Michael Connelly - The Drop

Bosch checked the dash clock.

“I’m in Century City. I think I can be there by about twelve to pick you up. Maybe you can think of a place to go on Ventura Boulevard. Hell, I’m even willing to try sushi.”

She laughed and Bosch liked the sound of it.

“No, I meant come here,” she said. “For lunch and to talk. We can just stay here and be private and I can just make something. Nothing fancy.”

“Uh. .”

“And then we’ll just see what happens.”

“You sure?”

“Of course.”

Bosch nodded to himself.

“Okay, then I’m on my way.”

David Chu was already in the cubicle when Bosch arrived for work Monday morning. When he saw Harry he swiveled in his chair and raised his hands in a hands-off manner as Bosch entered.

“Harry, all I can say is that it wasn’t me.”

Bosch put his briefcase down and checked his desk for messages and delivered reports. There was nothing.

“What are you talking about?”

“The Times story. Did you see it?”

“Don’t worry. I know it wasn’t you.”

“Then who was it?”

Bosch pointed toward the ceiling as he sat down, meaning the story had come from the tenth floor.

“High jingo,” he said. “Somebody up there decided this is the play.”

“To control Irving?”

“To move him out. Change the election. Anyway, it’s not our business anymore. We turned in the report and that one’s done. Today it’s Chilton Hardy. I want to find him. He’s been running free for twenty-two years. I want him in a cell by the end of the day.”

“Yeah, you know, I called you Saturday. I came in to do some stuff and I was wondering if you wanted to take a ride down to see the father. But I guess you had daughter stuff. You didn’t answer.”

“Yeah, I had ‘daughter stuff’ and you didn’t leave a message. What did you come in to do?”

Chu turned back to his desk and pointed to his computer screen.

“Just backgrounding Hardy as much as I can,” he said. “Not a lot there on him. More on his father buying and selling properties. Chilton Aaron Hardy Senior. He’s lived down there in Los Alamitos for fifteen years. It’s a condo and he owns it outright.”

Bosch nodded. It was good intel.

“I also tried to find a Mrs. Hardy. You know, in case there was a divorce and she’s living somewhere and could be a lead to Junior.”

“And?”

“And no go. Came up with an obituary from ’ninety-seven for Hilda Ames Hardy, wife of Chilton Senior and mother of Chilton Junior. Breast cancer. It listed no other children.”

“So it looks like we go down to Los Alamitos.”

“Yeah.”

“Then let’s get out of here before the shit hits the fan on that story. Bring the file with the DMV photo of Pell.”

“Why Pell?”

“Because Senior may be predisposed not to give up Junior. I think we run a play on him and that’s where Pell comes in.”

Bosch stood up.

“I’ll go move the magnets.”

It was a forty-minute drive south. Los Alamitos was at the northern tip of Orange County and one of a dozen or so small, contiguous bedroom communities between Anaheim on the east and Seal Beach to the west.

On the way down Bosch and Chu worked out how they would handle the interview with Chilton Hardy Sr. They then cruised through his neighborhood off Katella Avenue and near the Los Alamitos Medical Center before stopping at the curb in front of a complex of town houses. They were built in sets of six with deep front lawns and double garages off rear alleys.

“Bring the file,” Bosch said. “Let’s go.”

There was a main sidewalk that led past a bank of mailboxes to a network of individual walkways to the front doors of the residences. Hardy Sr.’s home was the second one in. There was a screen door in front of a closed front door. Without hesitation Bosch pushed a doorbell button and then rapped his knuckles on the aluminum frame of the screen.

They waited fifteen seconds and there was no response.

Bosch hit the button again and raised his fist to hit the frame when he heard a muffled voice call out from inside.

“Someone’s in there,” he said.

Another fifteen seconds went by and then the voice came again, this time clearly from right on the other side of the door.

“Yeah?”

“Mr. Hardy?”

“Yeah, what?”

“It’s the police. Open your door.”

“What happened?”

“We need to ask you some questions. Open the door, please.”

There was no reply.

“Mr. Hardy?”

They heard the sound of the deadbolt lock turning. Slowly the door opened and a man with Coke-bottle-thick glasses peered out at them through a six-inch opening. He was disheveled, his gray hair unkempt and matted, with two weeks of white whiskers sprouted on his face. A clear plastic tube was looped over both ears and then under his nose, delivering oxygen to his nostrils. He wore what looked like a pale blue hospital smock over striped pajama pants and black plastic sandals.

Bosch tried to open the screen door but it was locked.

“Mr. Hardy. We need to talk with you, sir. Can we come in?”

“What is it?”

“We’re down from the LAPD and we are looking for someone. We think you might be able to help us. Can we come in, sir?”

“Who?”

“Sir, we can’t do this out on the street. Can we come in to discuss this?”

The man’s eyes lowered a moment as he considered things. They were cold and distant. Bosch saw where his son’s eyes had come from.

Slowly, the old man reached through the opening and unlocked the screen door. Bosch opened it and then waited for Hardy to back away from the front door before pushing through.

Hardy moved slowly, leaning on a cane as he walked into the living room. Over one bony shoulder he had a strap that supported a small oxygen canister attached to the network of tubes that led to his nose.

“The place isn’t clean,” he said as he moved toward a chair. “I don’t have visitors.”

“That’s all right, Mr. Hardy,” Bosch said.

Hardy slowly lowered himself into a well-used cushioned chair. On the table next to it was an overloaded ashtray. The house smelled of cigarettes and old age and was as unkempt as Hardy’s person. Bosch started to breathe through his mouth. Hardy saw him looking at the ashtray.

“You’re not going to tell the hospital on me, are you?”

“No, Mr. Hardy, that’s not why we’re here. My name is Bosch and this is Detective Chu. We are trying to locate your son, Chilton Hardy Junior.”

Hardy nodded, as if expecting this.

“I don’t know where he’s at these days. What do you want with him?”

Bosch sat down on a couch with frayed cushion covers so he would be at Hardy’s eye level.

“All right if I sit here, Mr. Hardy?”

“Suit yourself. What’s my boy gone and done that brings you here?”

Bosch shook his head.

“As far as we know, nothing. We want to talk to him about somebody else. We are doing a background investigation on a man we believe lived with your son a number of years ago.”

“Who?”

“His name is Clayton Pell. Did you ever meet him?”

“Clayton Powell?”

“No, sir. Pell. Clayton Pell. Do you know that name?”

“I don’t think so.”

Hardy leaned forward and started coughing into his hand. His body jerked with spasms.

“Goddamn cigarettes. What’s this Pell character done, then?”

“We can’t really reveal the details of our investigation. Suffice it to say we think he’s done some bad things and it would help us in dealing with him if we knew his background. We have a photo we’d like to show you.”