Michael Connelly: Angle of Investigation: Three Harry Bosch Stories

A new rush of tears cascaded down her cheeks.

“It’s gotta be swag,” Braxton said, ignoring her and speaking to Bosch. “I can run it on the box when we get back. On those things the manufacturer and serial number are engraved inside the bell.”

He pointed to the mouth of the horn.

“In there. Wouldn’t surprise me if it came out of Servan’s shop on one of the earlier B and Es.”

Bosch pulled the felt buffing cloth out of the opening and looked inside. There was an inscription on the curved brass but he couldn’t read it. He walked over to the window and angled the instrument so sunlight flooded into the mouth. He bent close and turned the instrument so he could read it.

CALUMET INSTRUMENTS

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

CUSTOM MADE FOR QUENTIN MCKINZIE, 1963

“THE SWEET SPOT”

Bosch read it again and then a third time. His temples suddenly felt as if someone had pressed hot quarters against them. A flash memory filled his thoughts. A musician under the canopy set up on the deck of the ship. The soldiers crowded close. Those in wheelchairs, the men missing limbs, at the front. The man playing the sax, bending up and down and in and out like Sugar Ray Robinson coming from the corner of the ring. The music beautiful and agile, lighting him up. The sound better than anything he had ever heard. The goddamn light at the end of all his tunnels.

“Jesus, Harry, what’s it say?”

Bosch looked over at Braxton, the memory retreating into the darkness.

“What?”

“You look like you saw a ghost hidin’ in there. What’s it say?”

“Chicago. It was made in Chicago.”

“Calumet?”

“How’d you know?”

“I’m a burglary detective. It’s my job to know. Calumet is one of the big ones. Been around a long time. We might be able to trace it.”

Bosch nodded.

“You finished here?” he asked. “Let’s go.”

On the way back to the station Bosch let Braxton drive so that he could hold and study the saxophone.

“What’s something like this worth?” he asked after they were halfway to their destination.

“Depends. New, you’re talking in the thousands. To a pawnbroker probably a fne.probablew hundred.”

“You ever heard of Quentin McKinzie?”

Braxton shook his head.

“I don’t think so.”

“They called him Sugar Ray McK. On account of when he played the sax he’d bob and weave like the fighter Sugar Ray Robinson. He was good. He was mostly a session guy but he put out a few records. ‘The Sweet Spot,’ you never heard that tune?”

“Sorry, man, not into jazz. Too much of a cliché, you know? Detectives and jazz. I listen to country myself.”

Bosch felt disappointed. He wanted to tell him about that day on the ship but if Braxton didn’t know jazz it couldn’t be explained.

“What’s the connection?” Braxton asked.

Bosch held up the saxophone.

“This was his. It says inside here, ‘Custom made for Quentin McKinzie.’ That’s Sugar Ray McK.”

“You ever see him play?”

Bosch nodded.

“One time. Nineteen sixty-nine.”

Braxton whistled.

“Long time ago. You think he’s still alive?”

“I don’t know. He’s not recording. Last disc he put out was Man with an Ax. That was at least ten years ago. Maybe longer. It was a compilation.”

Bosch looked at the saxophone.

“Can’t record without this anyway, I suppose.”

Bosch’s cell phone chirped. It was Edgar.

“Harry, whereyat?”

“On the way back to the station. We just checked out Kelman’s apartment.”

“Anything?”

“Not really. A junkie and a saxophone. What have you got?”

“First off, we’ve got lividity issues. This guy was moved.”

“And what’s the ME say about cause?”

“He’s going with your theory at the moment. Electrocution. The burns on the hand and foot-where the juice went in and out.”

“You find the source?Kelm sasource?

“I looked around. Can’t find it.”

Bosch thought about all of this. Postmortem lividity was the settling of the blood in a dead body. It was a purple gravity line. If a body is moved after the blood has settled, then a new gravity line will appear. It is an easy tip-off that most people outside of homicide investigation don’t know about.

“You looked around the case where the glove was?”

“Yeah, I looked. I can’t find any electrical source that can explain this. The case you’re talking about has internal lighting but there’s no malfunction.”

Braxton pulled into the parking lot behind the station and into a spot reserved for investigators’ cars.

“You do a property inventory on the guy yet?”

“Yeah, nothing. Pockets empty. No ID or anything else.”

“All right, we’re at the cop shop. Let me think about it and call you back.”

“Whatever, Harry. I just want to get out of here on time tonight and I don’t like the looks of this.”

“I know, I know.”

Bosch closed the phone and got out of the car with the saxophone.

“What has he got?” Braxton asked.

“Nothing much,” Bosch said over the top of the car. “It looks like an electrocution.”

“You called it.”

“When we get in, can you pull the reports on the three prior B and Es at Three Kings?”

“You got it. What about Servan?”

“I’ll check on him but I’m going to let him sit for a while.”

They went into the station and down to the detective bureau, where they split up, Braxton going to the burglary corral to get the reports, and Bosch to the rear hallway that led to the interview rooms. Servan was in interview room 3, pacing in the small space when Bosch opened the door.

“Mr. Servan, are you okay? It shouldn’t be too much longer.”

“Yeah, okay, okay. You find?”

He pointed to the saxophone. Bosch nodded.

“Did this come from your store?”

Servan studied the instrument and nodded vigorously.

“I think so, yes.”

“Okay, well, we’ll find out for sure. We’ve got a few things to do and then we’ll get back to you. You want some coffee or to use the bathroom?”

Servan declined both and Bosch left him there. When he got to the homicide table he started looking for Quentin McKinzie, running searches on the DMV, voter registration and crime index computers. He came up with a record of drug arrests in Los Angeles in the 1970s and 1980s but no address and nothing that gave a clue to his current whereabouts.

Braxton came over and dropped three thin files on his desk. Bosch told him to take the photo of Monty Kelman they had pulled off the computer and show it to Servan to see if he recognized Kelman as ever coming into the shop as a customer.

After Braxton was gone Bosch started looking through the burglary reports, beginning with the first break-in at Three Kings. He quickly flipped through the pages until he got to the stolen-property inventory. There was no saxophone on the list. He scanned the items listed and determined they were all small pieces taken from the lighted display cabinet.

He flipped back to the summary, which had been written by Braxton. It reported that the unknown suspect or suspects had broken through the rear door to enter the establishment, then had emptied the display case containing the highest-value items in the shop. Braxton noted that the display case had a key lock that had either been left unlocked or was expertly picked by the thief.

He went on to the next report and found a saxophone listed on the stolen-property inventory. It was described as an alto saxophone but there were no other identifiers and no listing of who the person was who had pawned the saxophone. He read the summary and found it mirrored the summary in the first burglary report; the burglar or burglars broke through the rear door, opened the display case and took all of the high-price valuables. The saxophone appeared to have been taken as an afterthought and Bosch knew now that that was because Monty Kelman had always wanted to learn to play the instrument.