Michael Connelly: The Last Coyote

Edgar laughed loudly into the phone and Bosch knew, after only one week of being grounded, how much he missed the job.

“Did he cop?”

“No, he kept quiet. You can’t be that stupid and get away with a double murder for almost twenty years. That’s a nice run.”

“Yeah, what’s he been doing?”

“Looks like he’s just been laying low. Owns a hardware on Santa Monica. Married and has a kid and a dog. A total reform case. But he’s going back to Biloxi. I hope he likes southern cooking ’cause he won’t be coming back here anytime soon.”

Edgar laughed again. Bosch said nothing. The story was depressing because it was a reminder of what he was no longer doing. It also reminded him about what Hinojos had asked about defining his mission.

“Got a couple of Mississippi state troopers comin’ out tomorrow,” Edgar said. “Talked to them a little while ago and they are happy campers.”

Bosch didn’t say anything for a while.

“Harry, you still there?”

“Yeah, I was just thinking about something…Well, it sounds like a hell of a day of crime fighting. How’s the fearless leader taking it?”

“Pounds? Jesus, he’s got a hard-on over this the size of a Louisville slugger. You know what he’s doing? He’s trying to figure out a way to take credit for all three clearances. He’s trying to put the Biloxi cases on our rate.”

It didn’t surprise Bosch. It was a widespread practice among department managers and statisticians to add positive credit to crime clearance levels whenever and wherever possible. In the air bag case, there was no actual murder. It was an accident. But because the death occurred during the commission of a crime, California law held that an accomplice to the crime could be charged with his partner’s death. Bosch knew that based on the partner’s arrest for murder, Pounds intended to add a case to the murder clearance chart. He would not balance this by adding a case to the murder occurrence chart because the death by air bag was an accident. This little statistical two-step would result in a nice little boost for the Hollywood Division’s overall homicide clearance rate, which in recent years had continually threatened to dip below fifty percent.

But unsatisfied with the modest jump this accounting deception would provide, Pounds intended to boldly add the two Biloxi murders to the clearance chart as well. After all, it could be argued, his homicide squad did clear two more cases. Adding a total of three cleared cases to one side of the chart without adding any to the other would likely give a tremendous boost to the overall clearance rate-as well as to the image of Pounds as a detective bureau commander. Bosch knew that Pounds was probably delighted with himself and the accomplishments of the day.

“He said our rate would jump six points,” Edgar was saying. “He was a very pleased man, Harry. And my new partner was very pleased he had pleased his man.”

“I don’t want to hear any more.”

“I didn’t think so. So what are you doing to keep busy, besides counting cars on the freeway? You must be bored stiff, Harry.”

“Not really,” Bosch lied. “Last week I finished fixing the deck. This week I’ll-”

“Harry, I’m telling you, you’re wasting your time and money. The inspectors are going to find you in there and kick you out on your ass. Then they’ll tear the place down themselves and hand you the bill. Your deck and the whole house will be in the back of a dump truck then.”

“I hired a lawyer to work on it.”

“What’s he gonna do?”

“I don’t know. I want to appeal the red tag. He’s a land use guy. He said he can work it out.”

“I hope so. I still think you ought to tear it down and start over.”

“I didn’t win the lotto yet.”

“The feds’ve got disaster loans. You could get one and-”

“I’ve applied, Jerry, but I like my house the way it is.”

“Okay, Harry. I hope your lawyer works it out. Anyway, I gotta go. Burns wants to have a beer over at the Short Stop. He’s there waiting.”

The last time Bosch had been at the Short Stop, a hole-in-the-wall cop bar near the academy and Dodger Stadium, it had still had I SUPPORT CHIEF GATES bumper stickers on the wall. For most cops, Gates was a dying ember of the past, but the Short Stop was a place where old-liners went to drink and remember a department that no longer existed.

“Yeah, have fun over there, Jerry.”

“Take care, man.”

Bosch leaned against a counter and drank his beer. He came to the conclusion that Edgar’s call had been a cleverly disguised way of telling Bosch that he was choosing sides and cutting him loose. That was okay, Bosch thought. Edgar’s first allegiance was to himself, to surviving in a place that could be treacherous. Bosch couldn’t hold that against him.

Bosch looked at his reflection in the glass of the oven door. The image was dark but he could see his eyes in the shadow and the line of his jaw. He was forty-four years old and in some ways looked older. He still had a full head of curly brown hair but both the hair and the mustache were going to gray. His black-brown eyes seemed to him tired and used up. His skin had the pallor of a night watchman’s. Bosch was still leanly built but sometimes his clothes hung on him as if they had been issued at one of the downtown missions or he had recently been through a bad illness.

He broke away from his reflection and grabbed another beer out of the refrigerator. Outside on the deck, he saw the sky was now brightly lit with the pastels of dusk. It would be dark soon, but the freeway below was a bright river of moving lights, its current never ebbing for a moment.

Looking down on the Monday night commute, he saw the place as an anthill with the workers moving along in lines. Someone or some force would soon come along and kick the hill again. Then the freeways would fall, the houses would collapse and the ants would just rebuild and get in line again.

He was bothered by something but was not quite sure what it was. His thoughts swirled and mixed. He began to see what Edgar had told him about his case in the context of his dialogue with Hinojos. There was some connection there, some bridge, but he couldn’t get to it.

He finished his beer and decided that two would be enough. He went to one of the lounge chairs and sat down with his feet up. What he wanted to do was give everything a rest. Mind and body. He looked up and saw the clouds had now been painted orange by the setting sun. They looked like molten lava moving slowly across the sky.

Just before he dozed off a thought pushed through the lava. Everybody counts or nobody counts. And then, in the last moment of clarity before sleep, he knew what the connecting ribbon that had run through his thoughts had been. And he knew what his mission was.

IN THE MORNING Bosch dressed without showering so he could immediately begin work on the house and blank out the lingering thoughts from the night before with sweat and concentration.

But clearing the thoughts away was not easy. As he dressed in old lacquer-stained jeans, he caught a glimpse of himself in the cracked mirror over the bureau and saw that his T-shirt was on backward. Printed across his chest on the white shirt was the homicide squad’s motto.

OUR DAY BEGINS WHEN YOUR DAY ENDS

It was supposed to be on the back of the shirt. He pulled it off, turned it and put it back on. Now in the mirror he saw what he was supposed to see. A replica of a detective’s badge on the left breast of the shirt and the smaller printing that said LAPD HOMICIDE.

He brewed a pot of coffee and took it and a mug out to the deck. Next he lugged out his toolbox and the new door he had bought at Home Depot for the bedroom. When he was finally ready and had the mug filled with steaming black coffee, he sat on the footrest of one of the lounge chairs and placed the door on its side in front of him.