Michael Connelly - The Black Ice

“Convince me, Bosch.”

“Can’t do that.”

“And why not?”

“Trust goes two ways. So does the lack of trust.”

Irving seemed to consider this and Bosch thought he saw an almost imperceptible nod.

Bosch said, “The man they are looking for, who they believe to be Zorrillo, is in the wind and he isn’t coming back. That’s all you need to know.”

Bosch thought of the body on the bed at Castillo de los Ojos. The face was already gone. Another two weeks and the flesh would go. No fingerprints. No identification, other than the bogus credentials in the wallet. The tattoo would stay intact for a while. But there were plenty who had that tattoo, including the fugitive Zorrillo.

He had left the money there, too. An added precaution, enough there maybe to convince the first finder not to bother calling the authorities. Just take the money and run.

Using a handkerchief, he had wiped the shotgun of his prints and left it. He locked the house, wrapped the chain through the black bars of the gate and closed the hasp on the lock, careful to wipe each surface. Then he had headed home to L.A.

“The DEA, are they putting a nice spin on things yet?” he asked Irving.

“They’re working on it,” Irving said. “I am told the smuggling network has been closed down. They have ascertained that the drug called black ice was manufactured on the ranch, taken through tunnels to two nearby businesses, then moved across the border. The shipment would make a detour, probably in Calexico, where it would be removed and the delivery van would go on. Both businesses have been seized. One of them, a contractor with the state to provide sterile medflies, will probably prove embarrassing.”

“EnviroBreed.”

“Yes. By tomorrow they will finish comparisons between the bills of lading shown by drivers at the border and the receipt of cargo records at the eradication center here in Los Angeles. I am told these documents were altered or forged. In other words more sealed boxes passed through the border than were received at the center.”

“Inside help.”

“Most likely. The on-site inspector for the USDA was either dumb or corrupt. I don’t know which is worse.”

Irving brushed some imaginary impurity off the shoulder of his uniform. It could not be hair or dandruff, since he had neither. He turned away from Bosch to face the coffin and the thick gathering of officers around it. The ceremony was about to begin. He squared his shoulders and without turning back, he said, “I don’t know what to think, Bosch. I don’t know whether you have me or not.”

Bosch didn’t answer. That would be one Irving would have to worry about.

“Just remember,” Irving said. “You have just as much to lose as the department. More. The department can always come back, always recover. It might take a good long time but it always comes back. The same can’t be said for the individual who gets tarred with the brush of scandal.”

Bosch smiled in a sad way. Never leave a thing uncovered. That was Irving. His parting shot was a threat, a threat that if Bosch ever used his knowledge against the department, he, too, would go down. Irving would personally see to it.

“Are you afraid?” Bosch asked.

“Afraid of what, Detective?”

“Of everything. Of me. Yourself. That it won’t hold together. That I might be wrong. Everything, man. Aren’t you afraid of everything?”

“The only thing that I fear are people without a conscience. Who act without thinking their actions through. I don’t think you are like that.”

Bosch just shook his head.

“So let’s get down to it, Detective. I have to rejoin the chief and I see the mayor has arrived. What is it you want, provided it is within my authority to provide?”

“I wouldn’t take anything from you,” Bosch said very quietly. “That’s what you just don’t seem to get.”

Irving finally turned around to face him again.

“You are right, Bosch. I really don’t understand you. Why risk everything for nothing? You see? It raises my concerns about you all over again. You don’t play for the team. You play for yourself.”

Bosch looked steadily at Irving and didn’t smile, though he wanted to. Irving had paid him a fine compliment, though the assistant chief would never realize it.

“What happened down there had nothing to do with the department,” he said. “If I did anything at all, I did it for somebody and something else.”

Irving stared back blankly, his jaw flexing as he ground his teeth. There was a crooked smile below the gleaming skull. It was then that Bosch recognized the similarity to the tattoos on the arms of Moore and Zorrillo. The devil’s mask. He watched as Irving’s eyes lit on something and he nodded knowingly. He looked back at Sylvia and then returned his gaze to Bosch.

“A noble man, is that it? All of this to insure a widow’s pension?”

Bosch didn’t answer. He wondered if it was a guess or Irving knew something. He couldn’t tell.

“How do you know she wasn’t part of it?” Irving said.

“I know.”

“But how can you be sure? How can you take the chance?”

“The same way you’re sure. The letter.”

“What about it?”

Bosch had done nothing but think about Moore on his way back. He had had four hours of driving on the open road to put it together. He thought he had it.

“Moore wrote the letter himself,” he began. “He informed on himself, you could say. He had this plan. The letter was the start. He wrote it.”

He stopped to light a cigarette. Irving didn’t say a word. He just waited for the story.

“For reasons that I guess go back to when he was a boy, Moore fucked up. He crossed and after he was already on the other side he realized there is no crossing back. But he couldn’t go on, he had to get out. Somehow.

“His plan was to start the IAD investigation with that letter. He put just enough in the letter so Chastain would be convinced there was something to it, but not enough that Chastain would be able to find anything. The letter would just serve to cloud his name, put him under suspicion. He had been in the department long enough to know how it would go. He’d seen the way IAD and people like Chastain operate. The letter set the stage, made the water murky enough so that when he turned up dead at the motel the department, meaning you, wouldn’t want to look too closely at it. You’re an open book, Chief. He knew you’d move quickly and efficiently to protect the department first, find out what really happened second. So he sent the letter. He used you, Chief. He used me, too.”

Irving turned toward the grave site. The ceremony was about to begin. He turned back to Bosch.

“Go ahead, Detective. Quickly, please.”

“Layer after layer. Remember, you told me he had rented that room for a month. That was the first layer. If he hadn’t been discovered for a month decomp would’ve taken care of things. There would have been no skin left to print. That would leave only the latents he left in the room and he’d’ve been home free.”

“But he was found a few weeks early,” Irving helpfully interjected.

“Yeah. That brings us to the second layer. You. Moore had been a cop a long time. He knew what you would do. He knew you’d go to personnel and grab his package.”

“That’s a big gamble, Bosch.”

“You ask me, it was a better-than-even bet. Christmas night, when I saw you there with the file, I knew what it was before you said. So I can see Moore taking the gamble and switching the print cards. Like I said, he was gambling it would never come to that anyway. You were the second layer.”

“And you? You were the third?”

“Yeah, the way I figure it. He used me as a sort of last backup. In case the suicide didn’t wash, he wanted somebody who’d look at it and see a reason for Moore to have been murdered. That was me. I did that. He left the file for me and I went for it, thought he’d been killed over it. It was all a deflection. He just didn’t want anybody looking too closely at who was actually on the tile floor in the motel. He just wanted some time.”