Angels Flight (1998)

by Michael Connelly

  “No, we don’t look,” Mercer retorted. “People be dumpin’ their garbage and whatnot in the field most every night. We never look. We keep our heads down. In the morning we look. We got some nice items time to time from what people throw away. We always wait till mornin’ to check out what they throw.”

  Bosch nodded that he understood and hoped Edgar would leave the men alone.

  “And you never told all of this to the cops?”

  “Nope,” Mercer and Gundy said in unison.

  “What about anybody else? You ever told it to somebody who could verify this has been the true story all along?”

  The men thought about it. Mercer was shaking his head no when Gundy nodded yes.

  “The only one we told was Mr. Elias’s man.”

  Bosch glanced at Edgar and then back at Gundy.

  “Who’s that?”

  “His man. The investigator. We told him what we told you. He said Mr. Elias was gonna use us in court one day. He said Mr. Elias would be takin’ care of us.”

  “Pelfry?” Edgar asked. “Was that his name?”

  “Could be,” Gundy said. “I don’t know.”

  Mercer didn’t say anything.

  “You guys read the paper today?” Bosch asked. “See any TV news?”

  “On what TV?” Mercer asked.

  Bosch just nodded and stood up. They didn’t even know Elias was dead.

  “How long ago was that when Mr. Elias’s man talked to you?”

  “Be about a month,” Mercer said. “Somewhere around that.”

  Bosch looked at Edgar and nodded that he was done. Edgar nodded back.

  “Thanks for your help,” Bosch said. “Can I buy you guys some dinner?”

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out his money. He gave each man a ten. They thanked him politely and he walked away.

  As they sped north on Western to Wilshire, Bosch started riffing on what the information from the two homeless men meant.

  “Harris is clear,” he said excitedly. “That’s how Elias knew. Because the body was moved. It was dumped there three days after she was dead. And Harris was in custody when it was moved. The best alibi in the world. Elias was going to bring those two old guys into court and put the lie to the LAPD.”

  “Yeah, but hold on, Harry,” Edgar said. “It doesn’t clear Harris completely. It could just mean he had an accomplice. You know, who moved the body while he was in lockup.”

  “Yeah, then why dump it so close to his apartment and further implicate him? I don’t think there’s an accomplice. I think it was the real killer. He read in the paper or saw on TV that they had Harris as a suspect and he moved the body to his neighborhood, to be another nail in Harris’s coffin.”

  “What about the fingerprints? How did Harris’s prints get into that nice mansion in Brentwood? Are you goin’ along with them being planted by your buddy Sheehan and his team?”

  “No, I’m not. There’s an explanation. We just don’t know it yet. It’s what we ask Pel — ”

  There was a loud explosion as the rear window shattered and glass blasted through the car. Edgar momentarily lost control and the car swerved into the oncoming lanes. There was a chorus of angry horns as Bosch reached over and yanked the wheel right, bringing the car back across the yellow lines.

  “What the fuck?” Edgar cried as he finally got the car under control and put on the brakes.

  “No!” Bosch yelled. “Keep going, keep going!”

  Bosch grabbed the radio out of the recharge slot on the floor and depressed the transmit button.

  “Shots fired, shots fired! Western and Olympic.”

  He held the button down as he looked over the backseat and out over the trunk. His eyes scanned the rooftops and windows of the apartment buildings two blocks back. He saw nothing.

  “Suspect unknown. Sniper fire on a marked investigative services unit. Request immediate backup. Request air surveillance of rooftops east and west sides of Western. Extreme caution is advised.”

  He clicked off the transmit button. While the dispatch operator repeated most of what he had just said to other units, he told Edgar that they had gone far enough and that he could stop.

  “I think it came from the East Side,” Bosch said to Edgar. “Those apartments with the flat roof. I think I heard it in my right ear first.”

  Edgar exhaled loudly. His hands were gripped so tight on the steering wheel now that the knuckles were as white as Bosch’s.

  “You know what?” he said. “I think I’m never going to drive one of these fucking targets again.”

  24

  YOU guys are late. I was thinkin’ about goin’ home, already.”

  Jenkins Pelfry was a big man, with a barrel chest and a complexion so dark it was hard to make out the lines of his face. He sat on the top of a small secretary’s desk in the anteroom of his office suite in the Union Law Center. There was a small television on a credenza to his left. It was tuned to a news channel. The view on the screen was from a helicopter circling a scene somewhere in the city.

  Bosch and Edgar had arrived forty minutes late for their noon appointment.

  “Sorry, Mr. Pelfry,” Bosch said. “We ran into a little problem on the way over. Appreciate you staying.”

  “Lucky for you I lost track of the time. I was watching the tube here. Things are not looking too good at the moment. It’s looking a little testy out there.”

  He indicated the television with one of his huge hands. Bosch looked again and realized the scene that the helicopter was circling was the scene he and Edgar had just left — the search for the sniper who had taken the shot at their car. On the tube Bosch could see the sidewalks on Western were now crowded with people watching the cops moving from building to building. More officers were arriving on the scene and these new officers were wearing riot helmets.

  “These guys oughta just get out of there. They’re baitin’ the crowd. This isn’t good. Just back the hell out, man. Live to fight another day.”

  “Tried that last time,” Edgar said. “Didn’t work.”

  The three of them watched for a few more moments in silence, then Pelfry reached over and turned off the tube. He looked at his visitors.

  “What can I do for you?”

  Bosch introduced himself and his partner.

  “I suppose you know why we’re here. We’re working the Howard Elias case. And we know you were doing some work for him on the Black Warrior thing. We could use your help, Mr. Pelfry. If we find who did this, we maybe have a shot at cooling this place off.”

  Bosch nodded at the blank tube of the television to underline his point.

  “You want my help,” Pelfry said. “Yeah, I worked for Eli — I always called him Eli. But I don’t know what I can do for you.”

  Bosch looked at Edgar and his partner made a subtle nod of his head.

  “Mr. Pelfry, our conversation here has to be kept confidential. My partner and I are following an investigative trail that indicates that whoever killed Stacey Kincaid may have also killed your employer. We think Elias got too close to the truth. If you know what he knew, then you could be in danger yourself.”

  Pelfry laughed at him — a short, loud snort. Bosch looked at Edgar and then back at Pelfry.

  “No offense but that’s about the worst pickup line I ever heard,” Pelfry said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  He pointed at the television once more. Bosch noticed how white the underside of his hand was.

  “I told you I been watchin’ the news. Channel Four says you guys are already measuring a cell for somebody. One of your own.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “They’re sweatin’ a suspect over at Parker right now.”

  “Did they have a name?”

  “They didn’t say a name but they knew it. They said it was one of the Black Warrior cops. The lead detective, in fact.”

  Bosch was dumbfounded. The lead detective was Frankie Sheehan.
r />   “That’s impos — can I use your phone?”

  “Help yourself. By the way, do you know you have glass in your hair?”

  Bosch brushed his hand through his hair while he stepped to the desk and picked up the phone. While he punched in the number of Irving’s conference room Pelfry watched. The phone was answered immediately.

  “Let me talk to Lindell.”

  “This is Lindell.”

  “It’s Bosch. What’s this on Channel Four about a suspect?”

  “I know. I’m checking into it. Somebody leaked. All I can say is that I updated Irving and the next thing I know it’s on TV. I think he’s your leak, not Chas — ”

  “I don’t care about that. What are you saying, it’s Sheehan? That’s im — ”

  “I’m not saying that. That’s the leak talking and I think the leak is the goddamned deputy chief.”

  “Have you brought Sheehan in?”

  “Yeah, we got him in here and we’re talking to him. Strictly voluntary at this point. He thinks he can talk his way out of the box. We got all day and then some. We’ll see if he can.”

  “Why Sheehan? Why’d you bring him in?”

  “I thought you knew. He was on top of Chastain’s list this morning. Elias sued him once before. Five years ago. He shot some asshole while trying to make an arrest on a murder. Put five holes in him. The widow sued and eventually won a hundred grand — even though to me it looked like a righteous shoot. In fact your buddy Chastain was the one who investigated the shoot and cleared him.”

  “I remember the case. It was a righteous shoot. But that didn’t matter to the jury. It was just a little while after Rodney King.”

  “Okay, well before it went to trial, Sheehan threatened Elias. During a depo, in front of the lawyers, the widow and, most important, the steno girl. She got it down word for word and it was in the depo which was in the file that Chastain and his people read yesterday. The threat was that Sheehan told Elias that someday when he least expected it, somebody was going to come up from behind and put him down like a dog. Words to that effect. Words that describe what happened on Angels Flight pretty good.”

  “Come on, that was five years ago. You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  Bosch noticed that both Edgar and Pelfry were watching him intently.

  “I know it, Bosch. But then you have this new lawsuit on the Black Warrior thing and who’s the lead? Detective Frank Sheehan. On top of that, he uses a nine-millimeter Smith and Wesson. And one other thing, we pulled his file. He’s qualified eleven straight years at the range as an expert marksman. And you know the kind of shooting it took on Angels Flight. You take it all into consideration and it put him at the top of the list of people to talk to. So we’re talking to him.”

  “The marksman thing is bullshit. They give those pins out like candy at the range. I bet seven or eight out of every ten cops have that ribbon. And eight out of ten cops carry Smith nines. Meantime, Irving — or whoever the leak is — is throwing him to the wolves. Sacrificing him to the media so maybe he can stop the city from burning.”

  “He’s only a sacrifice if he didn’t do it.”

  There was a cynical casualness in Lindell’s voice that Bosch didn’t like.

  “You better take it slow,” Bosch said. “Because I guarantee you Frankie wasn’t the shooter.”

  “Frankie? You guys friends, are you?”

  “We were partners. A long time back.”

  “Well, it’s funny. He doesn’t seem so fond of you now. My guys tell me that the first thing he said when they knocked on his door was ‘Fuck Harry Bosch.’ He thinks you ratted him out, man. He doesn’t know that we have the threat in the deposition. Or he doesn’t remember it.”

  Bosch put the phone down on its hook. He was in a daze. Frankie Sheehan believed that Bosch had turned their conversation of the night before against him. He believed Harry had turned him in to the bureau. It made Bosch feel worse than the knowledge that his old partner and friend now sat in an interview room fighting for his life.

  “Sounds like you don’t agree much with Channel Four,” Pelfry said.

  “No, I don’t.”

  “You know something, I’ma take a wild ass guess here, but I think that glass in your hair means you’re the two guys they were talkin’ about on TV getting potshotted over on Western.”

  “Yeah, what about it?” Edgar asked.

  “Well, that’s a few blocks from where that Stacey Kincaid girl ended up.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “Well, if that’s where you were comin’ from, then I wonder if you met my two buddies, Rufus and Andy.”

  “Yeah, we met ’em and we know all about the body being dumped three days late.”

  “You’re following my footsteps then.”

  “Some of them. We visited Mistress Regina last night, too.”

  Bosch was finally out of his daze but hung back and watched Edgar making progress with Pelfry.

  “Then this isn’t all bullshit what you said about who you think hit Eli?”

  “We’re here, aren’t we?”

  “Then what else you want to know? Eli kept his cards close most of the time. Very close to the vest. I never knew for sure which corner of the puzzle I was working, if you know what I mean.”

  “Tell us about the license plates,” Bosch said, ending his silence. “We know you guys pulled seventy-five days’ worth of receipts from Hollywood Wax. How come?”

  Pelfry looked at them a long moment as if deciding something.

  “Come on back,” he finally said.

  He led them to the rear office.

  “I didn’t want you guys back here,” he said. “But now . . .”

  He raised his hands to indicate the boxes covering every horizontal surface in the office. They were short boxes that normally held four six-packs of soda. Stacked in them were bundled receipts with cardboard markers with dates written on them.

  “Those are the receipts from Hollywood Wax?” Bosch asked.

  “That’s right. Eli was going to bring ’em all into court as an exhibit. I was holding ’em here till he needed ’em.”

  “What exactly was he going to show with them?”

  “I thought you boys knew.”

  “We’re a little behind you, Mr. Pelfry.”

  “Jenkins. Or Jenks. Most people call me Jenks. I don’t know exactly what alla these receipts meant — remember what I said about Eli not showin’ me all the cards in his deck — but I got an idea. See, when he su’peenied these, he gave me a list of license plate numbers on a piece a paper. He said I was to look through alla these and see if any of those numbers on the list turned up on the receipts.”

  “Did you?”

  “Yeah, took me the better part of a week.”

  “Any matches?”

  “One match.”

  He went over to one of the boxes and stuck his finger into the stack where there was a cardboard marker with the date 6/12 noted on it.

  “This one.”

  Pelfry pulled out a receipt and took it over to Bosch. Edgar came over and looked as well. The receipt was for a daily special. It identified the car to be washed as a white Volvo wagon. It listed the license plate number and the price of the special — $14.95 plus tax.

  “This plate number was on the list Elias gave you,” Bosch said.

  “That’s right.”

  “It was the only match you found.”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “You know whose car this plate is from?”

  “Not exactly. Eli didn’t tell me to run it. But I got a guess who it belongs to.”

  “The Kincaids.”

  “Now you’re with me.”

  Bosch looked at Edgar. He could tell by his partner’s face he hadn’t made the leap.

  “The fingerprints. To prove Harris was innocent beyond any kind of doubt, he had to explain his client’s fingerprints on the victim’s schoolbook. If there was no reason or possible legitimate explanation fo
r Harris having been in the Kincaid house and touching the book, then there were two alternative reasons. One, the prints were planted by the cops. Two, Harris touched the book when it was somewhere else, outside of the girl’s bedroom.”