Michael Connelly - The Last Coyote

Irving nodded.

“That’s an idea. Within the department there are hundreds who could get his number. There may be no other way to go.”

“Tell me more about Pounds.”

“We went to work right there in the tunnel. By Sunday the media had wind that we were looking for him, so the tunnel worked to our advantage. No helicopters flying over, bothering us. We just set up lights in the tunnel.”

“He was in the car?”

Bosch was acting like he knew nothing. He knew that if he expected Hinojos to respect his confidences, he must in turn respect hers.

“Yes, he was in the trunk. And, my God, was it bad. He…He’d been stripped of his clothes. He’d been beaten. Then-then there was the evidence of torture…”

Bosch waited but Irving had stopped.

“What? What did they do to him?”

“They burned him. The genitals, nipples, fingers…My God.”

Irving ran his hand over his shaven scalp and closed his eyes while he did it. Bosch could see that he could not get the images out of his mind. Bosch was having trouble with it, too. His guilt was like a palpable object in his chest.

“It was like they wanted something from him,” Irving said. “But he couldn’t give it. He didn’t have it and…and they kept at him.”

Suddenly, Bosch felt the slight tremor of an earthquake and reached for the table to steady himself. He looked at Irving for confirmation and realized there was no tremor. It was himself, shaking again.

“Wait a minute.”

The room tilted slightly then righted itself.

“What is it?”

“Wait a minute.”

Without another word Bosch stood up and went out the door. He quickly went down the hall to the men’s room by the water fountain. There was someone in front of one of the sinks shaving but Bosch didn’t take the time to look at him. He pushed through one of the stall doors and vomited into the toilet, barely making it in time.

He flushed the toilet but the spasm came again and then again until he was empty, until he had nothing left inside but the image of Pounds naked and dead, tortured.

“You okay in there, buddy?” a voice said from outside the stall.

“Just leave me alone.”

“Sorry, just asking.”

Bosch stayed in the stall a few more minutes, leaning against the wall. Eventually, he wiped his mouth with toilet paper and then flushed it down. He stepped out of the stall unsteadily and went to the sink. The other man was still there. Now he was putting on a tie. Bosch glanced at him in the mirror but didn’t recognize him. He bent over the sink and rinsed his face and mouth out with cold water. He then used paper towels to dry off. He never looked at himself once in the mirror.

“Thanks for asking,” he said as he left.

Irving looked as if he hadn’t moved while Bosch was gone.

“Are you all right?”

Bosch sat down and took out his cigarettes.

“Sorry, but I’m gonna smoke.”

“You already have been.”

Bosch lit up and took a deep drag. He stood up and walked to the trash can in the corner. There was an old coffee cup in it and he took it to use as an ashtray.

“Just one,” he said. “Then you can open the door and air the place out.”

“It’s a bad habit.”

“In this town so is breathing. How did he die? What was the fatal injury?”

“The autopsy was this morning. Heart failure. The strain on him was too much, his heart gave way.”

Bosch paused a moment. He felt the beginning of his strength coming back.

“Why don’t you tell me the rest of it?”

“There is no rest of it. That’s it. There was nothing there. No evidence on the body. No evidence in the car. It had been wiped clean. There was nothing to go on.”

“What about his clothes?”

“They were there in the trunk. No help. The killer kept one thing, though.”

“What?”

“His shield. The bastard took his badge.”

Bosch just nodded and averted his eyes. They were both silent for a long time. Bosch couldn’t get the images out of his mind and he guessed Irving was having the same problem.

“So,” Bosch finally said, “looking at what had been done to him, the torture and everything, you immediately thought of me. That’s a real vote of confidence.”

“Look, Detective, you had put the man’s face through a window two weeks earlier. We had gotten an added report from him that you had threatened him. What-”

“There was no threat. He-”

“I don’t care if there was or wasn’t. He made the report. That’s the point. True or false, he made the report, therefore, he felt threatened by you. What were we supposed to do, ignore it? Just say, ‘Harry Bosch? Oh, no, there’s no way our own Harry Bosch could do this,’ and go on? Don’t be ridiculous.”

“All right, you’re right. Forget it. He didn’t say anything at all to his wife before leaving?”

“Only that someone called and he had to go out for an hour to a meeting with a very important person. No name was mentioned. The call came in about nine Friday night.”

“Is that exactly how she said he said it?”

“I believe so. Why?”

“Because if he said it in that way, then it sounds like two people may be involved.”

“How so?”

“It just sounds as though one person called him to set up a meeting with a second person, this very important person. If that person had made the call, then he would have told the wife that so and so, the big important guy, just called and I have to go meet him. See what I mean?”

“I do. But whoever called could have also used the name of an important person as bait to draw Pounds out. That actual person may not have been involved at all.”

“That’s also true. But I think that whatever was said, it would have to have been convincing to get Pounds out at night, by himself.”

“Maybe it was someone he already knew.”

“Maybe. But then he probably would have told his wife the name.”

“True.”

“Did he take anything with him? A briefcase, files, anything?”

“Not that we know of. The wife was in the TV room. She didn’t see him actually go out the door. We’ve been over all of this with her, we’ve been all over the house. There’s nothing. His briefcase was in his office at the station. He didn’t even take it home with him. There’s nothing to go on. To be honest, you were the best candidate and you’re clear now. It brings me back to my question. Could what you’ve been doing have had anything to do with this?”

Bosch could not bring himself to tell Irving what he thought, what he knew in his gut had happened to Pounds. It wasn’t the guilt that stopped him, though. It was the desire to keep his mission to himself. In that moment he realized that vengeance was a singular thing, a solo mission, something never to be spoken of out loud.

“I don’t know the answer,” he said. “I told Pounds nothing. But he wanted me to go down. You know that. The guy’s dead but he was an asshole and he wanted me to go down. So he’d have had his ear to the ground for anything about me. A couple people have seen me around in the last week. Word could’ve gotten back to him and he could’ve blundered into something. He wasn’t much of an investigator. He could’ve made a mistake. I don’t know.”

Irving looked at him through dead eyes. Bosch knew he was trying to determine how much was true and how much was bullshit. Bosch spoke first.

“He said he was going to meet someone important.”

“Yes.”

“Look, Chief, I don’t know what McKittrick told you about the conversation I had out there with him, but you know there were important people involved back…you know, with my mother. You were there.”

“Yes, I was there, but I wasn’t part of the investigation, not after the first day.”