Few who revered Elias understood that his entire practice was built around one simple piece of the law. He filed lawsuits only in federal court and under provisions of the U.S. civil rights codes that allowed him to bill the city of Los Angeles for his fees in any case in which he was victorious in court.
The Rodney King beating, the Christopher Commission report excoriating the department in the wake of the King trial and subsequent civil unrest, and the racially divisive O. J. Simpson case created a shadow that stretched over every case Elias filed. And so it was not particularly difficult for the lawyer to win cases against the department, convincing juries to award at least token damages to plaintiffs. Those juries never realized that such verdicts opened the door for Elias to bill the city and its taxpayers, themselves included, hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees.
In the dog-bite lawsuit, which became Elias’s signature case, the jury found that the rights of the plaintiff had been violated. But since that plaintiff was a burglar with a long track record of prior arrests and convictions, the jury awarded him only one dollar in damages. Their intent was clear, to send a message to the police department rather than to make a criminal wealthy. But that didn’t matter to Elias. A win was a win. Under the federal guidelines he then submitted a bill to the city for $340,000 in legal fees. The city screamed and audited it, but still ended up paying more than half. In effect, the jury—and the many before and since—believed they were delivering a rebuke to the LAPD, but they were also paying for Elias’s half-hour late-night infomercials on Channel 9, his Porsche and his Italian courtroom suits, his opulent home up in Baldwin Hills.
Elias, of course, was not alone. There were dozens of attorneys in the city who specialized in police and civil rights cases and mined the same federal provision allowing them to extract fees far in excess of the damages awarded their clients. Not all were cynical and motivated by money. Lawsuits by Elias and others had brought about positive change in the department. Even their enemies—the cops—could not begrudge them that. Civil rights cases brought about the end of the department-approved use of the choke hold while subduing suspects—after an inordinately high number of minority deaths. Lawsuits had also improved conditions and protections in local jails. Other cases opened and streamlined means for citizens to file complaints against abusive police officers.
But Elias stood head and shoulders above them all. He had media charm and the speaking skills of an actor. He also seemed to lack any criteria when it came to choosing his clients. He represented drug dealers who claimed to have been abused by their interrogators, burglars who stole from the poor but objected to being beaten by the police who chased them down, robbers who shot their victims but then cried foul when they in turn were shot by police. Elias’s favorite line—used as a tagline on his commercials and whenever cameras were pointed at his face—was to say that abuse of power was abuse of power, regardless of whether the victim was a criminal. He was always quick to look into the camera and declare that if such abuse was tolerated when it was aimed at the guilty, it wouldn’t be long before the innocent were targeted.
Elias was a sole practitioner. In the last decade he had sued the department more than a hundred times and won jury verdicts in more than half of the cases. His was a name that could freeze a cop’s brain when he heard it. In the department, you knew that if Elias sued you, it would not be a small case that would be cleaned up and swept away. Elias didn’t settle cases out of court—nothing in the civil rights codes gave an incentive to settle cases. No, you would be dragged through a public spectacle if Elias aimed a lawsuit at you. There would be press releases, press conferences, newspaper headlines, television stories. You’d be lucky to come out of it in one piece, let alone with your badge.
Angel to some, devil to others, Howard Elias was now dead, shot to death on the Angels Flight railroad. Bosch knew as he looked through the small room’s window and watched the orange glow of the laser beam move about the darkened train car that he was in the calm before the storm. In just two days what might have been Elias’s biggest case was due to begin. The lawsuit against the LAPD that had become known in the media as the “Black Warrior” case was set for jury selection in U.S. District Court on Monday morning. The coincidence—or, as a wide swath of the public would undoubtedly believe, the lack of coincidence—between Elias’s murder and the start of the trial would make the investigation of the attorney’s death an easy seven on the media’s Richter scale. Minority groups would howl with rage and rightful suspicion. The whites in the West Side would whisper about their fears of another riot. And the eyes of the nation would be on Los Angeles and its police department once more. Bosch at that moment agreed with Edgar, though for different reasons than his black partner’s. He wished they could take a pass on this one.
“Chief,” he said, turning his focus back to Irving, “when it gets out who . . . I mean, when the media find out it was Elias, we’re going to —”
“That is not your concern,” Irving said. “Your concern is the investigation. The chief and I will deal with the media. Not a word comes from anyone on the investigation. Not a word.”
“Forget the media,” Rider said. “What about South Central? People are going to —”
“That will be handled,” Irving said, interrupting. “The department will institute the public disorder readiness plan beginning with the next watch. All personnel shift to twelve and twelves until we see how the city reacts. Nobody who saw nineteen ninety-two wants to see that again. But again, that is not your concern. You have one concern here.”
“You didn’t let me finish,” Rider said. “I wasn’t going to say they would riot. I actually have faith in the people there. I don’t think there will be trouble. What I was going to say was that they will be angry about this and suspicious. If you think you can ignore that or contain it by putting more cops on the —”
“Detective Rider,” Irving said, interrupting again, “that is not your concern. The investigation is your concern.”
Bosch saw that Irving’s interruptions and words, telling a black woman not to be concerned about her own community, had incensed Rider. It was on her face and Bosch had seen the look before. He decided to speak before she said something out of line.
“We’re going to need more people. With just the three of us, we’ll be running down alibis full-time for weeks, maybe a month. Case like this, we need to move fast, not only because of the case but because of the people. We’re going to need more than just three of us.”
“That, too, has been taken care of,” Irving said. “You will have all the help you need. But it won’t come from Robbery-Homicide. It’s a conflict of interest because of the Michael Harris matter.”
Before speaking, Bosch noted how Irving refused to call it the Black Warrior case, instead using the plaintiff’s name.
“Why us?”
“What?”
“I understand why RHD is out. But where are the Central Division teams? We’re off our beat and out of rotation here. Why us?”
Irving exhaled audibly.
“The entire Central Division homicide squad is in academy training this week and next. Sensitivity training and then the FBI workshop on new crime scene techniques. Robbery-Homicide was covering their calls. They took this one. Once it was determined who that was with the bullets in his head, I was contacted and in subsequent discussions with the chief of police it was determined that we would reach out to you. You are a good team. One of our best. You have cleared your last four, including that hard-boiled eggs job—yes, I was briefed on it. Plus, the main thing is, none of you were ever sued by Elias.”
He pointed with his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the crime scene in the train car. As he did this he glanced at Garwood but the captain was still looking down at the floor.
“No conflict of interest,” Irving said. “Correct?”
The three detectives nodded. Bosch had been sued often enough in his twenty-five years with the department,
but somehow he had always avoided tangling with Elias. Still, he didn’t believe Irving’s explanation was complete. He knew that Edgar had already alluded to a reason for their choice, probably a reason more important than the fact that none of them had been sued by Elias. Bosch’s two partners were black. That might come in handy for Irving at some point. Bosch knew Irving’s desire that the department have only one face and one race—blue—would go out the window when he needed a black face for the cameras.
“I don’t want my people paraded in front of the media, Chief,” Bosch said. “If we’re on the case, we’re on the case to work it, not for a show.”
Irving stared at him with angry eyes.
“What did you call me?”
Bosch was momentarily taken aback.
“I called you Chief.”
“Oh, good. Because I was wondering if there was some confusion here over the line of command in this room. Is there, Detective?”
Bosch looked away and out the window again. He could feel his face turning red and it upset him to give himself away.
“No,” he said.
“Good,” Irving said without a trace of tension. “Then I am going to leave you with Captain Garwood. He will bring you up to speed on what has been accomplished so far. When he is done, we will talk about how we are going to set this case up.”
He turned to the door but Bosch stopped him.
“One more thing, Chief.”
Irving turned back to him. Bosch had recovered his composure now. He looked calmly at the deputy chief.
“You know we are going to be looking hard at cops on this. Lots of them. We’ll have to go through all of the lawyer’s cases, not just the Black Warrior thing. So I just need to know up front—we all need to—do you and the police chief want the chips to fall where they fall or . . .”
He didn’t finish and Irving said nothing.
“I want to protect my people,” Bosch said. “This kind of case . . . we just need to be clear about everything up front.”
Bosch was taking a gamble saying it in front of Garwood and the others. It would likely anger Irving again. But Bosch took the shot because he wanted Irving to answer him in front of Garwood. The captain was a powerful man in the department. Bosch wanted him to know that his team would be following the directives of the highest command, just in case the chips fell close to some of Garwood’s people.
Irving looked at him for a long moment before finally speaking.
“Your insolence is noted, Detective Bosch.”
“Yes, sir. But what’s the answer?”
“Let them fall, Detective. Two people are dead that should not be dead. It does not matter who they were. They should not be dead. Do your best work. Use all your skills. And let the chips fall.”
Bosch nodded once. Irving turned and glanced quickly at Garwood before leaving the room.
4
“Harry, you have a smoke?”
“Sorry, Cap, I’m trying to quit.”
“Me, too. I guess all that really means is that you borrow ’em rather than buy ’em.”
Garwood stepped away from the corner and blew out his breath. With his foot he moved a stack of boxes away from the wall and sat down on them. He looked old and tired to Bosch but then he had looked that way twelve years before when Bosch had gone to work for him. Garwood didn’t raise any particular feelings in Bosch. He had been the aloof sort of supervisor. Didn’t socialize with the squad after hours, didn’t spend much time out of his office and in the bullpen. At the time, Bosch thought maybe that was good. It didn’t engender a lot of loyalty from Garwood’s people, but it didn’t create any enmity either. Maybe that was how Garwood had lasted in the spot for so long.
“Well, it looks like we really got our tit in the wringer this time,” Garwood said. He then looked at Rider and added, “Excuse the saying, Detective.”
Bosch’s pager sounded and he quickly pulled it off his belt, disengaged the beep and looked at the number. It was not his own number as he had hoped it would be. He recognized it as the home number of Lieutenant Grace Billets. She probably wanted to know what was going on. If Irving had been as circumspect with her as he had been with Bosch on the phone, then she knew next to nothing.
“Important?” Garwood asked.
“I’ll take care of it later. You want to talk in here or should we go out to the train?”
“Let me tell you what we have first. Then it’s your scene to do with what you want.”
Garwood reached into the pocket of his coat, took out a softpack of Marlboros and began opening it.
“I thought you asked me for a smoke,” Bosch said.
“I did. This is my emergency pack. I’m not supposed to open it.”
It made little sense to Bosch. He watched as Garwood lit a cigarette and then offered the pack to Bosch. Harry shook his head. He put his hands in his pockets to make sure he wouldn’t take one.
“This going to bother you?” Garwood asked, holding up the cigarette, a taunting smile on his face.
“Not me, Cap. My lungs are probably already shot. But these guys . . .”
Rider and Edgar waved it off. They appeared as impatient as Bosch did in getting to the story.
“Okay, then,” Garwood finally said. “This is what we know. Last run of the night. Man named Elwood . . . Elwood . . . hold on a sec.”
He pulled a small pad from the same pocket he had replaced the cigarette package in and looked at some writing on the top page.
“Eldrige, yeah, Eldrige. Eldrige Peete. He was running the thing by himself—it only takes one person to run the whole operation—it’s all computer. He was about to close her down for the night. On Friday nights the last ride is at eleven. It was eleven. Before sending the top car down for the last ride he goes out, gets on it, closes and locks the door. Then he comes back in here, puts the command on the computer and sends it down.”
He referred to the pad again.
“These things have names. The one he sent down is called Sinai and the one he brought up was Olivet. He says they’re named after mountains in the Bible. It looked to him when Olivet got up here that the car was empty. So he goes out to lock it up—’cause then he has to send them one more time and the computer stops them side by side in the middle of the track for overnight. Then he’s done and out of here.”
Bosch looked at Rider and made a signal as if writing on his palm. She nodded and took her own pad and a pen out of the bulky purse she carried. She started taking notes.
“Only Elwood, I mean, Eldrige, he comes out to lock up the car and he finds the two bodies onboard. He backs away, comes in here and calls the police. With me?”
“So far. What next?”
Bosch was already thinking of the questions he would have to ask Garwood and then probably Peete.
“So we’re covering for Central dicks and the call eventually comes to me. I send out four guys and they set up the scene.”
“They didn’t check the bodies for ID?”
“Not right away. But there was no ID anyway. They were going by the book. They talked to this Eldrige Peete and they went down the steps and did a search for casings and other than that held tight until the coroner’s people arrived and did their thing. Guy’s wallet and watch are missing. His briefcase, too, if he was carrying one. But they got an ID off a letter the stiff had in his pocket. Addressed to Howard Elias. Once they found that, my guys took a real good look at the stiff and could tell it was Elias. They then, of course, called me and I called Irving and he called the chief and then it was decided to call you.”
He had said the last part as if he had been part of the decision process. Bosch glanced out the window. There was still a large number of detectives milling about.
“I’d say those first guys made more than just a call to you, Captain,” Bosch said.
Garwood turned to look out the window as if it had never occurred to him that it was unusual to see as many as fifteen detectives at a murder scene.
&
nbsp; “I suppose,” he said.
“Okay, what else?” Bosch said. “What else did they do before they figured out who it was and that they weren’t long for the case?”
“Well, like I said, they talked to this fellow Eldrige Peete and they searched the areas outside the cars. Top and bottom. They —”
“Did they find any of the brass?”
“No. Our shooter was careful. He picked up all the casings. We do know that he was using a nine, though.”
“How?”
“The second victim, the woman. The shot was through and through. The slug hit a steel window bracket behind her, flattened and fell on the floor. It’s too mashed for comparison but you can still tell it was a nine. Hoffman said if he was guessing he’d say it was a Federal. You’ll have to hope for better lead from the autopsies as far as ballistics go. If you ever get that far.”
Perfect, Bosch thought. Nine was a cop’s caliber. And stopping to pick up the shells, that was a smooth move. You didn’t usually see that.
“The way they see it,” Garwood continued, “Elias got it just after he stepped onto the train down there. The guy comes up and shoots him in the ass first.”
“The ass?” Edgar said.
“That’s right. The first shot is in the ass. See, Elias is just stepping on so he’s a couple steps up from the sidewalk level. The shooter comes up from behind and holds the gun out—it’s at ass level. He sticks the muzzle in there and fires off the first cap.”
“Then what?” Bosch asked.
“Well, we think Elias goes down and sort of turns to see who it is. He raises his hands but the shooter fires again. The slug goes through one of his hands and hits him in the face, right between the eyes. That’s probably your cause-of-death shot right there. Elias drops back down. He’s facedown now. The shooter steps into the car and puts one more in the back of his head, point-blank. He then looks up and sees the woman, maybe for the first time. He hits her from about twelve feet. One in the chest, through and through, and she’s gone. No witness. The shooter gets the wallet and watch off Elias, picks up his shells and is gone. A few minutes later Peete brings the car up and finds the bodies. You now know what I know.”