Sheehan took a double gulp from his new beer. Bosch was still only halfway through his first. He was content to let Sheehan talk and tell the story at his own pace without interrupting him with questions.
“On the last day some of the guys lost it a little bit. Did things.”
Bosch closed his eyes. He had been wrong about Sheehan.
“Me, too, Harry.”
He said it matter-of-factly, as if it felt good to finally say it out loud. He drank more of his beer, turned on his stool and looked about the bar as if seeing it for the first time. There was a TV mounted in a corner. It was tuned to ESPN.
“We’re off the record here, right, Harry?”
“Sure.”
Sheehan turned back and leaned toward Bosch in a conspiratorial sort of way.
“What Harris says happened . . . happened. But that doesn’t excuse what he did. He rapes and strangles that little girl; we stick a pencil in his ear. Big fucking deal. He gets off and I’m the new Mark Fuhrman—a racist cop who planted evidence. I just wish somebody could tell me how the fuck I could’ve planted those prints?”
He was getting loud. Luckily, only the bartender was noticing.
“I know,” Bosch said. “I’m sorry, man. I shouldn’t have asked.”
Sheehan went on as if he hadn’t heard Bosch.
“I guess I always carried around a set of throw-down prints that belonged to a douche bag I wanted to send away. I then put them on the book—don’t ask me how—and voilà, we got our douche bag. Only why would I pick Harris to pin it on? I never knew the mutt or had anything to do with him. And there’s nobody on this planet that can prove I did because it’s not there to be proved.”
“You’re right.”
Sheehan shook his head and looked down into his beer.
“I quit caring about shit when that jury came in and said not guilty. When they said I was guilty . . . when they believed that man instead of us.”
Bosch remained silent. He knew that Sheehan had to say his piece.
“We’re losing the battle, man. I see that now. It’s all a game. The fucking lawyers, what they can do to you. To the evidence. I give up, Harry. I really do. I already decided. It’s twenty-five and out for me. I got eight more months and I’m counting the fuckers down. I’m gonna punch out, move on up to Blue Heaven and leave this toilet for all the douche bags.”
“I think that’s a good idea, Frankie,” Bosch said quietly.
He couldn’t think of what else he could say. He was hurt and stunned by his friend’s lapse into a complete state of hate and cynicism. He understood it but was simply surprised by the complete toll it had taken. He was also disappointed in himself and privately embarrassed at how wholeheartedly he had defended Sheehan to Carla Entrenkin.
“I remember on that last day,” Sheehan said. “I was in there with him. In the room. And I got so fucking angry I just wanted to take my gun out and blow his shit away. But I knew I couldn’t. Because he knew where she was. He had the girl!”
Bosch just nodded.
“We had tried everything and got nothing. He broke us before we could break him. It got down to where I was just begging him to tell us. It was embarrassing, Harry.”
“And what did he do?”
“He just stared at me as if I wasn’t there. He said nothing. He did nothing. And then . . . then the anger just came over me like . . . like I don’t know what. Like it was a bone caught in my throat. Like it never had before. There was a trash can in the corner of the room. I went over and pulled the bag out and just pulled it right down over his fucking head. And I grabbed it around his neck and I held it and I held it and . . .”
Sheehan started crying and trying to finish.
“. . . and they . . . they had to pull me off of him.”
He put his elbows on the bar and pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes. For a long time he didn’t move. Bosch saw a drop fall from his chin and into his beer. He reached over and put his hand on his old partner’s shoulder.
“It’s okay, Frankie.”
Without moving his hands away from his face, Sheehan spoke.
“You see, Harry, I became the very thing that I spent all these years hunting. I wanted to kill him right there and then. I would have if my guys hadn’t come in. I’m never going to be able to forget that.”
“It’s okay, man.”
Sheehan drank some beer and seemed to recover somewhat.
“After I did what I did, that opened the door. The other guys, they did that thing with the pencil—popped his fucking eardrum. We all became monsters. Like Vietnam, going wild in the villages. We probably would’ve killed the guy but you know what saved him? The girl. Stacey Kincaid saved him.”
“How’s that?”
“They found the body. We got the word and went out to the scene. We left Harris in a cell. Alive. He was lucky the word came when it did.”
He stopped to take another gulp of beer.
“I went out there—just a block from Harris’s place. She was pretty much decomposed, the young ones go fast. But I remember how she looked. Like a little angel, her arms out like she was flying . . .”
Bosch remembered the pictures from the newspapers. Stacey Kincaid had been a pretty little girl.
“Harry, leave me alone now,” Sheehan said quietly. “I’m going to walk back.”
“No, let me give you a ride.”
“No thanks. I’m walking.”
“You sure you’re all right?”
“I’m fine. Just a little worked up. That’s all. This is going to stay between us, right?”
“Till the end, man.”
Sheehan tried a weak smile. But he still didn’t look at Bosch.
“Do me one favor, Hieronymus.”
Bosch remembered when they had been a team. They only used their formal names, Hieronymus and Francis, when they were talking seriously and from the heart.
“Sure, Francis. What?”
“When you catch the guy who did Elias, I don’t care if it’s a cop or not, shake his hand for me. You tell him he’s my hero. But tell him he missed a good chance. Tell him he should’ve gotten Harris, too.”
A half hour later Bosch opened the door to his home. He found his bed empty. But this time he was too tired to stay awake waiting for Eleanor. He started stripping off his clothes and thinking about his plans for the next day. He finally sat down on the bed ready for sleep and reached for the light. The moment he was in darkness, the phone rang.
He turned the light back on and picked up the phone.
“You bastard.”
A woman’s voice—familiar, but he couldn’t place it.
“Who is this?”
“Carla Entrenkin, who do you think? Do you really think I wouldn’t know what you did?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. What happened?”
“I just watched Channel Four. Your buddy Harvey Button.”
“What did he have?”
“Oh, he blew it up real big. Let’s see if I can quote him correctly. ‘A link between Elias and an Internet prostitution ring was found in Elias’s office, a source close to the investigation says. It is believed by this source that Elias may have had liaisons with at least one of the women who advertised her services as a dominatrix on the web site.’ I think that about sums it up. I hope you are happy.”
“I didn’t —”
“Don’t bother.”
She hung up. Bosch sat there a long time thinking about what she had said.
“Chastain, you asshole,” he said out loud.
He turned out the light again and dropped back on the bed. He was soon asleep and having the same dream again. He was riding Angels Flight, going up. Only now there was a little blond girl seated across the aisle from him. She looked at him with sad and empty eyes.
21
Bosch had a surprise waiting for him when he pushed the supply cart stacked with file boxes through the door of Deputy Chief Irving’s confere
nce room. It was quarter to eight on Sunday morning. There were six FBI agents already crowded into the room and waiting. The surprise was the lead agent who stepped over to Bosch, his hand out and a smile on his face.
“Harry Bosch,” the man said.
“Roy Lindell,” Bosch replied.
Bosch pushed the cart over to the table and took the man’s hand.
“You’re on this? What happened to OC?”
“Organized crime was getting boring. Especially after the Tony Aliso case. Hard to top that one, don’t you think?”
“Yeah.”
A couple of years earlier they had worked the Aliso murder—the “Trunk Music” case, according to the local media. Bosch and Lindell had started out as adversaries, but by the time the case was concluded in Las Vegas there was a respect between the two that certainly wasn’t shared between the two agencies they worked for. Bosch immediately took Lindell’s assignment to the Elias case as a good sign.
“Listen,” Lindell said, “I think we have a few minutes. You want to grab a cup of coffee and talk about things?”
“Sounds like a plan.”
As they walked down the hall to the elevator they were met by Chastain, who was heading to the conference room. Bosch introduced Lindell.
“You guys going for coffee? I’ll come with you.”
“No, that’s okay,” Bosch said. “We’ve got some stuff to talk about . . . and I don’t want it coming out of Harvey Button’s mouth on the news later. Know what I mean?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Bosch.”
Bosch said nothing. Chastain looked at Lindell and then back at Bosch.
“Never mind the coffee,” he said. “I don’t need artificial stimulants, anyway.”
When they were alone at the elevator lobby Bosch warned Lindell about Chastain.
“He’s leaking,” he said. “You see Channel Four last night?”
“The Internet dominatrix thing?”
“Yeah. Six people knew about that. Me, my two partners, Chastain, Carla Entrenkin and Deputy Chief Irving. I can vouch for my partners and I doubt Entrenkin would leak anything negative about Elias. Either Irving or Chastain talked to Harvey Button. My bet is on Chastain. Irving’s been trying to put a clamp on things from the start.”
“Well, was the story bullshit or what?”
“Looks that way. We can’t make a connection. Whoever leaked it did it to smear Elias, even things up a bit.”
“I’ll watch him. But you know sometimes leaks aren’t from the obvious source.”
The elevator opened and Lindell stepped on, leaving Bosch standing there thinking about Irving and whether it was possible that he was the leak.
“You coming?” Lindell asked.
Bosch stepped onto the elevator and pushed the button for the third floor.
“You check the news this morning?” Lindell asked. “How’s it going out there?”
“So far so good. A couple fires last night, but that was about it. No looting and it’s pretty quiet now. Supposed to be rain coming in by tomorrow. Maybe that will help.”
They went into the cafeteria and took their coffees to a table. Bosch checked his watch and saw it was five before eight. He looked at Lindell.
“So?”
Lindell laughed.
“So what the fuck. We going to divvy this up or what?”
“Yeah. I got a deal for you, Roy. A good deal.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“You can have it. I’ll step back and let you run the show. I just want one thing. I want my team to run with the original case. Stacey Kincaid. We’ll take the original murder book and review everything RHD did on the case. Then we’ll take everything Elias did and go from there.”
Lindell’s eyes narrowed their focus as he wondered what this meant. Bosch continued.
“It looks like Elias’s plan was to go into court this week and try to prove that Michael Harris didn’t kill her. He was going to name her killer and —”
“Who?”
“That’s the million-dollar question. We don’t know. He was keeping it in his head instead of his files. But that’s why I want the case. Because if he had a bead on somebody, that somebody’s a pretty good suspect for the Angels Flight murders.”
Lindell looked down at his smoking coffee and was quiet a long moment.
“Sounds like lawyer bullshit to me. Grandstanding. How was he gonna find the killer if you guys on the PD didn’t? That is, if the killer really wasn’t Michael Harris, like every cop and white person in this town believes.”
Bosch hiked his shoulders.
“Even if he was wrong—even if he was going to name somebody as a smoke screen, it could have made him a target.”
He purposely wasn’t telling Lindell everything—particularly about the mystery notes. He wanted the FBI agent to think that Bosch’s team would be chasing rainbows while he would be commanding the real investigation.
“So you run with that and I chase down bad cops, is that the deal?”
“Pretty much. Chastain should have a head start for you. First of all, he’s the most familiar with the Black Warrior thing. He handled the IAD investigation on it. And —”
“Yeah, but he cleared everybody on it.”
“Maybe he messed up. Or maybe he was told to clear everybody.”
Lindell nodded that he understood the suggestion.
“Also, his crew was supposedly going through Elias’s files yesterday and making a list. And I just brought in five more boxes of files. From all of that you’ll get a list of guys to talk to. I think you’re in good shape.”
“If I’m in such great shape why are you giving this side of things to me?”
“’Cause I’m a nice guy.”
“Bosch, you’re holding out.”
“I just have a hunch, that’s all.”
“That what, Harris really was framed?”
“I don’t know. But something wasn’t right with the case. I want to find out what it was.”
“So meantime I’m stuck with Chastain and his crew.”
“Yup. That’s the deal.”
“Well, what am I going to do with them? You just told me Chastain’s a leak.”
“Send them out for coffee and then run away and hide.”
Lindell laughed.
“This is what I would do,” Bosch then added on a serious note. “I’d put two of them on Elias and two on Perez. You know, doing the paper, managing the evidence, taking the autopsies—which will probably be today anyway. That will keep them busy and out of your way. Regardless of whether it’s them or not, you’ve got to put at least one body on Perez. We’ve treated her as an also-ran, which she obviously was. But you gotta do the due diligence on it or it can come back on you if you ever go to court and the lawyer asks why Perez wasn’t pursued as the primary target.”
“Right, right. We gotta cover all the bases.”
“Right.”
Lindell nodded but said nothing further.
“So come on, do we have a deal?” Bosch prompted.
“Yeah. Sounds like a plan to me. But I want to know what you and your people are doing. You keep in touch.”
“You got it. Oh, and by the way, one of the IAD guys is a Spanish speaker. Fuentes. Put him on Perez.”
Lindell nodded and pushed back from the table. He left his coffee cup there, untouched. Bosch took his with him.
On his way through the anteroom to Irving’s conference room, Bosch noticed that the deputy chief’s adjutant was not at his desk. He saw a telephone message pad on the blotter and reached down and grabbed it as he passed by. He put it in his pocket and entered the conference room.
Bosch’s partners and the IAD men were now in the conference room. Irving was there also. It was very crowded. After some brief introductions the floor was turned over to Bosch, who briefed the newcomers and Irving on the investigation up to that point. He left out specific details about the visit to Mistress Regina’s apart
ment, making that part of the investigation appear to be at a dead end. He also made no mention at all of his barroom talk with Frankie Sheehan. When he was done he nodded to Irving, who then took the floor. Bosch moved over to the wall and leaned next to a bulletin board Irving had apparently had installed for the investigators to use.
Irving began speaking of the political tensions surrounding the case like a storm pressure cell. He mentioned that protest marches were scheduled that day in front of three of the south end police stations and at Parker Center. He said City Councilman Royal Sparks and Reverend Preston Tuggins were scheduled to be guests that morning on a local meet-the-press type of television show called Talk of L.A. He said the chief of police had met with Tuggins and other South Central church leaders the night before to call in markers and urge them to call for calm and restraint from the pulpits during the morning’s services.
“We are sitting on a powder keg here, people,” Irving said. “And the way to defuse it is to solve this case one way or the other . . . quickly.”
While he talked, Bosch took out the phone message pad and wrote on it. He then checked the room to make sure all eyes were on Irving and quietly tore off the top sheet. He reached over and tacked it to the bulletin board and then nonchalantly moved inch by inch down the wall and away from the board. The sheet he had put on the board had Chastain’s name on it. In the message section it said: “Harvey Button called, said thanks for the tip. Will call back later.”
Irving wound up his comments with a mention about the Channel 4 story.
“Someone in this room leaked information to a television reporter yesterday. I am warning you people that we will not have this. That one story was your grace period. One more leak and you people will be the ones under investigation.”
He looked around the room at the LAPD faces, to make sure the message was clear.
“Okay, that is it,” he finally said. “I will leave you to it. Detective Bosch, Agent Lindell? I would like to be briefed at noon on our progress.”