Michael Connelly - The Last Coyote

Bosch reached for the framed photo and picked it up.

“I want…” He looked up from the photo to her. “I’m going to find out who killed her.”

An undecipherable look froze on her face for a moment and then she wordlessly took the frame out of his hands and put it back on the bureau. Then she pulled him into another deep embrace, her head against his chest. He could see himself holding her in the mirror over the bureau. When she pulled back and looked up at him he saw the tears were already down her cheeks. There was a slight tremor in her lower lip.

“Let’s go sit down,” he said.

She pulled two tissues out of a box on the bureau and he led her back to the living room and to her chair.

“Do you want me to get you some water?”

“No, I’m fine. I’ll stop crying, I’m sorry.”

She wiped at her eyes with the tissues. He sat back down on the couch.

“We used to say we were the two musketeers, both for one and one for both. It was stupid, but it was because we were so young and so close.”

“I’m starting from scratch with it, Katherine. I pulled the old files on the investigation. It-”

She made a dismissing sound and shook her head.

“There was no investigation. It was a joke.”

“That’s my sense of it, too, but I don’t understand why.”

“Look, Harry, you know what your mother was.” He nodded and she continued. “She was a party girl. We both were. I’m sure you know that’s the polite way of saying it. And the cops really didn’t care that one of us ended up dead. They just wrote the whole damn thing off. I know you’re a policeman now, but that’s the way it was then. They just didn’t care about her.”

“I understand. Things probably are not too much different now, believe it or not. But there has to have been more to it than that.”

“Harry, I don’t know how much you want to know about your mother.”

He looked at her.

“The past made me strong, too. I can handle it.”

“I’m sure it did…I remember that place where they put you. McEvoy or something like-”

“McClaren.”

“That’s it, McClaren. What a depressing place. Your mother would come home from visiting you and just sit down and cry her eyes out.”

“Don’t change the subject, Katherine. What is it I should know about her?”

She nodded but hesitated for a moment before continuing.

“Mar knew some policemen. You understand?”

He nodded.

“We both did. It was the way it worked. You had to get along to go along. That’s what we called it anyway. And when you have that situation and she ends up dead, it’s usually best for the cops to just sweep it under the rug. Let sleeping dogs lie, as they say. You pick the cliché. They just didn’t want anyone embarrassed.”

“Are you saying you think it was a cop?”

“No. I’m not saying that at all. I have no idea who did it, Harry. I’m sorry. I wish I did. But what I’m saying is, I think those two detectives that were assigned to investigate this knew where it could lead. And they weren’t going to go that way because they knew what was good for them in the department. They weren’t stupid in that way and like I said, she was a party girl. They didn’t care. Nobody did. She got killed and that was that.”

Bosch looked around the room, not sure what to ask next.

“Do you know who the policemen she knew were?”

“It was a long time ago.”

“You knew some of the same policemen, didn’t you?”

“Yes. I had to. That was the way it worked. You used your contacts to keep you out of jail. Everybody was for sale. Back then, at least. Different people wanted different forms of payment. Some of them, money. Some of them, other things.”

“It said in the mur-the file that you never had a record.”

“Yes, I was lucky. I was picked up a few times but never booked once. They always turned me loose once I could make a call. I kept a clean record because I knew a lot of policemen, honey. You understand?”

“Yes, I understand.”

She didn’t look away when she said it. All these years in the straight life and she still had a whore’s pride. She could talk about the low points of her life without flinching or batting an eye. It was because she had made it through and there was dignity in that. Enough to last the rest of her life.

“Do you mind if I smoke, Harry?”

“No, not if I can.”

They took out cigarettes and Bosch got up to light them.

“You can use that ashtray on the side table. Try not to get ashes on the rug.”

She pointed to a small glass bowl on the table at the other end of the couch. Bosch reached over for it and then held it with one hand while he smoked with the other. He looked down into it as he spoke.

“The policemen you knew,” he said, “and who she probably knew, you don’t remember any names?”

“I said it was a long time ago. And I doubt they had anything to do with this, with what happened to your mother.”

“Irvin S. Irving. Do you remember that name?”

She hesitated a moment as the name rolled around in her mind.

“I knew him. I think she did, too. He was on the beat on the Boulevard. I think it would have been hard for her not to know him…but I don’t know. I could be wrong.”

Bosch nodded.

“He was the one who found her.”

She hiked her shoulders in a what’s-that-prove gesture.

“Well, somebody had to find her. She was left out there in the open like that.”

“What about a couple of vice guys, Gilchrist and Stano?”

She hesitated before answering.

“Yes, I knew them…they were mean men.”

“Would my mother have known them? In that way?”

She nodded.

“What do you mean that they were mean? In what way?”

“They just…they just didn’t care about us. If they wanted something, whether it was a little piece of information you might have picked up on a date or something more…personal, they just came and took it. They could be rough. I hated them.”

“Did they-”

“But could they have been killers? My feeling at the time, and now, is no. They weren’t killers, Harry. They were cops. True, they were bought and paid for, but it seemed everybody was. But it wasn’t like it is today where you read the paper and you see some cop on trial for killing or beating or whatever. It’s-sorry.”

“It’s okay. Anybody else you can think of?”

“No.”

“No names?”

“I put that all out of my mind a long time ago.”

“Okay.”

Bosch wanted to take out his notebook but he didn’t want to make this seem like an interview. He tried to remember what else he had read in the murder book that he could ask about.

“What about this guy Johnny Fox?”

“Yes, I told those detectives about him. They got all excited but then nothing ever happened. He was never arrested.”

“I think he was. But then he was let go. His fingerprints didn’t match the killer’s.”

She raised her eyebrows.

“Well, that’s news to me. They never told me anything about any fingerprints.”

“On your second interview-with McKittrick, you remember him?”

“Not really. I just remember that there were police, you know? Two detectives. One was smarter than the other, that’s what I remember. But I don’t remember which one was which. It seemed like the dumber one was in charge and that was par for the course in those days.”

“Well, anyway, McKittrick talked to you the second time. In his report he said you changed your story and you told about this party in Hancock Park.”

“Yes, the party. I didn’t go because that…Johnny Fox hit me the night before and I had a bruise on my cheek. It was gorgeous. I played around with makeup but I couldn’t do anything about the swelling. Believe me there wasn’t much business in Hancock Park for a party girl with a knot on her face.”