Michael Connelly - Angels Flight

“Lucky we didn’t meet in your car,” Garwood said.

Bosch didn’t say anything.

“This place is going to come apart tonight,” Garwood continued. “I can feel it. Pity the rain stopped.”

“Chastain,” Bosch said, getting back on track. “Somebody put a cork in him. Complaint unfounded. Then Elias files his suit and eventually subpoenas Chastain. Chastain doesn’t want to testify, why?”

“Maybe he takes the oath seriously. He didn’t want to lie.”

“There’s got to be more than that.”

“Ask him.”

“Elias had a source inside Parker. A leak. I think it was Chastain. I don’t mean just on this case. I mean a longtime leak – adirect conduit inside to records, everything. I think it was Chastain.”

“It’s funny. A cop who hates cops.”

“Yeah.”

“But if he was Elias’s big important conduit, why would Elias put him on the stand and expose him like that?”

That was the question and Bosch had no answer. He was silent for a while, thinking about this. He finally put together the thin beginnings of a theory and said it out loud.

“Elias wouldn’t have known Chastain had been corked unless Chastain had told him, right?”

“Right.”

“So just by putting Chastain on the stand and asking him about it would be revealing Chastain as his source.”

Garwood nodded.

“I can see that,” he said. “Yeah.”

“Even if Chastain sat up there and denied every question, Elias could ask the questions in a way that they would still get the point – and in this case, the truth – across to the jury.”

“It would also make the point at Parker Center,” Garwood said. “Chastain would be exposed. Question is, why would Elias expose his source? Somebody who had been helping him a hell of a lot over the years. Why would he give that up?”

“Because this was Elias’s home run case. The big one that would put him on the national map. It would put him on Court TV, Sixty Minutes, Larry King and everything else. It would make him. He would be willing to burn his source for that. Any lawyer would.”

“I see that, too. Yeah.”

The next part was left unsaid. That being the question of what Chastain would do to prevent being publicly burned on the stand. To Bosch the answer was obvious. If he were exposed not only as Elias’s source but as the investigator who compromised the internal investigation of Michael Harris’s complaint, he would be vilified both inside and outside the department. There would be nowhere for him to go and that would be untenable for a man like Chastain, for any man. Bosch believed Chastain would be willing to kill to prevent that from happening.

“Thanks, Captain,” he said. “I’ve got to go.”

“It doesn’t matter, you know.”

Bosch looked over at him.

“What?”

“Doesn’t matter. The press releases have been made, the press conferences given, the story’s out and the city is ready to go like kindling. You think the people in the south end care which cop killed Elias? They don’t give a shit. They already have what they want. Chastain, Sheehan, doesn’t matter. What matters is that a badge did it. And if you go making noise you’ll just be adding more fuel to the fire. You bring up Chastain and you bring up the cover-up. A lot of people might get hurt, lose their jobs, all because they wanted to head this off in the first place. You better think about that, Harry. Nobody cares.”

Bosch nodded. He understood the message. Go along to get along.

“I care,” he said.

“Is that enough of a reason?”

“What about Chastain then?”

Garwood had a thin smile on his face. Bosch could see it behind the glowing point of his cigarette.

“I think Chastain deserves whatever he gets. And someday he’ll get it.”

Now there was a new message and Bosch thought he understood that as well.

“And what about Frankie Sheehan? What about his reputation?”

“There’s that,” Garwood said, nodding. “Frankie Sheehan was one of my guys… but he’s dead and his family doesn’t live here anymore.”

Bosch said nothing but that answer wasn’t acceptable. Sheehan was his friend and partner. Tainting him tainted Bosch himself.

“You know what bothers me?” Garwood asked. “And maybe you might be able to help me, being that you and Sheehan were partners at one time.”

“What? What bothers you?”

“The gun Sheehan used. It wasn’t yours now, was it? I know they asked you that.”

“No, not mine. We had gone by his house on the way to mine. To get clothes and things. He must’ve picked it up then. The FBI must’ve missed it when they searched his place.”

Garwood nodded.

“I heard you made notification to his wife. Did you ask her about that? You know, about the gun.”

“I asked. She said she didn’t know about any gun but that doesn’t – ”

“No serial number,” Garwood said, cutting in. “A throw-down gun, everybody knows that’s what that was.”

“Yeah.”

“And that’s what bothers me. I knew Sheehan a lot of years. He worked for me a long time and you get to know your guys. I never knew him to be the kind of guy who would have a throw-down… I asked some of the other guys – especially the ones that partnered with him since you went to Hollywood. They never knew about a throw-down. What about you, Harry? You worked with him the longest. Did he ever carry an extra piece?”

It hit Bosch then, like a punch in the chest. The kind where you have to keep perfectly still and silent and wait it out until you slowly get your breath back. He had never known Frank Sheehan to carry a throw-down on the job. He was too good for that. And if you were too good to carry one on the job, why have one hidden at home? That question and its obvious answer had been there right in front of him all along. But he had missed it.

Bosch remembered sitting in his car outside Sheehan’s house. He remembered the set of headlights he saw in the mirror and the car pulling to the curb down the block. Chastain. He had followed them. To Chastain, Sheehan alive was the only loose end that could cause things to unravel.

He thought of his neighbor’s reports of three to four shots being fired at his house. In his mind a drunken cop’s suicide was now a calculated murder.

“Motherfucker,” Bosch whispered.

Garwood nodded. He had successfully led Bosch down the road to where he apparently already was.

“Now, do you see how it could have been done?” he asked.

Bosch tried to slow his thoughts and let it come to him. Finally, he nodded.

“Yes, I see now.”

“Good. I’ll make a call. I’ll have whoever is on duty in the basement let you have a look at the sign-out log. No questions asked. That way you’ll be sure.”

Bosch nodded. He reached over and opened the door. He got out without another word and started back toward his car. He was running before he got there. He didn’t know why. There was no hurry. It was no longer raining. He just knew he had to keep moving to keep from screaming.

OUTSIDE of Parker Center there was a candlelight vigil and a funeral procession. Two cardboard caskets – one marked JUSTICE, the other marked HOPE -were being carried aloft by the crowd as they marched back and forth across the front plaza. Others carried signs that said JUSTICE FOR PEOPLE OF ALL COLORS and JUSTICE FOR SOME IS JUSTICE FOR NONE. Above news helicopters circled and on the ground there were at least six news crews that Bosch could see. It was getting close to eleven and all of them were getting ready to put out live reports from the protest front.

At the front door a phalanx of cops in uniforms and riot helmets stood ready to defend the police headquarters if the crowd turned from peaceful demonstration to violence. In 1992 a peaceful demonstration had turned violent and the mob roamed downtown destroying everything in its path. Bosch hurried toward the lobby doors, skirting behind the procession of protesters and through a crack in the human defense line, after holding his badge up high over his head.