He blew out his breath and went back to the desk and the last notebook that Howard Elias had kept. As he paged through, he came across repeated notes regarding someone referred to as “Parker.” Bosch did not believe this to be a person’s real name, but rather a code name for a person inside Parker Center. The notations were mostly lists of questions Elias apparently intended to ask “Parker,” as well as what looked like notes on conversations with this person. They were mostly in abbreviated form or the lawyer’s own version of shorthand and therefore difficult to decipher. But in other instances the notes were clear to Bosch. One notation clearly indicated to Bosch that Elias had a deeply connected source inside Parker Center.

PARKER:
GET ALL 51S — UNSUSTAINED
SHEEHAN
COBLENZ
ROOKER
STANWICK

Bosch recognized the names as belonging to four RHD detectives who were among the defendants in the Black Warrior case. Elias wanted the 51 reports — or citizen complaint files — on the four detectives. More specifically, Elias wanted the unsustained files, meaning he was interested in complaints against the four that had been investigated by the IAD but not substantiated. Such unsustained complaints were removed from officers’ personnel files as a matter of department policy and were therefore out of reach of a subpoena from a lawyer like Elias. The notation in the notebook told Bosch that Elias somehow knew that there were unsubstantiated prior complaints against the four and that he had a source in Parker Center who had access to the old files on those complaints. The first assumption was not a major leap; all cops had unsubstantiated complaints. It was part of being a cop. But someone with access to that sort of file was different. If Elias had such a source, it was a well-placed source.

One of the last references to Parker in the notebook appeared to be notes of a conversation, which Bosch assumed to have been a phone call to Elias at his desk. It appeared that Elias was losing his source.

PARKER WON’T
JEOPARDY/EXPOSURE
FORCE THE ISSUE?

Parker won’t what? Bosch wondered. Turn over the files Elias wanted? Did Parker believe that getting the files to Elias would expose him as a source? There wasn’t enough there for him to make a conclusion. There wasn’t enough for him to understand what “force the issue” meant either. He wasn’t sure what any of the notes might have to do with the killing of Howard Elias. Nevertheless, Bosch was intrigued. One of the department’s most vocal and successful critics had a mole inside Parker Center. There was a traitor inside the gate and it was important to know this.