After disconnecting the call Bosch got up and paced around his house. He wasn’t sure what he had. But he had the fluttering feeling in his stomach that often came when he was on the edge of a breakthrough to something hidden. He was flying on instinct and his instinct told him he was close to something he would soon be able to wrap his hands around.
The phone rang and he grabbed it off the couch and pushed the connect button.
“Mr. Vascik?”
“Harry, it’s me.”
“Eleanor. Hey, how are you? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. But I’m not the one in a city about to burn. I’ve been watching the news.”
“Yeah. It looks bad.”
“I’m sorry it turned out that way, Harry. You told me about Sheehan once. I know you guys were close.”
Bosch realized that she didn’t know that the friend’s home where Sheehan had killed himself was theirs. He decided not to say anything. He also wished he had call waiting service on his line.
“Eleanor, where are you?”
“I’m back in Vegas.” She gave an unhumorous laugh. “The car barely made it.”
“At the Flamingo?”
“No . . . I’m somewhere else.”
She didn’t want to tell him where and that hurt.
“Is there a number I can call you at?”
“I’m not sure how long I’m going to be here. I just wanted to call and make sure you were okay.”
“Me? Don’t worry about me. Are you okay, Eleanor?”
“I’m fine.”
Bosch didn’t care about Vascik anymore.
“Do you need anything? What about your car?”
“No. I’m fine. Now that I’m here I’m not worried about the car.”
There was a long moment of silence. Bosch heard one of the electronic sounds that he had once heard somebody call digital bubbles.
“Well,” he finally said, “can we talk about this?”
“I don’t think this is a good time. Let’s think about things for a couple of days and then we’ll talk. I’ll call you, Harry. Be careful.”
“Do you promise? To call?”
“I promise.”
“Okay, Eleanor. I’ll wait.”
“Good-bye, Harry.”
She hung up before he could say good-bye. Bosch stood there next to the couch for a long time, thinking about her and what had happened to them.
The phone rang while still in his hand.
“Yes?”
“Detective Bosch? I got a message to call you.”
“Mr. Vascik?”
“Yes. From Triple A Process. My boss Shelly said you —”
“Yes, I called.”
Bosch sat down on the couch and pulled a notebook onto his thigh. He took a pen out of his pocket and wrote Vascik’s name on the top of a page. Vascik sounded young and white to him. He had some Midwest in his voice.
“How old are you, Steve?”
“I’m twenty-five.”
“You been with Triple A very long?”
“A few months.”
“Okay, last week, on Thursday, you served paper on an LAPD detective named John Chastain, do you remember that?”
“Sure. He didn’t want to be served. Most cops I’ve done don’t really care. They’re used to it.”
“Right. That’s what I wanted to ask you about. When you say he didn’t want to be served, what do you mean exactly?”
“Well, the first time I tried to serve him he refused to take the subpoena and walked away. Then when —”
“Wait a minute, go back. When was the first time?”
“It was Thursday morning. I went to the lobby at Parker Center and had the cop at the desk call him and tell him to come down. I didn’t say what it was for. It said on the paper he was IAD so I just said I was a citizen with something for him that he needed. He came down and when I said who I was he just backed off and went back to the elevator.”
“What you’re saying is that it was like he knew you had a subpoena and even what case it was?”
“Right. Exactly.”
Bosch thought about what he had read in Elias’s last notebook. His feuding with a source named “Parker.”
“Okay, then what?”
“Well, then I went and did some other jobs and I came back about three-thirty and watched the employee lot at Parker. I saw him come out to go home, I guess, and I cut between some cars and ducked down and sort of came up just as he was opening his door. I had my spiel all worked out and told him he was served and said the case number and all of that. He still wouldn’t take the paper but that didn’t matter because under California law all you —”
“Right, I know. You can’t refuse a subpoena once you have been advised that it is a legal, court-ordered subpoena. So what did he do?”
“Well, first he scared the shit out of me. He put his arm under his coat like he was going for his gun or something.”
“Then what?”
“Then he sort of stopped. I guess he thought about what he was doing. He relaxed a little bit but he still wouldn’t take the paper. He told me to tell Elias to fuck off. He got in his car and started pulling out. I knew he was served so I just put the paper under his windshield wiper. He drove off with it like that. I don’t know what happened to it after that. Could’ve blown off but it doesn’t matter. He was legally served.”
Bosch thought for a moment while Vascik went on about the intricacies of process serving. He finally cut him off.
“Did you know Elias got killed Friday night?”
“Yes, sir. Sure. He was our client. We did all his cases.”
“Well, did you ever think to call the department after he was killed and tell someone about this thing with Chastain?”
“I did,” Vascik answered defensively. “I called.”
“You called? Who’d you call?”
“I called Parker Center and said I had information. I was transferred to an office and told the guy who answered who I was and that I had some information. He took my name and number and said someone would call me back.”
“Nobody ever did?”
“No, somebody called in like five minutes. Maybe less. Right away. I told him.”
“When was this?”
“Sunday morning. I was out climbing all day Saturday. Up at Vasquez Rocks. I didn’t hear about Mr. Elias until I read the Times on Sunday morning.”
“Do you remember the name of the cop you told this to?”
“I think his name was Edgar but I don’t know if that was his first or last name.”
“What about the person who took your call in the first place? Did he give a name?”
“I think he said his name but I forget it. But he did say he was an agent. So maybe it was an FBI guy.”
“Steve, think for a minute. What time did you make this call and when did Edgar call you back? Do you remember?”
Vascik was quiet while he thought about it.
“Well, I didn’t get up till about ten ’cause my legs were killing me from the climb. I then kind of lazed around and read the paper. It was all over the front page, so I probably read it right after the sports. And then I called. So maybe about eleven. Thereabouts. And then that Edgar guy called back pretty quick.”
“Thanks, Steve.”
Bosch clicked the phone off. He knew there was no way Edgar had taken a call at Parker Center on Sunday morning at eleven. Edgar had been with Bosch all Sunday morning and most of the rest of the day. And they were on the road, not working out of Parker. Someone had used his partner’s name. A cop. Someone inside the investigation had used Edgar’s name.
He looked up Lindell’s cell phone number and called. Lindell still had it turned on and he answered.
“It’s Bosch. You remember Sunday morning, after you and your people came into the case, you spent most of the morning in the conference room with the files, right?”
“Yeah, right.”
“Who was answering the phones?”
/>
“Me mostly. A couple of the others.”
“Did you take a call from a guy said he was a process server?”
“Sounds familiar. But we were getting lots of calls that morning. Reporters and people thinking they knew something. People threatening the cops.”
“A process server named Vascik. Steve Vascik. He said he had some information that might be important.”
“Like I said, it’s familiar. What about it, Bosch? I thought this case was over.”
“It is. I’m just checking some loose ends. Who’d you give the call to?”
“I gave those kind of calls—you know, info off the street—to the IAD guys. To keep them busy.”
“Which one did you give the process server to?”
“I don’t know, probably Chastain. He was in charge of that group. He might’ve taken it or told one of the others to call the guy back. See, Irving set up some shitty phones in there. We couldn’t transfer one to the other and I wanted the main line free. So we took numbers and passed them on.”
“Okay, thanks, man. Have a nice night.”
“Hey, what is —”
Bosch disconnected before he had to answer any questions. He thought about the information from Lindell. He believed there was a high probability that the call from Vascik had been routed to Chastain himself, who then called back—probably taking the message to his own office for privacy—and posed as Edgar.
Bosch had one more call to make. He opened his phone book and found a number that he had not used in many years. He called Captain John Garwood, head of Robbery-Homicide Division, at home. He knew it was late but he doubted very many people were sleeping in Los Angeles tonight. He thought about what Kiz Rider had said about Garwood reminding her of Boris Karloff and only coming out at night.
Garwood answered after two rings.
“It’s Harry Bosch. We need to talk. Tonight.”
“About?”
“John Chastain and the Black Warrior case.”
“I don’t want to talk on the phone.”
“Fine. Name the place.”
“Frank Sinatra?”
“How soon?”
“Give me half an hour.”
“I’ll be there.”
36
In the long run, Frank Sinatra got ripped off. Decades ago, when the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce put his star down on the sidewalk, they put it on Vine Street rather than on Hollywood Boulevard. The thinking probably was that the Sinatra star would be a draw, people would come down from the boulevard to see it, to take a picture. But if that was the plan, it didn’t work. Frank was alone in a spot that probably saw more hypes than tourists. His star was at a crosswalk between two parking lots and next to a residence hotel where you had to convince the security guard to unlock the lobby door if you wanted to go in.
When Bosch had been in RHD years before, the Sinatra star had often been a meeting spot between detectives in the field or between detectives and their snitches. It hadn’t surprised Bosch that Garwood had suggested it for their meeting. It was a way of meeting on neutral ground.
By the time Bosch got to the star Garwood was already there. Bosch saw his unmarked Ford LTD in the parking lot. Garwood flashed his lights. Bosch pulled to the curb in front of the hotel and got out. He crossed Vine to the parking lot and got in the front passenger seat. Garwood was wearing a suit, even though called from home. Bosch realized that he had never seen Garwood in anything other than a suit, the tie always pulled tight, the top button of his shirt never undone. Again Bosch thought of Rider’s Boris Karloff comment.
“Those fucking cars,” Garwood said, looking across the street at Bosch’s slickback. “I heard about you getting potshotted.”
“Yeah. That wasn’t fun.”
“So what brings you out tonight, Harry? How come you’re still investigating a case that the chief of police and everybody else has already closed?”
“Because I have a bad feeling about it, Cap. There are loose ends. Things can unravel when you have loose ends.”
“You never could leave things alone. I remember that from when you worked for me. You and your fucking loose ends.”
“So tell me about Chastain.”
Garwood said nothing, just stared ahead through the windshield, and Bosch realized that his former captain was unsure about things.
“We’re off the record here, Captain. Like you said, the case is closed. But something about Chastain and Frankie Sheehan bothers me. You should know, a couple nights ago Frankie told me everything. About how he and some of the guys lost it, did things to Michael Harris. He told me all the Black Warrior stuff was true. And then I made a mistake. I told him that I had cleared Harris. That I could prove he didn’t take that girl. And that put the hex on Frankie and later on he did what he did. So when they came up with the ballistics today and said that Frankie did it all, including Angels Flight, I went along to get along. Now I’m not so sure. Now I want all the loose ends tied up and Chastain is one of them. He was subpoenaed for the trial. Nothing unusual about that—he handled the internal investigation of Harris’s complaint. But he was subpoenaed by Elias and he didn’t tell us. He also tried to duck the service. And that makes it all the more unusual. That tells me he didn’t want to be in that courtroom. He didn’t want to be on the stand and have Elias asking him questions. I want to know why. There’s nothing in Elias’s files—at least the files I have access to—that says why. I can’t ask Elias and I don’t want to ask Chastain yet. So I’m asking you.”
Garwood reached into his pocket and took out a package of cigarettes. He got one out and lit it, then offered the pack to Bosch.
“No thanks, I’m still off.”
“I decided that I’m a smoker and that’s that. Somebody a long time ago told me that it was like destiny or fate. You were a smoker or you weren’t, there was nothing you could do about it. You know who that was?”
“Yeah, me.”
Garwood snorted a little and smiled. He took a couple of deep drags and the car filled with smoke. It kicked off the familiar craving in Bosch. He remembered giving Garwood the smoking sermon years before when someone in the squad complained about the cloud of smoke that always hung over the bullpen. He lowered his window a couple of inches.
“Sorry,” Garwood said. “I know how you feel. Everybody smoking and you can’t.”
“It’s no problem. You want to talk about Chastain or not?”
One more drag.
“Chastain investigated the complaint. You know that. Before Harris could sue us he had to file a complaint. That went to Chastain. And from what I understood at the time, he made the guy’s case. He confirmed it. Fucking Rooker had a pencil in his desk—the tip was broken off and there was blood on it. Kept it like a souvenir or something. Chastain got it with a search warrant and was going to match the blood to Harris.”
Bosch shook his head, at both the stupidity and the arrogance of Rooker. Of the whole department.
“Yeah,” Garwood said, seeming to know what he was thinking. “So the last thing I heard was that Chastain was going to file departmentals against Sheehan, Rooker, couple of the others, then go to the DA for criminal charges. He was going all the way with this one because that pencil and the blood were hard evidence. He had Rooker at least in the bag.”
“Okay, so what happened?”
“What happened was that the next thing is we get the word that everybody’s clear. Chastain filed the case as unfounded.”
Bosch nodded.
“Somebody reached down.”
“You got it.”
“Who?”
“Irving’s my guess. But maybe higher. The case was too volatile. If the charges were sustained and there were suspensions, firings, DA charges, whatever, then we start a whole new round of ‘Kick the LAPD’ in the press and in the south end with Tuggins and Sparks and everywhere else. Remember, this was a year ago. The new chief had just come on board. It wouldn’t be a good way to start out. So somebody re
ached down. Irving’s always been the department fixer. It was probably him. But for something like this, he might have enlisted the chief’s okay. That’s how Irving survives. He hooks the chief in, then he can’t be touched because he has the secrets. Like J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI—but without the dress. I think.”
Bosch nodded.
“What do you think happened to that pencil with the blood on it?” he asked.
“Who knows? Irving’s probably using it to write personnel evaluations. Though I’m sure he’s washed the blood off it.”
They were silent for a moment as they watched a group of a dozen young men walking north on Vine toward the boulevard. They were mostly white. In the streetlight Bosch could see the tattoos covering their arms. Head-bangers, probably going up to the stores on the boulevard to replay 1992. A quick memory of Frederick’s of Hollywood being looted flashed through his mind.
The group slowed as they passed Bosch’s car. They considered whether to do something to the car and then decided against it and moved on.
“Lucky we didn’t meet in your car,” Garwood said.
Bosch didn’t say anything.
“This place is going to come apart tonight,” Garwood continued. “I can feel it. Pity the rain stopped.”
“Chastain,” Bosch said, getting back on track. “Somebody put a cork in him. Complaint unfounded. Then Elias files his suit and eventually subpoenas Chastain. Chastain doesn’t want to testify, why?”
“Maybe he takes the oath seriously. He didn’t want to lie.”
“There’s got to be more than that.”
“Ask him.”
“Elias had a source inside Parker. A leak. I think it was Chastain. I don’t mean just on this case. I mean a longtime leak—a direct conduit inside to records, everything. I think it was Chastain.”
“It’s funny. A cop who hates cops.”
“Yeah.”
“But if he was Elias’s big important conduit, why would Elias put him on the stand and expose him like that?”
That was the question and Bosch had no answer. He was silent for a while, thinking about this. He finally put together the thin beginnings of a theory and said it out loud.