The Crossing Read Online Free PDF Page B

Leimert Park artists’ studio where he had just finished teaching a painting class as part of an after-school program for children.
    That last piece of information gave Bosch pause. It didn’t fit with his idea of what a gang shot caller was all about. He wondered if Foster was booking community-service hours as part of a criminal sentence. He kept reading. The story said that DNA collected at the Parks crime scene had been entered into the state’s data bank and was matched to a sample taken from Foster following his arrest in 2004 on suspicion of rape. No charge was ever filed against him in that case but his DNA remained on file in the state Department of Justice data bank.
    Bosch wanted to read more of the stories in the coverage but was running out of time if he wanted to meet Virginia Skinner. He saw one headline that came a few days after Foster’s arrest:
Parks Suspect Had Turned Life Around
. He opened the story and quickly scanned it. It was a community-generated story that held that Da’Quan Foster was a reformed Rollin’ 40s Crips member who had straightened his life out and was giving back to his community. He was a self-taught painter who had work hanging in a Washington, DC, museum. He ran a studio on Degnan Boulevard where he offered after-school and weekend programs for area children. He was married and had two young children of his own. To balance the story, the
Times
reported that he had a criminal record that included several drug arrests in the ’90s and a four-year stint in prison. But he paroled out in 2001 and other than his arrest on the rape case, for which no charge was ever filed, he had not run afoul of the law in more than a decade.
    The story included statements from many locals who expressed either disbelief at the charges or outright suspicion that Foster had somehow been set up. No one quoted in the article believed he had killed Lexi Parks or been anywhere near West Hollywood on the night in question.
    From what he had read, it was unclear to Bosch whether Foster even knew the victim in the case or why he had targeted her.
    Harry closed the laptop. He would read all of the stories later, but he didn’t want to leave Virginia Skinner waiting for him—wherever it was she would choose to meet. They needed to talk. The relationship had been strained as of late, largely because she was busy with her work and Bosch had not been busy with anything other than restoring a motorcycle that was as old as he was.
    He got up from the table and went back to his bedroom to put on a fresh shirt and nicer shoes. Ten minutes later he was driving down the hill to the freeway. Once he joined the steel river and cleared the pass he pulled out his phone and hooked up the earpiece so he’d be legal. When he carried a badge, he used to not care about such minor things, but now he dutifully buckled his seat belt and put in his earpiece. He could be ticketed for talking on a cell while driving.
    From the background sound, he guessed he had caught Haller in the backseat of the Lincoln. They were both on the road, going somewhere.
    “I’ve got questions about Foster,” Bosch said.
    “Shoot,” Haller said.
    “What was the DNA—blood, saliva, semen?”
    “Semen. A deposit on the victim.”
    “
On
or in?”
    “Both. In the vagina. On the skin, upper thigh on the right. Some on the sheets, too.”
    Bosch drove in silence for a few moments. The freeway was elevated as it cut through Hollywood. He was passing by the Capitol Records Building. It was built to look like a stack of records but that was a different time. Not many people listened to records anymore.
    “What else?” Haller asked. “I’m glad you’re thinking about the case.”
    “How long have you known this guy?” Bosch asked.
    “Almost twenty years. He was my client. He was no angel but there was something gentle about him. He wasn’t a killer. He was either too smart or too soft for that. Maybe both. Anyway, he turned things around and