it up and she should start right up—unless you’ve used all the juice up and there’s no charge.”

“Okay, I’ll do it. You got any flashlights on this thing?”

“Yeah, there’s one in the galley, one over the chart table and one in the master in the built-in drawer to the left of the bed. There’s also a lantern in the lower cabinet of the galley. But you don’t want to use that down in the front room. The kerosene smell will build up in there and you might croak yourself. Then there’d be another mystery to solve.”

He said the last line with a note of contempt in his voice. I let it go.

“Thanks, Buddy. I’ll talk to you.”

“Yeah. Good night.”

I hung up and went looking for the flashlights, coming back to the forward berth with a small one from the master stateroom and a large table light from the galley. I put the large light on the desk and turned it on. I then killed the berth’s lights. The table light’s glow hit the small room’s low ceiling and spread. It wasn’t bad. Between that and the handheld light I would still be able to get some work done.

I was down to less than half a box of files to go and wanted to finish before figuring out where I was going to sleep. These were all thin files, the most recent additions to McCaleb’s collection, and I could tell most of them contained little more than a newspaper clip and maybe a few notes on the flap.

I reached in and picked one out at random. I should have been in Vegas throwing dice. Because the file I picked turned out to be a long-shot winner. It was the file that gave my investigation focus. It put me on the road.

13

T
HE FILE TAB simply said 6 MISSING. It contained a single clipping from the
Los Angeles Times
and several dated notes and names and phone numbers handwritten on the inside flap, as was McCaleb’s routine. I sensed that the file was important before I even read the story or understood the meaning of some of the notes. It was the dating on the flap that triggered this response. McCaleb had jotted his thoughts down on the file four different times, beginning on January 7 and ending on February 28 of this year. He would be dead a month later on March 31. Those notes and those dates were the most recent found in any of the files I had reviewed. I knew I was looking at what might have been Terry’s last work. His last case and obsession. There were still files to look at but this one gave me the vibe and I went with it.

A reporter I knew wrote the story. Keisha Russell had been working the cop beat at the
Times
at least ten years and was good at it. She was also accurate and fair. She had lived up to every deal I had ever made with her in the years I was on the job, and she had gone out of her way to play fair with me the year before, when I was no longer on the job and things turned bad on my first private case.

The bottom line was that I felt comfortable taking anything she wrote as fact. I started to read.

SEARCH FOR A MISSING LINK
ARE NEVADA DISAPPEARANCES OF 2 L.A. MEN, 4 OTHERS CONNECTED?

by Keisha Russell
Times Staff Writer

The mysterious disappearances of at least six men, including two from Los Angeles, from gambling centers in Nevada have got investigators searching for a missing link among the men.

Detectives with the Las Vegas Metro Police said Tuesday that while the men did not know each other and came from widely disparate hometowns and backgrounds, there still may be a commonality among them that could be the key to the mystery.

The men, ranging in age from 29 to 61, were reported missing by their families during the past three years. Four were last known to be in Las Vegas, where police are heading the investigation, and two disappeared while on trips to Laughlin and Primm. None of the men left any indication in their hotel rooms or vehicles or homes as to where they were going or what became of them.

“At this point it is a stone-cold mystery,” said Detective Todd Ritz of Vegas Metro’s Missing Persons unit. “People disappear from here or anywhere all the time. But they usually show up later, dead or alive. And there’s usually an explanation. With these guys there’s nothing. It’s a thin air case.”

But Ritz and other detectives are sure there is an explanation and they are enlisting the public’s help in finding it. Last week detectives from Las Vegas, Laughlin and Primm gathered at the Vegas Metro offices to compare notes and set an investigative strategy. They also went public with the case, hoping photographs of the men and their stories would spark new information from the public. On Tuesday, a week later, Ritz reported that not much in the way of usable information had come in.

“There has got to be someone who knows something or saw something or heard something,” said Ritz in a telephone interview. “Six guys just don’t get up and disappear without somebody knowing something. We need that somebody to come forward.”

As Ritz said, missing persons cases are numerous. The fact that these six men came to Nevada for business or pleasure and never went home is what makes this case different.

The publicity comes at a time Las Vegas is once again redefining its image. Gone is the marketing strategy that billed the neon city as a family destination. Sin is back in. In the past three years numerous clubs featuring nude or partially nude dancers have been licensed, and many of the casinos on the fabled strip have produced shows featuring nudity and strictly adult subject matter. Billboards featuring nudity in their advertisements have been erected and drawn the ire of some community activists. It has all helped change the complexion of the city. Once again it is being marketed as a leave-the-kids-at-home adult playground.

As the recent billboard skirmishes suggest, the change hasn’t played well with everyone and many speculate that the disappearances of these six travelers may in some indirect way be linked to the region’s return to an anything-goes atmosphere.

“Let’s face it,” said Ernie Gelson, a columnist for the Las Vegas Sun, “they tried the family fun thing and it didn’t play. The town is going back to what plays. And what plays is what pays. Now, is that the missing link that connects these six guys? I don’t know. Maybe we never will.”

Still, Gelson is uneasy about jumping to any conclusions that would link the missing men to the changing image of Las Vegas.

“First of all, remember, they didn’t all disappear from Las Vegas,” he said. “And second to that, there are not enough facts to substantiate any theory at the moment. I think we have to sit back and let the mystery resolve itself before we jump on any bandwagons.”

The missing men are:

— Gordon Stansley, 41, of Los Angeles, missing since May 17, 2001. He checked into the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas but his bed was never slept in and his suitcase never unpacked. He is married and has two children.

— John Edward Dunn, 39, of Ottawa, Canada, who was driving from his home to Los Angeles on a vacation. He never made it to his intended destination, his brother’s home in Granada Hills. Dunn’s 30-foot recreational vehicle was found Dec. 29, 2001, at an RV park in Laughlin. That was 20 days after his expected arrival in Granada Hills.

— Lloyd Rockland, 61, disappeared from Las Vegas on June 17, 2002. His plane from Atlanta arrived at 11 a.m. at McCarran International Airport. He picked up a Hertz rental car, but he never checked in to the MGM Grand, where he had a reservation. His car was returned to the Hertz rental car center at the airport at 2 p.m. the next day but nobody seems to remember the father of four and grandfather of three being the one who returned it.

— Fenton Weeks, 29, of Dallas, TX, was reported missing Jan. 25, 2003, after he did not return from a business trip to Las Vegas. Police determined he had checked in to the Golden Nugget in downtown Las Vegas and attended the first day of an electronics exposition held at the Las Vegas Convention Center but was not in attendance on the second and third days. His wife reported him missing. He has no children.

— Joseph O’Leary, 55, of Berwyn, PA, disappeared May 15 of last year from the Bellagio where he was staying with his wife. Alice O’Leary left her husband in the casino playing blackjack while she went to spend the day at the resort’s spa. Several hours later her husband failed to return to their suite. O’Leary, a stockbroker, was reported missing the next day.

— Rogers Eberle, 40, of Los Angeles, disappeared Nov. 1 while on a day off from his work as a graphic designer at the Disney Studios in Burbank. His car was found parked in the lot outside the Buffalo Bill’s Casino in Primm, NV, just across the California border on the Interstate 15 freeway.

Investigators say there are few leads in the investigation. They point to Rockland’s rental car as possibly being the best clue they have. The car was returned 27 hours after it was picked up by Rockland. It had been driven 328 miles during that period, according to Hertz records. Whoever returned it to the Hertz airport center dropped it off without waiting for a receipt or to speak to a Hertz clerk.

“They just pulled in, got out of the car and walked away,” Ritz said. “Nobody remembers anything. They process about a thousand cars a day in that center. There are no cameras and there is no record but the rental record.”

And it is those 328 miles that Ritz and the other detectives wonder about.

“That is a lot of miles,” said Detective Peter Echerd, Ritz’s partner. “That car could have gone a lot of places. You figure a hundred and sixty-four out and a hundred and sixty-four back in and you’ve got a hell of a big circle to cover.”

Nevertheless, the investigators are trying to do just that, hoping their efforts will uncover a clue that makes the circle smaller and possibly leads to the answers to the six missing family men.

“It’s tough,” said Ritz. “These guys all have families and we’re doing our best for them. But at the moment we have lots of questions and not any answers.”

The article was nicely drawn with the
Times
’s signature method of finding larger significance to a story than the story itself. In this case it was the theorizing that the disappearance of these men was symptomatic of the newest permutation of Las Vegas as an adult playground. It reminded me of a time I was working a case in which a man who owned an auto garage cut the hydraulic lines on a lift and a seven-thousand-pound Cadillac came down and crushed his longtime partner beneath it. A
Times
reporter called me up for the details for a story and then asked if the killing was symptomatic of the tightening economy in which money woes turned partners against partners. I said, no, I thought it was symptomatic of one guy not liking his partner screwing his wife.

Larger implications aside, the story was a plant. I could tell that. I had done the same thing with the same reporter in my time. Ritz was trolling for information. Since half the missing men were either from or going to Los Angeles, why not call the
Times
, plant a story with the cop reporter and see who and what pops up?

One person who popped up was Terry McCaleb. He obviously read the story on January 7, the day it was published, because his first set of notes on the file flap was dated as such. The notes were short and cryptic. At the top of the flap the name Ritz and a phone number with a 702 area code had been jotted down. Beneath this, McCaleb had written:

1/7 —
??44 avg.
??41—39—40
find intersection
cycle disruption—there are more
car—328
triangle theory?
??1 point gives 3
DD—check desert
1/9 —
call back—png
2/2
Hinton—702 259-4050
n/ c story?
2/28
Zzyzx—possible? how?
miles

Written along the side border of the file were two more phone numbers with 702 area codes. These were followed with the name William Bing.

I reread the notes and looked at the clipping again. I noticed for the first time that McCaleb had circled two things on the newspaper article, the mention of the 328 miles found to have been put on the rental car and the word
circle
in Echerd’s comment about the circle of the investigation being 164 miles in any direction. I didn’t know why he had circled these two things but I did know what most of the notes on the flap meant. I had spent more than seven hours reading through McCaleb’s files. I had seen notation after notation in file after file. The ex-agent used a shorthand of his own invention but one that was decipherable because in some files he spelled out what he chose to abbreviate in others.

Immediately recognizable to me was what he meant by the use of “DD.” It meant “definitely dead,” a classification and conclusion McCaleb made on the wide majority of the missing cases he reviewed. Also easy to decipher was “png,” which meant
persona non grata
, meaning McCaleb’s offer to help with the investigation was not received well or not received at all.

McCaleb had also found some significance in the age of the missing men. He wrote down an average age and then pulled out three of the victims’ ages because they were within two years of each other and very close to the average. This appeared to me to be notes relating to a victim profile but there wasn’t one in the file and I didn’t know if McCaleb ever proceeded past the notes stage.

The “find intersection” reference seemed to also be part of this profile. McCaleb was referring to a geographic or lifestyle intersection of the six missing men. Just as the Metro detective had put forth in the
Times
article, McCaleb was operating under the belief that there had to be a connection between these men. Yes, they were from as far apart as Ottawa and Los Angeles and did not know one another, but there had to be a point where they came together in some way.

“Cycle disruption—there are more” I suspected was a reference to the frequency of the disappearances. If someone was abducting and killing these men, as McCaleb believed, there would usually be a recognizable time cycle. Serial killers operate this way in most cases, with violent psychosexual urges building and then subsiding after a kill. McCaleb had apparently worked out the cycle and found holes in it—missing victims. He believed there were more than six men missing.

What puzzled me most about the notes was the reference to “triangle theory” and the phrase “1 point gives 3” below it. This was something I had not seen come up in the previous files and I did not know what was meant by it. It was noted in conjunction with references to the car and the 328 miles that had been put on it. But the more I played with it, the more puzzled I became by it. It was code or shorthand for something I didn’t know. It bothered me but there was nothing I could do about it with what I currently knew.

The January 9 reference was to a call back from Ritz. McCaleb had probably called and left a message and the Vegas detective had called back, listened to his pitch and maybe his profile, and had said not interested. This was not surprising. The FBI was often unwanted by the locals. The clash of egos between feds and locals was a routine part of the job. A retired bureau man would likely be treated no differently. Terry McCaleb was persona non grata.

That might have been it for this file and this case but then came the February 2 notation. A name and a number. I opened my cell phone and called the number, not caring about how late it was. Or early, depending on how you looked at it. I got a recording of a female voice.

“This is Cindy Hinton at the
Las Vegas Sun
. I can’t take your call right now but it is important to me. Please leave your name and number and I will call you back as soon as I can. Thank you.”

There was a beep and I hesitated, not sure I wanted to make contact yet. But I went ahead anyway.