Bosch would have to think about Banks’s answer. Charles Washburn had insisted that the gun he found in his backyard already had its serial number removed. This jibed with the fact that the shooter threw the gun over the fence after the murder, indicating a strong belief that the gun could not be traced to him in any way. But if Banks was to be believed, not all the members of the Saudi Princess five removed the serial numbers after returning from the Gulf War. But at least one of them did. There was something sinister about that. At least one of the five knew the weapon was going to be more than a souvenir. It was going to be used someday.

Bosch considered what was next. It was important for him to document all parts of the story, including the ongoing and changing relationships among the five men from the ship.

“Tell me about Henderson. What do you think happened to him?”

“Somebody killed him, that’s what happened.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know, man. All I know is that he told me we were clear on the boat thing because enough time had gone by, and that we had nothing to do with what happened in L.A., so we were totally in the clear there, too.”

Banks said that he never had another conversation with Henderson. A month later he was murdered in the robbery at the restaurant he managed.

“The restaurant that was owned by Cosgrove,” Bosch said.

“That’s right.”

“It said in a newspaper story at the time that he was starting to get his own restaurant going. Do you know anything about that?”

“I read that, too, but I didn’t know about it.”

“Did you think the robbery was just coincidence?”

“No, I thought the whole thing was a message. My take was that Chris thought he was in the clear but that he had something he could hold over Carl. He went to him and said, put me in business or else, and then the robbery happened and he got clipped. You know, they’ve never caught anybody for it and they never will.”

“So then who did it?”

“How the fuck do I know? Carl’s got tons of money. If he needs something done, it’ll get done, get what’m saying?”

Bosch nodded. He got it. He picked up the file and flipped through it, looking for anything that might spring the next question into his mind. He came across a series of photos of cameras like those Anneke Jespersen was known to have been carrying. The RCTF had circulated the photos to local pawnshops after the riots, without results.

“What about her cameras? They were taken. Did you see anyone with the cameras?”

Banks shook his head. Bosch pressed him.

“What about the film? Did Cosgrove ever mention taking film out of her camera?”