Angels Flight

by Michael Connelly

  ‘It was bullshit. The case went to trial a few months after the Rodney King thing. There was no way a white cop who had shot a black man was going to get a clean verdict in this town back then.’

  ‘Be careful, Detective, you’re revealing too much of yourself.’

  ‘Look, what I said was the truth. Deep down, you know it was the truth. How come the moment the truth might be uncomfortable people raise the race card?’

  ‘Let’s just drop this, Detective Bosch. You have your belief in your friend and I admire that. I guess we’ll see what happens when the lawyer who inherits this case from Howard brings it to trial.’

  Bosch nodded and was thankful for the truce. The accusatory discussion had made him feel uncomfortable.

  ‘What else have you held back?’ he asked, to try to move on.

  ‘That’s pretty much it. Spent all day in here to basically hold one file back.’

  She blew her breath out and suddenly seemed very tired.

  ‘You doing okay?’ he asked.

  ‘Fine. I think it was good for me to stay busy. I haven’t had much time to think about what has happened. I’m sure I will tonight.’

  Bosch nodded.

  ‘Any more reporters come around?’

  ‘A couple. I gave them a sound bite and they went on their merry way. They all think the city’s going to cut loose over this.’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I think if a cop did this, there’s no telling what’s going to happen. And if a cop didn’t do it, there will be people who just won’t believe it. But you already know that.’

  Bosch nodded.

  ‘One thing you should know about the trial map.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Despite what you said about Frank Sheehan a moment ago, Howard was out to prove Harris innocent.’

  Bosch hiked his shoulders.

  ‘I thought he already was in the criminal trial.’

  ‘No, he was found not guilty. There’s a difference. Howard was going to prove his innocence by proving who did it.’

  Bosch stared at her a long moment, wondering how he should proceed.

  ‘Does it say in that trial map who that was?’

  ‘No. Like I said, there was just an outline of the opener. But it’s in there. He was going to tell the jury that he would deliver the murderer to them. Those were his words. “Deliver the murderer to you.” He just didn’t write who that was. It would have been a bad opener, if he did. It would give it away to the defense and make for an anticlimactic moment later in trial when he revealed who this person was.’

  Bosch was silent as he thought about this. He didn’t know how much weight to give what she had told him. Elias was a showman, in and out of court. Revealing a killer in court was Perry Mason stuff. It almost never happened.

  ‘I’m sorry but I probably shouldn’t have told you that,’ she said.

  ‘Why did you?’

  ‘Because if others knew this was his strategy, it could have been a motive.’

  ‘You mean the real killer of that little girl came back to kill Elias.’

  ‘That’s a possibility.’

  Bosch nodded.

  ‘Did you read the depos?’ he asked.

  ‘No, not enough time. I’m giving all depositions to you because the defense—in this case the city attorney’s office — would have been furnished copies. So I’m not giving you something you wouldn’t already have access to.’

  ‘What about the computer?’

  ‘I looked through it very quickly. It appears to be depositions and other information out of the public file. Nothing privileged.’

  ‘Okay.’

  Bosch started to get up. He was thinking about how many trips down to the car it would take him to move the files.

  ‘Oh, one other thing.’

  She reached down to the box on the floor and came up with a manila file. She opened it on the desk, revealing two envelopes. Bosch leaned over the desk to see.

  ‘This was in the Harris stuff. I don’t know what it means.’

  Both envelopes were addressed to Elias at his office. No return addresses. Both were postmarked Hollywood, one mailed five weeks earlier and the other three weeks earlier.

  ‘There’s a single page with a line in each. Nothing that makes sense to me.’

  She started opening one of the envelopes.

  ‘Uh ... ,’ Bosch began.

  She stopped, holding the envelope in her hand.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t know. I was thinking about prints.’

  ‘I already handled these. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Okay, go ahead, I guess.’

  She finished opening the envelope, unfolded the page on the desk and turned it so Bosch could read it. There was one typed line at the top of the page.

  dot the i humbert humbert

  ‘Humbert Humbert ... ,’ Bosch said.

  ‘It’s the name of a character from literature — or what some people consider literature,’ Entrenkin said. ‘Lolita, by Nabokov.’

  ‘Right.’

  Bosch noticed that a notation had been written in pencil at the bottom of the page.

  #2 — 3/12

  ‘That was probably Howard’s marking,’ Entrenkin said. ‘Or someone in his office.’

  She opened the next envelope, the more recently mailed of the two, and unfolded the letter. Bosch leaned over again.

  license plates prove his innocense

  ‘Looks to me like they’re obviously from the same person,’ Entrenkin said. ‘Also, notice that innocence is spelled wrong.’

  ‘Right.’

  There was also a pencil notation at the bottom of the page.

  #3 — 4/5

  Bosch pulled his briefcase up onto his lap and opened it. He took out the evidence envelope that contained the letter Elias had been carrying in his inside suit pocket when gunned down.

  ‘Elias was carrying this when he ... when he got on Angels Flight. I forgot that the crime scene people gave it to me. It might be good if you are here observing when I open it. It’s got the same postmark as those two. It was mailed to him Wednesday. This one I want to preserve for prints.’

  He took a pair of rubber gloves out of the cardboard dispenser in his case and put them on. He then carefully removed the letter and opened it. He unfolded a piece of paper similar to the first two. Again there was one line typed on the page.

  he knows you know

  As Bosch stared at the page he felt the slight flutter in his heart that he knew came with the surge of adrenaline.

  ‘Detective Bosch, what does this mean?’

  ‘I don’t know. But I sure wish I had opened it sooner.’

  There was no pencil notation on the bottom of the third page. Elias hadn’t gotten around to it, apparently.

  ‘It looks like we’re missing one,’ Bosch said. ‘These are marked two and three and this one came after—this one would be four.’

  ‘I know. But I haven’t found anything that would be number one. Nothing in the files. Maybe he threw it out, not realizing it meant something until the second one came.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  He thought about the letters for a moment. He was mostly going on instinct and premonition, but he felt the charge sustaining in his blood. He felt he had found his focus. This exhilarated him but at the same time he also felt a bit foolish at having unknowingly carried such a potentially key piece of the case around in his briefcase now for about twelve hours.

  ‘Did Howard ever talk to you about this case?’ he asked.

  ‘No, we never talked about each other’s work,’ Entrenkin said. ‘We had a rule. You see, we knew that what we were doing was ... something that wouldn’t be understood—the inspector general with one of the department’s most vocal and well-known critics.’

  ‘Not to mention him being married and all.’

  Her face turned hard.

  ‘Look, what is wrong with you? One minute we’re getting
along fine and maybe making some progress on this and the next you just want to antagonize me.’

  ‘What’s wrong is that I wish you would save the we-knew-it-was-wrong sermon for somebody else. I find it hard to believe you two didn’t talk about the LAPD when you were alone up in that apartment.’

  Bosch saw pure fire in her eyes.

  ‘Well, I don’t give a good goddamn what you find hard to believe, Detective.’

  ‘Look, we made our deal. I’m not going to tell anyone. If I make trouble for you, you can make trouble for me. If I did tell even my partners, you know what they’d say? They’d say I was crazy for not treating you as a suspect. That’s what I should be doing but I’m not. I’m flying on pure instinct and that can be scary. So to make up for it I’m looking for any edge or piece of luck or help I can get.’

  She was silent a moment before responding.

  ‘I appreciate what you are doing for me, Detective. But I am not lying to you. Howard and I never spoke in detail about his cases or my work with the department. Never in detail. The one thing I remember him saying about the Harris case is so vague as to defy interpretation. But if you must know what it was, I will tell you. He told me to brace myself because he was going to blow the department and a few of the city’s big shots out of the water on this one. I didn’t ask him what he meant.’

  ‘And when was that?’

  ‘That was Tuesday night.’

  ‘Thank you, Inspector.’

  Bosch got up and walked around a bit. He found himself at the window staring out at Anthony Quinn in shadows. He looked at his watch and saw it was almost six. He was supposed to rendezvous with Edgar and Rider at seven at the Hollywood station.

  ‘You know what this means, don’t you?’ he asked, without turning back to Entrenkin.

  ‘What does it mean?’

  He turned to her.

  ‘That if Elias was on to something and got close to identifying the killer — the real killer—then it wasn’t a cop who put him down.’

  She thought a moment and said, ‘You’re only looking at it from one side.’

  ‘What’s the other?’

  ‘Say he was about to go to trial and pull the real killer out of his hat. Conclusively. That would put the lie to the police evidence, wouldn’t it? So proving Harris innocent would at the same time prove the cops framed him. If the real killer knew Howard was on to him, yes he could have come after him. But say a cop knew that Howard was going to prove that that cop framed Harris, he could have come at him, too.’

  Bosch shook his head.

  ‘It’s always the cops with you. Maybe the frame was in place before the cops even showed up.’

  He shook his head again, more emphatically, as if warding off a thought.

  ‘I don’t know what I’m saying. There was no frame. It’s too farfetched.’

  Entrenkin watched him for a long moment.

  ‘Whatever you say, Detective. Just never say I didn’t warn you.’

  Bosch ignored her statement. He looked at the boxes on the floor. For the first time he noticed a two-wheeled trolley leaning against the wall near the door. Entrenkin followed his eyes to it.

  ‘I called the security guy and told him we needed to move some boxes. He brought it up.’

  Bosch nodded.

  ‘I guess I better get this stuff to my car. Do you still have the search warrant or did Miss Langwiser take it? I need to fill out the receipt.’

  ‘I have it and I’ve already catalogued the files. You just need to sign it.’

  Bosch nodded and walked over to the trolley. He remembered something and turned back to her.

  ‘What about the file we were looking at when you came in this morning? With the photo in it.’

  ‘What about it? It’s in the box there.’

  ‘Well, I mean ... uh ... what do you think?’

  ‘I don’t know what to think about it. If you’re asking me if I believed Howard Elias was involved with that woman I would say no.’

  ‘We asked his wife today if it was possible he was having an affair and she said no, it was not possible.’

  ‘I get your point. But I still think it’s impossible.

  Howard was a well-known man in this city. First of all, he would hardly have to pay for sex. And secondly, he was smart enough to know that he would be vulnerable to extortion from these people if they recognized him.’

  ‘Then what was the file doing in his desk?’

  ‘Like I said, I don’t know. It had to be part of a case but I don’t know which one. I looked at every file in the office today and didn’t find anything that connects to it.’

  Bosch just nodded. His mind was already off the file and back on the mystery letters, the last one in particular. His take on it was that it was a warning to Elias. Someone had discovered that the lawyer was in possession of a dangerous piece of information. Bosch was feeling more certain that the investigation, the true investigation, should stem from that note.

  ‘Do you mind if I put on the television now?’ Entrenkin said. ‘It’s six. I want to watch the news.’

  Bosch came out of his reverie.

  ‘Sure. Turn it on.’

  She moved to a large oak cabinet against the wall opposite the desk and opened the doors. Inside the cabinet were two shelves, each containing a television. Elias apparently liked to watch more than one TV at a time. Probably, Bosch guessed, so he had a better chance of catching all his appearances on newscasts.

  Entrenkin hit the power on both sets. As the picture came into focus on the top set, Bosch saw a reporter standing in front of a strip shopping center in which three or four stores were ablaze. Several yards behind the reporter, firefighters worked to contain the blaze but it looked to Bosch as though the buildings were beyond being saved. They were already gutted.

  ‘It’s happening,’ he said.

  ‘Not again,’ Entrenkin said, her voice a scared plea.

  18

  Bosch turned on KFWB on the car radio while driving into Hollywood. The radio reports were more conservative than the TV news at six. This was because the radio report contained only words, not images.

  The bottom-line news was that there was a fire in a strip mall on Normandie, just a few blocks from the intersection of Florence, the intersection that was the flashpoint of the 1992 riots. At that moment it was the only fire burning in South L.A. and there was not yet any confirmation that the fire was an arson linked to protest or anger over the murder of Howard Elias. But every news channel that Bosch and Entrenkin had checked in the office was broadcasting from the mall. Flames filled the screens and the image projected was clear: Los Angeles was burning once again.

  ‘Fucking TV,’ he said. ‘Excuse my language.’

  ‘What about TV?’

  It was Carla Entrenkin. She had talked her way into being taken along for the interview with Harris. Bosch hadn’t put up much of a protest. He knew she might help put Harris at ease, if he knew who she was. Bosch knew it was important that Harris be willing to talk to them. He might be the only one to whom Howard Elias had confided the identity of Stacey Kincaid’s murderer.

  ‘Overreacting as usual,’ Bosch said. ‘One fire and they’re all there, showing the flames. You know what that does? That’s like throwing gasoline on it. It will spread now. People will see that in their living rooms and go outside to see what is happening. Groups will form, things will be said and people won’t be able to back down from their anger. One thing will lead to another and we’ll have our media-manufactured riot.’

  ‘I give the people a little more credit than that,’ Entrenkin responded. ‘They know not to trust the TV. Civil unrest occurs when the feelings of overwhelming powerlessness hit critical mass. It has nothing to do with television. It has to do with society not addressing the essential needs of overlooked people.’

  Bosch noted that she called it civil unrest instead of rioting. He wondered if calling a riot a riot had become politically incorrect.

  �
�It’s about hope, Detective,’ she continued. ‘Most of the people in the minority communities of Los Angeles have no power, have no money, have no voice. They subsist on hope for these things. And Howard Elias was hope for many of them. A symbol of hope for a day when things will be equal, when their voice will be heard. Of a day when they need not fear the police officers in their community. When you take hope away it leaves a void. Some people fill that up with anger and with violence. To simply blame it on the media is wrong. It’s much deeper than that.’

  Bosch nodded.

  ‘I understand,’ he said. ‘At least I think I do. But all I’m saying is the media don’t help any by exaggerating things.’

  Entrenkin now nodded to his point.

  ‘Somebody once called the media the merchants of chaos.’

  ‘Yeah, well, they got that right.’

  ‘It was Spiro Agnew. Right before he resigned.’

  Bosch had no answer for that and decided to drop the conversation. He got his cell phone out of the charger on the floor between the seats and called his home. There was no answer except for the machine and he left a message asking Eleanor to call him. He tried not to show outwardly that he was upset. He called information and got the number for the Hollywood Park poker room again. He called the number, asked for Jardine, the security man, and he was transferred through.

  ‘This is Jardine.’

  ‘This is Detective Bosch from last night. I — ’

  ‘She never showed up, pal. At least not on my wa — ’

  ‘You can save it, pal. She told me that you and she go back to the Flamingo. I understand what you did and it’s cool. But I know she’s back there now and I want you to give her a message. Tell her to call me on my cell phone as soon as she takes a break. Tell her it’s an emergency. You got that, Mister Jardine?’

  Bosch stressed the word mister so that maybe Jardine would realize he was making a mistake screwing with the LAPD.

  ‘Yeah,’ Jardine said. ‘I got it.’

  ‘Good.’

  Bosch clicked off.

  ‘You know what I remember most about ninety-two?’ Entrenkin said. ‘One image. A photo that was in the Times. The caption was something like “Father and Son Looters” and the picture showed a man leading his four- or five-year-old son out of the smashed-in door of a K-mart or something. And you know what each one was carrying, what they had looted?’