Michael Connelly - Angels Flight

Irving put his hands down on the table and leaned a few inches toward its center. He seemed impatient when he spoke.

“All I am saying is that you cannot completely eliminate these other possible scenarios.”

“That might be true but we’re not pursuing those scenarios. I believe it would be a waste of time and I don’t have the manpower.”

“I told you I wanted a thorough investigation. I want no stone unturned.”

“Well, we’ll get to those stones later. Look, Chief, if you are focusing on this so you can tell the media it might be a robbery, then fine, say it might be. I don’t care about what you tell the media. I’m just trying to tell you where we stand and where we’re going to be looking.”

“Fine. Proceed.”

He waved a hand in a dismissive gesture.

“We need to look at the man’s files and draw up lists of potential suspects. The cops who Elias really nailed in court or vilified in the media over the years. Or both. The grudges. And the cops he would have tried to nail beginning Monday.”

Irving showed no reaction at all. It seemed to Bosch he was already thinking about the next hour, when he and the police chief would go out on a cliff and address the media about such a dangerous case.

“We are being handicapped,” Bosch continued. “Carla Entrenkin has been appointed by the warrants judge as a special master to oversee the protection of Elias’s clients. She’s in his office right now and won’t let us in.”

“I thought you said you found the man’s wallet and watch in the office.”

“I did. That was before Carla showed up and kicked us out.”

“How did she get appointed?”

“She says the judge called her, thought she’d be perfect. She and a deputy from the DA are there. I’m hoping to get the first batch of files this afternoon.”

“Okay, what else?”

“There’s something you should know. Before Carla made us leave, we came across a couple things of interest. The first is some notes Elias kept at his desk. I read through them and there were indications that he had a source in here. Parker Center, I mean. A good source, somebody who apparently knew how to find and get access to old files – unsubstantiated IAD investigations. And there were indications of a dispute. The source either couldn’t or wouldn’t provide something Elias wanted on the Black Warrior thing.”

Irving went quiet for a second, staring at Bosch, processing. When he spoke again his voice was more distant still.

“Was this source identified?”

“Not in what I saw, which wasn’t a lot. It was coded.”

“What was it that Elias wanted? Could it be related to the killings?”

“I don’t know. If you want me to pursue it as a priority I will. I was thinking that other things would be the priority. The cops he dragged into court in the past, the ones he was going to pull in starting Monday. Also, there was a second thing we found in the office before we got kicked out.”

“What was that?”

“It actually branches into two more avenues of investigation.”

He quickly told Irving about the photo printout of Mistress Regina and the indication that Elias might have been involved in what Chastain had called rough trade. The deputy chief seemed to take a keen interest in this aspect of the investigation and asked Bosch what his plans were in regard to pursuing it.

“I’m planning on attempting to locate and interview the woman, see if Elias ever actually had any contact with her. After that, we see where it goes.”

“And the other branch of investigation this leads to?”

“The family. Whether it was this Regina woman or not, it looks like Elias was a philanderer. There are enough indications in his downtown apartment to suggest this. So if the wife knew about all of this, then we have a motivation right there. Of course, I’m just talking. At the moment we have nothing that indicates she even knew, let alone arranged or carried out the kill. It also flies in the face of the psychological read on the killings.”

“Which is what?”

“It doesn’t look like the dispassionate work of a hired killer. There is a lot of rage in the killing method. It looks to me like the killer knew Elias and hated him – at least at the moment of the shooting. I would also say it looks like it was a man.”

“How so?”

“The shot up the ass. It was vindictive. Like a rape. Men rape, women don’t. So my gut instinct tells me this clears the widow. But my instincts have been wrong. It’s still something we have to follow up on. There’s the son, too. Like I told you before, he reacted pretty hot when we gave them the news. But we don’t really know what his relationship with his father was like. We do know that the kid has been around weapons – we saw a picture in the house.”

Irving pointed a finger of warning at Bosch.

“You be careful with the family,” he said. “Very careful. That has to be handled with a lot of finesse.”

“It will be.”

“I do not want that blowing up in our faces.”

“It won’t.”

Irving checked his watch once more.

“Why have your people not answered the pages?”

“I don’t know, Chief. I was just thinking the same thing.”

“Well, page them again. I need to meet with the chief. At eleven I want you and your team in the press conference room.”

“I’d rather get back to work on the case. I’ve got – ”

“That is a direct order, Detective,” Irving said as he stood. “No debate. You won’t have to answer questions but I want your people on hand.”

Bosch picked up the clipboard and threw it back into his open briefcase.

“I’ll be there,” he said, though Irving was already through the door.

Bosch sat for a few minutes thinking. He knew Irving would now repackage the information he had given him and deliver it to the police chief. They would put their heads together and then reshape it once more before delivering it to the media.

He looked at his watch. He had a half hour until the press conference. He wondered if that was time enough to get over to the MetroLink station, find Elias’s wallet and watch and get back in time. He had to make sure he recovered the dead lawyer’s property, particularly because he had already told Irving it was in his possession.

Finally, he decided that there wasn’t enough time to do it. He decided to use the time to get coffee and to make a phone call. He walked to the cabinet once more and called his house. Once more the machine picked up. Bosch hung up after hearing his own voice saying no one was home.

BOSCH decided he would be too nervous waiting until after the press conference and drove over to the MetroLink station at First and Hill. It was only three minutes away and he was pretty sure he could make it back to Parker Center for the start of the press conference. He parked illegally at the curb in front of the entrance to the subway platform. It was one of the few good things about driving a slickback; there was no need to worry about parking tickets. As he got out he removed the baton from the sleeve in the car’s door.

He trotted down the escalator and spotted the first trash can next to the automatic doors at the entrance to the station. The way he figured it, Rooker and his partner had left the Angels Flight crime scene with the stolen property and stopped at the first spot they knew they would find a trash can. One waited up top with the car while the other ran down the stairs to get rid of the wallet and watch. So Bosch was confident this first trash can would be the one. It was a large, white rectangular receptacle with the MetroLink symbol painted on its sides. A blue hood on top housed the push door. Bosch quickly lifted it off and looked down. The receptacle was full but there was no manila envelope visible in the debris at the top.