Michael Connelly - The Drop

“You hope I can’t prove it.”

“No, hope’s got nothing to do with it. I know you can’t prove it because I didn’t do it.”

“Let’s start at the beginning. You hate Irvin Irving for what he did to you twenty-five years ago. He hung you out to dry, destroyed your career, if not your life.”

“‘Hate’ is a difficult word. Sure, I’ve hated him in the past but it’s been a long time.”

“What about Sunday night? Did you hate him then?”

“I wasn’t thinking about him then.”

“That’s right. You were thinking about his son, George. The guy trying to take away your job this time. Did you hate George on Sunday night?”

McQuillen shook his head.

“I’m not going to answer that. I don’t have to. But no matter what I thought about him, I didn’t kill him. He killed himself.”

“What makes you so sure of that?”

“Because he told me he was going to.”

Bosch was ready for just about anything he thought McQuillen could parry with. But he wasn’t ready for that.

“He told you that.”

“That’s right.”

“When did he tell you that?”

“Sunday night. In his room. That’s what he was there for. He said he was going to jump. I got out of there before he did.”

Bosch paused again, mindful that McQuillen had had several days to prepare for this moment. He could have concocted an elaborate story that would cover all the facts. But in the file in front of him Bosch still had the photograph of the wound on George Irving’s shoulder blade. It was a game changer. McQuillen wouldn’t be able to explain it away.

“Why don’t you tell me your story and how you came to have this conversation with George Irving. And don’t leave anything out. I want the details.”

McQuillen took in a big breath and then slowly exhaled.

“You realize the risk I’m taking here? Talking to you? I don’t know what you have or think you have. I could tell you the God’s honest truth and you could twist it and use it to fuck me over. And I don’t even have a lawyer in the room.”

“It’s your call, Mark. You want to talk, then talk. You want a lawyer, we get you a lawyer and all talk ends. Everything ends and we play it that way. You were a cop and you’re smart enough to know how this really works. You know there’s only one way for you to get out of here and get home tonight. You gotta talk your way out.”

Bosch made a gesture with his hand, as though he was passing the choice to him. McQuillen nodded. He knew it was now or never. A lawyer would tell him to sit tight and keep quiet, let the police put up or shut up in the courtroom. Never give them something they don’t already have. And it was good advice but not always. Some things have to be said.

“I was in that room with him,” he said. “Sunday night. Actually, Monday morning. I went up there to see him. I was angry. I wanted. . I’m not sure what I wanted. I didn’t want to lose my life again and I wanted to. . scare him, I guess. Confront him. But—”

He pointed emphatically at Bosch.

“—he was alive when I left that room.”

Bosch realized that he now had enough on tape to arrest McQuillen and hold him on a murder charge. He had just admitted to being with the victim in the place from which Irving had been dropped. But Bosch showed no excitement. There was more to get here.

“Let’s go back,” he said. “Tell me how you knew George Irving was even in the hotel and where.”

McQuillen shrugged like the question was for a dummy.

“You know that,” he said. “Hooch Rollins told me. He dropped a fare there Sunday night and happened to see Irving going in. He told me because he’d heard me going on once in the break room about the Irvings. I held a staff meeting after the DUIs and told everybody, ‘This is what they’re doing and this is the guy behind it.’ Got his photo off Google, the little shit.”

“So Rollins told you he was going into the hotel. How’d you know he had a room and how’d you know which room it was?”

“I called the hotel. I knew they wouldn’t tell me his room for security reasons and I couldn’t ask to be transferred to the room. What was I going to say, ‘Dude, do you mind giving me your room number?’ No, so I called up and asked for the garage. Hooch had told me he saw him valeting his car, so I called the garage and said I was Irving and wanted them to check and see if I left my phone in the car. I said, You know my room number? Can you bring it up if you find it? And the guy said yes, you’re in seventy-nine and if I find the phone I’ll send it up. So there, I had his room.”

Bosch nodded. It was a clever plan. But it also showed some of the elements of premeditation. McQuillen was talking himself into a first-degree murder charge. All Bosch seemingly had to do was direct him with general questions and McQuillen provided the rest. It was a downhill path.

“I waited until the end of shift at midnight and went over there,” McQuillen said. “I didn’t want to be seen by anybody or any cameras. So I went around the hotel and found a fire escape ladder that was on the side. It went all the way up to the roof. But on each landing there was a balcony and I could climb off and take a break if I needed it.”

“Were you wearing gloves?”

“Yeah, gloves and coveralls I keep in the trunk. In my business you never know whether you’ll be crawling under a car or something. I thought if somebody saw me, I’d look like a maintenance guy.”

“You keep that stuff in the trunk? You’re a dispatcher.”

“I’m a partner, man. My name isn’t on the franchise with the city because I didn’t think we’d get the franchise way back when if they knew I was part of it. But I’ve got a third of the company.”

Which helped explain why McQuillen would go to such lengths with Irving. Another potential pothole in the case filled in by the suspect himself.

“So you took the fire escape to the seventh floor. What time was this?”

“I went off shift at midnight. So it was like twelve thirty or thereabouts.”

“What happened when you got to the seventh floor?”

“I got lucky. On the seventh floor, there wasn’t an exit. No door to the hallway. Just two glass doors on the balcony to two different rooms. One to the left and one to the right. I looked in the one on the right and there he was. Irving was sitting right there on the couch.”

McQuillen stopped. It looked as if he was staring at the memory of that night, at what he had seen through the balcony door. Bosch was mindful of needing to keep the story going but with as little from himself as possible.

“So you found him.”

“Yeah, he was just sitting there, drinking Jack Black straight outta the bottle and looking like he was just waiting for something.”

“Then what happened?”

“He took the last pull out of that bottle and all of a sudden he got up and he started coming right at me. Like he knew I was on the balcony watching him.”

“What did you do?”

“I backed up against the wall next to the door. I figured he couldn’t have seen me with the reflection inside on the glass. He was just coming out on the balcony. So I backed up next to the door and he opened it and stepped out. He walked right to the wall and he threw the empty bottle out there as far as he could. Then he leaned over the wall and started looking down, like he was going to puke or something. And I knew when he finished his business and turned around I was going to be standing right in front of him. There was no place to go.”

“Did he vomit?”

“No, he never did. He just—”

A loud and unexpected knock on the door nearly made Bosch jump off his seat.

“Just hold the story right there,” he said.