Echo Park (14 page)

17

B
OSCH STRODE THROUGH
the emergency room entrance with his badge out. An intake receptionist sat behind a counter, taking information from a man huddled over on a chair in front of her. When Bosch came close he saw that the man was cradling his left arm like a baby. The wrist was bent at an unnatural angle.

“The police officer who was brought in on a medevac?” he said, not caring about interrupting.

“I have no information, sir,” the desk woman said. “If you’ll take—”

“Where can I get information? Where’s the doctor?”

“The doctor is with the patient, sir. If I asked him to come out to speak to you, then he wouldn’t be taking care of the officer, would he?”

“Then, she’s still alive?”

“Sir, I can’t give out any information at this time. If you’ll—”

Bosch walked away from the counter and over to a set of double doors. He pushed a button on the wall that automatically swung them open. Behind him he heard the desk woman yelling to him. He didn’t stop. He stepped through the doors into the emergency treatment area. There were eight curtained patient bays, four on each side of the room, and the nurses’ and physicians’ stations were in the middle. The place was abuzz. Outside a patient bay on the right Bosch saw one of the paramedics from the helicopter. He went to him.

“How is she?”

“She’s holding on. She lost a lot of blood and—”

He stopped when he turned and saw that it was Bosch next to him.

“I’m not sure you’re supposed to be in here, Officer. I think you better step out to the waiting room and—”

“She’s my partner and I want to know what is happening.”

“She’s got one of the best ER attendings in the city trying to keep her alive. My bet is that he will do just that. But you can’t stand here and watch.”

“Sir?”

Bosch turned. A man in a private security uniform was approaching with the desk woman. Bosch held his hands up.

“I just want to be told what is happening.”

“Sir, you will have to come with me, please,” the guard said.

He put his hand on Bosch’s arm. Bosch shrugged it off.

“I’m a police detective. You don’t need to touch me. I just want to know what is happening with my partner.”

“Sir, you will be told all you need to know in good time. If you will please come—”

The guard made the mistake of attempting to take Bosch by the arm again. This time Bosch didn’t shrug it off. He slapped the man’s hand away.

“I said, don’t—”

“Hold on, hold on,” said the paramedic. “Tell you what, Detective, let’s go to the machines and get a coffee or something and I’ll tell you everything that’s happening with your partner, okay?”

Bosch didn’t answer. The paramedic sweetened the offer.

“I’ll even get you some clean scrubs so you can get out of those muddy and bloody clothes. Sound good?”

Bosch relented, the security man nodded his approval and the paramedic led the way, first to a supply closet where he looked at Bosch and guessed that he would need mediums. He pulled pale blue scrubs and booties off the shelves and handed them over. They then went down a hallway to the nurses’ break room, where there were coin-operated machines serving coffee, sodas and snacks. Bosch took a black coffee. He had no change but the paramedic did.

“You want to clean up and change first? You can use the lav right over there.”

“Just tell me what you know first.”

“Have a seat.”

They sat at a round table across from each other. The paramedic reached his hand across the table.

“Dale Dillon.”

Bosch quickly shook his hand.

“Harry Bosch.”

“Good to meet you, Detective Bosch. The first thing I need to do is thank you for your efforts out there in the mud. You and the others there probably saved your partner’s life. She lost a lot of blood but she’s a fighter. They’re putting her back together and hopefully she’ll be all right.”

“How bad is it?”

“It’s bad but it’s one of those cases where they won’t know until she stabilizes. The bullet hit one of her carotid arteries. That’s what they are working on now—getting her ready to take to the OR so they can repair the artery. Meantime, since she lost a lot of blood, the risk right now is stroke. So she’s not out of the woods yet, but if she avoids going into stroke she should come out of this okay. ‘Okay’ meaning alive and functioning with a lot of rehab ahead of her.”

Bosch nodded.

“That’s the unofficial version. I’m not a doctor and I shouldn’t have told you any of that.”

Bosch felt his cell phone vibrating in his pocket but he ignored it.

“I appreciate that you did,” he said. “When will I be able to see her?”

“I have no idea, man. I just bring ’em in here. I told you all I know and that was probably too much. If you’re going to wait around I suggest you wash your face and change out of those clothes. You’re probably scaring people with the way you look.”

Bosch nodded and Dillon stood up. He had defused a potentially explosive ER situation and his work was done.

“Thanks, Dale.”

“No problemo. Take her easy and if you see the security guard, you might want to . . .”

He left it at that.

“I will,” Bosch said.

After the paramedic left, Bosch went into the lavatory and stripped off his sweatshirt. Because there were no pockets in the surgical clothes and no place for him to carry his weapon, phone, badge and other things, he decided to leave his dirty jeans on. He looked at himself in the mirror and saw that he had blood and dirt smeared on his face. He spent the next five minutes washing up, running the soap and water over his hands until he finally saw the water running clear into the drain.

When he stepped out of the lavatory he noticed that someone had come into the break room and either taken or thrown out his coffee. He checked his pockets again for change but still didn’t find any.

Bosch walked back to the ER reception area and now found it crowded with police, both uniformed and not. His supervisor, Abel Pratt, was there among the suits. He looked as though the blood had completely drained from his face. He saw Bosch and immediately came over.

“Harry, how is she? What happened?”

“They’re not giving me anything official. The paramedic who brought her in said it looks like she’ll be okay, unless something new happens.”

“Thank Christ! What happened up there?”

“I’m not sure. Waits got a gun and started shooting. Anything on whether they’ve got a bead on him?”

“He dumped the car he jacked by the Red Line station on Hollywood Boulevard. They don’t know where the fuck he is.”

Bosch thought about that. He knew that if Waits had gone underground on the Red Line, he could have gone anywhere from North Hollywood to downtown. The downtown line had a stop near Echo Park.

“Are they looking in Echo Park?”

“They’re looking everywhere, man. OIS is sending a team here to talk to you. I didn’t think you’d be willing to leave to go to Parker.”

“Right.”

“Well, you know how to handle it. Just tell it like it was.”

“Right.”

The Officer Involved Shooting squad would not be a problem. As far as Bosch could see he had not personally done anything wrong in the handling of Waits. OIS was a rubber-stamp squad, anyway.

“They’ll be a while,” Pratt said. “They’re up at Sunset Ranch right now interviewing the others. How the fuck did he get a gun?”

Bosch shook his head.

“Olivas got too close to him while he was coming up a ladder. He grabbed it then and started shooting. Olivas and Kiz were up top. It happened so fast and I was down below them.”

“Jesus Christ!”

Pratt shook his head and Bosch knew he wanted to ask more questions about what had happened and how it could have happened. He was probably worried about his own situation as much as he was worried about Rider pulling through. Bosch decided he needed to tell him about the thing that could be a containment problem.

“He wasn’t cuffed,” he said in a low voice. “We had to take off the cuffs so he could go up a ladder. The cuffs were going to be off for thirty seconds at the max, and that’s when he made his move. Olivas let him get too close. That’s how it started.”

Pratt looked stunned. He spoke slowly, as if not understanding.

“You took the cuffs off?”

“O’Shea told us to.”

“Good. They can blame him. I don’t want any blowback on Open-Unsolved. I don’t want any on me. It’s not my idea of the way to go out after twenty-five fucking years.”

“What about Kiz? You’re not going to cut her loose, are you?”

“No, I’m not going to cut her loose. I’ll stand behind Kiz but I’m not standing behind O’Shea. Fuck him.”

Bosch’s phone vibrated again and this time he took it out of his pocket to check the screen. It said “Unknown Number.” He answered it anyway to get away from Pratt’s questions, judgments, and ass-covering strategies. It was Rachel.

“Harry, we just got the BOLO on Waits. What happened?”

Bosch realized he was going to be telling the story over and over for the rest of the day and possibly the rest of his life. He excused himself and stepped into an alcove where there were pay phones and a water fountain so he could speak privately. As concisely as possible he told her what had happened at the top of Beachwood Canyon and what the situation was with Rider. As he told the story he replayed the visual memories of the moment he saw Waits go for the gun. He replayed their efforts to stop the bleeding and save his partner.

Rachel offered to come to the ER but Bosch talked her out of it, saying he wasn’t sure how long he would be there and reminding her he would likely be taken into a private interview with OIS investigators.

“Will I see you tonight?” she asked.

“If I get done with everything and Kiz is stable. Otherwise, I might stay here.”

“I’m going to go to your place. Call me and let me know what you know.”

“I will.”

Bosch stepped out of the alcove and saw that the ER waiting room was beginning to fill with media now as well as cops. Bosch guessed this probably meant the word had gone out that the chief of police was on his way. Bosch didn’t mind. Maybe the leverage of having the chief in the ER would get the hospital to open up with some information about his partner’s condition.

He walked up to Pratt, who was standing with his boss, Captain Norona, the head of the Robbery-Homicide Division.

“What’s going to happen with the excavation?” he asked both of them.

“I’ve got Rick Jackson and Tim Marcia headed up there,” Pratt said. “They’ll handle it.”

“It’s my case,” Bosch said, a mild protest in his voice.

“Not anymore,” Norona said. “You’re with OIS until they finish this thing up. You’re the only one with a badge who was up there and is still able to talk about it. That’s front burner. The Gesto dig is back burner and Marcia and Jackson will handle it.”

Bosch knew there would be no use arguing. The captain was right. Though there were four others present at the shooting who were unharmed, it would be Bosch’s description and memory that would count the most.

There was a commotion at the ER entrance as several men with TV cameras on their shoulders jostled one another for position on either side of the double doors. When the doors came open, an entourage entered with the chief of police at the center. The chief strode to the reception desk, where he was met by Norona. They spoke to the same woman who had rejected Bosch earlier. This time she was the picture of cooperation, immediately picking up a phone and making a call. She obviously knew who counted and who didn’t.

Inside of three minutes the hospital’s chief surgeon came through the ER doors and invited the chief back for a private consultation. As they moved through the doors Bosch hitched a ride, joining the group of sixth-floor commanders and assistants in the chief’s wake.

“Excuse me, Dr. Kim,” a voice from behind the group called.

They all stopped and turned. It was the desk woman. She pointed at Bosch and said, “He’s not with that group.”

The chief noticed Bosch for the first time and corrected her.

“He most certainly is,” he said in a tone that invited no disagreement.

The desk woman looked chastened. The group moved forward and Dr. Kim ushered them into an unused ER patient bay. They gathered around an empty bed.

“Chief, your officer is being—”

“Detective. She’s a detective.”

“I’m sorry. Your detective is being cared for in ICU by Drs. Patel and Worthing. I cannot interrupt their care to have them update you, so I am prepared to answer what questions you might have.”

“Fine. Is she going to make it?” the chief said bluntly.

“We think so, yes. That is really not the question. The question is about permanent damage and we won’t know that for some time. One of the bullets damaged one of the carotid arteries. The carotid delivers blood and oxygen to the brain. We don’t know at this point what the interruption of the flow was or is, and what damage might have occurred.”

“Aren’t there tests that can be conducted?”

“Yes, sir, there are and, preliminarily, we are seeing routine brain activity at this time. That is very good news so far.”

“Is she able to talk?”

“Not at this time. She was anesthetized during surgery and it is going to be several hours before she might be able to talk. Accent on ‘might.’ We won’t know what we have until late tonight or tomorrow, when she comes out of it.”

The chief nodded.

“Thank you, Dr. Kim.”

The chief started to make a move toward the opening in the curtain and everyone else turned to leave as well. Then he turned back to the head surgeon.

“Dr. Kim,” he said in a low voice. “At one time this woman worked directly for me. I don’t want to lose her.”

“We are doing our very best, Chief. We won’t lose her.”

The police chief nodded. As the group then shuffled toward the doors to the waiting room Bosch felt a hand grasp his shoulder. He turned to see that it was the chief. He pulled Bosch aside and into a private discussion.