Michael Connelly - The Last Coyote

“Somebody’s got to do it. You don’t.”

“You don’t know a thing about it.”

Irving waved Bosch’s pale defense away like cigarette smoke.

“So what now?” Bosch continued. “Why are you here? You going to try to break my alibi now? Is that it? Brockman’s out and you’re in?”

“I don’t need to break your alibi. It’s been checked and it looks like it holds. Brockman and his people have already been instructed to follow other avenues of investigation.”

“What do you mean, it’s been checked?”

“Give us some credit here, Bosch. The names were in your notebook.”

He reached into his coat and pulled out the notebook. He tossed it across the table to Bosch.

“This woman that you spent some time with over there, she told me enough to the point that I believed it. You might want to call her yourself, though. She certainly seemed confused by my call. I was rather circumspect in my explanation.”

“I appreciate that. So, then, I guess I’m free to split?”

Bosch stood up.

“In a technical sense.”

“And the other senses?”

“Sit down for a minute, Detective.”

Bosch held his hands up. He’d gone this far. He decided he might as well go all the way and hear it all. He sat back down in his chair with a meager protest.

“My butt’s getting sore from all this sitting.”

“I knew Jake McKittrick,” Irving said. “Knew him well. We worked Hollywood together many years ago. But you know that already. As nice as it is to touch base with an old colleague, I can’t say I enjoyed anything about the conversation I had with my old friend Jake.”

“You called him, too.”

“While you were in here with the doctor.”

“So then what do you want from me? You got the story from him, what’s left?”

Irving drummed his fingers on the tabletop.

“What do I want? What I want is for you to tell me that what you are doing, what you have been doing, is in no way connected to what has happened to Lieutenant Pounds.”

“I can’t, Chief. I don’t know what happened to him, other than that he’s dead.”

Irving studied Bosch for a long moment, contemplating something, deciding whether to treat him as an equal and tell him the story.

“I guess I expected an immediate denial. Your answer already suggests that you think there might be a correlation. I can’t tell you how much that bothers me.”

“Anything is possible, Chief. Let me ask you this. You said Brockman and his crew were out chasing other leads-I guess avenues is what you said. Are any of these avenues viable? I mean, did Pounds have a secret life or are they just out there chasing their tails?”

“There’s nothing that stands out. I’m afraid you were the best lead. Brockman still thinks so. He wants to pursue the theory that you hired a hitman of some sort and then flew to Florida to establish an alibi.”

“Yeah, that’s a good one.”

“I think it stretches credibility some. I told him to drop it. For the moment. And I’m telling you to drop what you are doing. This woman in Florida sounds like the kind of person you could spend some time with. I want you to get on a plane and go back to her. Stay a couple weeks. When you come back, we’ll talk about going back on the homicide table at Hollywood.”

Bosch was unsure whether there was a threat in all that Irving had just said. If not a threat, then maybe a bribe.

“And if I don’t?”

“If you don’t, then you are stupid. And you deserve whatever happens to you.”

“What is it that you think I’m doing, Chief?”

“I don’t think, I know what you’re doing. It’s easy. You pulled the book on your mother’s homicide. Why at this particular point in time you’ve done this, I don’t know. But you’re out running a freelance investigation and that’s a problem for us. You have to stop it, Harry, or I’ll stop you. I’ll shut you down. Permanently.”

“Who are you protecting?”

Bosch saw the anger move into Irving ’s face as his skin turned from pink to an intense red. His eyes seemed to grow smaller and darker with fury.

“Don’t you ever suggest such a thing. I’ve dedicated my life to this depart-”

“It’s yourself, isn’t it? You knew her. You found her. You’re afraid of being dragged into this if I put something together on it. I bet you already knew everything McKittrick told you on the phone.”

“That’s ridiculous, I-”

“Is it? Is it? I don’t think so. I’ve already talked to one witness who remembers you from those days on the Boulevard beat.”

“What witness?”

“She said she knew you. She knows my mother knew you, too.”

“The only person I am protecting is you, Bosch. Can’t you see that? I’m ordering you to stop this investigation.”

“You can’t. I don’t work for you anymore. I’m on leave, remember? Involuntary leave. That makes me a citizen now, and I can do whatever I goddamn want to do as long as it’s legal.”

“I could charge you with possession of stolen documents-the murder book.”

“It wasn’t stolen. Besides, what if you bullshit a case, what’s that, a misdemeanor? They’ll laugh you out of the city attorney’s office on your ass with that.”

“But you’d lose your job. That would be it.”

“You’re a little late with that one, Chief. A week ago that would’ve been a valid threat. I’d have to consider it. But it doesn’t matter anymore. I’m free of all of that bullshit now and this is all that matters to me and I don’t care what I have to do, I’m doing it.”

Irving was silent and Bosch guessed that the assistant chief was realizing that Bosch had moved beyond his reach. Irving ’s hold over Bosch’s job and future had been his leverage before. But Bosch had finally broken free. Bosch began again in a low, calm voice.

“If you were me, Chief, could you just walk away? What does doing what I do for the department matter if I can’t do this for her…and for me?”

He stood up and put the notebook into his jacket pocket.

“I’m going. Where’s the rest of my stuff?”

“No.”

Bosch hesitated. Irving looked up at him and Bosch saw the anger was gone now.

“I did nothing wrong,” Irving said quietly.

“Sure you did,” Bosch said just as quietly. He leaned over the table until he was only a few feet away. “We all did, Chief. We let it go. That was our crime. But not anymore. At least, not with me. If you want to help, you know how to reach me.”

He headed toward the door.

“What do you want?”

Bosch looked back at him.

“Tell me about Pounds. I need to know what happened. It’s the only way I’ll know if it’s connected.”

“Then sit down.”

Bosch took the chair by the door and sat down. They both took some time to calm down before Irving finally spoke.

“We started looking for him Saturday night. We found his car Sunday noon in Griffith Park. One of the tunnels closed after the quake. It was like they knew we’d be looking from the air, so they put the car in a tunnel.”

“Why’d you start looking before you knew he was dead?”

“The wife. She started calling Saturday morning. She said he’d gotten a call Friday night at home, she didn’t know who. But whoever it was managed to convince Pounds to leave the house and meet him. Pounds didn’t tell his wife what it was about. He said he’d be back in an hour or two. He left and never came back. In the morning she called us.”

“Pounds is unlisted, I assume.”

“Yes. That gives rise to the probability it was someone in the department.”

Bosch thought about this.

“Not necessarily. It just had to be someone with connections to people in the city. People that could get his number with a phone call. You ought to put out the word. Grant amnesty to anyone who comes forward and says they gave up the number. Say you’ll go light in exchange for the name of the person they gave it to. That’s who you want. Chances are whoever gave out the number didn’t know what was going to happen.”