Resurrection Walk

Bosch had been to the state prison at Corcoran many times as a badge-carrying detective, but this was his first time as a civilian. Finding Angel Acosta had not been as difficult as locating Madison Landon. Bosch had gone back to the digital archives of the L.A. Times and combed through all the follow-up stories on the shoot-out between Roberto Sanz and gang members at a Lancaster hamburger stand. One gangster was killed, one was wounded and arrested, and two got away. The one that was arrested was identified in subsequent stories as Angel Acosta. He had been shot once in the abdomen but recovered in the hospital ward at the county jail and a year after the shoot-out pleaded guilty to assaulting a law enforcement officer. To Bosch it looked like a sweetheart deal — three to five years for shooting at a sheriff’s deputy. On top of that Acosta wasn’t tagged with responsibility for his fellow gangbanger’s death. That was usually an add-on in gang cases when someone was killed in the commission of a crime. California prosecutors no longer followed this practice because of adverse appellate rulings, but six years ago it was still a routine enhancement slapped on the defendant. Why Acosta hadn’t faced it from his initial arrest was unclear.

The light sentence didn’t matter in the long run because Acosta was later convicted of murdering a fellow inmate. His new conviction carried a life sentence without parole. He had been moved to Corcoran, where it was likely he would be for the rest of his life.

Bosch wanted to talk to Acosta for a few reasons. He was suspicious about that first sentence and how Acosta got it. The newspaper accounts were short and didn’t mention his attorney or the prosecutor who’d handled the case. Added to this was the new information that Roberto Sanz had been talking to an Agent MacIsaac. Bosch knew that the Bureau investigation likely had to do with the wide-ranging probe of the cliques and corruption that had proliferated inside the sheriff’s department. Any focus on Sanz and his affiliation with the Cucos would have included a look at the shoot-out that had made Sanz a hero in the department. If Bosch could get Acosta talking, that was what he would ask about.

People making unscheduled visits had to fill out a form and then stand by in a waiting room while the inmate was asked if he would agree to the visit. There was no timetable. The corrections officer who Bosch gave the completed form to did not run back into the prison dorms with it to find Acosta. He simply put the form on top of a stack and told Bosch to make himself comfortable in the waiting room and listen for his name to be called.

Bosch waited almost two hours and then heard his name. Acosta had agreed to the visit. Bosch knew that was the easy part. The next — getting Acosta to talk to him — was the hard part.

He was led to a room where twenty stools and interview booths lined one side and a catwalk ran along the opposite one. A corrections officer walked a back-and-forth circuit watching over the booths.

Bosch was instructed to take booth seven. He sat down on a steel stool in front of a thick piece of scratched plexiglass with a telephone receiver on a side hook. He waited another ten minutes before a thin, wiry man in prison blues showed up on the other side of the glass. The man hesitated, then picked up the phone but didn’t sit down. Bosch picked up his phone. The next thirty seconds would determine if he’d wasted the day.

“You a cop?” Acosta said. “You look like a cop.”

“Used to be,” Bosch said. “Now I work for people like you.”

Acosta’s entire neck was collared in prison-ink tattoos that showed his allegiance to La Eme — the Mexican Mafia that controlled all Latino gangs in California prisons. He had one teardrop tattoo at the corner of his left eye, and his head and face were shaven. He stared at Bosch, curious about his answer. He slowly slid onto his stool.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“It was on the paper the guard showed you,” Bosch said. “My name’s Bosch. I’m a private investigator.”

“Okay, private investigator, no bullshit, what do you want?”

“I’m trying to get a woman named Lucinda Sanz out of prison. You know that name?”

“Can’t say I do and I don’t care.”

“She was married to the deputy who shot you six years ago. You remember now?”

“I remember she did a righteous thing, that lady, putting his ass in the ground. I heard about that. But what’s it got to do with me? I got a perfect alibi. When that shit went down, I was already in prison, thanks to him and his lying ass.”

“He was lying? Then how come you pled?”

“Let’s just say I had no choice, cabrón. I got nothing else to say.”

He took the phone away from his ear and reached out to hang it up. Bosch held up a finger as if to say One last question. Acosta brought the phone back to his ear.

“I don’t talk to cops or ex-cops, pendejo,” he said.

“That’s not what I heard,” Bosch said.

“Yeah, what did you hear?”

“That you talked to the FBI.”