The Last Coyote (29 page)

“Yeah, that was a lie. I made that up.”

Bosch was confused.

“What do you mean? You mean, you made up the lie?”

“In case they went back on the deal. I put Conklin in the story saying he didn’t know the guy because I had evidence he did. They knew I had it. That way, if after the election they reneged on the deal, I could dredge up the story again and show Conklin said he didn’t know Fox but he did. I could then make the inference that he also knew Fox’s background when he hired him. It wouldn’t have done much good because he’d have already been elected, but it would do some PR damage. It was my little insurance policy. Understand?”

Bosch nodded.

“What was the evidence you had that Conklin knew Fox?”

“I had photos.”

“What photos?”

“They were taken by the society photographer for the
Times
at the Hollywood Masonic Lodge’s St. Patrick’s Day dance a couple of years before the election. There’s two of them. Conklin and Fox are at a table. They were scratches but one day I was—”

“What do you mean, scratches?”

“Photos never published. Outtakes. But, see, I used to look at the society stuff in the photo lab, so I could learn who the big shots in the city were and who they were out with and so on. It was useful information. One day I saw these photos of Conklin and some guy that I recognized but wasn’t sure from where. It was because of the social background. This wasn’t Fox’s turf so at the time I didn’t recognize him. Then, when Fox got killed and I was told he worked for Conklin, I remembered the photos and who the other man was. Fox. I went back to the scratch files and pulled them out.”

“They were just sitting there together at this dance?”

“In the photos? Yeah. And they were smiling. You could tell they knew each other. These weren’t posed shots. In fact, that’s why each was a scratch. They weren’t good photos, not for the society page.”

“Anybody else with them?”

“A couple women, that was it.”

“Go get the photos.”

“Oh, I don’t have them anymore. I tossed them after I didn’t need them anymore.”

“Kim, don’t bullshit me, okay? There was never a time you didn’t need them. Those photos are probably why you are alive today. Now go get them or I’ll take you downtown for withholding evidence, then I’ll come back with a warrant and tear this place apart.”

“All right! Jesus! Wait here. I have one of them.”

He got up and went up the stairs. Bosch just stared at the dog. It was wearing a sweater that matched Kim’s. He heard a closet door being moved on rollers, then a heavy thud. He guessed a box had been taken off the shelf and dropped to the floor. In a few more moments, Kim’s heavy steps were coming down the stairs. As he passed the couch, he handed Bosch a black-and-white eight-by-ten that was yellowed around the edges. Bosch stared at it for a long time.

“I have the other in a safe deposit box,” Kim said. “It’s a clearer shot of the two of them. You can tell it’s Fox.”

Bosch didn’t say anything. He was still looking at the photo. It was a flashbulb shot. Everybody’s face was lit up white as snow. Conklin sat across a table from the man Bosch assumed was Fox. There were a half dozen drink glasses on the table. Conklin was smiling and heavy-lidded—that was probably why the photo was a scratch—and Fox was turned slightly away from the camera, his features indistinguishable. Bosch guessed you would have had to know him to recognize him. Neither of them seemed aware of the photographer’s presence. Flashbulbs were probably going off all over the place.

But more so than the men, Bosch studied the two women in the photo. Standing next to Fox and bending over to whisper in his ear was a woman in a dark one-piece dress that was tight around the middle. Her hair was swirled on top of her head. It was Meredith Roman. And sitting across the table and next to Conklin, mostly obscured by him, was Marjorie Lowe. Bosch guessed that if you didn’t already know her, she wouldn’t have been recognizable. Conklin was smoking and had his hand up to his face. His arm blocked off half of Bosch’s mother’s face. It almost looked as if she was peeking around a corner at the camera.

Bosch turned the photo over and there was a stamp on the back that said TIMES PHOTO BY BORIS LUGAVERE. It was dated March 17, 1961, seven months before his mother’s death.

“Did you ever show this to Conklin or Mittel?” Bosch finally asked.

“Yeah. When I made my case for head spokesman. I gave Gordon a copy. He saw that it was proof the candidate knew Fox.”

Mittel must also have seen that it was proof that the candidate knew a murder victim, Bosch realized. Kim didn’t know what he had. But no wonder he got the head spokesman’s job. You’re lucky you’re alive, he thought but didn’t say.

“Did Mittel know it was only a copy?”

“Oh yeah, I made that clear. I wasn’t stupid.”

“Did Conklin ever mention it to you?”

“Not to me. But I assume Mittel told him about it. Remember, I said he had to get back to me about the job I wanted. Who would he have to clear it with, he was campaign manager? So he must’ve talked to Conklin.”

“I’m going to keep this.”

Bosch held up the photo.

“I’ve got the other.”

“Have you stayed in touch with Arno Conklin over the years?”

“No. I haven’t spoken to him in, I don’t know, twenty years.”

“I want you to call him now and I—”

“I don’t even know where he is.”

“I do. I want you to call him and tell him you want to see him tonight. Tell him it has to be tonight. Tell him it’s about Johnny Fox and Marjorie Lowe. Tell him not to tell anyone you are coming.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Sure you can. Where’s your phone? I’ll help you.” “No, I mean, I can’t go see him tonight. You can’t make—” “You’re not going to see him tonight, Monte. I’m going to be you. Now where’s your phone?”

Chapter Thirty-nine

A
T PARK LA BREA LIFECARE
, Bosch parked in a visitor’s space in the front lot and got out of the Mustang. The place looked dark; few windows in the upper stories had lights on behind them. He checked his watch—it was only nine-fifty—and moved toward the glass doors of the lobby.

He felt a slight pull in his throat as he made the walk. Deep down he had known as soon as he finished reading the murder book that his sights were set on Conklin and that it would come to this. He was about to confront the man he believed had killed his mother and then used his position and the people he surrounded himself with to walk away from it. To Bosch, Conklin was the symbol of all that he never had in his life. Power, home, contentment. It didn’t matter how many people had told him on the trail that Conklin was a good man. Bosch knew the secret behind the good man. His rage grew with each step he took.

Inside the door a uniformed guard sat behind a desk working on a crossword puzzle torn from the
Times Sunday Magazine
. Maybe he had been working on it since then. He looked up at Bosch as if he was expecting him.

“Monte Kim,” Bosch said. “One of the residents is expecting me. Arno Conklin.”

“Yeah, he called down.” The guard consulted a clipboard, then turned it around and handed the pen to Bosch. “Been a long time since he’s had any visitors. Sign here, please. He’s up in nine-oh-seven.”

Bosch signed and dropped the pen on the clipboard.

“It’s kind of late,” the guard said. “Visitation is usually over by nine.”

“What’s that mean? You want me to leave? Fine.” He held his briefcase up. “Mr. Conklin can just roll his wheelchair down to my office tomorrow to pick this stuff up. I’m the one making a special trip here, buddy. For him. Let me up or not, I don’t care. He cares.”

“Whoah, whoah, whoah, hold on there, partner. I was just saying it was late and you didn’t let me finish. I’m going to let you go up. No problem. Mr. Conklin specifically requested it and this ain’t no prison. I’m just saying all the visitors are gone, okay? People are sleeping. Just keep it down, is all. No reason to blow a gasket.”

“Nine-oh-seven, you said?”

“That’s right. I’ll call him and tell him you’re on your way up.”

“Thanks.”

Bosch moved past the guard toward the elevators without apology. He was forgotten as soon as he was out of Bosch’s sight. Only one thing, one person, occupied his mind now.

The elevator moved about as quickly as the building’s inhabitants. When he finally got to the ninth floor, Bosch walked past a nurses’ station but it was empty, the night nurse apparently tending to a resident’s needs. Bosch headed the wrong way down the hall, then corrected himself and headed back the other way. The paint and linoleum in the hallway were fresh but even top-dollar places like this couldn’t completely eliminate the lingering smell of urine, disinfectant and the sense of closed lives behind the closed doors. He found the door to nine-oh-seven and knocked once. He heard a faint voice telling him to enter. It was more like a whimper than a whisper.

Bosch was unprepared for what he saw when he opened the door. There was a single light on in the room, a small reading lamp to the side of the bed. It left most of the room in shadow. An old man sat on the bed propped against three pillows, a book in his frail hands, bifocals on the bridge of his nose. What Bosch found so eerie about the tableau before him was that the bedcovers were bunched around the old man’s waist but were flat on the remainder of the bed. The bed was flat. There were no legs. Compounding this shock was the wheelchair to the right of the bed. A plaid blanket had been thrown over the seat. But two legs in black pants and loafers extended from beneath it and down to the chair’s footrests. It looked as if half the man was in his bed but he had left his other half in the chair. Bosch’s face must have shown his confusion.

“Prosthesis,” said the raspy voice from the bed. “Lost my legs… diabetes. Almost nothing of me left. Except an old man’s vanity. I had the legs made for public appearances.”

Bosch stepped closer to the light. The man’s skin was like the back of peeled wallpaper. Yellowish, pale. His eyes were deep in the shadows of his skeletal face, his hair just a whisper around his ears. His thin hands were ribbed with blue veins the size of earthworms under his spotted skin. He was death, Bosch knew. Death certainly had a better grip on him than life did.

Conklin put the book on the table near the lamp. It seemed to be a labor for him to make the reach. Bosch saw the title.
The Neon Rain
.

“A mystery,” Conklin said, a small cackle following. “I indulge myself with mysteries. I’ve learned to appreciate the writing. I never did before. Never took the time. Come in, Monte, no need to be afraid of me. I’m a harmless old man.”

Bosch stepped closer until the light was on his face. He saw Conklin’s watery eyes study him and conclude that he was not Monte Kim. It had been a long time but Conklin seemed to be able to tell.

“I came in Monte’s place,” he whispered.

Conklin turned his head slightly and Bosch saw his eyes fall on the emergency call button on the bed table. He must have figured he had no chance and no strength for another reach. He turned back to Bosch.

“Who are you, then?”

“I’m working on a mystery, too.”

“A detective?”

“Yes. My name’s Harry Bosch and I want to ask you about…”

He stopped. There was a change in Conklin’s face. Bosch could not tell if it was fear or maybe recognition but something had changed. Conklin brought his eyes up to Bosch’s and Bosch realized the old man was smiling.

“Hieronymus Bosch,” he whispered. “Like the painter.”

Bosch nodded slowly. He now realized he was as shocked as the old man.

“How do you know that?”

“Because I know of you.”

“How?”

“Through your mother. She told me about you and your special name. I loved your mother.”

It was like getting hit in the chest with a sandbag. Bosch felt the air go out of him and he put a hand down on the bed to hold himself steady.

“Sit. Please. Sit.”

Conklin held out a shaky hand, motioning Bosch onto the bed. He nodded when Bosch did as he had been told.

“No!” Bosch said loudly as he rose off the bed almost as soon as he had sat down on it. “You used her and you killed her. Then you paid off people to bury it with her. That’s why I’m here. I came for the truth. I want to hear you tell it and I don’t want to hear any bullshit about loving her. You’re a liar.”

Conklin had a pleading look in his eyes, then he turned them away, toward the dark side of the room.

“I don’t know the truth,” he said, his voice like dried leaves blown along the sidewalk. “I take responsibility and therefore, yes, it could be said I killed her. The only truth I know is that I loved her. You can call me a liar but that is the truth. You could make an old man whole again if you believed that.”

Bosch couldn’t fathom what was happening, what was being said.

“She was with you that night. In Hancock Park.”

“Yes.”

“What happened? What did you do?”

“I killed her…with my words, my actions. It took me many years to realize that.”

Bosch moved closer until he was hovering over the old man. He wanted to grab him and shake some sense out of him. But Arno Conklin was so frail that he might shatter.

“What are you talking about? Look at me. What are you talking about?”

Conklin turned his head on a neck no wider than a glass of milk. He looked at Bosch and nodded solemnly.

“You see, we made plans that night. Marjorie and I. I had fallen for her against all better judgment and advice. My own and others. We were going to get married. We’d decided. We were going to get you out of that youth hall. We had many plans. That was the night we made them. We were both so happy that we cried. The next day was Saturday. I wanted to go to Las Vegas. Take the car and drive through the night before we could change our minds or have them changed for us. She agreed and went home to pick up her things…She never came back.”

“That’s your story? You expect me—”

“You see, after she had left, I made one call. But that was enough. I called my best friend to tell him the good news and to ask him to stand with me as my best man. I wanted him to go with us to Las Vegas. Do you know what he said? He declined the honor of being my best man. He said that if I married that…that woman, I’d be finished. He said he wouldn’t let me do that. He said he had great plans for me.”

“Gordon Mittel.”

Conklin nodded sadly.

“So what are you saying, Mittel killed her? You didn’t know?”

“I didn’t know.”

He looked down at his feeble hands and balled them into tiny fists on the blanket. They looked completely powerless. Bosch only watched.

“I did not realize it for many years. It was beyond the pale to consider that he had done it. And then, of course, I must admit I was thinking of myself at the time. I was a coward, thinking only of my escape.”

Bosch was not tracking what he was saying. But it didn’t seem that Conklin was talking to him, anyway. The old man was really telling himself the story. He suddenly looked up from his reverie at Bosch.

“You know, I knew someday you would come.”

“How?”

“Because I knew you would care. Maybe no one else. But I knew you would. You had to care. You were her son.”

“Tell me about what happened that night. Everything.”

“I need you to get me some water. For my throat. There’s a glass there on the bureau, a fountain in the hallway. Don’t let it run too long. It gets too cold and hurts my teeth.”

Bosch looked at the glass on the bureau and then back at Conklin. He was seized with a fear that if he left the room for even a minute the old man might die and take the story with him. Bosch would never hear it.

“Go. I’ll be fine. I certainly can’t go anywhere.”

Bosch glanced at the call button. Again, Conklin knew his thoughts.

“I am closer to hell than heaven for what I’ve done. For my silence. I need to tell my story. I think you’d be a better confessor than any priest could be.”

As Bosch stepped into the hallway with the glass, he saw a figure of a man turn the corner at the end of the hall and disappear. He thought the man was wearing a suit. It wasn’t the guard. He saw the fountain and filled the glass. Conklin smiled weakly as he took the glass and murmured a thanks before drinking. Bosch then took the glass back and put it on the night table.

“Okay,” Bosch said. “You said she left that night and never came back. How did you find out what happened?”

“By the next day, I was afraid something had happened. I finally called my office and made a routine check to see what had come in on the overnight reports. Among the things they told me was that there had been a homicide in Hollywood. They had the victim’s name. It was her. It was the most horrible day of my life.”

“What happened next?”

Conklin rubbed a hand on his forehead and continued.

“I learned that she had been found that morning. She—I was in shock. I couldn’t believe this could have happened. I had Mittel make some inquiries but there was nothing useful coming out. Then the man who had…introduced me to Marjorie called.”

“Johnny Fox.”

“Yes. He called and he said he had heard the police were looking for him. He said he was innocent. He threatened me. He said if I did not protect him, he would reveal to the police that Marjorie was with me that last night. It would be the end of my career.”

“So you protected him.”

“I turned it over to Gordon. He investigated Fox’s claim and confirmed his alibi. I cannot remember it now but it was confirmed. He had been in a card game or somewhere where there had been many witnesses. Since I was confident that Fox was not involved, I called the detectives assigned to the case and arranged for him to be interviewed. In order to protect Fox and thereby protect myself, Gordon and I concocted a story in which we told the detectives that Fox was a key witness in a grand jury investigation. The plan was successful. The detectives turned their attention elsewhere. At one point I spoke to one of them and he told me he believed that Marjorie was the victim of some sort of a sex killer. You see, they were quite rare back then. The detective said the outlook on the case was not good. I’m afraid that I never suspected…Gordon. Such a horrible thing to do to an innocent person. It was right there in front of my face but I didn’t see it for so long. I was a fool. A puppet.”

“You’re saying that it wasn’t you and that it wasn’t Fox. You’re saying that Mittel killed her to eliminate a threat to your political career. But that he didn’t tell you. It was all his idea and he just went out and did it.”

“Yes, I say that. I told him, I told him that night when I called, I said that she meant more to me than all of the plans he had for me, that I had for myself. He said it would mean the end of my career and I accepted it. I accepted it as long as I started the next part of my life with her. I believe those minutes were the most peaceful of my life. I was in love and I had made a stand.”

He softly pounded a fist onto the bed, an impotent gesture.

“I told Mittel I didn’t care what he thought the damage to my career would be. I told him we were going to move away. I didn’t know where. La Jolla, San Diego, I threw a few places out. I didn’t know where we were going to go but I was defiant. I was mad at him for not sharing the joy of our decision. And in doing so I provoked him, I know now, and I hastened your mother’s death.”

Bosch studied him a long moment. His agony seemed sincere. Conklin’s eyes looked as haunted as the portholes on a sunken ship. There was only blackness behind them.

“Did Mittel ever admit this to you?”

“No, but I knew. I guess it was a subconscious knowledge but then something he said years later brought it out. It confirmed it in my mind. And that was the end of our relationship.”

“What did he say? When?”

“Many years later. It was at the time I was preparing for a run for attorney general. Do you believe such a charade occurred? Me the liar, the coward, the conspirator being groomed for the office of the state’s top law enforcement officer. Mittel came to me one day and said that I needed to take a wife before the election year. He was that blunt about it. He said there were rumors about me that could cost me votes. I said that was preposterous and that I wouldn’t take a wife just to assuage some rednecks out in Palmdale or the desert somewhere. Then he made a comment, just a flippant, offhand comment as he was leaving my office.”