A Darkness More Than Night (2000) Read online

  He quickly went to the stairs and climbed up to the roof landing. He had to work his way around some furniture that was stacked and stored on the landing but found the door unlocked and hurried across the flat, gravel-strewn roof to the air conditioner.

  McCaleb first studied the owl before touching it. It matched his memory of the owl on the crime scene tape. Its base was an octagonal stump. He knew it was the missing owl. He removed the wire that had been wrapped around the base and attached to the intake grill of the air conditioner. He noticed that the grill and metal covering of the unit were covered with old bird droppings. He surmised that the droppings were a maintenance problem and Rohrshak, who apparently managed this building as well as the one across the street, had taken the owl from Gunn’s apartment to use to keep the birds away.

  McCaleb took the wire and looped it around the owl’s neck so that he could carry it without touching it, though he doubted there would be any usable fingerprint or fiber evidence remaining on it. He lifted it off the air conditioner and headed back to the stairs.

  When McCaleb stepped back into Edward Gunn’s apartment he saw two crime scene techs getting equipment out of a toolbox. A stepladder was standing in front of the china cabinet.

  “You might want to start with this,” he said.

  He watched Rohrshak’s eyes widen as he entered the room and placed the plastic owl on the table.

  “You manage the place across the street, don’t you, Mr. Rohrshak?”

  “Uh . . .”

  “It’s okay. It’s easy enough to find out.”

  “Yes, he does,” Winston said, bending down to look at the owl. “He was over there when we needed him on the day of the murder. He lives there.”

  “Any idea how this ended up on the roof?” McCaleb asked.

  Rohrshak still didn’t answer.

  “Guess it just flew over, right?”

  Rohrshak couldn’t take his eyes off the owl.

  “Tell you what, you can go now, Mr. Rohrshak. But stay around your place. If we get a print off the bird or the cabinet, we’re going to need to take a set of yours for comparison.”

  Now Rohrshak looked at McCaleb and his eyes grew even wider.

  “Go on, Mr. Rohrshak.”

  The building manager turned and slowly headed out of the apartment.

  “And shut the door, please,” McCaleb called after him.

  After he was gone and the door was shut Winston almost burst into laughter.

  “Terry, you’re being so hard on him. He didn’t really do anything wrong, you know. We cleared the place, he let the sister take what she wanted and then what was he supposed to do, try to rent the place with this stupid owl up there?”

  McCaleb shook his head.

  “He lied to us. That was wrong. I almost blew a gasket climbing that building across the street. He could have just told us it was up there.”

  “Well, he’s properly scared now. I think he learned his lesson.”

  “Whatever.”

  He stepped back so one of the techs could go to work on the owl while the other climbed the ladder to work on the top of the cabinet.

  McCaleb studied the bird as the tech brushed on black fingerprint powder. It appeared that the owl was hand painted. It was dark brown and black on its wings, head and back. Its chest was a lighter brown with some yellow highlighting. Its eyes were a shiny black.

  “Has this been outside?” the tech asked.

  “Unfortunately,” McCaleb answered, remembering the rains that had swept off the mainland and out to Catalina the week before.

  “Well, I’m not getting anything.”

  “Figures.”

  McCaleb looked at Winston, his eyes portraying renewed anger with Rohrshak.

  “Nothing up here, either,” the other tech said. “Too much dust.”

  9

  The trial of David Storey was being held in the Van Nuys courthouse. The crime the case centered on was not remotely connected to Van Nuys or even the San Fernando Valley, but the courthouse had been chosen by schedulers in the district attorney’s office because Department N was available and it was the single largest courtroom in the county — constructed out of two courtrooms several years earlier to comfortably hold the two juries as well as the attendant media crush of the Menendez brothers murder case. The Menendezes’ slaying of their parents had been one of several Los Angeles court cases in the previous decade to capture the media’s and, therefore, the public’s attention. When it was over, the DA’s office did not bother deconstructing the huge courtroom. Somebody there had the foresight to realize that in L.A. there would always be a case that could fill Department N.

  And at the moment it was the David Storey case.

  The thirty-eight-year-old film director, known for films that pushed the limits of violence and sexuality within an R rating, was charged with the murder of a young actress he had taken home from the premiere of his most recent film. The twenty-three-year-old woman’s body was found the next morning in the small Nichols Canyon bungalow she shared with another would-be actress. The victim had been strangled, her nude body arranged in her bed in a pose investigators believed to be part of a careful plan by her killer to avoid discovery.

  The case’s elements — power, celebrity, sex and money — and the added Hollywood connection served to bring the case maximum media attention. David Storey worked on the wrong side of the camera to be a fully realized celebrity himself, but his name was known and he wielded the awesome power of a man who had delivered seven box office hits in as many years. The media were drawn to the Storey trial in the way young people are drawn by the dream of Hollywood. The advance coverage clearly delineated the case as a parable on unchecked Hollywood avarice and excess.

  The case also had a degree of secrecy not usually seen in criminal trials. The prosecutors assigned to the case took their evidence to a grand jury in order to seek charges against Storey. The move allowed them to bypass a preliminary hearing, where most of the evidence accumulated against a defendant is usually made public. Without that fount of case information, the media were left to mine their sources in both the prosecution and defense camps. Still, little about the case was leaked to the media other than generalities. The evidence the prosecution would use to tie Storey to the murder remained cloaked, and all the more cause for the media frenzy around the trial.

  It was just that frenzy that had convinced the district attorney to move the trial to the large Department N courtroom in Van Nuys. The second jury box would be used to accommodate more media members in the courtroom, while the unused deliberation room would be converted into a media room where the video feed could be watched by the second- and third-tier journalists. The move, which would give all media — from the National Enquirer to the New York Times — full access to the trial and its players, guaranteed the proceedings would become the first full-blooded media circus of the new century.

  In the center ring of this circus, sitting at the prosecution table, was Detective Harry Bosch, the lead investigator of the case. All the pretrial media analysis came down to one conclusion: the charges against David Storey would rise and fall with Bosch. All evidence in support of the murder charge was said to be circumstantial; the foundation of the case would come from Bosch. The one solid piece of evidence that had been leaked to the media was that Bosch would testify that in a private moment, with no other witnesses or devices at hand to record the statement, Storey had smugly admitted to him that he had committed the crime and boasted that he would surely get away with it.

  McCaleb knew all of this as he walked into the Van Nuys courthouse shortly before noon. He stood in line to go through the metal detector and felt a reminder of all that had changed in his life. When he had been a bureau agent all he needed to do was hold his badge up and walk around the line. Now he was just a citizen. He had to wait.

  The fourth-floor hallway was crowded with people milling about. McCaleb noticed that many clutched stacks of eight-by-ten black-and-white
glossies of the movie stars they hoped would be attending the trial — either as witnesses or as spectators in support of the defendant. He walked to the double-door entrance to Department N but one of the two sheriff’s deputies posted there told him the courtroom was at full capacity. The deputy pointed to a long line of people standing behind a rope. He said it was the line for people waiting to go in. Every time one person left the courtroom another could go in. McCaleb nodded and stepped away from the doors.

  He saw that further down the hallway was an open door with people milling about it. He recognized one man as a reporter on a local television news program. He guessed it was the media room and headed that way.

  When he got to the open door he could look in and see two large televisions mounted high up in either corner above the room where there were several people crowded around a large jury table. Reporters. They were typing on laptop computers, taking notes on pads, eating sandwiches from to-go bags. The center of the table was crowded with plastic coffee and soda cups.

  He looked up at one of the televisions and saw that court was still in session though it was now past noon. The camera focused on a wide angle and he recognized Harry Bosch sitting with a man and a woman at the prosecution table. It did not look as though he was paying attention to the proceedings. A man McCaleb recognized stood at the lectern between the prosecution and defense tables. He was J. Reason Fowkkes, the lead defense attorney. At the table to his left sat the defendant, David Storey.

  McCaleb could not hear the audio feed but he knew that Fowkkes was not delivering his opening statement. He was looking up at the judge, not in the direction of the jury box. Most likely last-minute motions were being argued by the attorneys before openers began. The twin television screens switched to a new camera, this angle directly on the judge, who began speaking, apparently delivering his rulings. McCaleb noted the name plate in front of the judge’s bench. It said Superior Court Judge John A. Houghton.

  “Agent McCaleb?”

  McCaleb turned from the television to see a man he recognized but couldn’t immediately place standing next to him.

  “Just McCaleb. Terry McCaleb.”

  The man perceived his difficulty and held out his hand.

  “Jack McEvoy. I interviewed you once. It was pretty brief. It was about the Poet investigation.”

  “Oh, right, I remember now. That was a while back.”

  McCaleb shook his hand. He did remember McEvoy. He had become entwined in the Poet case and then wrote a book about it. McCaleb had had a very peripheral part in the case — when the investigation had shifted to Los Angeles. He never read McEvoy’s book but was sure he had not added anything to it and likely wasn’t mentioned in it.

  “I thought you were from Colorado,” he said, recalling that McEvoy had worked for one of the papers in Denver. “They sent you out to cover this?”

  McEvoy nodded.

  “Good memory. I was from there but I live out here now. I work freelance.”

  McCaleb nodded, wondering what else there was to say.

  “Who are you covering this for?”

  “I’ve been writing a weekly dispatch on it for the New Times. Do you read it?”

  McCaleb nodded. He was familiar with the New Times. It was a weekly tabloid with an anti-authority, muckraking stance. It appeared to subsist mostly on entertainment ads, ranging from movies to the escort services that filled its back pages. It was free and Buddy always seemed to leave issues lying around the boat. McCaleb looked at it from time to time but hadn’t noticed McEvoy’s name before.

  “I’m also doing a general wrap for Vanity Fair,” McEvoy said. “You know, a more discursive, dark-side-of-Hollywood piece. I’m thinking about another book, too. What brings you here? Are you . . . involved with this in some . . .”

  “Me, no. I was in the area and I have a friend involved. I was hoping I might be able to get a chance to say hello to him.”

  As he told the lie McCaleb looked away from the writer and back through the door to the televisions. The full courtroom camera angle was now being shown. It looked like Bosch was gathering things into a briefcase.

  “Harry Bosch?”

  McCaleb looked back at him.

  “Yeah, Harry. We worked a case together before and . . . uh, what’s going on in there now, anyway?”

  “Final motions before they start. They started with a closed session and they’re just doing some housekeeping. Not worth being in there. Everybody thinks the judge will probably finish before lunch and then give the lawyers the rest of the day to work on openers. They start tomorrow at ten. You think things are crowded here now? Wait till tomorrow.”

  McCaleb nodded.

  “Oh, well, okay then. Uh, nice seeing you again, Jack. Good luck with the story. And the book, if it comes to that.”

  “You know, I would have liked to write your story. You know, with the heart and everything.”

  McCaleb nodded.

  “Well, I owed Keisha Russell one and she did a good job with it.”

  McCaleb noticed people start to push their way out of the media room. Behind them he could see on the television screens that the judge had left the bench. Court was out of session.

  “I better go down the hall and see if I can catch Harry. Good to see you again, Jack.”

  McCaleb offered his hand and McEvoy shook it. He then followed the other reporters down to the courtroom doors.

  The main doors to Department N were opened by the two deputies and out flowed the crowd of lucky citizens who had gotten seats during the session, which had most likely been mind-numbingly boring. Those who had not made it inside pushed up close for a glimpse of a celebrity but they were disappointed. The celebrities wouldn’t start showing until the next day. Opening statements were like the opening credits of a film. That’s where they would want to be seen.

  At the tail end of the crowd came the lawyers and staff. Storey had been returned to lockup but his attorney strode right to the semicircle of reporters and began giving his view of what had transpired inside. A tall man with jet black hair, a deep tan and ever-shifting green eyes took a position directly behind the lawyer to cover his back. He was striking and McCaleb thought he recognized him but he couldn’t think from where. He looked like one of the actors Storey normally put in his films.

  The prosecutors came out and soon had their own knot of reporters to deal with. Their answers were shorter than the defense lawyer’s. They often declined to comment when asked questions about the evidence they would present.

  McCaleb watched for Bosch and finally saw him slip out last. Bosch skirted the crowd by staying close to the wall and headed toward the elevators. One reporter moved in on him but he held up his hand and waved her away. She stopped and moved back like a loose molecule to the pack standing around J. Reason Fowkkes.

  McCaleb followed Bosch down the hall and caught him when he stopped to wait for an elevator.

  “Hey, Harry Bosch.”

  Bosch turned, already putting on his no-comment face, when he saw it was McCaleb.

  “Hey . . . McCaleb.”

  He smiled. The men shook hands.

  “Looks like the world’s worst eight-by-ten case,” McCaleb said.

  “You’re telling me. What are you doing here? Don’t tell me you’re writing a book on this thing.”

  “What?”

  “All these ex-bureau guys writing books nowadays.”

  “Nah, that’s not me. Actually, though, I was hoping I could maybe buy you lunch. There’s something I wanted to talk to you about.”

  Bosch looked at his watch and was deciding something.

  “Edward Gunn.”

  Bosch looked up at him.

  “Jaye Winston?”

  McCaleb nodded.

  “She asked me to take a look.”

  The elevator came and they stepped onto it with a crowd of people who had been in the courtroom. They all seemed to be looking at Bosch while trying not to show it. McCaleb decided not to con
tinue until they were off.

  On the first floor they headed toward the exit.

  “I told her I’d profile it. A quick one. To do it I need to get a handle on Gunn. I thought maybe you could tell me about that old case and about what kind of guy he was.”

  “He was a scumbag. Look, I have about forty-five minutes max. I need to get on the road. I’m running down wits today, making sure everybody’s ready to go after openers.”

  “I’ll take the forty-five if you can spare it. Any place to eat around here?”