Micael Connelly - The Last Coyote

'You can keep your state license.' 'Thank you.'

They rested a moment until she continued in a voice meant to soothe him.

'You also have to know you are not alone. This is nothing to be embarrassed about. There has been a sharp increase in incidents of officer stress in the last three years. Behavioral Sciences Services just made a request to the City Council for five more psychologists. Our caseload went from eighteen hundred counseling sessions in 1990 to more than double that last year. We've even got a name for what's going on here. The blue angst. And you have it, Harry.'

Bosch smiled and shook his head, still clinging to what denial he had left.

'The blue angst. Sounds like the name of a Wambaugh novel, doesn't it?' She didn't answer.

'So what you're saying is that I'm not going to get my job back.'

'No, I'm not saying that at all. All I am saying is that we have a lot of work ahead of us.'

'I feel like I've been broken down by the world champ. You mind if I call you sometime when I'm trying to get a confession out of a hump who won't talk to me?' 'Believe me, just saying that is a start.'

'What do you want me to do?'

'I want you to want to come here. That's all. Don't look at it as a punishment. I want you to work with me, not against me. When we talk I want you to talk about everything and nothing. Anything that comes to mind. Hold back nothing. And one other thing. I'm not telling you to completely cut it out, but you have to cut back on the drinking. You have to have a clear mind. As you obviously know, the effects of alcohol stay with an individual long after the night they were consumed.'

'I'll try. All of it. I'll try.'

'That's all I ask. And since you suddenly seem so willing, I have another thought. I have a cancelation of a session tomorrow at three. Can you make it?'

Bosch hesitated, didn't say anything.

'We seem to finally be working well and I think it will help. The sooner we get through with our work, the sooner you should be able to get back to your work. What do you say?'

'Three?'

'Yes.'

'Okay, I'll be here.'

'Good. Let's get back to our dialogue. Why don't you start? Whatever you want to talk about.'

He leaned forward and reached for the cup of water. He looked at her as he drank from it, then put the cup back on the desk.

'Just say anything?'

'Anything. Whatever is happening in your life or mind that you want to talk about.'

He thought for a long moment.

'I saw a coyote last night. Near my house. I ... I was drunk, I guess, but I know I saw him.'

'Why was that significant to you?'

He tried to compose the proper answer.

'I'm not sure ... I guess there's not too many left in the hills in the city — least near where I live. So whenever I see one, I get this feeling that it might be the last one left out there. You know? The last coyote. And I guess that would bother me if it ever turned out to be true, if I never saw one again.'

She nodded as if he had scored some point in a game he wasn't sure how to play.

'There used to be one that lived in the canyon below my house. I'd see him down there and -'

'How do you know it was a he? And I think you called the one you saw last night a he. How are you sure?'

'I'm not sure. I guess I don't even know. It's just a guess.'

'Okay. Go on.'

'Um, he — it — lived down there below my house and I used to see him from time to time. After the earthquake it was gone. I don't know what happened to it. Then I saw this one last night. Something about the mist and the light out there ... it looked like its coat was blue. He looked hungry. There is something ... they're kind of sad and threatening at the same time. You know?'

'Yes, I do.'

'Anyway, I thought about him when I got in bed after I got home. That was when I burned my hand. I fell asleep with the cigarette. But before I woke up I had this dream. I mean, I think it was a dream. Maybe like a daydream, like I was still kind of awake. And in it, whatever it was, the coyote was there again. But it was with me. And we were in the canyon or on a hill or something and I wasn't really sure.'

He held up his hand.

'And then I felt the fire.'

She nodded but didn't say anything.

'So what do you think?' he asked.

'Well, interpretation of dreams is not something I do often. Frankly, I'm not sure of its value. The real value I think I see in what you just told me was the willingness to tell me. It shows me a one-eighty-degree turn in your approach to these sessions. For what it's worth, I think it's clear you identify with the coyote. Perhaps, there are not many policemen like you left and you feel the same threat to your existence or your mission. I don't really know. But look at your own words. You called them sad and threatening at the same time. Could that be you also?'

He drank from his cup before answering.

'I've been sad before. But I've found comfort in it.'

They sat in silence for a while, digesting what had been said. She looked at her watch.

'We still have some time. Is there anything else you want to talk about? Maybe something related to this story?'

He contemplated the question for a while and took out a cigarette.

'How much time do we have?'

'As long as you want. Don't worry about the time. I want to do this.'

'You've talked about my mission. You told me to think about my mission. And you said the word again just a minute ago.'

'Yes.'

He hesitated.

'What I say here is protected, right?'

She furrowed her brow.

'I'm not talking about anything illegal. What I mean is, whatever I tell you in here, you're not going to tell people, right? It won't get back to Irving.'

'No. What you tell me stays right here. That's an absolute. I told you, I make a single, narrowly focused recommendation for or against return to duty that I give to Assistant Chief Irving. That's it.'

He nodded, hesitated again and then made his decision. He would tell her.

'Well, you were talking about my mission and your mission and so on and, well, I think I've had a mission for a long time. Only I didn't know it, or I mean ... I didn't accept it. I didn't acknowledge it. I don't know how to explain it right. Maybe I was afraid or something. I put it off. For a lot of years. Anyway, what I'm telling you is that I've accepted it now.'

'I'm not sure I'm following you. Harry, you have to come out and tell me what you're talking about.'

He looked down at the gray rug in front of him. He spoke to it because he didn't know how to say it to her face.

'I'm an orphan ... I never knew my father and my mother was murdered in Hollywood when I was a kid. Nobody ... there never was any arrest made.'

'You're looking for her killer, aren't you?'

He looked up at her and nodded.

'That's my mission right now.'

She showed no shock on her face, which in turn surprised him. It was as if she expected him to say what he had just said.

'Tell me about it.'

Bosch sat at his dining room table with his notebook out and the newspaper clips that Keisha Russell had had a Times intern gather for him sitting in front of him in two separate stacks. One stack for Conklin stories and one for Mittel stories. There was a bottle of Henry's on the table and through the evening he had been nursing it like cough syrup. The one beer was all he would allow himself. The ashtray, however, was loaded and there was a pall of blue smoke around the table. He had placed no limit on cigarettes. Hinojos had said nothing about smoking.

She'd had plenty to say about his mission, though. She'd flatly counseled him to stop until he was better emotionally prepared to face what he might find. He told her that he was too far down the road to stop. Then she said something that he kept thinking about as he drove home and it intruded even now.