The Narrows - Michael Connelly [107]
“I understand that, but given the circumstances I decided it was in the best interest of the investigation to pool our knowledge and resources. Quite frankly, Agent Alpert, Bosch was the one who found that place. We wouldn’t have what we have right now if not for him.”
“Don’t kid yourself, Agent Walling. We would have gotten there.”
“I know that. But velocity was a factor. You said so yourself after the morning briefing. The director was going before the cameras. I wanted to push the case so that he would have as much information as possible.”
“Well, forget about that now. Now we don’t know what we have. He postponed the news conference and has given us until noon tomorrow to figure out what we have out there.”
Cherie Dei cleared her voice and risked intruding again.
“That’s impossible,” she said. “That’s a well-done crispy critter out there. They’re using multiple bags to get it out of there. ID and cause of death are going to take weeks, if an ID and cause of death are even possible. Luckily, it appears that Agent Walling was able to obtain a DNA sampling from the body and that would speed things but we have no comparative evidence. We —”
“Maybe you weren’t listening ten seconds ago,” Alpert said, “but we don’t have weeks. We’ve got less than twenty-four hours.”
He turned away from them and put his hands on his hips, striking a pose that showed the burden that weighed upon him as the only intelligent and savvy agent left on the planet.
“Then let us go back up there,” Rachel said. “Maybe in the debris we’ll find something that —”
“No!” Alpert yelled.
He spun back around to them.
“That won’t be necessary, Agent Walling. You have done enough.”
“I know Backus and I know the case. I should be out there.”
“I decide who should be and shouldn’t be out there. I want you to get back to the field office and start the paperwork on this fiasco. I want it on my desk by eight a.m. tomorrow. I want a detailed listing of everything you saw inside that trailer.”
He waited to see if she would argue the order. Rachel remained silent and this seemed to please him.
“Now, I’ve got the media all over this. What do we put out that doesn’t give away the store and won’t upstage the director tomorrow?”
Dei shrugged.
“Nothing. Tell them the director will address it tomorrow, end of story.”
“That won’t work. We have to give them something.”
“Don’t give them Backus,” Rachel said. “Tell them agents wanted to speak to a man named Thomas Walling about a missing persons case. But Walling had rigged his trailer and it exploded while agents were on the premises.”
Alpert nodded. It sounded good to him.
“What about Bosch?”
“I’d leave him out of it. We don’t have any control over him. If a reporter got to him he might lay the whole thing out.”
“And the body. Do we say it was Walling?”
“We say we don’t know because we don’t. ID is forthcoming, so on and so forth. That should be enough.”
“If the reporters go to the brothels they’ll get the whole story.”
“No, they won’t. We never told anyone the whole story.”
“By the way, what happened to Bosch?”
Dei answered that one.
“I took his statement and released him. Last I saw he was driving back to Vegas.”
“He’ll keep quiet about this?”
Dei looked at Rachel and then back at Alpert.
“Put it this way, he isn’t going to be looking to talk to anybody about it. And as long as we keep his name out of it, there will be no reason for anyone to go looking for him.”
Alpert nodded. He dug a hand into one of his pockets and came out with a cell phone.
“When we are finished here I have to call Washington. Gut reaction time: Was that Backus in that trailer?”
Rachel hesitated, not wanting to respond first.
“At this point there is no way to tell,” Dei said. “If you are asking if you should tell the director