Angels Flight

by Michael Connelly

  Bosch looked through the wire-mesh window but didn’t recognize the man on duty. He was an old vet with a white mustache on a face flushed with gin blossoms. They moved a lot of the old broken-down ones to the basement. This one got off his stool and came to the window.

  ‘So what’s the weather like outside? I don’t have no windows in here.’

  ‘The weather? It’s partly cloudy with a chance of riots.’

  ‘I figured. Tuggins still got his crowd out front?’

  ‘They’re there.’

  ‘Yeah, the mutts. Wonder how’d they’d like it if there were no coppers around. See how they’d like life in the jungle then.’

  ‘That’s not their point. They want police. They just don’t want cops that are killers. Can you blame ’em for that?’

  ‘Yeah, well some people need killing.’

  Bosch had nothing to say to that. He didn’t even know why he was parrying with this old dog. He looked down at his nameplate. It said HOWDY. Bosch almost laughed. Something about seeing the unexpected name cracked through the tension and anger that had been twisting him all night.

  ‘Fuck you. It’s my name.’

  ‘Sorry. I’m not laughing at — it’s something else.’

  ‘Sure.’

  Howdy pointed over Bosch’s shoulder at a little counter with forms on it and pencils tied to strings.

  ‘You want something you gotta fill out the form with the case number.’

  ‘I don’t know the case number.’

  ‘Well, we must have a couple million in here. Why don’t you take a wild guess?’

  ‘I want to see the log.’

  The man nodded.

  ‘Right. You the one Garwood sent over?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Why didn’t you say so?’

  Bosch didn’t answer. Howdy reached below the window to someplace Bosch couldn’t see. Then he came up with a clipboard and put it into the pass-through slot beneath the wire mesh.

  ‘How far back you want to look?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Bosch said. ‘I think just a couple days will do it.’

  ‘There’s a week on there. That’s all the sign outs. You want sign outs not sign ins, right?’

  ‘Right.’

  Bosch took the clipboard over to the forms counter so he could look at it without Howdy watching what he was doing. He found what he was looking for on the top page. Chastain had checked out an evidence box at seven that morning. Bosch grabbed one of the sign-out forms and a pencil and started filling it out. He noticed as he wrote that the pencil was a Black Warrior No. 2, the first choice of the LAPD.

  He took the clipboard and form back to the window and slid them through the slot.

  ‘That box might still be on the go-back cart,’ he said. ‘It was just checked out this morning.’

  ‘No, it will be back in place. We run a tight ship’ — he looked down at the form and the name Bosch had filled out — ‘Detective Friendly.’

  Bosch nodded and smiled.

  ‘I know you do.’

  Howdy walked over and got on a golf cart and then drove away into the bowels of the huge storage room. He was gone less than three minutes before the cart came back into view and he parked it. He carried a pink box with tape on it over to the window, unlocked the mesh window gate and passed the box over to Bosch.

  ‘Detective Friendly, huh? They send you around to the schools to talk to the kids, tell ’em to say no to drugs, stay out of the gang, shit like that?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  Howdy winked at Bosch and closed the window gate. Bosch took the box over to one of the partitioned cubicles so he could look through its contents privately.

  The box contained evidence from a closed case, the investigation of the shooting of Wilbert Dobbs five years earlier by Detective Francis Sheehan. It had fresh tape sealing it, having just been signed out that morning. Bosch used a little knife he kept on his key chain to cut the tape and open the box. The process of unsealing the box actually took longer than it did for him to find what he was looking for inside it.

  Bosch walked through the crowd of protesters as if they weren’t even there. He didn’t see them or hear their chants of No justice, no peace. Some of them yelled insults directly at Bosch but he didn’t listen to those either. He knew that you didn’t win justice by carrying a sign or a cardboard coffin. You earned it by being on the side of the righteous, by being unswayed from that path. And he knew that true justice was blind to all colors except one: the color of blood.

  Bosch opened his briefcase after getting to his car and looked through all the paperwork until he found the call-out sheet he’d had put together on Saturday morning. He called Chastain’s pager and punched in the number of his cell phone. He then sat in the car for five minutes, waiting for the callback and watching the protest march. As he watched several of the television crews broke away from their positions and hurried with their equipment toward their vans and he realized that the helicopters were already gone. He sat up straight in his seat. His watch said ten minutes to eleven. He knew that if the media were leaving all at once, and before making their broadcasts, then something must have happened — something big. He flipped on the radio, which was already tuned to KFWB, and caught the middle of a report being delivered in an urgent, quavering voice.

  ‘ — out of the truck, then the beating began. Several bystanders attempted to stop the attack but initially the angry mob of youths held them back. The firefighters were pulled into separate knots of attackers and were being assaulted until a platoon of LAPD units stormed the intersection and rescued the victims, who were pulled into the patrol cars and then driven away — to receive medical attention, we assume, at nearby Daniel Freeman Hospital. The fire engine, left behind, had been set ablaze after the mob unsuccessfully tried to turn it over. The police quickly established a perimeter in the area and calmed things. While some of the attackers were arrested, several escaped into the residential neighborhoods bordering Normandie Boul — ’

  Bosch’s phone began ringing. He cut off the radio and flipped the phone open.

  ‘Bosch.’

  ‘It’s Chastain, what do you want?’

  Bosch could hear lots of voices and radio squawking in the background. Chastain wasn’t at home.

  ‘Where are you? We have to talk.’

  ‘Not tonight. I’m on duty. Twelve and twelves, remember?’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘In wonderful South L.A.’

  ‘You’re A shift? I thought all detectives were B shift.’

  ‘All except IAD. We got the shaft — night shift. Listen, Bosch, I’d love to talk about the schedule but — ’

  ‘Where are you? I’ll come to you.’

  Bosch turned the car’s ignition and started backing out of his spot.

  ‘I’m at the Seventy-seventh.’

  ‘I’m on my way. Meet me out front in fifteen minutes.’

  ‘Forget it, Bosch. I’ll be swamped. I’m on arrest processing and I hear they’re bringing in a dozen mooks who just attacked a fire truck, for chrissakes. These guys were trying to put out a fire in their neighborhood and these animals go after them. I tell you, it’s un-fucking believable.’

  ‘It never is believable. Be out front in fifteen minutes, Chastain.’

  ‘You’re not listening to me, Bosch. Things are going to hell out there and Big Blue is about to put down the boots on it. I don’t have time to talk. I have to get ready to put people in jail. You want me to stand out front like a target for some mook with a gun? What is this about, Bosch?’

  ‘Frank Sheehan.’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘Fifteen minutes. Be out there, Chastain, or I’ll come find you. You won’t want that.’

  Chastain started another protest but Bosch closed the phone.

  38

  It took Bosch twenty-five minutes to get to the Seventy-seventh Street Division station. He was delayed bec
ause the II0 Freeway had been closed in all directions by the California Highway Patrol. The freeway was a conduit from downtown to the South Bay area, directly through South L.A. In the last riot, snipers had fired on cars passing through and concrete blocks had been dropped from pedestrian overpasses onto cars below. The CHP was not taking any chances. Motorists were advised to take the circuitous route of the Santa Monica Freeway to the San Diego Freeway and then south. It would take twice as long but it was safer than a run through the expected war zone.

  Bosch took surface streets the whole way. Almost all of them were deserted and he never stopped once for a traffic light or stop sign. It was like driving through a ghost town. He knew there were hot spots of looting and arson, but he never passed through them. He thought about the picture the media was projecting compared to what he was seeing. Most of the people were inside, locked down and waiting for this to pass. They were good people waiting out the storm, staring at the television and wondering if that was really their city that was being shown on fire.

  The front of the Seventy-seventh station was also strangely empty when Bosch finally pulled up. A police academy bus had been pulled across the entranceway as a guard against drive-by shots and other attacks. But there were no protesters out front and no cops. As Bosch pulled to the no-parking curb in front, Chastain stepped out from the rear of the bus and approached. He was in uniform, his weapon holstered on his hip. He came to Bosch’s window and Bosch lowered it.

  ‘Where you been, Bosch, you said fif — ’

  ‘I know what I said. Get in.’

  ‘No, Bosch. I’m not going anywhere with you until you tell me what the hell you’re doing here. I’m on duty here, remember?’

  ‘I want to talk about Sheehan and the ballistics. About the Wilbert Dobbs case.’

  He noticed Chastain take a slight step back from the car. Mentioning Dobbs had landed a punch. Bosch noticed the sharpshooter ribbon on Chastain’s uniform below the badge.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about but the case on Sheehan is closed. He’s dead, Elias is dead. Everybody’s dead. That’s it. Now we have this—the whole city coming apart again.’

  ‘And whose fault is that?’

  Chastain stared at him, trying to read him.

  ‘You’re not making sense, Bosch. You need to get some sleep. We all do.’

  Bosch opened the door and stepped out. Chastain moved back another step and drew his right hand up a little until he hooked his thumb on his belt near his gun. There were unwritten rules of engagement. That was one of them. Bosch was now on deadly ground. He understood this. He was ready.

  Bosch turned and swung his car door closed. While Chastain’s eyes involuntarily followed that movement, Bosch swiftly reached inside his coat and pulled his pistol out of his holster. He had it pointing at Chastain before the IAD detective could make a move.

  ‘All right, we do it your way. Put your hands on the roof of the car.’

  ‘What the hell are you — ’

  ‘PUT YOUR HANDS ON THE CAR!’

  Chastain’s hands went up.

  ‘Okay, okay ... easy, Bosch, be easy.’

  He moved to the car and put his hands flat on the roof. Bosch came up behind him and took his gun from its holster. He stepped back and put it into his own holster.

  ‘I guess I don’t have to check you for a throw-down. You already used yours on Frankie Sheehan, right?’

  ‘What? I have no idea what you are talking about.’

  ‘That’s okay.’

  Keeping his right hand pressed against Chastain’s back, Bosch reached around and took the handcuffs off the man’s belt. He pulled one of Chastain’s arms behind his back and cuffed his wrist. He then pulled the other arm back and completed the handcuffing.

  Bosch walked him around and sat him in the backseat of the slickback opposite the driver’s side. He then got back behind the wheel. He took Chastain’s gun out of his holster, put it into his briefcase and reholstered his own weapon. Bosch adjusted the rearview mirror so he could quickly see Chastain at a glance and flicked the lock switch which rendered the rear doors inoperable from the inside.

  ‘You stay right there where I can see you. At all times.’

  ‘Fuck you! What the hell do you think you’re doing? Where are you taking me?’

  Bosch put the car in drive and headed away from the police station. He headed west until he could turn north on Normandie. Almost five minutes went by before he answered Chastain’s question.

  ‘We’re going to Parker Center,’ he said. ‘When we get there you’re going to tell me about killing Howard Elias, Catalina Perez ... and Frankie Sheehan.’

  Bosch felt anger and bile back up in his throat. He thought about one of the unsaid messages he had received from Garwood. He wanted street justice, and at that moment so did Bosch.

  ‘Fine, we’ll go back,’ Chastain said. ‘But you don’t know what you’re talking about. You are full of shit! The case is CLOSED, Bosch. Live with it.’

  Bosch started reciting the list of Constitutional rights against self-incrimination and then asked Chastain if he understood them.

  ‘Fuck you.’

  Bosch pressed on, glancing up at the mirror every few seconds.

  ‘That’s okay, you’re a cop. No judge in the world would say you didn’t understand your rights.’

  He waited a moment and checked his prisoner in the mirror one last time before going on.

  ‘You were Elias’s source. All these years, you were the guy giving him whatever he needed on whatever case he had. You — ’

  ‘Wrong.’

  ‘—sold out the department. You are the lowest of the low, Chastain. Isn’t that what you called it before? The lowest of the low? That was you, man, a bottom feeder, a scumbag ... a motherfucker.’

  Bosch saw police barricades across the street ahead. Two hundred yards beyond them he saw flashing blue lights and fire. He realized they were heading toward the hot spot where the firefighters had been attacked and their truck set ablaze.

  At the blockade he turned right and started looking north at each intersection he passed through. He was out of his element here. He had never worked an assignment at any of the department’s South Central divisions and didn’t know the geographic territory well. He knew he could become lost if he strayed too far from Normandie. He gave no indication of this when he checked Chastain in the mirror again.

  ‘You want to talk to me, Chastain? Or play it out?’

  ‘There is nothing to talk about. You are enjoying your last precious moments with a badge. What you’re doing here is pure suicide. Like your buddy, Sheehan. You’re killing yourself, Bosch.’

  Bosch slammed on the brakes and the car swerved to a stop. He drew his weapon and leaned over the seat, pointing it at Chastain’s face.

  ‘What did you say?’

  Chastain looked genuinely scared. He clearly believed that Bosch was on the edge of losing it.

  ‘Nothing, Bosch, nothing. Just drive. Let’s go to Parker and we’ll get this all straightened out.’

  Bosch slowly dropped back into the driver’s seat and started the car moving again. After four blocks he turned north again, hoping to run parallel to the disturbance spot and cut back onto Normandie after they were clear.

  ‘I just came from the basement at Parker,’ he said.

  He glanced in the mirror to see if that had changed anything in Chastain’s face. It hadn’t.

  ‘I pulled the package on Wilbert Dobbs. And I looked at the sign-out log. You pulled the package this morning and you took the bullets. You took the bullets from Sheehan’s service nine, the bullets he shot Dobbs with five years ago, and you turned three of them into ballistics saying they were the bullets from the Howard Elias autopsy. You set him up to take the fall. But it’s your fall, Chastain.’

  He checked the mirror. Chastain’s face had changed. The news Bosch just delivered had hit like the flat side of a shovel in the face. Bosch moved in for the finis
h.

  ‘You killed Elias,’ he said quietly, finding it hard to pull his eyes away from the mirror and back onto the road. ‘He was going to put you on that stand and expose you. He was going to ask you about the true findings of your investigation because you had told him the true findings. Only the case was too big. He knew how high he could go with it and you became expendable. He was going to burn you in order to win the case ... You lost it, I guess. Or maybe you’ve always been cold in the blood. But on Friday night you followed him home and when he was getting on Angels Flight, you made your move. You put him down. And then you looked up and there was the woman sitting there. Shit, that must’ve shocked the hell out of you. I mean, after all, the train car had been sitting there. It was supposed to be empty. But there was Catalina Perez on that bench and you had to put one in her, too. How am I doing, Chastain? I have the story right?’

  Chastain didn’t answer. Bosch came to an intersection, slowed and looked left. He could see down to the lighted area that was Normandie. He saw no barricades and no blue lights. He turned left and headed that way.

  ‘You lucked out,’ he continued. ‘The Dobbs case. It fit perfectly. You came across Sheehan’s threat in the files and took it from there. You had your patsy. A little research on the case and a little maneuvering here and there and you got to handle the autopsy. That gave you the bullets and all you had to do was switch them. Of course, the coroner’s ID markings on the bullets would be different but that discrepancy would only come up if there was a trial, if they took Sheehan to trial.’

  ‘Bosch, shut up! I don’t want to hear anymore. I don’t — ’

  ‘I don’t care what you want to hear! You’re going to hear this, douche bag. This is Frankie Sheehan talking to you from the grave. You understand that? You had to put it on Sheehan but it wouldn’t work if Sheehan ever went to a trial. Because the coroner would testify and he’d say, “Wait a sec, folks, these aren’t my marks on these bullets. There’s been a switch.” So you had no choice. You had to put Sheehan down, too. You followed us last night. I saw your lights. You followed us and then you did Frankie Sheehan. Made it look like a drunken suicide, lots of beers, lots of shots. But I know what you did. You put one in him, then you fired a couple more with his hand wrapped around the gun.