Banks held quiet and Bosch got up. He went to the case file that was in his backpack and brought it back to the table. He had stacked the deck that morning, preparing the file so that it could be opened and photos and documents could be presented in a sequence of his choosing. Bosch opened it, and there was one of the photos of Anneke Jespersen on the ground in the alley. He slid it across the table so that it was right in front of Banks.

“There is the woman you five killed and then you covered it up.”

“You’re crazy. This is so—”

Bosch slid the next photo across—a shot of the murder weapon.

“And there’s the Iraqi Army pistol she was killed with. One of the weapons you told me earlier you smuggled back from the Gulf.”

Banks shrugged.

“So? What are they going to do to me? Take away my VFW card? Big fucking deal. Get these pictures out of my face.”

Bosch slid the next one across. Banks, Dowler, Cosgrove, and Henderson on the pool deck of the Saudi Princess.

“And there you four are together on the Princess, the night before you all got drunk and raped Anneke Jespersen.”

Banks shook his head, but Bosch could tell the last photo had hit its target. Banks was scared because even he knew that he was the weak link. Dowler might be right there with him, but Dowler wasn’t handcuffed to a chair. He was.

All the fear and worry boiled up inside and Banks made a colossal mistake.

“The statute of limitations on a rape is seven years and you’ve got nothing on me. I didn’t have a fucking thing to do with any of the other shit.”

It was a major concession on his part. All Bosch had was a conspiracy theory with no evidence to back it up. The play with Banks had only one purpose. To turn him against the others. To make him the evidence against them.

But Banks didn’t appear to understand what he had said, what he had given. Bosch rolled with it.

“Is that what Henderson said, that you all were in the clear on the rape? Is that why he made a move on Cosgrove, wanted money for his own restaurant?”

Banks didn’t answer. He seemed stunned by Bosch’s knowledge of things. Bosch had been reaching, but not without confidence in how all things between the men who had been on the boat were linked.

“Only that move sort of backfired on him, huh?”

Bosch nodded as if confirming his own statement. He saw some sort of realization come into Banks’s eyes. It was what he was waiting for.

“That’s right,” Bosch said. “We’ve got Dowler. And he doesn’t want to go away for the rest of his life. So he’s been cooperating.”

Banks shook his head.