Michael Connelly - The Black Echo

Wish took a seat behind the first desk in the first row and gestured for Bosch to take the seat alongside it. This put him directly between Wish and Gray Suit on the phone. Bosch put his coffee down on her desk and began to figure right away that Gray Suit wasn’t really on the phone, even though the guy kept saying “Uh huh, uh huh” or “Uh uh” every few moments or so. Wish opened a file drawer in her desk and pulled out a plastic bottle of water, some of which she poured into a paper cup.

“We had a two eleven at a savings and loan in Santa Monica, just about everybody’s out on it,” she explained as he scanned the almost empty room. “I was coordinating from here. That’s why you had to wait out there. Sorry.”

“No problem. Get him?”

“What makes you say it was a him?”

Bosch shrugged his shoulders. “Percentages.”

“Well, it was two of them. One of each. And yes, we got them. They were in a stolen from Reseda reported yesterday. Female went in and took care of business. Male was the wheel. They took the 10 to the 405, then into LAX, where they left the car in front of a skycap at United. Then they took the escalator to the arrivals level, got on a shuttle bus to the Flyaway station in Van Nuys and then took a cab all the way back down to Venice. To a bank. We had an LAPD copter over them the whole time. They never looked up. When she went into the second bank we thought we were going to see another two eleven so we rushed her while she was waiting in line for a teller. Got him in the parking lot. Turns out she was just going to deposit the take from the first bank. An interbank transfer, the hard way. See some dumb people in this business, Detective Bosch. What can I do for you?”

“You can call me Harry.”

“As I am doing what for you?”

“Interdepartmental cooperation,” he said. “Kinda like you and our helicopter this morning.”

Bosch drank some of his coffee and said, “Your name is on a BOLO I came across yesterday. Year-old case out of downtown. I’m interested in it. I work homicide out of Hollywood Div-”

“Yes, I know,” Agent Wish interrupted.

“-ision.”

“The receptionist showed me the card you gave. By the way, do you need it back?”

That was a cheap shot. He saw his sad-looking business card on her clean green blotter. It had been in his wallet for months and its corners were curled up at the edges. It was one of the generic cards the department gave detectives who worked out in the bureaus. It had the embossed police badge on it and the Hollywood Division phone number but no name. You could buy yourself an ink pad and order a stamp and sit at your desk at the beginning of each week and stamp out a couple dozen cards. Or you could just write your name on the line with a pen and not give out too many. Bosch had done the latter. Nothing the department could do could embarrass him anymore.

“No, you can keep it. By the way, you have one?”

In a quick, impatient motion, she opened the top middle drawer of the desk, took a card out of a little tray and put it down on the desk top next to the elbow Bosch had leaned there. He took another sip of coffee while glancing down at it. The E stood for Eleanor.

“So anyway you know who I am and where I come from,” he began. “And I know a little bit about you. For instance, you investigated, or are investigating, a bank caper from last year in which the perps came in through the ground. A tunnel job. WestLand National.”

He noticed her attention immediately pick up with that, and even thought he sensed Gray Suit’s breathing catch. Bosch had a line in the right water.

“Your name is on the bulletins. I am investigating a homicide I believe is related to your case and I want to know… basically, I want to know what you’ve got… Can we talk about suspects, possible suspects… I think we might be looking for the same people. I think my guy might have been one of your perps.”

Wish was quiet for a moment and played with a pencil she’d picked up off the blotter. She pushed Bosch’s card around on the green square with the eraser end. Gray Suit was still acting like he was on the phone. Bosch glanced over at him and their eyes briefly connected. Bosch nodded and Gray Suit looked away. Bosch figured he was looking at the man whose comments had been in the newspaper articles. Special Agent John Rourke.

“You can do better than that, can’t you, Detective Bosch?” Wish said. “I mean, you just walk in here and wave the flag of cooperation and you expect me to just open up our files.”

She tapped the pencil three times on the desk and shook her head like she was disciplining a child.

“How about a name?” she said. “How about giving me some reason for the connection? We usually handle this kind of request through channels. We have liaisons that evaluate requests from other law enforcement agencies to share files and information. You know that. I think it might be best-”

Bosch pulled the FBI bulletin with the insurance photo of the bracelet out of his pocket. He unfolded it and laid it on the blotter. Then he took the pawnshop Polaroid out of the other pocket and also dropped that on the desk.

“WestLand National,” he said, tapping a finger on the bulletin. “The bracelet was pawned six weeks ago in a downtown shop. My guy pawned it. Now he’s dead.”

She kept her eyes on the Polaroid bracelet and Bosch saw recognition there. The case had stayed that much with her.

“The name is William Meadows. Found him in a pipe yesterday morning, up at the Mulholland Dam.”

Gray Suit ended his one-sided conversation. He said, “I appreciate the information. I have to go, we’re wrapping up a two eleven. Uh huh… Thank you… You too, good-bye now.”

Bosch didn’t look at him. He watched Wish. He thought he sensed that she wanted to look over at Gray Suit. Her eyes darted that way but then quickly went back to the photograph. Something wasn’t right, and Bosch decided to jump back into the silence.

“Why don’t we skip the bullshit, Agent Wish? As far as I can tell, you’ve never recovered a single stock certificate, a single coin, a single jewel, a single gold-and-jade bracelet. You’ve got nothing. So screw the liaison stuff. I mean, what is this? My guy pawned the bracelet; he ended up dead. Why? We have parallel investigations here, don’t you think? More likely, the same investigation.”

Nothing.

“My guy was either given that bracelet by your perps or he stole it from them. Or possibly, he was one of them. So, maybe the bracelet wasn’t supposed to turn up yet. Nothing else has. And he goes and breaks the rules and pawns the thing. They whack him, then go to the pawnshop and steal it back. Whatever. The thing is, we are looking for the same people. And I need a direction to start in.”

She remained silent still, but Bosch sensed a decision coming. This time he waited her out.

“Tell me about him,” she finally said.

He told her. About the anonymous call. About the body. About the apartment that had been searched. About finding the pawn stub hidden behind the photo. And then going to the pawnshop to find the bracelet stolen. He didn’t say that he had known Meadows.

“Anything else taken from the pawnshop, or just this bracelet?” she asked when he was done.

“Of course. Yes. But just as a cover for the real thing they wanted. The bracelet. Way I see it, Meadows was killed because whoever killed him wanted the bracelet. He was tortured before he was murdered because they wanted to know where it was. They got what they needed, killed him, then went and got the bracelet. Mind if I smoke?”

“Yes, I do. What could be so important about one bracelet? This bracelet is only a drop in the bucket of what was taken, of what hasn’t ever turned up.”