The Last Coyote (12 page)

Chapter Sixteen

W
AITING FOR THE
elevator, Bosch guessed that his effort to persuade Hirsch had fallen on deaf ears. Hirsch was the type of guy whose exterior scars masked deeper interior wounds. There were a lot in the department like him. Hirsch had grown up intimidated by his own face. He’d probably be the last person to dare go outside the bounds of his job or the rules. Another department automaton. For him, doing the right thing was ignoring Bosch. Or turning him in.

He punched at the elevator button with his finger again and contemplated what else he could do. The AFIS search was a long shot but he still wanted it done. It was a loose end and any thorough investigation took care of loose ends. He decided he would give Hirsch a day and then he’d make another run at him. If that didn’t work, he’d try another tech. He’d try them all until he got the killer’s prints into that machine.

The elevator finally opened and he squeezed on. That was one of the only things you could rely on inside Parker Center. Cops would come and go, chiefs, even political power structures, but the elevators would always move slowly and always be crowded when they got to you. Bosch pushed the unlighted button marked B as the doors slowly closed and the square room started to descend. While everyone stood and stared blankly at the lighted numbers over the door, Bosch looked down at his briefcase. No one in the small space spoke. Until, as the car slowed to its next stop, Bosch heard his first name spoken from behind. He turned his head slightly, not sure if it had been someone speaking to him or the name had been directed toward someone else.

His eyes fell on Assistant Chief Irvin S. Irving standing in the rear of the elevator. They exchanged nods just as the doors opened on the first floor. Bosch wondered if Irving had seen him push the button for the basement. There was no reason for a man on involuntary stress leave to be going to the basement.

Bosch decided the car was too crowded for Irving to have seen what button he had pushed. He stepped off the elevator into the alcove off the main lobby and Irving followed him out and caught up with him.

“Chief.”

“What brings you all the way in, Harry?”

It was said casually but the question signaled that there was more than passing interest from Irving. They started walking toward the exit, Bosch quickly putting a story together.

“I have to go over to Chinatown anyway, so I dropped by to go to payroll. I wanted to see about them sending my check to my house instead of out to Hollywood, since I’m not sure when I’ll be back.”

Irving nodded and Bosch was pretty sure he had bought it. He was about Bosch’s size but had the stand-out feature of a completely shaved head. That feature and his reputation for intolerance for corrupt cops got him the nickname within the department of Mr. Clean.

“You’re in Chinatown today? I thought you were Monday, Wednesday, Friday. That was the schedule I approved.”

“Yes, that’s the schedule. But she had an opening come up today and wanted me to come in.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear you being so cooperative. What happened to your hand?”

“Oh, this?” Bosch held up his hand as if it were someone else’s that he had just noticed at the end of his arm. “I’ve been using some of my free time to do some work around the house and I cut it on a piece of broken glass. I’m still doing clean-up from the quake.”

“I see.”

Bosch guessed that he didn’t buy that one. But he didn’t really care.

“I’m getting a quick lunch in the Federal Plaza,” Irving said. “You want to come along?”

“Thanks just the same, Chief. I already ate.”

“Okay, well, take care of yourself. I mean that.”

“I will. Thanks.”

Irving started off and then stopped.

“You know, we’re handling this situation with you a little differently because I hope to get you back in there at Hollywood homicide without any change in grade or position. I’m waiting to hear from Dr. Hinojos but I understand it will be a few more weeks, at least.”

“That’s what she tells me.”

“You know, if you’re willing to do it, an apology in the form of a letter to Lieutenant Pounds could be beneficial. When push comes to shove, I’m going to have to sell him on letting you back in there. That will be the hard part. I think getting you a clean bill from the doctor won’t be a problem. I can simply issue the order and Lieutenant Pounds will have to accept it, but that won’t ease the pressure there. I would rather work it that he accepts your return and everybody’s happy.”

“Well, I heard he already’s got a replacement for me.”

“Pounds?”

“He paired my partner with somebody off autos. Doesn’t sound to me like he’s expecting or planning on me coming back, Chief.”

“Well, that’s news to me. I’ll talk to him about that. What do you think about this letter? It could go a long way toward helping your situation.”

Bosch hesitated before answering. He knew Irving wanted to help him. The two of them shared an unspoken bond. Once they had been complete enemies in the department. But contempt had eroded into a truce which now was more a line of wary mutual respect.

“I’ll think about the letter, Chief,” Bosch finally said. “I’ll let you know.”

“Very well. You know, Harry, pride gets in the way of a lot of the right decisions. Don’t let that happen to you.”

“I’ll think about it.”

Bosch watched him bound off around the fountain memorial to officers killed in the line of duty. He watched until Irving got to Temple and started to cross Los Angeles Street to the Federal Plaza, where there was an array of fast-food emporiums. Then Bosch figured it was safe and turned to go back inside.

He skipped waiting for the elevator again and went down the stairs to the basement.

Most of the underground floor of Parker Center was taken up by the Evidence Storage Division. There were a few other offices, like the Fugitives Division, but it was generally a quiet floor. Bosch found no pedestrian traffic on the long yellow linoleum hallway and was able to get to the steel double doors of ESD without running into anyone else he knew.

The police department held physical evidence on investigations that had not yet gone to the district attorney or city attorney for filing. Once that happened, the evidence usually stayed with the prosecutor’s office.

Essentially, that made ESD the city’s temple of failure. What was behind the steel doors Bosch opened was the physical evidence from thousands of unsolved crimes. Crimes that had never resulted in prosecution. It even smelled of failure. Because it was in the basement of the building, there was a damp odor here that Bosch always believed was the rank stink of neglect and decay. Of hopelessness.

Bosch stepped into a small room that was essentially a wire-mesh cage. There was another door on the other side but there was a sign on it that said ESD STAFF ONLY. There were two windows cut in the mesh. One was closed and a uniform officer sat behind the other working on a crossword puzzle. Between the two windows was another sign that said DO NOT STORE LOADED FIREARMS. Bosch walked up to the open window and leaned on the counter. The officer looked up after filling in a word on the puzzle. Bosch saw the name tag on his uniform said Nelson. Nelson read Bosch’s ID card so Bosch didn’t have to bother to introduce himself, either. It worked out nicely.

“Her…on—how you say that?”

“Hieronymus. Rhymes with anonymous.”

“Hieronymus. Isn’t there a rock and roll band named that?”

“Maybe.”

“What can I do for you, Hieronymus from Hollywood?”

“I got a question.”

“Shoot.”

Bosch put the pink evidence check slip on the counter.

“I want to pull the box on this case. It’s pretty old. Would it still be around anywhere?”

The cop took the slip, looked at it and whistled when he saw the year. While writing the case number down on a request log, he said, “Should be here. Don’t see why not. Nothing gets tossed, you know. You want to look at the Black Dahlia case, we got that. That’s what, fifty-something years old. We got ’em going back even further. If it ain’t solved, it’s here.”

He looked up at Bosch and winked.

“Be right back. Why don’t you fill out the form.”

Nelson pointed with his pen out the window to a counter on the back wall where the standard request forms were. He got up and disappeared from the window. Bosch heard him yell to someone else in the back.

“Charlie! Hey, Char-LEE!”

A voice from somewhere in the back yelled a response that was unintelligible.

“Take the window,” Nelson called back. “I’m taking the time machine.”

Bosch had heard about the time machine. It was a golf cart they used to get back to the deep recesses of the storage facility. The older the case, the farther back in time it went, the farther away it was from the front windows. The time machine got the window cops back there.

Bosch walked over to the counter and filled out a request form, then reached in the window and put it on the crossword puzzle. While he was waiting, he looked around and noticed another sign on the back wall. NARCOTICS EVIDENCE NOT RELEASED WITHOUT 492 FORM. Bosch had no idea what that form was. Somebody came through the steel doors then carrying a murder book. A detective, but Bosch didn’t recognize him. He opened it on the counter, got a case number and then filled out a form. He then went to the window. There was no sign of Charlie. After a few minutes, the detective turned to Bosch.

“Anybody working back there?”

“Yeah, one guy went to get me a box. He told another guy to watch. I don’t know where he is.”

“Shit.”

He rapped sharply with his knuckles on the counter. In a few minutes another uniform cop came to the window. He was an old horse, with white hair and a pear shape. Bosch guessed he’d been working in the basement for years. His skin was as white as a vampire’s. He took the other detective’s evidence request slip and was gone. Then both Bosch and the other detective were left waiting. Bosch could tell the other man had started looking at him but was acting like he wasn’t.

“You’re Bosch, right?” he finally asked. “From Hollywood?”

Bosch nodded. The other man put out his hand and smiled.

“Tom North, Pacific. We’ve never met.”

“No.”

Bosch shook his hand but didn’t act enthusiastic about the introduction.

“We never met but listen, I worked Devonshire burglary for six years before I got my homicide gig in Pacific. Know who my CO was up there back then?”

Bosch shook his head. He didn’t know and he didn’t care but North didn’t seem to realize that.

“Pounds. Lieutenant Harvey ‘Ninety-eight’ Pounds. The fuck. He was my CO. So, anyway, I heard through the network, you know, what you did to his ass. Put his face right through the fuckin’ window. That’s great, man, fuckin’ great. More power to you. I laughed my ass off when I heard that.”

“Well, I’m glad it entertained you.”

“No, really, I know you’re getting piped for it. I heard about that, too. But I just wanted to let you know you made my day and a lot of people are with you, man.”

“Thanks.”

“So what are you doing down here? I heard they had you on the Fifty-One-Fifty list.”

It annoyed Bosch to realize that there were those in the department whom he didn’t even know who knew what had happened to him and what his situation was. He tried to keep calm.

“Listen, I—”

“Bosch! You gotta box!”

It was the time traveler, Nelson. He was at the window, pushing a light blue box through the opening. It was about the size of a boot box and was held closed with red tape that was cracking with age. It looked like the box was powdered with dust. Bosch didn’t bother finishing his sentence. He waved off North and went to the box.

“Sign here,” Nelson said.

He put a yellow slip down on top of the box. It kicked up a small dust cloud, which he waved away with his hand. Bosch signed the paper and took the box in two hands. He turned and saw North looking at him. North just nodded once. He seemed to know it wasn’t the right time to ask questions. Bosch nodded back and headed to the door.

“Uh, Bosch?” North said. “I didn’t mean anything about what I said. About the list. No offense, okay?”

Bosch stared at him as he pushed through the door with his back. But he didn’t say anything. He then proceeded down the hall carrying the box with two hands, as if it contained something precious.

Chapter Seventeen

C
ARMEN HINOJOS
was in her waiting room when Bosch got there a few minutes late. She ushered him in and waved off his apology for lateness as if it was unnecessary. She wore a dark blue suit and as he passed her in the doorway he smelled a light soapy fragrance. He took the seat on the right side of the desk near the window again.

Hinojos smiled and Bosch wondered why. There were two chairs on the other side of the desk from her. So far, in three meetings, he had taken the same one each time. The one closest to the window. He wondered if she had taken note of this and what, if anything, it meant.

“Are you tired?” she asked. “You don’t look like you got much sleep last night.”

“I guess I didn’t. But I’m fine.”

“Have you changed your mind about anything we discussed yesterday?”

“No, not really.”

“You are continuing this private investigation?”

“For now.”

She nodded in a way that told him she expected his reply.

“I want to talk about your mother today.”

“Why? It’s got nothing to do with why I’m here, why I’m on leave.”

“I think it’s important. I think it will help us get to what is happening with you, what has made you take on this private investigation of yours. It might explain a lot about your recent actions.”

“I doubt it. What do you want to know?”

“When you spoke yesterday, you made several references to her lifestyle, but you never really came out and said what she did, what she was. Thinking about it after the session, I was wondering if you have trouble accepting what she was. To the point of not being able to say she—”

“Was a prostitute? There, I said it. She was a prostitute. I’m a grown man, Doctor. I accept the truth. I accept the truth in anything as long as it’s the truth. I think you’re going far afield here.”

“Perhaps. What do you feel about her now?”

“What do you mean?”

“Anger? Hatred? Love?”

“I don’t think about it. Certainly not hate. I loved her at the time. After she was gone that didn’t change.”

“What about abandonment?”

“I’m too old for that.”

“What about back then? Back when it happened.”

Bosch thought a moment.

“I’m sure there was some of that. Her lifestyle, her line of work, got her killed. And I was left behind the fence. I guess I was mad about that and felt abandoned. I was also hurt. The hurt was the worst part. She loved me.”

“What do you mean, left behind the fence?”

“I told you yesterday. I was in McClaren, the youth hall.”

“Right. So her death prevented you from leaving there, correct?”

“For a while.”

“How long?”

“I was there on and off until I was sixteen. I lived a few months two different times with some fosters but I always got sent back. Then, when I was sixteen, another couple took me. I was with them until I was seventeen. I found out later that they kept getting the DPSS checks for a year after I’d split.”

“DPSS?”

“Department of Public Social Services. Now they call it the Division of Youth Services. Anyway, when you took a kid into your home as foster parents, you got a monthly support payment. A lot of people took kids in just for those checks. I’m not saying these people did, but they never told DPSS I wasn’t in their home anymore after I left.”

“I understand. Where were you?”

“Vietnam.”

“Wait a minute, let’s go back. You said that two different times before this you lived with foster parents but were then sent back. What happened? Why were you sent back?”

“I don’t know. They didn’t like me. They said it wasn’t working out. I went back into the dorms behind the fence and waited. I think getting rid of a teenage boy was about as easy as selling a car with no wheels. The fosters always wanted the younger ones.”

“Did you ever run away from the hall?”

“A couple times. I always got caught in Hollywood.”

“If placing teenagers was so difficult, how did it happen to you the third time, when you were even older, sixteen?”

Bosch laughed falsely and shook his head.

“You’ll get a kick out of this. I was chosen by this guy and his wife because I was left-handed.”

“Left-handed? I don’t follow.”

“I was a lefty and I could throw a pretty good fastball.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ah, Jesus, it was—see, Sandy Koufax was with the Dodgers then. He was a lefty and I guess they were paying him about a zillion bucks a year to pitch. This guy, the foster, his name was Earl Morse, he had played semipro baseball or something and never really made it. So, he wanted to
create
a left-handed major league prospect. Good left-handers were pretty rare back then, I guess. Or he thought that. Anyway, they were the hot commodity. Earl thought he’d grab some kid with some potential, slap him into shape and then be his manager or agent or something when it came to contract time. He saw it as his way back into the game. It was crazy. But I guess he’d seen his own big league dream crash and burn. So he came out to McClaren and took a bunch of us into the field for a catch. We had a team, we played other halls, sometimes the schools in the Valley let us play them. Anyway, Earl took us out to throw the ball around and it was a tryout but none of us knew it at the time. It didn’t even enter my mind what was going on until later. Anyway, he glommed on to me when he saw I was a lefty and could throw. He forgot the others like they were last season’s program.”

Bosch shook his head again at the memory.

“What happened? You went with him?”

“Yeah. I went with him. There was a wife, too. She never said much to me or him. He used to make me throw a hundred balls a day at a tire hanging in the back yard. Then every night he’d have these coaching sessions. I put up with it for about a year and then I split.”

“You ran away?”

“Sort of. I joined the Army. I had to get Earl to sign for me, though. At first he wouldn’t do it. He had major league plans for me. But then I told him I was never going to pick up another baseball as long as I lived. He signed. Then he and the wife kept cashing those DPSS checks while I was overseas. I guess the extra money helped make up for losing the prospect.”

She was quiet for a long time. It looked to Bosch like she was reading her notes but he had not seen her write anything during this session.

“You know,” he said into the silence, “about ten years later, when I was still in patrol, I pulled over a drunk driver coming off the Hollywood Freeway onto Sunset. He was all over the place. When I finally got him over and got up there to the window, I bent over to look in and it was Earl. It was a Sunday. He was coming home from the Dodgers. I saw the program on the seat.”

She looked at him but didn’t say anything. He was looking at the memory still.

“I guess he’d never found that lefty he was looking for… Anyway, he was so drunk he didn’t recognize me.”

“What did you do?”

“Took his keys and called his wife…I guess it was the only break I ever gave the guy.”

She looked back down at the pad while asking her next question.

“What about your real father?”

“What about him?”

“Did you ever know who he was? Did you have any relationship at all?”

“I met him once. I was never curious about it until I came back from overseas. Then I traced it down. Turned out he was my mother’s lawyer. He had a family and all of that. He was dying when I met him, looked like a skeleton…So I never really knew him.”

“His name was Bosch?”

“No. My name was just something she came up with. The painter, you know. She thought L.A. was a lot like his paintings. All the paranoia, the fear. Once she gave me a book that had his paintings in it.”

More silence followed as she thought about this one, too.

“These stories, Harry,” she finally said, “these stories that you tell are heartbreaking in their own way. It makes me see the boy who became the man. It makes me see the depth of the hole left by your mother’s death. You know, you would have a lot to blame her for and no one would blame you for doing it.”

He looked at her pointedly while composing a response.

“I don’t blame her for anything. I blame the man who took her from me. See, these are stories about me. Not her. You can’t get the feel for her. You can’t know her like I did. All I know is that she did all she could to get me out of there. She never stopped telling me that. She never stopped trying. She just ran out of time.”

She nodded, accepting his answer. A few moments passed.

“Did there come a time when she told you what she did…for a living?”

“Not really.”

“How did you know?”

“I can’t remember. I think I really didn’t know for sure what she did until she was gone and I was older. I was ten when they took me away. I didn’t really know why.”

“Did she have men stay with her while you were together?”

“No, that never happened.”

“But you must have had some idea about this life she was leading, that you both were leading.”

“She told me she was a waitress. She worked nights. She used to leave me with a lady who had a room at the hotel. Mrs. DeTorre. She watched four or five kids whose mothers were doing the same thing. None of us knew.”

He finished there but she didn’t say anything and he knew he was expected to continue.

“One night I snuck out when the old lady fell asleep and I walked down to the Boulevard to the coffee shop where she said she worked. She wasn’t in there. I asked and they didn’t know what I was talking about…”

“Did you ask your mother about it?”

“No…The next night I followed her. She left in her waitress uniform and I followed her. She went to her best friend’s place upstairs. Meredith Roman. When they came out, they were both wearing dresses, makeup, the whole thing. Then they both left in a cab and I couldn’t follow them.”

“But you knew.”

“I knew something. But I was like nine or something. How much could I know?”

“What about the charade she followed, dressing every night like a waitress, did that anger you?”

“No. The opposite. I thought that was…I don’t know, there was something noble about her doing that for me. She was protecting me, in a way.”

Hinojos nodded that she saw his point.

“Close your eyes.”

“Close my eyes?”

“Yes, I want you to close your eyes and think back to when you were a boy. Go ahead.”

“What is this?”

“Indulge me. Please.”

Bosch shook his head as if annoyed but did as she asked. He felt stupid.

“Okay.”

“Okay, I want you to tell me a story about your mother. Whatever image or episode with her that you have the clearest in your mind, I want you to tell it to me.”

He thought hard. Images of her passed through and disappeared. Finally, he came to one that stayed.

“Okay.”

“Okay, tell it.”

“It was at McClaren. She had come to visit and we were out at the fence at the ballfield.”

“Why do you remember this story?”

“I don’t know. Because she was there and that always made me feel good, even though we always ended up crying. You should have seen that place on visiting day. Everybody crying…And I remember it, too, because it was near the end. It wasn’t too long after that she was gone. Maybe a few months.”

“Do you remember what you talked about?”

“A lot of stuff. Baseball, she was a Dodgers fan. I remember one of the older kids had taken my new sneakers that she had given me for my birthday. She noticed I didn’t have ’em on and she got pretty mad about it.”

“Why did the older boy take your sneakers?”

“She asked the same thing.”

“What did you tell her?”

“I told her the kid took my shoes because he could. You see, they could call that place whatever they wanted but basically it was a prison for kids and it had the same societies as a prison has. Your dominant cliques, your submissives, everything.”

“What were you?”

“I don’t know. I pretty much kept to myself. But when some older, bigger kid took my shoes, I was a submissive. It was a way of surviving.”

“Your mother was unhappy about this?”

“Well, yeah, but she didn’t know the score. She wanted to go complain or something. She didn’t know that if she did that it would only make it worse for me there. Then she suddenly did realize what the deal was. She started crying.”

Bosch was silent, picturing the scene perfectly in his mind. He remembered the dampness in the air and the smell of the orange blossoms from the nearby groves.

Hinojos cleared her throat before breaking into his memory.

“What did you do when she started crying?”

“I probably started crying, too. I usually did. I didn’t want her to feel bad but there was a comfort in knowing she knew what was happening to me. Only mothers can do that, you know? Make you feel good when you’re sad…”

Bosch still had his eyes closed and was seeing only the memory.

“What did she tell you?”

“She…she just told me she was going to get me out. She said that her lawyer was going to go to court soon to appeal the custody ruling and the unfit mother finding. She said there were other things she could do, too. The point was, she was getting me out.”

“That lawyer was your father?”

“Yes, but I didn’t know it…Anyway, what I’m saying is that the courts were wrong about her. That’s the thing that bothers me. She was good to me and they didn’t see that…anyway, I remember she promised me that she would do what she had to do, but she would get me out.”

“But she never did.”

“No. Like I said, she ran out of time.”

“I’m sorry.”

Bosch opened his eyes and looked at her.

“So am I.”