“Ms. Gables,” Edgar said. “Jerry Edgar. You remember me?”
As planned, Edgar was taking the lead before passing it off to Bosch.
Gables paused on the path. She was carrying a stylish red leather briefcase. She acted as though she were trying to place Edgar’s face, and then she smiled.
“Of course, Detective. How are you?”
“I’m fine. You must have a very good memory.”
“Well, it’s not every day that you meet a real live detective. Is this coincidence or …”
“Not a coincidence. I’m with Detective Bosch here and we would like to ask you a few questions about the Randolph case, if you don’t mind.”
“It was so long ago.”
“Five years,” Bosch said, asserting himself now. “But it’s still an open case.”
She registered the information and then nodded.
“Well, it’s been a long day. I start at six in the morning, when the market opens. Could we —”
Bosch cut her off. “I start at six too, but not because of the stock market.”
He wasn’t backing down.
“Then fine, you’re welcome to come in,” she said. “But I don’t know what help I can be after so long. I didn’t really think I was much help five years ago. I didn’t see anything. Didn’t hear anything. I just happened to be in the neighborhood after I was at the police station.”
“We’re investigating the case again,” Bosch said. “And we need to talk to everybody we talked to five years ago.”
“Well, like I said, come on in.”
She unlocked the front door and entered first, greeted by the beeping of an alarm warning. She quickly punched a four-digit combination into an alarm-control box on the wall. Bosch and Edgar stepped in behind her and she ushered them into the living room.
“Why don’t you gentlemen have a seat? I’m going to put my things down and be right back out. Would either of you like something to drink?”
“I’ll take a bottle of water if you got it,” Edgar said.
“I’m fine,” Bosch said.
“You know what?” Edgar said quickly. “I’m fine too.”
Gables glanced at Bosch and seemed to register that he was the power in the room. She said she’d be right back.
After she was gone Bosch looked around the room. It was a basic living room setup with a couch and two chairs surrounding a glass-topped coffee table. One wall was made up entirely of built-in bookshelves, all filled with what looked by their titles to be crime novels. He noticed there were no personal displays. No framed photographs anywhere.
They remained standing until Gables came back and pointed them to the couch. She took a chair directly across the table from them.
“Now, what can I tell you? Frankly, I forgot the whole incident.”
“But you remembered Detective Edgar. I could tell.”
“Yes, but seeing him out of context, I knew I recognized him but I could not remember from where.”
According to the DMV, Gables was now forty-one years old. And Edgar had been right: She was a looker, attractive in a professional sort of way. A short, no-nonsense cut to her brown hair. Slim, athletic build. She sat straight and looked straight at one or the other of them, no longer scanning because she was inside her comfort zone. Still, there were tells: Bosch knew through his training in interview techniques that normal eye contact between individuals lasted an average of three seconds, yet each time Gables looked at Bosch, she held his eyes a good ten seconds. That was a sign of stress.
“I was rereading the reports,” Bosch said. “They included your explanation for being in the area — you were at the police station filling out a report.”
“That’s right.”
“It didn’t say, though, where your car was when it got damaged the night before.”
“I had been at a restaurant on Franklin. I told them that. And when I came out after, the back taillight was smashed and the paint scraped.”
“You didn’t call the police then?”
“No, I didn’t. No one was there. It was a hit-and-run; they didn’t even leave a note on the car. They just took off and I thought I was out of luck.”
“What was the name of the restaurant?”
“I can’t remember — oh, it was Birds. I love the roasted chicken.”
Bosch nodded. He knew the place and the roasted chicken.
“So what made you come back to Hollywood the next day and file the report on the hit-and-run?”
“I called my insurance company first thing in the morning and they said I needed it if I wanted to file a claim to cover the damages.”
Bosch was covering ground that was already in the reports. He was looking for variations, changes. Stories told five years apart often had inconsistencies and contradictions. But Gables wasn’t changing the narrative at all.