Michael Connelly (58 page)

“There you go,” Irving said. “Now I can tell Detective Sheehan that you concur. Just as if you had gotten the first callout.
No reason for anybody to feel left out.”

“That’s not the point, Chief.”

“What is the point, Detective? That you can’t go along to get along? That you do not accept the command decisions of this
department? I am losing my patience with you, Detective. Something I had hoped would never happen to me again.”

Irving was standing too close to Bosch, his wintergreen breath puffing right in his face. It made Bosch feel pinned down by
the man and he wondered if it was done on purpose. He stepped back and said, “But no note.”

“No note yet. We still have some things to check.”

Bosch wondered what. Moore’s apartment and office would have been checked when he first turned up missing. Same with his wife’s
home. What was left? Could Moore have mailed a note to somebody? It would have arrived by now.

“When did it happen?”

“Hopefully, we’ll get an idea from the autopsy tomorrow morning. But I am guessing he did it shortly after he checked in.
Six days ago. In his first interview, the manager said Moore checked in six days ago and hadn’t been seen outside the room
since. This jibes with the condition of the room, the condition of the body, the date on the newspaper.”

The autopsy was tomorrow morning. That told Bosch that Irving had this one greased. It usually took three days to get an autopsy
done. And the Christmas holiday would back things up even further.

Irving seemed to know what he was thinking.

“The acting chief medical examiner has agreed to do it tomorrow morning. I explained there would be speculation in the media
that would not be fair to the man’s wife or the department. She agreed to cooperate. After all, the acting chief wants to
become the permanent chief. She knows the value of cooperation.”

Bosch didn’t say anything.

“So we will know then. But nobody, the manager included, saw Sergeant Moore after he checked in six days ago. He left specific
instructions that he was absolutely not to be disturbed. I think he went ahead and did it shortly after checking in.”

“So why didn’t they find him sooner?”

“He paid for a month in advance. He demanded no disturbances. A place like this, they don’t offer daily maid service anyway.
The manager thought he was a drunk who was either going to go on a binge or try to dry out. Either way, a place like this,
the manager can’t be choosey. A month, that’s $600. He took the money.

“And they made good on their promise not to go to room seven until today, when the manager’s wife noticed that Mr. Moya’s
car — the Mustang — had been broken into last night. That and, of course, they were curious. They knocked on his door to tell
him but he didn’t answer. They used a passkey. The smell told them what was happening as soon as they opened the door.”

Irving said that Moore/Moya had set the air-conditioner on its highest and coldest level to slow decomposition and keep the
odor contained in the room. Wet towels had been laid across the floor at the bottom of the front door to further seal the
room.

“Nobody heard the shot?” Bosch asked.

“Not that we found. The manager’s wife is nearly deaf and he says he didn’t hear anything. They live in the last room on the
other side. We’ve got stores on one side, an office building on the other. They all close at night. Alley behind. We are going
through the registry and will try to track other guests that were here the first few days Moore was. But the manager says
he never rented the rooms on either side of Moore’s. He figured Moore might get loud if he was detoxing cold turkey.

“And, Detective, it is a busy street — bus stop right out front. It could have been that nobody heard a thing. Or if they
heard it, didn’t know what it was.”

After some thought, Bosch said, “I don’t get renting the place for a month. I mean, why? If the guy was going to off himself,
why try to hide it for so long? Why not do it and let them find your body, end of story?”

“That’s a tough one,” Irving said. “Near as I can figure it, he wanted to cut his wife a break.”

Bosch raised his eyebrows. He didn’t get it.

“They were separated,” Irving said. “Maybe he didn’t want to put this on her during the holidays. So he tried to hold up the
news a couple weeks, maybe a month.”

That seemed pretty thin to Bosch but he had no better explanation just then. He could think of nothing else to ask at that
moment. Irving changed the subject, signaling that Bosch’s visit to the crime scene was over.

“So, Detective, how is the shoulder?”

“It’s fine.” “I heard you went down to Mexico to polish your Spanish while you mended.”

Bosch didn’t reply. He wasn’t interested in this banter. He wanted to tell Irving that he didn’t buy the scene, even with
all the evidence and explanations that had been gathered. But he couldn’t say why, and until he could, he would be better
off keeping quiet.

Irving was saying, “I have never thought that enough of our officers — the non-Latins, of course — make a good enough effort
to learn the second language of this city. I want to see the whole depart —”

“Got a note,” Donovan called from the room.

Irving broke away from Bosch without another word and headed to the door. Sheehan followed him into the room along with a
suit Bosch recognized as an Internal Affairs detective named John Chastain. Harry hesitated a moment before following them
in.

One of the ME techs was standing in the hallway near the bathroom door with the others gathered around him. Bosch wished he
hadn’t thrown away his handkerchief. He kept the cigarette in his mouth and breathed in deeply.

“Right rear pocket,” the tech said. “There’s putrefaction but you can make it out. It was folded over twice so the inside
surface is pretty clean.”

Irving backed out of the hallway holding a plastic evidence bag up and looking at the small piece of paper inside it. The
others crowded around him. Except for Bosch.

The paper was gray like Moore’s skin. Bosch thought he could see one line of blue writing on the paper. Irving looked over
at him as if seeing him for the first time.

“Bosch, you will have to go.”

Harry wanted to ask what the note said but knew he would be rejected. He saw a satisfied smirk on Chastain’s face.

At the yellow tape he stopped to light another cigarette. He heard the clicking of high heels and turned to see one of the
reporters, a blonde he recognized from Channel 2, coming at him with a wireless microphone in her hand and a model’s phoney
smile on her face. She moved in on him in a well-practiced and quick maneuver. But before she could speak Harry said, “No
comment. I’m not on the case.”

“Can’t you just —”

“No comment.”

The smile dropped off her face as quick as a guillotine’s blade. She turned away angrily. But within a moment her heels were
clicking sharply again as she moved with her cameraman into position for the A-shot, the one her report would lead with. The
body was coming out. The strobes flared and the six cameramen formed a gauntlet. The two medical examiner’s men, pushing the
covered body on a gurney, passed through it on the way to the waiting blue van. Harry noticed that a grim-faced Irving, walking
stoically erect, trailed behind — but not far enough behind to be left out of the video frame. After all, any appearance on
the nightly news was better than none, especially for a man with an eye on the chief’s office.

After that, the crime scene began to break up. Everybody was leaving. The reporters, cops, everybody. Bosch ducked under the
yellow tape and was looking around for Donovan or Sheehan when Irving came up on him.

“Detective, on second thought, there is something I need you to do that will help expedite matters. Detective Sheehan has
to finish securing the scene here. But I want to beat the media to Moore’s wife. Can you handle next-of-kin notification?
Of course, nothing is definite but I want his wife to know what is happening.”

Bosch had made such a show of indignation earlier, he couldn’t back away now. He wanted part of the case; he got it.

“Give me the address,” he said.

A few minutes later Irving was gone and the uniforms were pulling down the yellow tape. Bosch saw Donovan heading to his van,
carrying the shotgun, which was wrapped in plastic, and several smaller evidence bags.

Harry used the van’s bumper to tie his shoe while Donovan stowed the evidence bags in a wooden box that had once carried Napa
Valley wine.

“What do you want, Harry? I just found out you weren’t supposed to be here.”

“That was before. This is now. I just got put on the case. I got next-of-kin duty.”

“Some case to be put on.”

“Yeah, well, you take what they give. What did he say?”

“Who?”

“Moore.”

“Look, Harry, this is —” “Look, Donnie, Irving gave me next of kin. I think that cuts me in. I just want to know what he said.
I knew this guy, okay? It won’t go anywhere else.”

Donovan exhaled heavily, reached into the box and began sorting through the evidence bags.

“Really didn’t say much at all. Nothing that profound.”

He turned on a flashlight and put the beam on the bag with the note in it. Just one line.

I found out who I was

The address Irving had given him was in Canyon Country, nearly an hour’s drive north of Hollywood. Bosch took the Hollywood
Freeway north, then connected with the Golden State and took it through the dark cleft of the Santa Susanna Mountains. Traffic
was sparse. Most people were inside their homes eating roasted turkey and dressing, he guessed. Bosch thought of Cal Moore
and what he did and what he left behind.

I found out who I was.

Bosch had no clue to what the dead cop had meant by the one line scratched on a small piece of paper and placed in the back
pocket. Harry’s single experience with Moore was all he had to go on. And what was that? A couple of hours drinking beer and
whiskey with a morose and cynical cop. There was no way to know what had happened in the meantime. To know how the shell that
protected him had corroded.

• • •

He thought back on his meeting with Moore. It had been only a few weeks before and it had been business, but Moore’s problems
managed to come up. They met on a Tuesday night at the Catalina Bar & Grill. Moore was working but the Catalina was just a
half block south of the Boulevard. Harry was waiting at the bar in the back corner. They never charged cops the cover.

Moore slid onto the next stool and ordered a shot and a Henry’s, the same as Bosch had on the bar in front of him. He was
wearing jeans and a sweatshirt that hung loose over his belt. Standard undercover attire and he looked at home in it. The
thighs of the jeans were worn gray. The sleeves of the sweatshirt were cut off and peeking from below the frayed fringe of
the right arm was the face of a devil tattooed in blue ink. Moore was handsome in a rugged way, but he was at least three
days past needing a shave and he had a look about him, an unsteadiness — like a hostage released after long captivity and
torment. In the Catalina crowd he stood out like a garbage man at a wedding. Harry noticed that the narc hooked gray snakeskin
boots on the side rungs of the stool. They were bulldoggers, the boots favored by rodeo ropers because the heels angled forward
to give better traction when taking down a roped calf. Harry knew street narcs called them “dustbusters” because they served
the same purpose when they were taking down a suspect high on angel dust.

They smoked and drank and small-talked at first, trying to establish connections and boundaries. Bosch noticed that the name
Calexico truly represented Moore’s mixed heritage. Dark complexioned, with hair black as ink, thin hips and wide shoulders,
Moore’s dark, ethnic image was contradicted by his eyes. They were the eyes of a California surfer, green like anti-freeze.
And there was not a trace of Mexico in his voice.

“There’s a border town named Calexico. Right across from Mexicali. Ever been there?”

“I was born there. That’s how come I got the name.”

“I’ve never been.”

“Don’t worry, you haven’t missed much. Just a border town like all the rest. I still go on down every now and then.”

“Family?”

“Nah, not anymore.”

Moore signaled the bartender for another round, then lit a cigarette off the one he had smoked down to the filter.

“I thought you had something to ask about,” he said.

“Yeah, I do. I gotta case.”

The drinks arrived and Moore threw his shot back in one smooth movement. He had ordered another before the bartender had finished
writing on the tab.

Bosch began to outline his case. He had caught it a few weeks earlier and so far had gotten nowhere. The body of a thirty-year-old
male, later identified through fingerprints as James Kappalanni of Oahu, Hawaii, was dumped beneath the Hollywood Freeway
crossing over Gower Street. He had been strangled with an eighteen-inch length of baling wire with wooden dowels at the ends,
the better to grip the wire with after it had been wrapped around somebody’s neck. Very neat and efficient job. Kappallani’s
face was the bluish gray color of an oyster. The blue Hawaiian, the acting chief medical examiner had called him when she
did the autopsy. By then Bosch knew through NCIC and DOJ computer runs that in life he had also been known as Jimmy Kapps,
and that he had a drug record that printed out about as long as the wire somebody had used to take his life.