The Last Coyote (1995)

by Michael Connelly

  “No, he’s down with the boat. He’s going fishing.”

  “Where’s that? Maybe I can catch him.”

  “Well, he doesn’t like surprises.”

  “I guess it will be a surprise whether you tell him or I tell him. Doesn’t make any difference to me. I just have to talk to him, Mrs. McKittrick.”

  Maybe she was used to the no-debate tone that cops can put into their voice. She gave in.

  “You walk around the building here and go straight back past the next three buildings. Go left, you’ll see the docks after that.”

  “Where’s his boat?”

  “It’s slip six. It says Trophy in big letters on the side. You can’t miss it. He hasn’t left yet because I’m supposed to bring his lunch down.”

  “Thanks.”

  He had started away from the door to the side of the building when she called after him.

  “Detective Bosch? Are you going to be a while? Should I make you a sandwich, too?”

  “I don’t know how long I’ll be but that would be nice of you.”

  As he headed toward the docks, he realized that the woman named Jasmine had never offered him the lemonade she had promised.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  IT TOOK BOSCH fifteen minutes to find the little inlet where the docks were. After that, McKittrick was easy enough to spot. There were maybe forty boats in slips but only one of them was occupied. A man with a deep tan set off by his white hair stood in the stern bending over the outboard engine. Bosch studied him as he got closer but saw nothing recognizable about the man. He did not fit with the image Bosch had in his mind’s eye of the man who had pulled him from the pool so long ago.

  The cover was off the boat engine and the man was doing something with a screwdriver. He wore khaki shorts and a white golf shirt that was too old and stained for golf but was fine for boating. The boat was about twenty feet long, Bosch guessed, and had a small cabin near the bow, where the helm was. There were fishing rods erected in holders along the sides of the boat, two rods per side.

  Bosch stopped on the dock at the bow of the boat on purpose. He wanted to be at a distance from McKittrick when he showed the badge. He smiled.

  “Never thought I’d see somebody from the Hollywood homicide table so far away from home,” he said.

  McKittrick looked up but showed no surprise. He showed nothing.

  “Nope, you’re wrong. This is home. When I was over there, that’s when I was far away.”

  Bosch gave a that’s-fair-enough nod and showed the badge. He held it the same way as when he’d showed it to McKittrick’s wife.

  “I’m Harry Bosch, from Hollywood homicide.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I heard.”

  Bosch was the one who showed surprise. He could not think of who in L.A. would have tipped McKittrick to his arrival. No one knew. He had only told Hinojos and he could not fathom that she would betray him.

  McKittrick relieved him by gesturing to the portable phone on the dashboard of the boat.

  “The wife called.”

  “Oh.”

  “So what’s this all about, Detective Bosch? When I used to work there, we did things in pairs. It was safer that way. You folks that understaffed, you’re going singleton?”

  “Not really. My partner’s chasing down another old case. These are such long shots, they’re not wasting money sending two.”

  “I assume you’re going to explain that.”

  “Yeah. As a matter of fact, I am. Mind if I come down there?”

  “Suit yourself. I’m fixing to shove off as soon as the wife comes with the food.”

  Bosch began walking along the finger dock to the side of McKittrick’s boat. He then stepped down into the craft. It wobbled on the water with the added weight but then steadied. McKittrick lifted the engine cover and began snapping it back in place. Bosch felt grossly out of place. He wore street shoes with black jeans, an Army green T-shirt and a black light-weight sport jacket. And he was still hot. He took the jacket off and folded it over one of the two chairs in the cockpit.

  “What are you going for?”

  “Whatever’s biting. What are you going for?”

  He looked directly at Bosch when he asked this and Harry saw that his eyes were brown like beer-bottle glass.

  “Well, you heard about the earthquake, didn’t you?”

  “Sure, who didn’t? You know, I’ve been through quakes and ’canes and you can keep the quakes. At least with a hurricane, you see it coming. You take Andrew, he left a lot of devastation, but think how much it woulda been if nobody knew he was about to hit. That’s what you get with your earthquakes.”

  It took Bosch a few moments to place Andrew, the hurricane that had slammed the South Florida coast a couple of years earlier. It was hard to keep track of all the disasters in the world. There were enough just in L.A. He looked out across the inlet. He saw a fish jump and its reentry create a stampede of jumping among the others in the school. He looked at McKittrick and was about to tell him when he realized it was probably something McKittrick saw every day of his life.

  “When’d you leave L.A.?”

  “Twenty-one years ago. I got my twenty in and pffft, I was gone. You can have L.A., Bosch. Shit, I was out there for the Sylmar quake in seventy-one. Knocked down a hospital and a couple freeways. At the time we were living in Tujunga, a few miles from the epicenter. I’ll always remember that one. It was like God and the devil meetin’ in the room and you were there with ’em playin’ referee. Goddamn…So what’s the quake got to do with you being here?”

  “Well, it’s kind of a strange phenomenon but the murder rate’s fallen off. People are being more civil, I guess. We—”

  “Maybe there’s nothing left there worth killing for.”

  “Maybe. Anyway, we’re usually running seventy, eighty murders a year in the division, I don’t know what it was like when you—”

  “We’d do less than half that. Easy.”

  “Well, we’re running way below the average this year. It’s given us time to go back through some of the old ones. Everybody on the table’s taken a share. One of the ones I’ve got has your name on it. I guess you know your partner from back then passed away and—”

  “Eno’s dead? Goddamn, I didn’t know that. I thought I would’ve heard about that. Not that it would’ve mattered a whole hell of a lot.”

  “Yeah, he’s dead. His wife gets the pension checks. Sorry, you hadn’t heard.”

  “That’s okay. Eno and me…well, we were partners. That’s about it.”

  “Anyway, I’m here because you’re alive and he isn’t.”

  “What’s the case?”

  “Marjorie Lowe.” He waited a moment for a reaction from McKittrick’s face and got none. “You remember it? She was found in the trash in an alley off—”

  “Vista. Behind Hollywood Boulevard between Vista and Gower. I remember them all, Bosch. Cleared or not, I remember every goddamn one of them.”

  But you don’t remember me, Bosch thought but didn’t say.

  “Yeah, that’s the one. Between Vista and Gower.”

  “What about it?”

  “It was never cleared.”

  “I know that,” McKittrick said, his voice rising. “I worked sixty-three cases during seven years on the homicide table. I worked Hollywood, Wilshire, then RHD. Cleared fifty-six. I’ll put that up against anybody. Today they’re lucky if they clear half of ’em. I’ll put it up against you blind.”

  “And you’d win. That’s a good record. This isn’t about you, Jake. It’s about the case.”

  “Don’t call me Jake. I don’t know you. Never seen you before in my life. I—wait a minute.”

  Bosch stared at him, astonished that he might actually remember the pool. But then he realized that McKittrick had stopped because of his wife’s approach along the dock. She was carrying a plastic cooler. McKittrick waited silently for her to put it down on the dock near the boat and he hoisted it aboard.
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  “Oh, Detective Bosch, you’ll be way too hot in that,” Mrs. McKittrick said. “Do you want to come back up and borrow a pair of Jake’s shorts and a white T-shirt?”

  Bosch looked at McKittrick, then up at her.

  “No, thanks, ma’am, I’m fine.”

  “You are going fishing, aren’t you?”

  “Well, I haven’t exactly been invited and I—”

  “Oh, Jake, invite him fishing. You’re always looking for somebody to go out with you. Besides, you can catch up on all that blood-and-guts stuff you used to love in Hollywood.”

  McKittrick looked up at her and Bosch could see the horses fighting against the restraints. He was able to get it under control.

  “Mary, thanks for the sandwiches,” he said calmly. “Now, could you go back up to the house and leave us be?”

  She threw him a frown and shook her head as if he were a spoiled boy. She went back the way she had come without another word. The two of them left on the boat let some time go by before Bosch finally spoke and tried to recover the situation.

  “Look, I’m not here for any reason other than to ask you a few questions about this case. I’m not trying to suggest there was anything wrong with the way it was handled. I’m just taking another look at it. That’s all.”

  “You left something out.”

  “What’s that?”

  “That you’re full of shit.”

  Bosch could feel the horses rearing up in himself. He was angry at this man’s questioning his motives, even though he was right to do so. He was on the verge of shedding the nice-guy skin and going at him. But he knew better. He knew that for McKittrick to act this way, there must be a reason. Something about the old case was like a pebble in his shoe. He had worked it over to the side where it didn’t hurt when he walked. But it was still in there. Bosch had to make him want to take it out. He swallowed his own anger and tried to stay level.

  “Why am I full of shit?” he said.

  McKittrick’s back was to him. The former cop was reaching down under the steering console. Bosch couldn’t see what he was trying to do, except he guessed he was maybe looking for a hidden set of boat keys.

  “Why are you full of shit?” McKittrick answered as he turned around. “I’ll tell you why. Because you come here flashing that bullshit badge around when we both know you don’t have a badge.”

  McKittrick was pointing a Beretta twenty-two at Bosch. It was small but it would do the job at this distance, and Bosch had to believe that McKittrick knew how to use it.

  “Jesus, man, what’s the problem with you?”

  “I had no problem until you showed up.”

  Bosch held his hands chest-high in a nonthreatening pose.

  “Just take it easy.”

  “You take it easy. Put your fucking hands down. I want to see that badge again. Take it out and toss it over here. Slowly.”

  Bosch complied, all the while trying to look around the docks without turning his head more than a few inches. He didn’t see anyone. He was alone. And unarmed. He threw the badge wallet down on the deck near McKittrick’s feet.

  “Now I want you to walk around the bridge to the bow up there. Stand against the bow rail where I can see you. I knew somebody would try to fuck with me someday. Well, you picked the wrong guy and the wrong day.”

  Bosch did as instructed and went up to the bow. He grabbed the railing for support and turned around to face his captor. Without taking his eyes off Bosch, McKittrick bent and picked up the wallet. Then he moved into the cockpit and put the gun down on top of the console. Bosch knew if he tried for it McKittrick would get there first. McKittrick reached down and turned something and the engine kicked over.

  “What are you doing, McKittrick?”

  “Oh, now it’s McKittrick. What happened to the friendly ‘Jake’? Well, what’s doing is, we’re going fishing. You wanted to fish, that’s what we’ll do. You try to jump and I’ll shoot you in the water. I don’t care.”

  “I’m not going anywhere. Just take it easy.”

  “Now, reach down to that cleat and unhook that line. Throw it up on the dock.”

  When Bosch had finished completing the order, McKittrick picked up the gun and stepped back three paces into the stern. He untied the other line and pushed off from a pylon. He returned to the helm and gently put the boat in reverse. It glided out of the slip. McKittrick then put it in forward and they started moving through the inlet toward the mouth of the canal. Bosch could feel the warm salt breezes drying the sweat on his skin. He decided he would jump as soon as they got to some open water, or where there were other boats with people on them.

  “Kind of surprised you’re not carrying. What kind of guy says he’s a cop, then doesn’t carry a piece?”

  “I am a cop, McKittrick. Let me explain.”

  “You don’t have to, boy, I already know. Know all about you.”

  McKittrick flipped open the badge wallet and Bosch watched him study the ID card and the gold lieutenant’s badge. He threw it on the console.

  “What do you know about me, McKittrick?”

  “Don’t worry, I still have a few teeth left, Bosch, and I still have a few friends in the department. After the wife called, I made a call. One of my friends. He knew all about you. You’re on leave, Bosch. Involuntary. So I don’t know about this bullshit story about earthquakes you were spinning. Makes me think maybe you picked up a little freelance work while you’re off the job.”

  “You got it wrong.”

  “Yeah, well, we’ll see. Once we get out into some open water, you’re gonna tell me who sent you or you’re gonna be fish food. Makes no difference to me.”

  “Nobody sent me. I sent myself.”

  McKittrick slapped his palm against the red ball on the throttle lever and the boat surged forward. Its bow rose and Bosch grabbed the railing to hold on.

  “Bullshit!” McKittrick yelled above the engine noise. “You’re a liar. You lied before, you’re lying now.”

  “Listen to me,” Bosch yelled. “You said you remember every case.”

  “I do, goddamnit! I can’t forget them.”

  “Cut it back!”

  McKittrick pulled the throttle back and the boat evened off and the noise reduced.

  “On the Marjorie Lowe case you pulled the dirty work. You remember that? Remember what we call the dirty work? You had to tell the next of kin. You had to tell her kid. Out at McClaren.”

  “That was in the reports, Bosch. So—”

  He stopped and stared at Bosch for a long moment. Then he flipped open the badge case and read the name. He looked back at Bosch.

  “I remember that name. The swimming pool. You’re the kid.”

  “I’m the kid.”

  Chapter Twenty-five

  MCKITTRICK LET THE boat drift in the shallows of Little Sarasota Bay while Bosch told the story. He asked no questions. He simply listened. At a moment where Bosch paused, he opened the cooler his wife had packed and took out two beers, handing one to Bosch. The can felt ice-cold in Bosch’s hand.

  Bosch didn’t pull the tab on his beer until he finished the story. He had told everything he knew to McKittrick, even the nonessential part about his run-in with Pounds. He had a hunch, based on McKittrick’s anger and bizarre behavior, that he had been wrong about the old cop. He had flown out to Florida believing he was coming to see either a corrupt or a stupid cop and he wasn’t sure which he would dislike more. But now he believed that McKittrick was a man who was haunted by memories and the demons of choices made badly many years ago. Bosch thought that the pebble still had to come out of the shoe and that his own honesty was the best way to get to it.

  “So that’s my story,” he said at the end. “I hope she packed more than two of these.”

  He popped the beer and drank nearly a third of it. It tasted delicious going down his throat in the afternoon sun.

  “Oh, there’s plenty more where that came from,” McKittrick replied. “You want a sandwic
h?”

  “Not yet.”

  “No, what you want is my story now.”

  “That’s what I came for.”

  “Well, let’s get out there to the fish.”

  He restarted the engine and they followed a trail of channel markers south through the bay. Bosch finally remembered he had sunglasses in the pocket of his sport coat and put them on.

  It seemed like the wind was cutting in on him from all directions and on occasion its warmth would be traded for a cool breeze that would come up off the surface of the water. It was a long time since Bosch had been on a boat or had even been fishing. For a man who had had a gun pointed at him twenty minutes earlier, he realized he felt pretty good.