Michael Connelly - Angels Flight

A few minutes later, when the suspect returned from the hardware store with the gun oil he needed to finish his work on the Uzi, he was arrested. Ballistics matched the gun to the killings and he was convicted after a judge refused to throw out the fruits of the search. Though the defendant claimed the entry of the apartment was without permission and unlawful, the judge ruled that Bosch and Sheehan were acting in good faith when they acted on the invitation from the parrot. The case was still winding its way through the nation’s appellate courts, while the killer remained in jail.

The Jeep’s front passenger door opened and Sheehan got into the car.

“When did you get this ride?” he asked.

“When they made me start driving a slickback.”

“Oh, yeah, forgot about that.”

“Yeah, you RHD bigshots don’t have to worry about that shit.”

“So, what’s up? You got your ass out in the wind on this case, don’t you?”

“Yeah, it’s out there. How’re Margaret and the girls doing?”

“They’re all fine. What are we doing? Riding, talking, what?”

“I don’t know. Is that Irish place still over on Van Nuys?”

“No, that one’s gone. Tell you what, go on up to Oxnard and go right. There’s a little sports bar down there.”

Bosch pulled away from the curb and started following the directions.

“I was just thinking about the Polly-wants-an-Uzi case,” he said.

Sheehan laughed.

“That one still cracks me up. I can’t believe it’s shot the rapids this far. I hear the douche bag’s down to one last shot – El Supremo Court.”

“It’ll make it. It woulda got shot down by now if it wasn’t going to fly – no pun intended.”

“Well, what’s it been, eight years? We got our money’s worth, even if they do kick him loose.”

“Yeah, six murders, eight years. Sounds fair.”

“Six douche bags.”

“You still like saying douche bag, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I’m partial to it. So you didn’t come over the hill to talk about parrots and douche bags and old times, did you?”

“No, Frankie. I need to ask you about the Kincaid thing.”

“Why me?”

“Why do you think? You were lead detective.”

“Everything I know is in the files. You should be able to get them. You’re lead on Elias.”

“I got ’em. But the files don’t always have everything in them.”

Sheehan pointed to a red neon sign and Bosch pulled over. There was a parking place at the curb right outside the bar’s door.

“This place is always pretty dead,” Sheehan said. “Even Saturday nights. I don’t know how the guy makes it by. Must be taking numbers or selling weed on the side.”

“Frankie,” Bosch said, “between you and me, I gotta know about the fingerprints. I don’t want to be chasing my tail out there. I mean, I got no reason to doubt you. But I want to know if you heard anything, you know what I mean?”

Sheehan got out of the Cherokee without a word and walked to the door. Bosch watched him go in and then got out himself. Inside, the place was just about empty. Sheehan was sitting at the bar. The bartender was drawing a beer off the tap. Bosch took the stool next to his former partner and said, “Make it two.”

Bosch took out a twenty and put it on the bar. Sheehan still hadn’t looked at him since he had asked the question.

The bartender put down the frosted mugs on napkins that advertised a Superbowl party almost three months before. He took Bosch’s twenty and went down to the cash register. In unison Bosch and Sheehan took long pulls on their drinks.

“Ever since O.J.,” Sheehan said.

“What’s that?”

“You know what I’m talking about. Ever since the Juice, nothing is solid anymore. No evidence, no cop, nothing. You can take anything you want into a courtroom and there still will be somebody who can tear it to shreds, drop it on the floor and piss on it. Everybody questions everything. Even cops. Even partners.”

Bosch took more of his beer before saying anything.

“I’m sorry, Frankie. I got no reason to doubt you or the prints. It’s just that weeding through this Elias stuff, it looks like he was going into court next week with the idea of proving who killed the girl. And he wasn’t talking about Harris. Somebody – ”

“Who?”

“I don’t know. But I’m trying to look at it from his side of things. If he had somebody other than Harris, then how the hell did these prints end up on – ”

“Elias was a fucking mutt. And as soon as they get him in the ground I’m gonna go out there one night and do my granddaddy’s Irish jig on his grave. Then I’m gonna piss on it and never think about Elias again. All I can say is that it’s too fucking bad Harris wasn’t with him on that train. Goddamned murderer. That would have been hitting the quinella, the both of them being put down together.”

Sheehan held his glass up in a toast to Elias’s killer and then took a deep swallow. Bosch could almost feel the hate radiating from him.

“So nobody fucked with the scene,” Bosch said. “The prints are legit.”

“Fucking-A legit. The room was sealed by patrol. Nobody went in until I got there. I then watched over everything – we were dealing with the Kincaid family and I knew what that meant. The car czar and heavy contributor to local political coffers. I was on the straight and narrow with everything. The prints were on her schoolbook – a geography book. SID got four fingers on one side and a thumb on the other – as if he had picked the book up by the binding. Those prints were perfect. The guy must’ve been sweating like a pig when he left ’em because they were grade A perfect.”

He drained his glass and then held it up so the bartender would see he needed a refill.

“I can’t believe you can’t smoke anymore in a fucking bar in this city,” Sheehan said. “Fucking douche bags.”

“Yeah.”

“Anyway, we ran everything and Harris pops up. Ex-con, did time for assault, burglary, he’s got about as much a legitimate reason for his prints being in her room as I have a chance of winning the lottery – and I don’t fucking play. So bingo, we got our man. We go hook him up. Remember, at that time the girl’s body hadn’t turned up. We were operating on the belief she might still be alive somewhere. We were wrong but we didn’t know it at the time. So we hook him up, bring him downtown and put him in the room. Only this motherfucker won’t tell us the time of day. Three days and we get nothing. We never even took him to a cell at night. He was in that room seventy-two straight hours. We worked in teams and in shifts and we could not crack his egg. Never gave us jack shit. I tell you what, I’d like to kill the fuck, but I gotta respect him for that. He was the best I ever went against.”

Sheehan took a double gulp from his new beer. Bosch was still only halfway through his first. He was content to let Sheehan talk and tell the story at his own pace without interrupting him with questions.

“On the last day some of the guys lost it a little bit. Did things.”

Bosch closed his eyes. He had been wrong about Sheehan.

“Me, too, Harry.”

He said it matter of factly, as if it felt good to finally say it out loud. He drank more of his beer, turned on his stool and looked about the bar as if seeing it for the first time. There was a TV mounted in a corner. It was tuned to ESPN.

“We’re off the record here, right, Harry?”

“Sure.”

Sheehan turned back and leaned toward Bosch in a conspiratorial sort of way.

“What Harris says happened… happened. But that doesn’t excuse what he did. He rapes and strangles that little girl; we stick a pencil in his ear. Big fucking deal. He gets off and I’m the new Mark Fuhrman – a racist cop who planted evidence. I just wish somebody could tell me how the fuck I could’ve planted those prints?”