“Absolutely not. You never know when you go up there how long it will take them to deliver your prisoner or how long the prisoner will talk to you. I’ve gone up there for what ended up being a one-minute interview, and I’ve gone up there when a one-hour interview turns into four. You never know, so you always give yourself extra time.”

“You gave yourself a four-hour window at the prison.”

“That’s about right. Plus you have the uncertainties of traffic. You have to fly up there, take the train to the rental-car center, get your car and get up to the city, get all the way across the city and then the Golden Gate, and then you have to do all of that coming back. You build in time for contingencies. I ended up with a little over four hours at the prison and I only used two waiting and then talking to Coleman. Do the math. I had extra time and I used it to see this kid.”

“Exactly when did you tell the guards you wanted to see Stone?”

“I remember looking at my watch as they took Coleman away. I saw it was two-thirty and I knew my flight was at six. I figured that even with traffic and rental-car return I still had at least an hour. I could get back to the airport earlier or I could see if they could bring me another prisoner real quick. I chose the latter.”

“Did you think of seeing if there was an earlier flight?”

“No, because it didn’t matter. My workday would be over when I got back to L.A. I wasn’t going into the office, so it didn’t matter if I landed at five or seven. I would be done for the day. There’s no overtime anymore. You know that, Detective.”

Jackson cut in and spoke for the first time during the interview.

“Also,” he said, “changing a flight often involves an additional fee. It can be anywhere from twenty-five to a hundred dollars, and if he had made that change, he’d have to answer to the budget and travel people about that.”

Bosch nodded. Jackson was improvising on Mendenhall’s question but had come up with a good add.

Mendenhall seemed to have a list she was going through, even though there was nothing on paper in front of her. She mentally ticked off the travel question and moved on to the next.

“Did you in any way lead the corrections officers at San Quentin to believe that you wished to speak to Shawn Stone as part of an investigation?”

Bosch shook his head.

“No, I did not. And I think when I asked how I could deposit money into his canteen account, it was clear that he was not part of an investigation.”

“But you asked about that after you spoke to Stone, correct?”

“Correct.”