Michael Connelly - EchoPark

“Then, I guess I’ll have to appeal to a higher authority than you.”

Bosch took half a step closer to him. This time he really got into his space.

“You smell that? You smell that on me? That’s the fucking putrid smell of death. I’ve got it all over me, O’Shea. But at least I can wash it off.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Whatever you want it to mean. Who’s your higher authority? You going to call T. Rex Garland up in his shiny office?”

O’Shea took a deep breath and shook his head in confusion.

“Detective, I don’t know what happened to you in that tunnel but you aren’t making much sense.”

Bosch nodded.

“Yeah, well, it will make sense soon enough. Before the election, that’s for sure.”

“Help me out, Bosch. What exactly am I missing here?”

“I don’t think you’re missing anything. You know it all, O’Shea, and before it’s all over, so will the whole wide world. Somehow, some way, I’m going to take down you and the Garlands and everybody else who had a part in this. Count on it.”

Now O’Shea took a step toward Bosch.

“Are you saying that I did this, that I set all of this up, for T. Rex Garland?”

Bosch started laughing. O’Shea was the consummate actor to the end.

“You’re good,” he said. “I’ll give you that. You’re good.”

“T. Rex Garland is a valid contributor to my campaign. Up-front and legal. How you can tie that into-”

“Then, why the fuck didn’t you mention he was a valid and legal contributor when I brought up his son the other day and told you he was my suspect on Gesto?”

“Because it would have complicated things. I have never met or even spoken to either of the Garlands. T. Rex contributed to my campaign. So what? The guy spreads money through every election in the county. For me to bring it up at that point would have been to invite your suspicion. I didn’t want that. Now I see I have it anyway.”

“You are so full of shit. You-”

“Fuck you, Bosch. There is no connection.”

“Then, we’ve got nothing else to say.”

“Yes, we do. I’ve got something to say. Take your best shot with this bullshit and we’ll see who comes out at the end still standing.”

He turned and walked away, barking an order to his men. He wanted a telephone with a secured line. Bosch wondered who the first call would go to, T. Rex Garland or the chief of police.

Bosch made a snap decision. He would call Keisha Russell and turn her loose. He would tell her she was clear to look into those campaign contributions Garland had funneled to O’Shea. He put his hand into his pocket and then remembered that his phone was still somewhere in the garage. He walked that way and stopped at the yellow tape that was strung across the now fully opened door behind the white van.

Cal Cafarelli was in the garage, directing the forensic analysis of the scene. She had a breathing-filter mask down around her neck. Bosch could tell by her face that she had been to the macabre scene at the end of the tunnel. And she would never be the same again. He waved her over.

“How’s it going, Cal?”

“It’s going about as well as you’d expect after seeing something like that.”

“Yeah. I know.”

“We’re going to be here long into the night. What can I do for you, Harry?”

“Have you found a cell phone somewhere in here? I lost my phone when things started happening.”

She pointed to the floor near the front tire of the van.

“Is that it over there?”

Bosch looked over and saw his phone lying on the concrete. The red message light was blinking. He noticed that someone had circled it on the concrete with chalk. That was not good. Bosch didn’t want his phone inventoried as evidence. He might never get it back.

“Can I get it back? I need it.”

“I’m sorry, Harry. Not yet. This place hasn’t been photographed. We’re starting with the tunnel and moving out from there. It will be a while.”

“Then how about if you give it to me and I use it right here and then I give it back when it’s time to take photos. It looks like I’ve got messages waiting.”

“Harry, come on.”

He knew that his suggestion would break about four rules of evidence.

“Okay, just let me know when I can get it back. Hopefully before the battery’s dead.”

“You got it, Harry.”

He turned away from the garage and saw Rachel Walling walking toward the yellow tape that delineated the outside perimeter of the crime scene. There was a federal cruiser there and a man in a suit and sunglasses was waiting for her. She had apparently called for a ride.

Bosch trotted toward the tape, calling her name. She stopped and waited for him.

“Harry,” she said. “Are you all right?”

“I am now. How about you, Rachel?”

“I’m fine. What happened to you?”

She indicated his wet clothes with her hand.

“I had to hose off. It was bad. I need about a two-hour shower. Are you leaving?”

“Yes. They’re done with me for the time being.”

Bosch nodded toward the man in the sunglasses ten feet behind her.

“Are you in trouble?” he asked quietly.

“I don’t know yet. I should be all right. You got the bad guy and saved the girl. How can that be a bad thing?”

“ We got the bad guy and saved the girl,” Bosch corrected. “But there are people in every institution and bureaucracy who can find a way to turn something good into shit.”

She looked him in the eyes and nodded.

“I know,” she said.

Her look froze him and he knew they were now different.

“Are you mad at me, Rachel?”

“Mad? No.”

“Then, what?”

“Then, nothing. I have to go.”

“Will you call me, then?”

“When I can. Good-bye, Harry.”

She took two steps toward the waiting car but then stopped and turned back to him.

“That was O’Shea you were talking to out by the car, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“Be careful, Harry. If you let your emotions run you the way they did out here today, O’Shea could put you in a world of pain.”

Bosch smiled slightly.

“You know what they say about pain, don’t you?”

“No, what?”

“They say pain is weakness leaving the body.”

She shook her head.

“Well ‘they’ are full of shit. Don’t put it to the test unless you have to. Good-bye, Harry.”

“I’ll see you, Rachel.”

He watched as the man in sunglasses held the tape up for her to duck under. She got into the front passenger seat and Sunglasses drove them off. Bosch knew that something had changed in the way she saw him. His actions in the garage and going into the tunnel had made her change her mind about him. He accepted it and guessed that he might never see her again. He decided that it would be one more thing that he would blame on Rick O’Shea.

He turned back to the scene, where Randolph and Osani were standing waiting for him. Randolph was putting away his cell phone.

“You two again,” Bosch said.

“Gettin’ to be like déjà vu all over again, isn’t it?” Randolph said.

“Something like that.”

“Detective, we are going to need to take you over to Parker Center and conduct a more formal interview this time around.”

Bosch nodded. He knew the drill. This time it wasn’t about shooting into the trees or the woods. He had killed somebody, so this time it would be different. They would need to nail down every detail.

“I’m ready to go,” he said.

BOSCH WAS SEATED in an interview room in the Officer Involved Shooting Unit at Parker Center. Randolph had allowed him to shower in the basement locker room and he’d changed into blue jeans and a black West Coast Choppers sweatshirt, clothing he kept in a locker for the times he was downtown and unexpectedly needed to fly below the radar that a suit would bring. On the way out of the locker room he had dumped his contaminated suit into a trash can. He would now be down to two.