Echo Park Page 11

  O’Shea handled the introductions but again nobody bothered shaking anybody else’s hand. Waits was in an orange jumpsuit that had black letters stenciled across the chest.

  L.A. COUNTY JAIL

  KEEP AWAY

  The second line was not intended as a warning but it was just as good as one. It meant that Waits was on keep-away status within the jail, indicating he was housed by himself and not allowed into the general inmate population. This status was taken as a protective measure for both Waits and the other inmates.

  As Bosch studied the man he had been hunting for thirteen years he realized that the most frightening thing about Waits was how ordinary he looked. Slightly built, he had an everyman’s face. Pleasant, with soft features and short dark hair, he was the epitome of normality. The only hint of the evil that lay within was found in the eyes. Dark brown and deeply set, they carried an emptiness that Bosch recognized from other killers he had sat face-to-face with over the years. Nothing there. Just a hollowness that could never be filled, no matter how many other lives he stole.

  Rider turned on the tape recorder that was on the table and started the interview perfectly, giving Waits no reason to suspect he was stepping into a trap with the very first question of the session.

  “As was probably explained to you already by Mr. Swann, we are going to record each session with you and then turn the tapes over to your attorney, who will hold them until we have a completed agreement. Is that understood and approved by you?”

  “Yes, it is,” Waits said.

  “Good,” Rider said. “Then let’s begin with an easy one. Can you state your name, birth date and place of birth for the record?”

  Waits leaned forward and made a face like he was stating the obvious to schoolchildren.

  “Raynard Waits,” he said impatiently. “Born November third, nineteen seventy-one, in the city of angles—oh, I mean angels. The city of angels.”

  “If you mean Los Angeles, could you please say it?”

  “Yes, Los Angeles.”

  “Thank you. Your first name is unusual. Could you spell it for the tape?”

  Waits complied. Again, it was a good move by Rider. It would make it even more difficult for the man in front of them to argue later that he had not knowingly lied during the interview.

  “Do you know where the name came from?”

  “My father pulled it out of his ass, I guess. I don’t know. I thought we were here to talk about dead people, not the piddly basic shit.”

  “We are, Mr. Waits. We are.”

  Bosch felt an enormous sense of relief inside. He knew that they were about to sit through a retelling of horrors but he felt they already had Waits caught in a lie that might spring a fatal trap on him. There was now a chance that he was not going to walk away from this to a private cell and a life of public maintenance and celebrity.

  “We want to take these in order,” Rider said. “Your attorney’s proffer suggests that the first homicide you were ever involved in was the death of Daniel Fitzpatrick in Hollywood on April thirtieth, nineteen ninety-two. Is that correct?”

  Waits answered with the sort of matter-of-fact demeanor one would expect from someone giving directions to the nearest gas station. His voice was cold and calm.

  “Yes, I burned him alive behind his security cage. It turned out that he wasn’t so secure back there. Not even with all of his guns.”

  “Why did you do that?”

  “Because I wanted to see if I could. I had been thinking about it for a long time and I just wanted to prove myself.”

  Bosch thought about what Rachel Walling had said to him the night before. She had called it a “spree killing.” It looked like she had been right.

  “What do you mean by ‘prove yourself,’ Mr. Waits?” Rider asked.

  “I mean there is a line out there that everybody thinks about but not many have the guts to cross. I wanted to see if I could cross it.”

  “When you say you had been thinking about it for a long time, had you been thinking about Mr. Fitzpatrick in particular?”

  Annoyance flared in Waits’s eyes. It was as if he were putting up with her.

  “No, you stupid cunt,” he replied calmly. “I had been thinking about killing someone. You understand? All my life I had wanted to do it.”

  Rider shook off the insult without a flinch and kept moving.

  “Why did you choose Daniel Fitzpatrick? Why did you choose that night?”

  “Well, because I was watching TV and I saw the whole city coming apart. It was chaos out there and I knew the police couldn’t do anything about it. It was a time when people were doing just what they wanted. I saw a guy on the tube talking about Hollywood Boulevard and how places were burning and I decided to go out to see it. I didn’t want the TV showing it to me. I wanted to see it for myself.”

  “Did you drive there?”

  “No, I could walk. Back then I lived on Fountain near LaBrea. I just walked up.”

  Rider had the Fitzpatrick file open in front of her. She glanced down at it for a moment while collecting her thoughts and formulating the next set of questions. That gave O’Shea the opportunity to jump in.

  “Where did the lighter fluid come from?” he asked. “Did you take it with you from your apartment?”

  Waits shifted his focus to O’Shea.

  “I thought the dyke was asking the questions,” he said.

  “We’re all asking the questions,” O’Shea said. “And could you please keep the personal attacks out of your responses?”

  “Not you, Mr. District Attorney. I don’t want to talk to you. Only her. And them.”

  He pointed to Bosch and Olivas.

  “Let me just back up a little bit before we get to the lighter fluid,” Rider said, smoothly pushing O’Shea to the side. “You said you walked up to Hollywood Boulevard from Fountain. Where did you go and what did you see?”

  Waits smiled and nodded at Rider.

  “I got that right, didn’t I?” he said. “I can always tell. I can always smell it on a woman, when she likes pussy.”

  “Mr. Swann,” Rider said, “can you please tell your client that this is about him answering our questions, not the other way around?”

  Swann put his hand on Waits’s left forearm, which was bound to the arm of his chair.

  “Ray,” he said. “Don’t play games. Just answer the questions. Remember, we want this. We brought it to them. It’s our show.”

  Bosch saw a slow burn move across Waits’s face as he turned and looked at his lawyer. But then it quickly disappeared and he looked back at Rider.

  “I saw the city burning, that’s what I saw.”

  He smiled after giving the answer.

  “It was like a Hieronymus Bosch painting.”

  He turned to Bosch as he said this. It froze Bosch for a moment. How did he know?

  Waits nodded toward Bosch’s chest.

  “It’s on your ID card.”

  Bosch had forgotten that they’d had to clip their IDs on once they entered the DA’s office. Rider moved in quickly with the next question.

  “Okay, which way did you walk once you got to Hollywood Boulevard?”

  “I took a right and headed east. The bigger fires were down that way.”

  “What was in your pockets?”

  The question seemed to give him pause.

  “I don’t know. I don’t remember. My keys, I guess. Cigarettes and a lighter, that was all.”

  “Did you have your wallet?”

  “No, I didn’t want to have ID with me. In case the police stopped me.”

  “Did you already have the lighter fluid with you?”

  “That’s right, I did. I thought I might join in the fun, help burn the city to the ground. Then I walked by that pawnshop and got a better idea.”

  “You saw Mr. Fitzpatrick?”

  “Yeah, I saw him. He was standing inside his security fence holding a shotgun. He also was wearing a holster like he was Wyatt Earp or som
ething.”

  “Describe the pawnshop.”

  Waits shrugged.

  “A small place. It was called Irish Pawn. It had this neon sign out front that flashed a green three-leaf clover and then the three balls, you know, that are like the symbol for a pawnshop, I guess. Fitzpatrick was standing there, watching me when I passed by.”

  “And you kept walking?”

  “At first I did. I passed by and then I thought about the challenge, you know? How could I get to him without getting shot by that big fucking bazooka he was holding.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I took the can of EasyLight out of my jacket pocket and filled my mouth with it. Squirted it right in, like those flame breathers do on the Venice boardwalk. I then put the can away and got out a cigarette and my lighter. I don’t smoke anymore. It’s a terrible habit.”

  He looked at Bosch as he said this.

  “Then what?” Rider asked.

  “I went back to the asshole’s shop and walked into the alcove in front of the security fence. I acted like I was just looking for a blind to try to light my smoke. It was windy that night, you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “So he started yelling at me to get the fuck away. He came right up to the fence to yell at me. And I was counting on that.”

  He smiled, proud of how well his plan worked.

  “The guy hit the stock of his shotty against the steel fence to get my attention. You see, he saw my hands, so he didn’t realize the danger. And when he was about two feet away I got a flame on the lighter and looked him right in the eyes. I took the cigarette out of my mouth and spit all of that lighter fluid into his face. Of course, it hit the lighter on the way and I was a fucking flamethrower. He had a face full a’ flames before he knew what hit him. He dropped the shotty pretty fast so he could try to slap at the flames. But his clothes went up and pretty soon he was one crispy critter. It was like being hit by napalm, man.”

  Waits tried to raise his left arm but couldn’t. It was bound to the armrest at the wrist. He turned and raised his hand instead.

  “Unfortunately, I burned my hand a little bit. Blisters, the whole thing. It really hurt, too. I can’t imagine what that asshole Wyatt Earp felt. Not a good way to go, if you ask me.”

  Bosch looked at the upraised hand. He saw a discoloration in the skin tone, but not a scar. The burn had not gone deep.

  After a long measure of silence, Rider asked another question.

  “Did you seek medical attention for your hand?”

  “No, I didn’t think that would be too smart, considering the situation. And from what I heard, the hospitals were overflowing. So I went on home and took care of it myself.”

  “When did you place the can of lighter fluid in front of the store?”

  “Oh, that was when I was walking away. I just took it out, wiped it off and put it down.”

  “Did Mr. Fitzpatrick call out for help at any time?”

  Waits paused as if to ponder the question.

  “Well, that’s hard to say. He was yelling something, but I am not sure it was for help. He just kind of sounded like an animal to me. I closed the door on my dog’s tail once when I was kid. It sort of reminded me of that.”

  “What were you thinking as you were walking home?”

  “I was thinking, Far-fucking-out! I finally did it! And I knew I was going to get away with it, too. I felt like I was pretty goddamn invincible, if you want to know the truth.”

  “How old were you?”

  “I was . . . I was twenty, man, and I fuckin’ did it!”

  “Did you ever think about the man you killed, who you burned to death?”

  “No, not really. He was just there. There for the taking. Like the rest of them that came after. It was like they were there for me.”

  Rider spent another forty minutes questioning him, eliciting smaller details that nonetheless matched those contained in the investigative reports. Finally, at 11:15 she seemed to relax her posture and pull back from her place at the table. She turned to look at Bosch and then at O’Shea.

  “I think I have enough for the moment,” she said. “Maybe we could take a short break at this point.”

  She turned off the tape recorder, and the three investigators and O’Shea stepped out into the hallway to confer. Swann stayed in the interview room with his client.

  “What do you think?” O’Shea said to Rider.

  She nodded.

  “I’m satisfied. I don’t think there is any doubt that he did it. He solved the mystery of how he got to him. I don’t think he’s telling us everything but he knows enough of the details. He either did it or he was right there.”

  O’Shea looked at Bosch.

  “Should we move on?”

  Bosch thought about this for a moment. He was ready. As he had watched Rider interview Waits his anger and disgust had grown. The man in the interview room showed such a callous disregard for his victim that Bosch recognized it as the classic profile of a psychopath. As before, he dreaded what he would next hear from the man but he was ready to hear it.

  “Let’s do it,” he said.

  They all moved back into the interview room and Swann immediately suggested that they break for lunch.

  “My client is hungry.”

  “Gotta feed the dog,” Waits added with a smile.

  Bosch shook his head, taking charge of the room.

  “Not yet,” he said. “He’ll eat when we all eat.”

  He took the seat directly across from Waits and turned the recorder back on. Rider and O’Shea took the wing positions and Olivas sat once again in the chair by the door. Bosch had taken the Gesto file back from Olivas but had it closed in front of him on the table.

  “We’re going to move on now to the Marie Gesto case,” he said.

  “Ah, sweet Marie,” Waits said.

  He looked at Bosch with a brightness in his eyes.

  “Your attorney’s proffer suggests that you know what happened to Marie Gesto when she disappeared in nineteen ninety-three. Is that true?”

  Waits frowned and nodded.

  “Yes, I’m afraid so,” he said with mock sincerity.

  “Do you know the current whereabouts of Marie Gesto or the location of her remains?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  Here it was, the moment Bosch had waited on for thirteen years.

  “She’s dead, isn’t she?”

  Waits looked at him and nodded.

  “Is that a yes?” Bosch asked for the tape.

  “That is a yes. She’s dead.”

  “Where is she?”

  Waits broke into a broad smile, the smile of a man who had not an atom of regret or guilt in his DNA.

  “She’s right here, Detective,” he said. “She’s right here with me. Just like all the others. Right here with me.”

  His smile turned into a laugh and Bosch almost went across the table at him. But Rider moved her hand under the table and put it on his leg. It immediately calmed him.

  “Hold on a second,” O’Shea said. “Let’s step out again, and this time I would like you to join us, Maury.”

  12

  O’SHEA CHARGED INTO THE hallway first and managed to pace back and forth twice before all the others were out of the interview room. He then instructed the two deputies to go into the room and keep an eye on Waits. The door was then closed.

  “What the fuck, Maury?” O’Shea barked. “We’re not going to spend our time in there laying the groundwork for an insanity defense for you. This is a confession, not a defense maneuver.”

  Swann turned his palms up in a what-can-I-do gesture.

  “The guy obviously has issues,” he said.

  “Bullshit. He’s a stone-cold killer and he’s in there vamping like Hannibal Lecter. This isn’t a movie, Maury. This is real. You hear what he said about Fitzpatrick? He was more worried about a little burn on his hand than he was about the guy whose face he spit flames into. So I’ll tell you what,
you go back in there and take five minutes with your client. Set him straight or we walk away from this and everybody takes their chances.”

  Bosch was unconsciously nodding. He liked the anger in O’Shea’s voice. He also liked the way this was going.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Swann said.

  He went back into the interview room and the deputies came back out to give the attorney and his client privacy. O’Shea continued to pace while he cooled down.

  “Sorry about that,” he said to no one in particular. “But I’m not going to let them control this thing.”

  “They already are,” Bosch said. “Waits is, at least.”

  O’Shea looked at him, ready for a fight.

  “What are you saying?”

  “I mean we’re all here because of him. The bottom line is, we are engaged in an effort to save his life—at his own request.”

  O’Shea emphatically shook his head.

  “I’m not going to go back and forth on that issue with you again, Bosch. The decision has been made. At this point, if you’re not on board, the elevator’s right down the hall to the left. I’ll handle your part of the interview. Or Freddy will.”

  Bosch waited a beat before answering.

  “I didn’t say I wasn’t on board. Gesto is my case and I will see it through.”

  “Nice to hear it,” O’Shea said with full sarcasm. “Too bad you weren’t so attentive back in ’ninety-three.”

  He reached over and knocked harshly on the interview room door. Bosch stared at his back with anger welling up from some place deep inside. Swann opened the door almost immediately.

  “We’re ready to continue,” he said as he stepped back to let them in.

  After everyone retook their seats, and the recorder was turned back on, Bosch shook off his anger at O’Shea and locked eyes with Waits again. He repeated the question.

  “Where is she?”

  Waits smiled slightly, like he was tempted to set things off again, but then the smile turned into a smirk and he answered.

  “Up in the hills.”

  “Where in the hills?”

  “Up near the stables. That’s where I got her. Right when she was getting out of her car.”