company that owned several other large complexes in the area, which also carried low rents and high incidences of health-and-safety-code violations. Written before the deadly fire was known to be arson, the story seemed intended to prepare the reader for an eventual conclusion that the blaze was started because some code was violated or ignored.
The stories jumped inside, where there were more sidebars and two pages of photographs from the scene. There was also a black-bordered box that listed the names of all the reporters who worked on the newspaper’s coverage of the fire. Bosch counted twenty-two names and it made him miss the old Los Angeles Times. In 1993 it was big and strong, its editions fat with ads and stories produced by a staff of some of the best and brightest journalists in their field. Now the paper looked like somebody who had been through chemo—thin, unsteady, and knowing the inevitable could only be held off for so long.
It took Bosch almost an hour just to read the stories and study the photographs in the A section. Nothing he read gave him any ideas about proceeding any differently with the case. The only place where the Times coverage came close to what would eventually be the focus of the original investigation was an inside story that profiled the neighborhood and mentioned Pico-Union La Raza as the predominant gang. It quoted an unnamed police source calling Bonnie Brae Street a drive-through drug market where rock cocaine and black tar heroin from Mexico were plentiful.
Bosch noticed that Soto was getting up from her seat and holding her computer open. He quickly folded the newspaper and slipped it beneath the stack of other clips in case the photographs were something she didn’t want to see.
Soto came back to his row, carrying her open laptop. She saw the stack of yellowed newspaper clippings.
“You’re reading all of that stuff?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “You never know, sometimes you get an idea from it. You see a quote from somebody or something. I wrote down some names of people who were there that day—reporters and residents. Might be worth a phone call or something, see what they remember.”
“Okay.”
Bosch nodded to her computer.
“So what’s up?”
She put her computer down on top of the news clippings so he could see the screen.
“I’m using the Wi-Fi and I think I found Broussard.”
Bosch turned in his seat to block the possibly prying eyes of his seatmate and looked at the screen. He realized he was seeing a digital version of the Los Angeles Times. It was a story dated nine years before about the appointment of Charles “Brouss” Broussard to the Parks and Recreation Commission by newly elected mayor Armando Zeyas. It was a short story because the commission that oversaw the city’s parks was not a big news generator. The profile of Broussard described him as a local businessman who had been an important fund-raiser for local politicians for many years. The accompanying photo was a shot taken on the night of the mayor’s election and it showed Zeyas with his arm around Broussard’s shoulders. A smiling woman standing nearby was identified as Maria Broussard. She was much younger than her husband.
“Good work,” Bosch said without looking up at Soto.
He tilted the computer screen back so he could see the photo better. He studied Broussard intently. He was a heavyset man in an expensive-looking suit. Maybe forty years old at the time of the photo. He had a full beard with an odd graying pattern that made it look as though bleach had leaked from the corners of his mouth and left a trail of white hair down to his jaw.
Soto leaned down so she did not have to talk loudly.
“But Ojeda said the fund-raiser where he met Maria was not for Zeyas,” she said.
Bosch nodded. It was a discrepancy in the story.
“Either Ojeda lied or Broussard switched sides,” he said. “We need to find out which one it is.”
18
They had driven separately to LAX the day before because they didn’t know the circumstances of their return and Soto lived south of the airport in Redondo Beach, while Bosch lived in the opposite direction, in the hills above the Cahuenga Pass.
They landed at 9:30, and as they walked toward the exit doors of Terminal 4, they discussed their schedule and agreed that they would meet at the office the next morning at eight and work half a day. This was perfect for Bosch because Sunday was his