Michael Connelly - The Last Coyote

“Cool your jets, Bosch. I’m gonna get the prints. Why don’t you get yourself a cup of coffee and sit down? Just put a quarter in the box.”

Bosch hated the idea of being beholden to Sakai for anything but he knew this was worth it. The prints were the one way he knew to end the case. Or tear it open again.

Bosch had a cup of coffee and in fifteen minutes the coroner’s investigator was back. He was still waving the card so the ink would dry. He handed it to Bosch and went to the counter to get another cup of coffee.

“This is from Gordon Mittel, right?”

“Right. That’s what it said on the toe tag. And, man, he got busted up pretty good in that fall.”

“Glad to hear it.”

“You know, it sounds to me like that story in the newspaper ain’t as solid as you LAPD guys claim if you’re sneaking around here gettin’ the guy’s prints.”

“It’s solid, Sakai, don’t worry about it. And I better not get any calls from any reporters about me picking up prints. Or I’ll be back.”

“Don’t give yourself a hernia, Bosch. Just take the prints and leave. Never met anybody who tried so hard to make the person doin’ him a favor feel bad.”

Bosch dumped his coffee cup in a trash can and started out. At the door he stopped.

“Thanks.”

It burned him to say it. The guy was an asshole.

“Just remember, Bosch, you owe me.”

Bosch looked back at him. He was stirring cream into his cup. Bosch walked back, sticking his hand in his pocket. When he got to the counter he pulled out a quarter and dropped it into the slotted tin box that was the coffee fund.

“There, that’s for you,” Bosch said. “Now we’re even.”

He walked out and in the hallway he heard Sakai call him an asshole. To Bosch that was a sign that all might be right in the world. His world, at least.

When Bosch got to Parker Center fifteen minutes later, he realized he had a problem. Irving had not returned his ID tag because it was part of the evidence recovered from Mittel’s jacket in the hot tub. So Bosch loitered around the front of the building until he saw a group of detectives and administrative types walking toward the building from the City Hall annex. When the group moved inside and around the entry counter, Bosch stepped up behind them and got by the duty officer without notice.

Bosch found Hirsch at his computer in the Latent Fingerprint Unit and asked him if he still had the Lifescan from the prints off the belt buckle.

“Yeah, I’ve been waiting for you to pick them up.”

“Well, I got a set I want you to check against them first.”

Hirsch looked at him but hesitated only a second.

“Let’s see ’em.”

Bosch got the print card Sakai had made out of his briefcase and handed it over. Hirsch looked at it a moment, turning the card so it reflected the overhead light better.

“These are pretty clean. You don’t need the machine, right? You just want to compare these to the prints you brought in before.”

“That’s right.”

“Okay, I can eyeball it right now if you want to wait.”

“I want to wait.”

Hirsch got the Lifescan card out of his desk and took it and the coroner’s card to the work counter, where he looked at them through a magnifying lamp. Bosch watched his eyes going back and forth between the prints as if he were watching a tennis ball go back and forth across a net.

Bosch realized as he watched Hirsch work that more than anything else in the world he wanted the print man to look up at him and say that the prints from the two cards in front of him matched. Bosch wanted this to be over. He wanted to put it away.

After five minutes of silence, the tennis match was over and Hirsch looked up at him and gave him the score.

WHEN CARMEN HINOJOS opened her waiting room door she seemed pleasantly surprised to see Bosch sitting on the couch.

“Harry! Are you all right? I didn’t expect to see you here today.”

“Why not? It’s my time, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but I read in the paper you were at Cedars.”

“I checked out.”

“Are you sure you should have done that? You look…”

“Awful?”

“I didn’t want to say that. Come in.”

She ushered him in and they took their usual places.

“I actually look better than I feel right now.”

“Why? What is it?”

“Because it was all for nothing.”

His statement put a confused look on her face.

“What do you mean? I read the story today. You solved the murders, including your mother’s. I thought you’d be quite different than this.”

“Well, don’t believe everything you read, Doctor. Let me clarify things for you. What I did on my so-called mission was cause two men to be murdered and another to die by my own hands. I solved, let’s see, I solved one, two, three murders, so that’s good. But I didn’t solve the murder I set out to solve. In other words, I’ve been running around in circles causing people to die. So, how did you expect me to be during our session?”

“Have you been drinking?”

“I had a couple beers with lunch but it was a long lunch and I think that a minimum of two beers is required considering what I just told you. But I am not drunk, if that is what you want to know. And I’m not working, so what’s the difference?”

“I thought we agreed to cut back on-”

“Oh, fuck that. This is the real world here. Isn’t that what you called it? The real world? Between now and the last time we talked, I’ve killed someone, Doc. And you want to talk about cutting back on booze. Like it means anything anymore.”

Bosch took out his cigarettes and lit one. He kept the pack and the Bic on the arm of the chair. Carmen Hinojos watched him for a long time before speaking again.

“You’re right. I’m sorry. Let’s go to what I think is the heart of the problem. You said you didn’t solve the murder you set out to solve. That, of course, is your mother’s death. I am only going by what I read, but today’s Times attributes her killing to Gordon Mittel. Are you telling me that you now know that to be incontrovertibly wrong?”

“Yes. I now know that to be incontrovertibly wrong.”

“How?”

“Simple. Fingerprints. I went down to the morgue, got Mittel’s prints and had them compared to those on the murder weapon, the belt. No match. He didn’t do it. Wasn’t there. Now, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. I’m not sitting here with a guilty conscience over Mittel. He was a man who decided to kill people and then had them killed. Just like that. At least two times I’m sure of, then he was going to have me killed, too. So I say fuck him. He got what he had coming. But I’ll carry Pounds and Conklin around with me for a long time. Maybe forever. And one way or another, I’ll pay for it. It’s just that it would make that weight easier to carry if there had been a reason. Any good reason. Know what I mean? But there isn’t a reason. Not anymore.”

“I understand. I don’t-I’m not sure how to proceed with this. Do you want to talk some about your feelings in regard to Pounds and Conklin?”

“Not really. I’ve thought about it enough already. Neither man was innocent. They did things. But they didn’t have to die like they did. Especially Pounds. Jesus. I can’t talk about it. I can’t even think about it.”

“Then how will you go on?”

“I don’t know. Like I said, I have to pay.”

“What is the department going to do, any idea?”

“I don’t know. I don’t care. It’s bigger than the department to decide. I have to decide my penance.”

“Harry, what does that mean? That concerns me.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to the closet. I’m not that type.”