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“Stephen Gallagher was born in Ireland,” Bosch said. “Dublin. He met an American woman visiting from L.A.—Jennifer Clarke—and they came back here and eventually married and he started his business. So then at some point he hired another Irish guy, named Finbar McShane. He was from Belfast in Northern Ireland and it was never established if they knew each other previously. McShane wasn’t a partner but he was running the business with Stephen. After the Gallaghers disappear, McShane keeps the business going and piece by piece he starts selling off the equipment. To make this short, a year later the bodies that were never supposed to be found are discovered. And guess what? McShane is gone and the warehouses and the equipment yard are empty. It was a classic bust-out operation.”
“What’s that mean?” Hatteras asked. “A ‘bust-out’?”
“It’s like a scheme,” Bosch said. “A con in which you hollow out a business by ordering products and selling them and basically selling everything until there’s nothing left and it collapses, leaving all your suppliers unpaid and on the hook for the losses.”
“You ever watchThe Sopranos?” Rawls asked. “Great show. They did it all the time.”
“So McShane is your suspect,” Masser said, attempting to get back to Bosch’s story. “Any estimate on how much selling all the equipment brought in?”
“We were able to track the sales,” Bosch said. “It was just over eight hundred thousand.”
“Four lives for eight hundred K,” Rawls said.
“If he did it,” Hatteras said.
“Tell them about the letter,” Ballard said.
“We got a letter addressed to the LAPD, supposedly from him,” Bosch said. “He claimed he was innocent and that he left because he didn’t want to be falsely accused.”
“Postmark?” Hatteras asked.
“It was local,” Bosch said. “We put flags on his passport. If he left the country and got back to Belfast or anywhere else, then he did it without his passport.”
“I think he’s still here,” Hatteras said. “I can feel it.”
Bosch looked at her, then turned his eyes to Ballard.
“Talk about the evidence,” Ballard said. “How were they killed?”
“They were executed,” Bosch said. “With a nail gun from one of Gallagher’s warehouses. It was in the grave with them. And there was evidence that the grave had been dug with an excavator.”
“What the heck is an excavator?” Masser asked.
“It’s got two wheels and it can be towed on the back of a pickup,” Bosch said. “I’ve got a picture here somewhere I can show you. The point is, the grave wasn’t dug with a shovel. It was too precise, and it was clear that some solid rock had been split by something with more force than a shovel or a pickax. The grave was close enough to the paved road up there that he could have backed in there with the excavator and used it to get in and out pretty quickly. And one of the first machines McShane sold after the family disappeared was an excavator. We can prove that.”
Bosch pulled open one of the murder books on his desk and started leafing through it, looking for the photo of the excavator. He spoke as he searched.
“We were able to trace that sale, and the buyer let us examine the excavator. There was still a piece of rock lodged in one of the tire treads that matched the creosote at the gravesite.”
“All four were in one grave?” Rawls asked.
“Yes,” Bosch said. “It would have been the fastest way to do it. The hole was about six by four and then four feet deep. The parents were dropped in first, then the children on top of them. Along with the nail gun.”
He found a brochure from Shamrock Industrial Rentals that showed the excavator in question. He handed it over the partition to Masser.
“But that was the only link we ever made to McShane, and it wasn’t enough for an arrest warrant,” Bosch said.
“You went to the D.A. with this?” Masser asked. “I would have been tempted to file.”
“I did, and I guess I wish I’d come to you,” Bosch said. “Thefiling deputy I brought it to said he wanted more. McShane selling the excavator was not proof he used it to bury the family. There were holes in the linkage. The equipment yard was unguarded at night. Someone could have used Stephen Gallagher’s keys to open the yard and take the excavator for the night.”
“That’s a hell of a stretch,” Masser said.
“I felt the same,” Bosch said. “But I didn’t get to make the call. I was told to get more evidence … and I didn’t. So plan B was to find McShane, stick him in a room, and get him to cop-out. But that never happened and he’s still in the wind. That’s where it stands.”
Finished with his summary, Bosch waited for more questions and suggestions from the others. There was only silence until finally Hatteras asked, “Do you still have the original letter McShane wrote expressing his innocence?” she asked.
“We do,” Bosch said. “It’s handwritten on letterhead from the company.”
