Angels Flight (5 page)

Bosch had seen enough. He made his way past the bodies and carefully around Sally Tam again and up onto the platform. His partners followed, Edgar moving by Tam more closely than he had to.

Bosch stepped away from the train car so they could huddle together privately.

“What do you think?” he said.

“I think they’re real,” Edgar said, looking back toward Tam. “They’ve got that natural slope to them. What do you think, Kiz?”

“Funny,” Rider said, not taking the bait. “Can we talk about the case, please?”

Bosch admired how Rider took Edgar’s frequent comments and sexual innuendo without more than a sarcastic remark or complaint fired back at him. Such comments could get Edgar in serious trouble but only if Rider made a formal complaint. The fact that she didn’t indicated either she was intimidated or she could handle it. She also knew that if she went formal, she’d get what cops called a “K-9 jacket,” a reference to the city jail ward where snitches were housed. Bosch had once asked her in a private moment if she wanted him to talk to Edgar. As her supervisor he was legally responsible for resolving the problem but he knew that if he talked to Edgar, then Edgar would know he had gotten to her. Rider knew this as well. She had thought about all of this for a few moments and told Bosch to let things alone. She said she wasn’t intimidated, just annoyed on occasion. She could handle it.

“You go first, Kiz,” Bosch said, also ignoring Edgar’s comment, even though he privately disagreed with his conclusion about Tam. “Anything catch your eye in there?”

“Same as everybody else, I guess. Looks like the victims were not together. The woman either got on ahead of Elias or was about to get off. I think it’s pretty clear Elias was the primary target and she was just an also-ran. The shot up the ass tells me that. Also, like you said in there, this guy was a hell of a shot. We’re looking for someone who’s spent some time at the range.”

Bosch nodded.

“Anything else?”

“Nope. It’s a pretty clean scene. Nothing much to work with.”

“Jerry?”

“Nada. What about you?”

“Same. But I think Garwood was telling us a story. His sequence was for shit.”

“How?” Rider said.

“The shot up the pipe was the last one, not the first. Elias was already down. It’s a contact wound and the entry is in the underside, where all the seams of the pants come together. It would be hard to get a muzzle up there if Elias was standing — even if he was up a step from the shooter. I think he was already down when the shooter popped that cap.”

“That changes things,” Rider said. “Makes the last one a ‘fuck you’ shot. The shooter was angry at Elias.”

“So he knew him,” Edgar said.

Bosch nodded.

“And you think Garwood knew this and was just trying to steer us wrong by planting the suggestion?” Rider asked. “Or do you think he just missed it?”

“What I know about Garwood is that he is not a stupid man,” Bosch said. “He and fifteen of his men were about to be pulled into federal court on Monday by Elias and dragged right through the shit. He knows any one of those boys might possibly be capable of this. He was protecting them. That’s what I think.”

“Well, that’s bullshit. Protecting a killer cop? He should be — ”

“Maybe protecting a killer cop. We don’t know. He didn’t know. I think it was probably a just-in-case move.”

“Doesn’t matter. If that’s what he was doing, he shouldn’t have a badge.”

Bosch didn’t say anything to that and Rider wasn’t placated. She shook her head in disgust. Like most cops in the department, she was tired of fuck-ups and cover-ups, of the few tainting the many.

“What about the scratch on the hand?”

Edgar and Rider looked at him with arched eyebrows. “What about it?” Edgar said. “Prob’ly happened when the shooter pulled off the watch. One of those with the expanding band. Like a Rolex. Knowing Elias, it was prob’ly a Rolex. Makes a nice motive.”

“Yeah, if it was a Rolex,” Bosch said.

He turned and looked out across the city. He doubted Elias wore a Rolex. For all of his flamboyance, Elias was the kind of lawyer who also knew the nuances of his profession. He knew that a lawyer wearing a Rolex might turn jurors off. He wouldn’t wear one. He would have a nice and expensive watch, but not one that advertised itself like a Rolex.

“What, Harry?” Rider said. “What about the scratch?”

Bosch looked back at them.

“Well, whether it was a Rolex or a high-priced watch or not, there’s no blood in the scratch.”

“Meaning?”

“There is a lot of blood in there. The bullet wounds bled out, but there was no blood in the scratch. Meaning I don’t think the shooter took the watch. That scratch was made after the heart stopped. I’d say long after. Which means it was made after the shooter left the scene.”

Rider and Edgar considered this.

“Maybe,” Edgar finally said. “But that vascular system shit is hard to nail down. Even the coroner isn’t gonna be definitive on that.”

“Yeah,” Bosch said, nodding. “So call it gut instinct. We can’t take it to court but I know the shooter didn’t take the watch. Or probably the wallet, for that matter.”

“So what are you saying?” Edgar asked. “Somebody else came along and took it?”

“Something like that.”

“You think it was the guy who ran the train — the one who called it in?”

Bosch looked at Edgar but didn’t answer him. He hiked his shoulders.

“You think it was one of the RHD guys,” Rider whispered. “Another just-in-case move. Send us down the robbery path, just in case it was one of their own.”

Bosch looked at her a moment, thinking about how to respond and how thin the ice was where they now stood.

“Detective Bosch?”

He turned. It was Sally Tam.

“We’re clear and the coroner’s people want to bag ’em and tag ’em if that’s okay.”

“Fine. Hey, listen, I forgot to ask, did you get anything with the laser?”

“We got a lot. But probably nothing that will help. A lot of people ride that car. We probably got passengers, not the shooter.”

“Well, you’ll run them anyway, right?”

“Sure. We’ll put everything through AFIS and DOJ. We’ll let you know.”

Bosch nodded his thanks.

“Also, did you collect any keys from the guy?”

“We did. They’re in one of the brown bags. You want them?”

“Yeah, we’re probably going to need them.”

“Be right back.”

She smiled and went back to the train car. She seemed too cheerful to be at a crime scene. Bosch knew that would wear off after a while.

“See what I mean?” Edgar said. “They gotta be real.”

“Jerry,” Bosch said.

Edgar raised his hands in surrender.

“I’m a trained observer. Just filing a report.”

“Well, you better keep it to yourself,” Bosch whispered. “Unless you want to file it with the chief.”

Edgar turned just in time to see Irving come up to them.

“Well, initial conclusions, Detectives?”

Bosch looked at Edgar.

“Jerry? What were you just saying you observed?”

“Uh, well, uh, at the moment we’re still kind of thinking about all we saw in there.”

“Nothing that doesn’t really jibe with what Captain Garwood told us,” Bosch said quickly, before Rider could say anything that would reveal their true conclusions. “At least, preliminarily.”

“What next, then?”

“We’ve got plenty to do. I want to talk to the train operator again and we’ve got to canvass that residential building for wits. We’ve got next-of-kin notification and we’ve got to get into Elias’s office. When is that help you promised us going to show up, Chief?”

“Right now.”

Irving raised an arm and beckoned Chastain and the three others he stood with. Bosch had known that was probably what they were doing at the scene but seeing Irving waving them over still put a tight feeling in his chest. Irving was well aware of the animosity between IAD and the rank and file, and the enmity that existed between Bosch and Chastain in particular. To put them together on the case told Bosch that Irving wasn’t as interested in finding out who killed Howard Elias and Catalina Perez as he had outwardly expressed. This was the deputy chief’s way of appearing to be conscientious but actually working to cripple the investigation.

“Are you sure you want to do this, Chief?” Bosch asked in an urgent whisper as the IAD men approached. “You know Chastain and I don’t — ”

“Yes, it is how I want to do it,” Irving said, cutting Bosch off without looking at him. “Detective Chastain headed up the internal review of the Michael Harris complaint. I think he is an appropriate addition to this investigation.”

“What I’m saying is that Chastain and I have a history, Chief. I don’t think it’s going to work out with — ”

“I do not care if you two do not like each other. Find a way to work together. I want to go back inside now.”

Irving led the entourage back into the station house. It was close quarters. No one said anything by way of a greeting to one another. Once inside, they all looked expectantly at Irving.

“Okay, we are going to set some ground rules here,” the deputy chief began. “Detective Bosch is in charge of this investigation. The six of you report to him. He reports to me. I do not want any confusion about that. Detective Bosch runs this case. Now I have arranged for you to set up an office in the conference room next to my office on the sixth floor at Parker Center. There will be added phones and a computer terminal in there by Monday morning. You men from IAD, I want you to be primarily used in the areas of interviewing police officers, running down alibis, that part of the investigation. Detective Bosch and his team will handle the traditional elements of homicide investigation, the autopsy, witness interviews, that whole part of it. Any questions so far?”

The room went stone silent. Bosch was quietly seething. It was the first time he had thought of Irving as a hypocrite. The deputy chief had always been a hard-ass but ultimately a fair man. This move was different. He was maneuvering to protect the department when the rot they were seeking might be inside it. But what Irving didn’t know was that Bosch had accomplished everything in his life by channeling negatives into motivation. He vowed to himself that he would clear the case in spite of Irving’s maneuvers. And the chips would fall where they would fall.

“A word of warning about the media. It will be all over this case. You are not to be distracted or deterred. You are not to talk to the media. All such communications will come through my office or Lieutenant Tom O’Rourke in media relations. Understood?”

The seven detectives nodded.

“Good. That means I will not have to fear picking the Times up off the driveway in the morning.”

Irving looked at his watch and then back at the group.

“I can control you people but not the coroner’s people or anyone else who learns about this through official channels in the next few hours. I figure by ten hundred the media will be all over this with full knowledge of the victims’ identities. So I want a briefing in the conference room at ten hundred. After I am up-to-date I will brief the chief of police and one of us will address the media with the bare minimum of information we wish to put out. Any problem with that?”

“Chief, that barely gives us six hours,” Bosch said. “I don’t know how much more we’ll know by then. We’ve got a lot of legwork to do before we can sit down and start sifting through — ”

“That is understood. You are to feel no pressure from the media. I do not care if the press conference is merely to confirm who is dead and nothing else. The media will not be running this case. I want you to run with it full bore, but at ten hundred I want everyone back at my conference room. Questions?”

There were none.

“Okay, then I will turn it over to Detective Bosch and leave you people to it.”

He turned directly to Bosch and handed him a white business card.

“You have all my numbers there. Lieutenant Tulin’s as well. Anything comes up that I should know about, you call me forthwith. I do not care what time it is or where you are at. You call me.”

Bosch nodded, took the card and put it in his jacket pocket.

“Go to it, people. As I said before, let the chips fall where they may.”

He left the room and Bosch heard Rider whisper, “Yeah, right.”

Bosch turned and looked at the faces of the new team, coming to Chastain’s last.

“You know what he’s doing, don’t you?” Bosch said. “He thinks we can’t work together. He thinks we’ll be like those fighting fish that you put in the same bowl and they go nuts trying to get at each other. Meantime, the case is never cleared. Well, it’s not going to happen. Anything anybody in here’s ever done to me or anyone else, forget about it. I let it go. This case is the thing. There are two people in that train that somebody blew away without so much as a second thought. We’re going to find that person. That’s all I care about now.”

He held Chastain’s eyes until he finally saw a slight nod of agreement. Bosch nodded back. He was sure all the others had seen the exchange. He then took out his notebook and opened it to a fresh page. He handed it to Chastain.

“Okay, then,” he said. “I want everybody to write down their names followed by their home and pager numbers. Cell phones, too, if you got ’em. I’ll make a list up and everybody will get copies. I want everybody in communication. That’s the trouble with these big gang bangs. If everybody isn’t on the same wavelength, something can slip through. We don’t want that.”

Bosch stopped and looked at the others. They were all watching him, paying attention. It seemed that for the moment the natural animosities were relaxed, if not forgotten.

“Okay,” he said. “This is how we’re going to break this down from here on out.”

Chapter 6

O
NE of the men from IAD was a Latino named Raymond Fuentes. Bosch sent him along with Edgar to the address on Catalina Perez’s identification cards to notify her next of kin and to handle the questions about her. It was most likely the dead-end part of the investigation — it seemed apparent that Elias was the primary target — and Edgar tried to protest. But Bosch cut him off. The explanation he would share privately with Edgar later was that he needed to spread the IAD men out in order to give him better control of things. So Edgar went with Fuentes. And Rider was sent with a second IAD man, Loomis Baker, to interview Eldrige Peete at Parker Center and then bring him back to the scene. Bosch wanted the train operator at the scene to go over what he had seen and to operate the train as he had before discovering the bodies.