Micael Connelly - The Last Coyote

What is jealousy but a reflection of your own failures? I was jealous and angry and I struck at her. I then made a feeble effort to cover what I had done. I am sorry, Harry, but I took her from you and with that took any chance you ever had. I've carried the guilt every day since then and I take it with me now. I should have paid for my sin a long time ago but someone convinced me otherwise and helped me get away. There is no one left to convince me now.

I don't ask for your forgiveness, Harry. That would be an insult. I guess all I want is for you to know my regrets and to know that sometimes people who get away don't really get away. I didn't. Not then, not now. Good-bye. Meredith

Bosch reread the note and then stood there thinking about it for a long time. Finally, he folded it and put it back in its envelope. He walked over to the fireplace, lit the envelope on fire with his Bic and then tossed it onto the grate. He watched the paper bend and burn until it bloomed like a black rose and went out.

He went to the kitchen and lifted the receiver off the phone after wrapping his hand in tissue. He put it on the counter and dialed nine-one-one. As he walked toward the front door, he could hear the tiny voice of the Santa

Monica police operator asking who was there and what the problem was.

He left the door unlocked and wiped the exterior knob with the tissue after stepping out onto the porch. He heard a voice from behind him.

'She writes a good letter, don't she?'

Bosch turned around. Vaughn was sitting on the rattan love seat on the porch. He was holding a new twenty-two in his hand. It looked like another Beretta. He looked none the worse for wear. He didn't have the black eyes that Bosch had, or the stitches.

'Vaughn.'

Bosch couldn't think of anything else to say. He couldn't imagine how he had been found by him. Could Vaughn have been daring enough to hang around Parker Center and follow Bosch from there? Bosch looked out into the street and wondered how long it would take the police operator to dispatch a car to the address the computer gave her for the 911 call. Even though Bosch had said nothing on the line, he knew they would eventually send a car to check it out. He had wanted them to find Meredith. If they took their time about it, they would probably find him as well. He had to stall Vaughn for as long as possible.

'Yeah, nice note,' the man with the gun said. 'But she left something out, don't you think?'

'What's left out?'

Vaughn seemed not to have heard him.

'It's funny,' he said. 'I knew your mother had a kid. But I never met you, never even saw you. She kept you away from me. I wasn't good enough, I guess.'

Bosch continued to stare as things began to fall together.

'Johnny Fox.'

'In the flesh.'

'I don't understand. Mittel ...'

'Mittel had me killed? No, not really. I killed myself, I guess you could say. I read that story you people put in the paper today. But you had it wrong. Most of it, at least.'

Bosch nodded. He knew now.

'Meredith killed your mother, kid. Sorry about that. I just helped her take care of it after the fact.'

'And then you used her death to get to Conklin.'

Bosch didn't need any confirmation from Fox. He was just trying to chew up time.

'Yeah, that was the plan, to get to Conklin. Worked pretty good, too. Got me out of the sewer. Only I found out pretty fast that the real power was Mittel. I could tell. Between the two of them, Mittel could go the distance. So I threw in with him, you could say. He wanted a better hold on the golden boy. He wanted an ace up his own sleeve. So I helped.'

'By killing yourself? I don't get it.'

'Mittel told me that supreme power over someone is the power they don't know you have until you need to use it. You see, Bosch, Mittel always suspected that Conklin was really the one who did your mother.'

Bosch nodded. He saw where the story was going.

'And you never told Mittel that Conklin wasn't the killer.'

'That's right. I never told him about Meredith. So knowing that, look at it from his side. Mittel figured that if Conklin was the doer and he believed I was dead, then he'd think he was home free. See, I was the only loose end, the one who could tie him in. Mittel wanted him to think he was clear. He wanted it because he wanted Conklin at ease. He didn't want him to lose his drive, his ambition. Conklin was going places and Mittel didn't want him to even hesitate. But he also wanted to keep an ace up his sleeve, something that he could always pull out if Conklin tried to step out of line. That was me. I was the

ace. So we arranged that little hit and run, me and Mittel. Thing is, Mittel never had to play the ace with Conklin. Conklin gave Mittel a lot of good years after that. By the time he backed out on that attorney general thing, Mittel was well diversified. By then he had a congressman, a senator, a quarter of the local pols on his client list. You could say by then he had already climbed on Conklin's shoulders to the higher ground. He didn't need Arno anymore.'

Bosch nodded again and thought a moment about the scenario. All those years. Conklin believed it had been Mittel who killed her and Mittel believed it had been Conklin. It was neither.

'So who was the one you ran over?' 'Oh, just somebody. It doesn't matter. He was just a volunteer, you could say. I picked him up on Mission Street. He thought he was handing out Conklin fliers. I planted my ID in the bottom of the satchel I gave him. He never knew what hit him or why.'

'How'd you get away with it?' Bosch asked, though he thought he already knew the answer to that as well.

'Mittel had Eno on the line. We set it up so that it happened when he was next up on call. He took care of everything and Mittel took care of him.'

Bosch could see that the setup also gave Fox a share of power over Mittel. And he'd ridden along with him ever since. A little plastic surgery, a nicer set of clothes, and he was Jonathan Vaughn, aid to the wunderkind political strategist and rainmaker.

'So how'd you know I'd show up here?' 'I'd kept tabs on her over the years. I knew she was here. Alone. After our little run-in on the hill the other night, I came here to hide, to sleep. You gave me a headache — what the hell you hit me with?' 'The eight ball.'

'I guess I should have thought of that when I put you in there. Anyway, I found her like that in the bed. I read the note and knew who you were. I figured you'd be back. Especially after you left that message on the phone yesterday.'

'You've been here all this time with ...'

'You get used to it. I put the air on high, closed the door. You get used to it.'

Bosch tried to imagine it. Sometimes he believed that he was used to the smell, but he knew he wasn't.

'What did she leave out of the note, Fox?'

'That was the part about her wanting Conklin for herself. See, I tried her with Conklin first. But it didn't take. Then I set him up with Marjorie and got the fireworks. Nobody expected that he'd want to end up marrying her, though. Least of all Meredith. There was only room on the horse with the white knight for one rider. That was Marjorie. Meredith couldn't handle that. Must've been a hell of a cat fight.'

Bosch said nothing. But the truth stung his face like a sunburn. That's what it had all come down to, a cat fight between whores.

'Let's go to your car now,' Fox said.

'Why?'

'We need to go to your place now.'

'For what?'

Fox never answered. A Santa Monica squad car stopped in front of the house just as Bosch asked his question. Two officers started getting out.

'Be cool, Bosch,' Fox said quietly. 'Be cool if you want to live a little longer.'

Bosch saw Fox turn the aim of his gun toward the approaching officers. They could not see it because of the thick bougainvillea running along the front of the porch. One of them started to speak.