The Black Echo

“Okay, the long list is like I said, everybody who had a box. It’s an all-inclusive list. Then we did five breakouts, A through E. The first-that’s A-is a breakout on boxes rented within the three months prior to the burglary. Then B, we did a breakout on boxholders who reported no loss at all in the burglary. Then C is the list of dead ends; boxholders who were actually dead or we couldn’t find because of changes in addresses or they had given phony information to rent them.

“Then the fourth and fifth breakouts are matching lists from the first three. D is anybody who rented a box in the previous three months and also reported no loss. E is anybody on the dead-end list who was also on the three-month list. Understand?”

He did. The FBI’s thinking had been that the vault had to have been cased by the thieves before the break-in and that was most likely accomplished by simply going into the bank and renting a box. That way they had legitimate access; the guy who rented the box could go inside the vault anytime he wanted during business hours and have a look around. So the list including anybody who rented a box within three months of the robbery stood a good chance of also including the scout.

Second, it was likely that this scout would not want to draw attention to himself after the robbery, so he might report nothing stolen from his box. So that would put him on the D list. But if he made no report at all or had given untraceable information on his box rental card, then his name would be on the E list.

There were only seven names on the D list and five on the E list. One of the E names was circled. Frederic B. Isley of Park La Brea, the name of the man who had bought three Honda ATVs in Tustin. The other names had check marks next to them.

“Remember?” Eleanor said. “I said that name would come up again.”

Harry nodded.

“Isley,” she said. “We think he was the scout. Rented the box nine weeks before the burglary. The bank records show he made a total of four visits to the vault during the next seven weeks. But after the break-in, he never came back, whoever he was. Never filed a report. And when we tried to contact him we found the address was phony.”

“Get a description?”

“Not one that would do us any good. Small, dark and maybe handsome was about as good as the vault clerks could do. We thought this guy was the scout even before we found out about the ATVs. When a boxholder wants to see his box, the clerk takes him in, unlocks the little door and then escorts him to one of the viewing rooms. When he’s done, they both take the box back and the customer initials his box card. Kind of like at a library. So, when we looked at this guy’s card we saw the initials-FBI. You’re a man who doesn’t like coincidences. Neither did we. We think somebody was having fun with us. Later, it was confirmed when we tracked the ATVs to Tustin.”

Harry sipped his coffee.

“Not much good it did us,” she said. “Never found him. In the debris of the vault after the burglary we were able to find his box. We printed it and the door. Nothing. We showed the vault clerks some mugs-Meadows was in there-and they couldn’t make anybody.”

“We could go back to them now with Franklin and Delgado, see if one of them was this Isley.”

“Yeah. We will. I’ll be right back.”

She got up and left and Bosch went back to drinking coffee and studying the list. He read every name and address on the list, but nothing jogged his memory aside from the handful of names of celebrities, politicians and the like that had safe-deposit boxes. Bosch was going over the list a second time when Eleanor came back. She was carrying a piece of paper, which she slid onto his desk.

“I checked Rourke’s office. He already sent most of the paperwork I turned in over to records. But the hypnosis memo was still in his in box, so he must not have seen it yet. I took it back. It’s useless now and it might be better if he didn’t see it.”

Harry glanced at the memo and then folded the page and put it in his pocket.

“Frankly,” she said, “I don’t think any of the paper was out in the open long enough… I mean, I just don’t see it. And Rourke… he’s a technocrat, not a killer. Like they said about you at behavioral sciences, he wouldn’t cross the line for money.”

Bosch looked at her and found himself wanting to say something to please her, to get her back on his side. He could think of nothing and could not understand this new coldness in her manner.

“Forget it,” he said, and then, looking down at the lists, he added, “How far did you people check out these people who reported no losses?”

She looked down at the printouts where Bosch had circled list B. There were nineteen names on the list.