With little middle-of-the-night traffic and Chastain cruising on the freeway at ninety, they got to Beck Street in less than fifteen minutes. The house was a large brick colonial with four white columns holding up a two-story portico. It had the feeling of a Southern plantation and Bosch wondered if it was some kind of statement being made by Elias.
Bosch saw no lights from behind any of the windows and the hanging light in the portico was dark as well. This didn’t sit right with him. If this was Elias’s home, why wasn’t a light left on for him?
There was a car in the circular driveway that was neither a Porsche nor a Volvo. It was an old Camaro with fresh paint and chromed wheels. To the right of the house there was a detached two-car garage but its door was closed. Chastain pulled into the drive and stopped behind the Camaro.
“Nice car,” Chastain said. “Tell you what, I wouldn’t leave a car like that out overnight. Even in a neighborhood like this. Too close to the jungle.”
He turned the car off and reached to open his door.
“Let’s wait a second here,” Bosch said.
He opened his briefcase, got out the phone and called dispatch again. He asked for a double check on the address for Elias. They had the right place. He then asked the dispatcher to run the plate on the Camaro. It came back registered to a Martin Luther King Elias, age eighteen. Bosch thanked the dispatcher and clicked off.
“We got the right place?” Chastain asked.
“Looks like it. The Camaro must be his son’s. But it doesn’t look like anyone was expecting dad to come home tonight.”
Bosch opened his door and got out, Chastain doing the same. As they approached the door Bosch saw the dull glow of a bell button. He pushed it and heard the sharp ringing of a chime inside the quiet house.
They waited and pushed the bell button two more times before the portico light came on above them and a woman’s sleepy but alarmed voice came through the door.
“What is it?”
“Mrs. Elias?” Bosch said. “We’re police. We need to talk to you.”
“Police? What for?”
“It’s about your husband, ma’am. Can we come in?”
“I need some identification before I open this door.”
Bosch took out his badge wallet and held it up but then noticed there was no peephole.
“Turn around,” the woman’s voice said. “On the column.”
Bosch and Chastain turned and saw the camera mounted on one of the columns. Bosch walked up to it and held up his badge.
“You see it?” he said loudly.
He heard the door open and turned around. A woman in a white robe with a silk scarf wrapped around her head looked out at him.
“You don’t have to yell,” she said.
“Sorry.”
She stood in the one-foot opening of the door but made no move to invite them in.
“Howard is not here. What do you want?”
“Uh, can we come in, Mrs. Elias? We want —”
“No, you can’t come in my house. My home. No policeman has ever been in here. Howard wouldn’t have it. Neither will I. What do you want? Has something happened to Howard?”
“Uh, yes, ma’am, I’m afraid. It would really be better if we —”
“Oh my God!” she shrieked. “You killed him! You people finally killed him!”
“Mrs. Elias,” Bosch started, wishing he had better prepared himself for the assumption he should have known the woman would make. “We need to sit down with you and —”
Again he was cut off, but this time it was by an unintelligible, animal-like sound from deep in the woman. Its anguish was resonant. The woman bowed her head and leaned into the doorjamb. Bosch thought she might fall and made a move to grab her shoulders. The woman recoiled as if he were a monster reaching out to her.
“No! No! Don’t you touch me! You—you murderers! Killers! You killed my Howard. Howard!”
The last word was a full-throated scream that seemed to echo through the neighborhood. Bosch looked behind him, half-expecting to see the street lined with onlookers. He knew he had to contain the woman, get her inside or at least quiet. She was moving into a full-fledged wail now. Meantime, Chastain just stood there, paralyzed by the scene unfolding before him.
Bosch was about to make another attempt to touch the woman when he saw movement from behind her and a young man grabbed hold of her from behind.
“Ma! What? What is it?”
The woman turned and collapsed against the young man.
“Martin! Martin, they killed him! Your father!”
Martin Elias looked up over his mother’s head and his eyes burned right through Bosch. His mouth formed the horrible Oh of shock and pain that Bosch had seen too many times before. He suddenly realized his mistake. He should have made this call with either Edgar or Rider. Rider, probably. She would have been a calming influence. Her smooth demeanor and the color of her skin would have done more than Bosch and Chastain combined.
“Son,” Chastain said, coming out of his inertia. “We need to settle down a bit here and go inside to talk about this.”
“Don’t you call me son. I’m not your goddamn son.”
“Mr. Elias,” Bosch said forcefully. Everyone, including Chastain, looked at him. He then continued, in a calmer, softer voice. “Martin. You need to take care of your mother. We need to tell you both what has happened and to ask you a few questions. The longer we stand here cursing and yelling, the longer it will be before you can take care of your mother.”
He waited a moment. The woman turned her face back into her son’s chest and began to cry. Martin then stepped back, pulling her with him, so that there was room for Bosch and Chastain to enter.
For the next fifteen minutes Bosch and Chastain sat with the mother and son in a nicely furnished living room and detailed what was known of the crime and how the investigation would be handled. Bosch knew that to them it was like a couple of Nazis announcing they would investigate war crimes, but he also knew that it was important to go through the routine, to do his best to assure the victim’s family that the investigation would be thorough and aggressive.
“I know what you said about it being cops,” Bosch said in summation. “At the moment we don’t know that. It is too early in the investigation to know anything about a motive. We are in a gathering phase at this time. But soon we’ll move to the sifting phase and any cop who might have had even a remote reason to harm your husband will be looked at. I know there will be many in that category. You have my word that they will be looked at very closely.”
He waited. The mother and son were huddled together on a couch with a cheerful floral pattern. The son kept closing his eyes like a child hoping to ward off a punishment. He was flagging under the weight of what he had just been told. It was finally hitting home that he would not see his father again.
“Now, we know this is an awful time for you,” Bosch said softly. “We would like to put off any kind of prolonged questioning so that you have time to yourselves. But there are a few questions that would help us right now.”
He waited for an objection but none came. He continued.
“The main one is that we can’t figure out why Mr. Elias was on Angels Flight. We need to find out where he was —”
“He was going to the apartment,” Martin said, without opening his eyes.
“What apartment?”
“He kept an apartment near the office so he could just stay over on court days or when he was busy getting ready for trial.”
“He was going to stay there tonight?”
“Right. He’d been staying there all week.”
“He had depos,” the wife said. “With the police. They were coming in after work so he was staying late at the office. Then he would just go over to the apartment.”
Bosch was silent, hoping either one of them would add something more about the arrangement but nothing else was said.
“Did he call you and tell you he was staying over?”
he asked.
“Yes, he always called.”
“When was this? This last time, is what I mean.”
“Earlier today. He said he’d be working late and needed to get back into it on Saturday and Sunday. You know, preparing for the trial on Monday. He said he would try to be home on Sunday for supper.”
“So you weren’t expecting him to be home here tonight.”
“That’s right,” Millie Elias said, a note of defiance in her voice as if she had taken the tone of Bosch’s question to mean something else.
Bosch nodded as if to reassure her that he was not insinuating anything. He asked the specific address of the apartment and was told it was in a complex called The Place, just across Grand Street from the Museum of Contemporary Art. Bosch took out his notebook and wrote it down, then kept the notebook out.
“Now,” he said, “Mrs. Elias, can you remember more specifically when it was you last spoke to your husband?”
“It was right before six. That is when he calls and tells me, otherwise I have to figure out what’s for supper and how many I’m cooking for.”
“How about you, Martin? When did you last speak to your father?”
Martin opened his eyes.
“I don’t know, man. Couple days ago, at least. But what’s this got to do with anything? You know who did it. Somebody with a badge did this thing.”
Tears finally began to slide down Martin’s face. Bosch wished he could be somewhere else. Anywhere else.
“If it was a cop, Martin, you have my word, we will find him. He won’t get away with it.”
“Sure,” Martin replied, without looking at Bosch. “The man gives us his word. But who the hell is the man?”
The statement made Bosch pause a moment before continuing.
“A few more questions,” he finally said. “Did Mr. Elias have an office here at home?”
“No,” the son said. “He didn’t do his work here.”
“Okay. Next question. In recent days or weeks, had he mentioned any specific threat or person who he believed wanted to harm him?”
Martin shook his head and said, “He just always said that it was the cops who would get him someday. It was the cops . . .”
Bosch nodded, not in agreement but in his understanding of Martin’s belief.
“One last question. There was a woman who was killed on Angels Flight. It looks like they were not together. Her name was Catalina Perez. Does that name mean anything to either of you?”
Bosch’s eyes moved from the woman’s face to her son’s. Both stared blankly and shook their heads.
“Okay then.”
He stood up.
“We will leave you alone now. But either myself or other detectives will need to speak with you again. Probably later on today.”
Neither the mother nor son reacted.
“Mrs. Elias, do you have a spare photo of your husband we could borrow?”
The woman looked up at him, her face showing confusion.
“Why do you want a picture of Howard?”
“We may need to show people in the course of the investigation.”
“Everybody already knows Howard, what he looks like.”
“Probably, ma’am, but we might need a photo in some cases. Do you —”
“Martin,” she said, “go get me the albums out of the drawer in the den.”
Martin left the room and they waited. Bosch took a business card from his pocket and put it down on the wrought-iron-and-glass coffee table.
“There’s my pager number if you need me or if there is anything else I can do. Is there a family minister you would like us to call?”
Millie Elias looked up at him again.
“Reverend Tuggins over at the AME.”
Bosch nodded but immediately wished he hadn’t made the offer. Martin came back into the room with a photo album. His mother took it and began to turn through the pages. She began to weep silently again at the sight of so many pictures of her husband. Bosch wished he had put off getting the photo until the follow-up interview. Finally, she came upon a close-up shot of Howard Elias’s face. She seemed to know it would be the best photo for the police. She carefully removed it from the plastic sleeve and handed it to Bosch.
“Will I get that back?”
“Yes, ma’am, I’ll see that you do.”
Bosch nodded and was about to make his way to the door. He was wondering if he could just forget about calling Reverend Tuggins.
“Where’s my husband?” the widow suddenly asked.
Bosch turned back.
“His body is at the coroner’s office, ma’am. I will give them your number and they will call you when it is time for you to make arrangements.”
“What about Reverend Tuggins? You want to use our phone?”
“Uh, no, ma’am. We’ll contact Reverend Tuggins from our car. We can see ourselves out now.”
On the way to the door, Bosch glanced at the collection of framed photographs that hung on the wall in the entrance hallway. They were photos of Howard Elias with every notable black community leader in the city as well as many other celebrities and national leaders. There he was with Jesse Jackson, with Congresswoman Maxine Waters, with Eddie Murphy. There was a shot of Elias flanked by Mayor Richard Riordan on one side and City Councilman Royal Sparks on the other. Bosch knew that Sparks had used outrage over police misconduct to forge his rise in city politics. He would miss having Elias around to keep the fire fanned, though Bosch also knew that Sparks would now use the lawyer’s murder to any advantage he could. Bosch wondered how it was that good and noble causes often seemed to bring slick opportunists to the microphones.
There were also family photos. Several depicted Elias and his wife at social functions. There were shots of Elias and his son—one of them on a boat, both holding up a black marlin and smiling. Another photo showed them at a firing range posing on either side of a paper target with several holes shot through it. The target depicted Daryl Gates, a former police chief whom Elias had sued numerous times. Bosch remembered that the targets, created by a local artist, were popular toward the end of Gates’s tumultuous stewardship of the department.
Bosch leaned forward to study the photo and see if he could identify the weapons Elias and his son held but the photo was too small.
Chastain pointed to one of the photos, which showed Elias and the chief of police at some formal affair, supposed adversaries smiling at the camera.
“They look cozy,” he whispered.
Bosch just nodded and went out through the door.
Chastain pulled the car out of the driveway and headed down out of the hills and back to the freeway. They were silent, both absorbing the misery they had just brought to a family and how they had received the blame for it.
“They always shoot the messenger,” Bosch said.
“I think I’m glad I don’t work homicide,” Chastain replied. “I can deal with cops being pissed at me. But that, that was bullshit.”
“They call it the dirty work—next-of-kin notification.”
“They ought to call it something. Fucking people. We’re trying to find out who killed the guy and they’re saying it was us. You believe that shit?”
“I didn’t take it literally, Chastain. People in that position are entitled to a little slack. They’re hurting, they say things, that’s all.”
“Yeah, you’ll see. Wait until you see that kid on the six o’clock news. I know the type. You won’t have much sympathy then. Where are we going anyway, back to the scene?”
“Go to his apartment first. You know Dellacroce’s pager number?”
“Not offhand, no. Look at your list.”
Bosch opened his notebook and looked up the pager number Dellacroce had written down. He punched the number into his phone and made the page.
“What about Tuggins?” Chastain asked. “You call him, you give him the head start on getting the south end ready to rock and roll.”
“I know. I’m thinkin
g.”
Bosch had been thinking about that decision since the moment Millie Elias had mentioned the name Preston Tuggins. As with many minority communities, pastors carried as much weight as politicians when it came to shaping that community’s response to a social, cultural or political cause or event. In the case of Preston Tuggins, he carried even more. He headed a group of associated ministers and together they were a force, a major media-savvy force that could hold the whole community in check—or unleash it like an earthquake. Preston Tuggins had to be handled with utmost care.
Bosch dug through his pocket and pulled out the card Irving had given him earlier. He was about to call one of the numbers on it when the phone rang in his hand.
It was Dellacroce. Bosch gave him the address of Elias’s apartment at The Place and told him to draw up an additional search warrant. Dellacroce cursed because he had already wakened a judge to fax him the office search warrant. He would now have to do it again.
“Welcome to homicide,” Bosch said as he clicked off.
“What?” Chastain said.
“Nothing. Just bullshit.”
Bosch punched in Irving’s number. The deputy chief answered after one ring, giving his full name and rank. It seemed odd to Bosch that Irving seemed fully alert, as if he had not been asleep.
“Chief, it’s Bosch. You said to call if —”
“No problem, Detective. What is it?”
“We just made notification. To Elias’s wife and son. Uh, she wanted me to call her minister.”
“I do not see the problem.”
“The minister is Preston Tuggins and I thought maybe somebody a little further up the ladder might be better making —”
“I understand. It was good thinking. I will have it taken care of. I think perhaps the chief will want to handle that. I was just about to call him anyway. Anything else?”