The Night Fire (Harry Bosch #22) - Michael Connelly Page 0,73

of potential avenues of investigation under the theory that if Frederick was involved in the murder of her ex-husband and his new wife, her anger toward the couple might have also extended to the judge who ruled against her. They made initial efforts to interview Maura Frederick, but those efforts were blocked by an attorney representing Frederick and then dropped altogether when Herstadt was arrested and charged in the judge’s murder.

Bosch put the name Maura Frederick on his list beneath the name Clayton Manley. He thought she should be given a fuller look.

Now, with a mug of morning coffee on the table before him, Bosch took up the final strand of the original investigation. This was the third civil action that had caught the investigators’ attention. It again involved a lawsuit and a countersuit. This time the dispute was between a well-known Hollywood actor and his longtime agent. The actor accused the agent of embezzling millions of dollars over his career, and now that that career was on the wane, he wanted a full accounting and the return of everything that was stolen.

A Hollywood dispute would not normally become the stuff of murder investigations, but the actor’s lawsuit contained allegations that the agent was a front for an organized-crime family—and that he had used his position in Hollywood to siphon money from clients and launder it through investments in film productions. The actor said he had been threatened with violence by the agent and his associates, including a visit to his home—the address of which was a carefully guarded secret—by a man who said the actor would get acid thrown in his face and his career ruined if he persisted with the lawsuit or attempted to change agents.

In a case that spanned the entire three years that Montgomery occupied his bench in civil court, the judge ultimately ruled in favor of the actor, awarding damages of $7.1 million and voiding the contract between actor and agent. The case was included in the Montgomery murder investigation because at one point in the long proceedings Montgomery reported to court authorities that his wife’s pet cat had turned up dead in their front yard by what appeared to be foul play. The animal had been slashed open from front legs to back and did not appear to have injuries that could be attributed to a coyote, even though Montgomery and his wife lived in the Hollywood Hills.

An investigation of the incident pointed toward the dispute between the actor and his agent because of the threats alleged in the action by the actor. But no connection was found between the cat killing and the case, or any other case Montgomery was handling.

Gustafson and Reyes put the case on their list of possibles but carried it no further. Bosch agreed that it was the least likely of the five tracks of potential investigation. Despite the fact that the actor won a rich settlement and the dissolution of his contract with the agent, no harm had come to him in the time since the case was resolved and he had made no complaint of further threats. It seemed unlikely that anyone would go after Montgomery while leaving the actor alone and paying him the awarded judgment.

Bosch was now finished with his review of the murder book and had only two names on his follow-up list: Clayton Manley, the attorney Montgomery had publicly embarrassed, and Maura Frederick, to whom the judge had denied creative and financial rights in the Love for Lunch product.

He wasn’t particularly fired up about either one. They bore a further look, but both were long shots and the individuals involved did not nearly reach the level of suspect in Bosch’s mind.

And then there were the aspects of the case (and even possible suspects) not included in the discovery version of the murder book. Bosch had been on both sides of this. A murder book was the bible. It was sacred, yet there was something ingrained in every homicide detective to hold back and not give everything you’ve got to a defense attorney. He had to assume that Gustafson and Reyes had acted in such a way. But knowing that meant nothing. After what Gustafson had said to Bosch in court after the Herstadt case was dismissed, would he be willing to reveal anything else about the case to him? Would Reyes?

Bosch was pretty sure the answer was a resounding no. But he had to make the call or he would never know for