“Not to me. I don’t know anything about what happened in that alley, man. How many times I have to tell you? I wasn’t there.”

Bosch suddenly remembered a key area of questioning that he had not yet tapped and silently chastised himself for almost forgetting it. He was sure he would have only this one go-round with Banks. Once the case moved forward, Banks would get an attorney. Even if he continued to cooperate under his lawyer’s guidance, it was unlikely that Bosch would get another chance at a one-on-one sit-down with no lawyers in the room and him setting the rules. He had to get all he could from Banks right now.

“What about the girl’s hotel room? Somebody went in there after she was dead, and they had her key. It was pulled out of her pocket when she was murdered.”

Banks started shaking his head halfway through Bosch’s question. Bosch read it as a tell.

“I don’t know anything about that,” Banks said.

“You sure?” Bosch said. “You hold something back on me and it’s just the same as a lie. I find out and this deal is dead and I use everything you’ve said to put you in the ground. You understand that?”

Banks relented.

“Look, I don’t know a lot. But when we were down there, I heard that Drummer got hurt and had to go to the hospital. He had like a concussion and they kept him overnight. But Drummer told me later that the whole thing didn’t happen. That he and Carl cooked it up so he would be away from the unit and be able to go to her hotel and use the key to see if she had anything that was, you know, incriminating about the boat.”

Bosch already knew the public story. Drummond, the war hero, was the only one in the 237th who was injured during the call of duty in Los Angeles. It was all a fake, part of a plan to cover up a gang rape and a murder. Now, with the financial help of one of the men he covered up for, he was a two-term sheriff looking at a run for Congress.

“What else did you hear?” Bosch asked. “What did he get from the room?”

“All I heard was that he got her notes. It was like a journal of her looking for us and trying to figure out who we were. Turned out she was writing a book about it, I guess.”

“Does he still have it?”

“I have no idea. I never even saw it.”

Bosch decided that Drummond had to still have the journal. It was that and his knowledge of what had happened that allowed him to control the other four conspirators. Especially Carl Cosgrove, who was rich and powerful and could help Drummond fulfill his ambitions.