The Overlook by Michael Connelly Read Free Book Online

worked with my husband’s computer. I told them Stanley had a camera that I thought was in his desk. Whenever I answered a question, one man—the one who asked them—would then translate to the other, and then that man left the room. I guess he went to get the camera.”
    Now Walling stood up and headed toward the hallway leading to the bedrooms.
    “Rachel, don’t touch anything,” Bosch said. “I have a crime scene team coming.”
    Walling waved as she disappeared down the hall. Brenner then came back into the room and nodded to Bosch.
    “The BOLO’s out,” he said.
    Alicia Kent asked what a BOLO was.
    “It means ‘be on the lookout,’” Bosch explained. “They’ll be looking for your car. What happened next with the two men, Mrs. Kent?”
    She grew tearful again as she answered.
    “They . . . they tied me in that awful way and gagged me with one of my husband’s neckties. Then after the one came back in with the camera, the other took a picture of me like that.”
    Bosch noted the look of burning humiliation on her face.
    “He took a photograph?”
    “Yes, that’s all. Then they both left the room. The one who spoke English bent down and whispered that my husband would come to rescue me. Then he left.”
    That brought a long space of silence before Bosch continued.
    “After they left the bedroom, did they leave the house right away?” he asked.
    The woman shook her head.
    “I heard them talking for a little while, then I heard the garage door. It rumbles in the house like an earthquake. I felt it twice—it opened and closed. After that I thought they were gone.”
    Brenner cut into the interview again.
    “When I was in the kitchen I think I heard you say that one of the men translated for the other. Do you know what language they were speaking?”
    Bosch was annoyed with Brenner for jumping in. He intended to ask about the language the intruders used but was carefully covering one aspect of the interview at a time. He had found in previous cases that it worked best with traumatized victims.
    “I am not sure. The one who spoke in English had an accent but I don’t know where it was from. I think Middle Eastern. I think when they spoke to each other it was Arabic or something. It was foreign, very guttural. But I don’t know the different languages.”
    Brenner nodded as if her answer was confirming something.
    “Do you remember anything else about what the men might have asked you or said in English?” Bosch asked.
    “No, that’s all.”
    “You said they wore masks. What kind of masks?”
    She thought for a moment before answering.
    “The pullover kind. Like you see robbers put on in movies or people wear for skiing.”
    “A wool ski mask.”
    She nodded.
    “Yes, exactly.”
    “Okay, were they the kind with one hole for both eyes or was there a separate hole for each eye.”
    “Um, separate, I think. Yes, separate.”
    “Was there an opening for the mouth?”
    “Uh . . . yes, there was. I remember watching the man’s mouth when he spoke in the other language. I was trying to understand him.”
    “That’s good, Mrs. Kent. You’re being very helpful. What haven’t I asked you?”
    “I don’t understand.”
    “What detail do you remember that I haven’t asked you for?”
    She thought about it and then shook her head.
    “I don’t know. I think I’ve told you everything I can remember.”
    Bosch wasn’t convinced. He began to go through the story with her again, coming at the same information from new angles. It was a tried-and-true interview technique for eliciting new details and it did not fail him. The most interesting bit of new information to emerge in the second telling was that the man who spoke English also asked her what the password was to her e-mail account.
    “Why would he want that?” Bosch asked.
    “I don’t know,” Alicia Kent said. “I didn’t ask. I just gave them what they wanted.”
    Near the end of the second telling of her ordeal the forensics team