Michael Connelly - The Drop

He got up and used his body to shield the knob from McQuillen. He punched in the combination on the lock and opened the door. Chu was standing there and Bosch almost reached out to strangle him. But he calmly stepped out and closed the door.

“What the fuck are you doing? You know you never barge in on an interview. What are you, a rookie?”

“Look, I wanted to tell you, I killed the story. She’s not running it.”

“That’s great. You could’ve told me after the interview was over. This guy’s about to give up the whole thing and you knock on the fucking door.”

“I just didn’t know if you were making moves with him because you thought the story was going to come out. It won’t now, Harry.”

“We’ll talk about it later.”

Bosch turned back to the interview room door.

“I’m going to make it up to you, Harry. I promise.”

Bosch turned back to him.

“I don’t care about your promises. You want to do something, stop knocking on the door and start working on a search warrant for this guy’s watch. When we send it to forensics I want it on a judge’s order.”

“You got it, Harry.”

“Good. Go away.”

Bosch punched in the combination, reentered the room and sat across from McQuillen.

“Something important?” McQuillen asked.

“No, just some bullshit. Why don’t you keep telling the story? You said Irving was on the balcony and—”

“Yeah, I was standing there behind him against the wall. As soon as he turned to go back in I was going to be like a sitting duck.”

“So what did you do?”

“I don’t know. Instinct took over. I made a move. I came up behind him and grabbed him. I started dragging him back into the room. All those houses on the hillside. I thought somebody might see us out there. I just wanted to get him back into the room.”

“You say you grabbed him. How exactly did you grab him?”

“Around the neck. I used the choke hold. Like old times.”

McQuillen looked directly at Bosch as he said it, as if passing on some sort of significance.

“Did he struggle? Did he put up any resistance?”

“Yeah, he was shocked as shit. He started fighting but he was sort of drunk. I backed him in through the door. He flopped around like a fucking marlin but it didn’t take long. It never did. He went to sleep.”

Bosch waited to see if he would continue but that was it.

“He was unconscious then,” he said.

“That’s right,” McQuillen said.

“What happened next?”

“He started breathing again pretty quick but he was asleep. I told you, he drank that whole bottle of Jack. He was snoring. I had to shake him and wake him up. He finally came to and he was drunk and confused and when he saw me he didn’t know me from Adam. I had to tell him who I was and why I was there. He was on the floor, sort of propped up on his elbow. And I was standing over him like God.”

“What did you say to him?”

“I told him he was fucking with the wrong guy and that I wasn’t going to let him do what his father had done to me. And that’s when things sort of went screwy because I didn’t know what he was going to do.”

“Wait a minute, I’m not tracking that. What do you mean by ‘things going screwy’?”

“He started laughing at me. I had just jumped the fucker and choked him out and he thinks it’s funny. I’m trying to scare the shit out of him and he’s too drunk. He’s on the floor laughing his ass off.”

Bosch thought about this a long moment. He didn’t like the way this was going because it was not in any direction he could have expected.

“Is that all he did, laugh? He didn’t say anything?”

“Yeah, eventually he got over laughing and that’s when he told me I didn’t have anything to worry about anymore.”

“What else?”

“That’s pretty much it. He said I had nothing to worry about and that I could go on home. He waved me off, like good-bye now.”

“Did you ask him how he was sure there was nothing to worry about?”

“I didn’t think I had to.”

“Why not?”

“Because I just sort of got it. He was there to off himself. When he went out on the balcony looking over the wall, he was picking his spot. His plan was to jump and he was drinking the Jack to give him the courage to do it. So I left and that’s. . that’s what he did.”

Bosch said nothing at first. McQuillen’s story was either an elaborate cover story or just strange enough to be true. There were elements of it that could be checked. The results of the blood-alcohol test were not in yet, but the mention of the bottle of Jack Daniel’s was new. There had been no sign of it on the video of Irving checking in. No witness had reported seeing him taking a bottle to his room.

“Tell me about the bottle of Jack,” he said.

“I told you, he drank it and then chucked it.”

“How big was it? Are you talking about a whole fifth?”

“No, no, smaller. It was a six-shooter.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“It’s like a smaller flask bottle they put out. Holds a good six shots. I drink Jack myself and I recognized the bottle. We call ’em six-shooters.”

Bosch was thinking that six good-sized shots probably added up to ten or twelve ounces. It was possible Irving could have concealed a flask-shaped bottle that size while he was checking in. Harry also remembered the array of bottles and snacks lined up on the kitchenette counter in the hotel suite. It could have come from there as well.

“Okay, when he threw the bottle, what happened?”

“I heard it shatter out there in the darkness. I think it hit the street or somebody’s roof or something.”

“Which direction did he throw it?”

“Straight out.”

Bosch nodded.

“Okay, sit tight, McQuillen. I’ll be back.”

Bosch got up, punched in the combo again and left the room. He started down the hall toward Open-Unsolved.

As he passed the video room, the door came open and Kiz Rider stepped out. She had been watching the interview. Bosch wasn’t surprised. She knew he was bringing McQuillen in.

“Holy shit, Harry.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, do you believe him?”

Bosch stopped and looked at her.

“The story hangs together and it’s got parts we can check. When he went into the interview room he had no idea what we had — the button on the floor, the wounds on the shoulder, the witness who put him on the fire escape three hours too early — and his story hit every marker.”

Rider put her hands on her hips.

“And at the same time, he puts himself in that room. He admits choking the vic out.”

“It was a risky move, putting himself in the dead guy’s room.”

“So you believe him?”

“I don’t know. There’s something else. McQuillen was a cop. He knows—”

Bosch stopped cold and snapped his fingers.

“What?”

“He’s covered by an alibi. That’s what he hasn’t said. Irving didn’t go down for another three or four hours. McQuillen’s got an alibi and he’s waiting to see if we jack him up. Because if we do, he can ride it out, then drop the alibi and walk. It would embarrass the department, maybe give him a little payback for all that happened to him.”

Bosch nodded. That had to be it.

“Look, Harry, we’ve already primed the pump. Irvin Irving’s expecting the announcement of an arrest. You said the Times already has it.”

“Fuck Irving. I don’t care what he’s expecting. And my partner claims we don’t have to worry about the Times .”

“How’s that?”

“I don’t know how but he got them to kill the story. Look, I need to put Chu on the Jack Daniel’s bottle and then get back in there and get the alibi.”