Michael Connelly - The Drop

“You sure, Mr. Khan?”

“Yes, sure. I manage building. He not here.”

“Take a look at a picture of him.”

“Okay, you show it.”

Chu pulled out a photo from Hardy’s current driver’s license and showed Khan. He looked at it for a good five seconds and then shook his head.

“See, I tell you. This man not here.”

“Yeah, I got it. This man not here. How about you, Mr. Khan? How long have you been here?”

“I work here three years now. I do very good job.”

“And this guy never lived here? What about two years ago?”

“No, I remember him if he live.”

Bosch nodded.

“Okay, Mr. Khan. Thank you for your cooperation.”

“I cooperate fully.”

“Yes, sir.”

Bosch turned and headed back toward the gate. Chu followed. When they got to the car, Bosch looked over the car roof at the building for a long moment before ducking into the driver’s seat.

“Do you believe him?” Chu asked.

“Yeah,” Bosch said. “I guess I do.”

“So then, what do you think?”

“I think we’re missing something. Let’s go see Clayton Pell.”

He turned the car on and pulled away from the curb. As he steered back toward the freeway, he had the navy-and-white-striped awnings in his mind’s eye.

It was one of the few times he let Chu drive. Bosch was in the backseat with Clayton Pell. He wanted to be close to him in case of a violent reaction. When Pell had seen the photo lineups earlier and picked Chilton Hardy’s photo out each time, he had disappeared behind a wall of controlled rage. Bosch could sense it and he wanted to be close in case he had to do something about it.

Hannah Stone rode in the front passenger seat and from his position Bosch could watch both Pell and her. Stone had a concerned look on her face. The reopening of Pell’s old wounds was clearly weighing on her.

Bosch and Chu had choreographed the drive before arriving at the Buena Vista to pick up Pell. From the halfway center they first drove to Travel Town in Griffith Park so that they could begin the tour with Pell seeing what appeared to be one of the places of good memories of his young life. Pell wanted to get out and watch the trains, but Bosch said no, they were on a schedule. The truth was, he didn’t want to allow Pell to watch the children on the train rides.

Now Chu turned right onto Cahuenga and started heading north toward the address they had traced Chilton Hardy to during the time period Pell lived with him. By the prearranged plan, they would not point out the apartment building to Pell. They would simply see if he recognized it on his own.

When they were two blocks away Pell showed the first stirring of recognition.

“Yes, this is where we lived. I thought that place was a school and I wanted to go there.”

He pointed out the window at a private day-care center that had a swing set in front behind a wire fence. Bosch could understand how an eight-year-old might think it was a school.

They were coming up to the apartment building now. It was on Pell’s side. Chu took his foot off the gas pedal and started to coast, which Bosch thought was a giveaway, but they went right by the address without a word from Pell.

It wasn’t a case catastrophe but Bosch was disappointed. He was thinking in terms of a prosecution. If he was able to testify that Pell pointed out the apartment building without any help, that would bolster Pell’s story. If they had to specifically point the place out to Pell, a defense attorney would be able to contend that Pell was manipulating the police and creating his testimony out of a revenge fantasy.

“Anything yet?” Bosch asked.

“Yeah, I think we might’ve just passed it but I’m not sure.”

“You want us to turn around?”

“Is that all right?”

“Sure. Which side were you looking at?”

“My side.”

Bosch nodded. Now things were looking good.

“Detective Chu,” he said. “Rather than turn around let’s go right and go around so it’s on Clayton’s side again.”

“Got it.”

Chu turned right at the next block, then took his first right and drove three blocks down. He then turned right and came back to Cahuenga at the corner where the day-care center was. He turned right again and they were only a block and a half from the address.

“Yeah, right up here,” Pell said.

Chu drove well below the speed limit. A car blasted its horn from behind and then passed them. Everyone in the police car ignored it.

“This is it,” Pell said. “I think.”

Chu pulled to the curb. It was the right address. Everyone was silent while Pell looked out the window at the Camelot Apartments. It was a two-story stucco affair with rounded faux turrets at the two front corners. It was typical of the urban-blight apartments that sprouted in the city in the boom times of the fifties. They were designed and built to last thirty years and were going on twice that now. The stucco was cracked and discolored, the roof line was no longer straight and the flap of a blue plastic tarp was tied over the top of one of the turrets as a makeshift remedy for a leaking roof.

“It was nicer back then,” Pell said.

“Are you sure it’s the right place?” Bosch asked.

“Yeah, this is it. I remember it sort of looking like a castle and I was excited about living here. Except I didn’t know. .”

His voice trailed off and he just looked at the building. He had turned halfway in his seat so his back was to Bosch. Harry saw Pell lean his forehead against the window. His shoulders then began to shake and there was a low sound almost like a whistle as he began to cry.

Bosch raised a hand and reached over to Pell’s shoulder, but then he stopped. He hesitated and pulled his hand back. Stone had been turning in her seat and she saw the move. In that split second, Bosch saw her disgust with him.

“Clayton,” she said. “It’s all right. It’s good to see this, to confront the past head-on.”

She reached over the seat and put her hand on Pell’s shoulder, doing what Bosch could not. She didn’t look at Bosch again.

“It’s all right,” she said again.

“I hope you catch the fucking bastard,” Pell said, his voice strangled with emotion.

“Don’t worry,” Bosch said. “We will.”

“I hope he dies. I hope he puts up a fight and you kill his ass.”

“Come on, Clayton,” Stone said. “Let’s not think about those kinds of—”

He slapped her hand off his shoulder.

“I want him to die!”

“No, Clayton.”

“Yes! Look at me! At what I am! It’s all because of him.”

Stone turned back in her seat and sat down.

“I think Clayton has been through enough here,” she said in a clipped tone. “Can we go back now?”

Bosch reached forward and tapped Chu on the shoulder.

“Let’s go,” he said.

Chu pulled away from the curb and headed north. The car was silent the whole way back and it was dark by the time they got back to the Buena Vista. Chu stayed in the car while Bosch walked Pell and Stone to the front gate.

“Clayton, thank you,” Bosch said as Stone used her key to open the passage. “I know that was tough on you. I appreciate your willingness to do it. It’s going to help the case.”

“Doesn’t matter if you have a case. Are you going to catch him?”

Bosch hesitated and then nodded.

“I think so. We still have some work to do but we’ll get it done and then we’ll go find him. I promise you that.”

Pell walked through the open gate without another word.

“Clayton, you should go to the kitchen and see if there’s dinner,” Stone instructed.

Pell raised a hand and waved, indicating he had heard her, as he walked off into the center courtyard. Stone turned to close the gate but Bosch was standing there. She looked up at him and Harry could read the disappointment.