What is jealousy but a reflection of your own failures? I was jealous and angry and I struck at her. I then made a feeble effort to cover what I had done. I am sorry, Harry, but I took her from you and with that took any chance you ever had. I’ve carried the guilt every day since then and I take it with me now. I should have paid for my sin a long time ago but someone convinced me otherwise and helped me get away. There is no one left to convince me now.
I don’t ask for your forgiveness, Harry. That would be an insult. I guess all I want is for you to know my regrets and to know that sometimes people who get away don’t really get away. I didn’t. Not then, not now. Good-bye.
Meredith
Bosch reread the note and then stood there thinking about it for a long time. Finally, he folded it and put it back in its envelope. He walked over to the fireplace, lit the envelope on fire with his Bic and then tossed it onto the grate. He watched the paper bend and burn until it bloomed like a black rose and went out.
He went to the kitchen and lifted the receiver off the phone after wrapping his hand in tissue. He put it on the counter and dialed 911. As he walked toward the front door, he could hear the tiny voice of the Santa Monica police operator asking who was there and what the problem was.
He left the door unlocked and wiped the exterior knob with the tissue after stepping out onto the porch. He heard a voice from behind him.
“She writes a good letter, don’t she?”
Bosch turned around. Vaughn was sitting on the rattan love seat on the porch. He was holding a new twenty-two in his hand. It looked like another Beretta. He looked none the worse for wear. He didn’t have the black eyes that Bosch had, or the stitches.
“Vaughn.”
Bosch couldn’t think of anything else to say. He couldn’t imagine how he had been found by him. Could Vaughn have been daring enough to hang around Parker Center and follow Bosch from there? Bosch looked out into the street and wondered how long it would take the police operator to dispatch a car to the address the computer gave her for the 911 call. Even though Bosch had said nothing on the line, he knew they would eventually send a car to check it out. He had wanted them to find Meredith. If they took their time about it, they would probably find him as well. He had to stall Vaughn for as long as possible.
“Yeah, nice note,” the man with the gun said. “But she left something out, don’t you think?”
“What’s left out?”
Vaughn seemed not to have heard him.
“It’s funny,” he said. “I knew your mother had a kid. But I never met you, never even saw you. She kept you away from me. I wasn’t good enough, I guess.”
Bosch continued to stare as things began to fall together.
“Johnny Fox.”
“In the flesh.”
“I don’t understand. Mittel . . .”
“Mittel had me killed? No, not really. I killed myself, I guess you could say. I read that story you people put in the paper today. But you had it wrong. Most of it, at least.”
Bosch nodded. He knew now.
“Meredith killed your mother, kid. Sorry about that. I just helped her take care of it after the fact.”
“And then you used her death to get to Conklin.”
Bosch didn’t need any confirmation from Fox. He was just trying to chew up time.
“Yeah, that was the plan, to get to Conklin. Worked pretty good, too. Got me out of the sewer. Only I found out pretty fast that the real power was Mittel. I could tell. Between the two of them, Mittel could go the distance. So I threw in with him, you could say. He wanted a better hold on the golden boy. He wanted an ace up his own sleeve. So I helped.”
“By killing yourself? I don’t get it.”
“Mittel told me that supreme power over someone is the power they don’t know you have until you need to use it. You see, Bosch, Mittel always suspected that Conklin was really the one who did your mother.”
Bosch nodded. He saw where the story was going.
“And you never told Mittel that Conklin wasn’t the killer.”
“That’s right. I never told him about Meredith. So knowing that, look at it from his side. Mittel figured that if Conklin was the doer and he believed I was dead, then he’d think he was home free. See, I was the only loose end, the one who could tie him in. Mittel wanted him to think he was clear. He wanted it because he wanted Conklin at ease. He didn’t want him to lose his drive, his ambition. Conklin was going places and Mittel didn’t want him to even hesitate. But he also wanted to keep an ace up his sleeve, something that he could always pull out if Conklin tried to step out of line. That was me. I was the ace. So we arranged that little hit and run, me and Mittel. Thing is, Mittel never had to play the ace with Conklin. Conklin gave Mittel a lot of good years after that. By the time he backed out on that attorney general thing, Mittel was well diversified. By then he had a congressman, a senator, a quarter of the local pols on his client list. You could say by then he had already climbed on Conklin’s shoulders to the higher ground. He didn’t need Arno anymore.”
Bosch nodded again and thought a moment about the scenario. All those years. Conklin believed it had been Mittel who killed her and Mittel believed it had been Conklin. It was neither.
“So who was the one you ran over?”
“Oh, just somebody. It doesn’t matter. He was just a volunteer, you could say. I picked him up on Mission Street. He thought he was handing out Conklin fliers. I planted my ID in the bottom of the satchel I gave him. He never knew what hit him or why.”
“How’d you get away with it?” Bosch asked, though he thought he already knew the answer to that as well.
“Mittel had Eno on the line. We set it up so that it happened when he was next up on call. He took care of everything and Mittel took care of him.”
Bosch could see that the setup also gave Fox a share of power over Mittel. And he’d ridden along with him ever since. A little plastic surgery, a nicer set of clothes, and he was Jonathan Vaughn, aide to the wunderkind political strategist and rainmaker.
“So how’d you know I’d show up here?”
“I’d kept tabs on her over the years. I knew she was here. Alone. After our little run-in on the hill the other night, I came here to hide, to sleep. You gave me a headache— what the hell you hit me with?”
“The eight ball.”
“I guess I should have thought of that when I put you in there. Anyway, I found her like that in the bed. I read the note and knew who you were. I figured you’d be back. Especially after you left that message on the phone yesterday.”
“You’ve been here all this time with . . .”
“You get used to it. I put the air on high, closed the door. You get used to it.”
Bosch tried to imagine it. Sometimes he believed that he was used to the smell, but he knew he wasn’t.
“What did she leave out of the note, Fox?”
“That was the part about her wanting Conklin for herself. See, I tried her with Conklin first. But it didn’t take. Then I set him up with Marjorie and got the fireworks. Nobody expected that he’d want to end up marrying her, though. Least of all Meredith. There was only room on the horse with the white knight for one rider. That was Marjorie. Meredith couldn’t handle that. Must’ve been a hell of a catfight.”
Bosch said nothing. But the truth stung his face like a sunburn. That’s what it had all come down to, a catfight between whores.
“Let’s go to your car now,” Fox said.
“Why?”
“We need to go to your place now.”
“For what?”
Fox never answered. A Santa Monica squad car stopped in front of the house just as Bosch asked his question. Two officers started getting out.
“Be cool, Bosch,” Fox said quietly. “Be cool if you want to live a little longer.”
Bosch saw Fox turn the aim of his gun toward the approaching officers. They could not see it because of the thick bougainvillea running along the front of the porch.
One of them started to speak.
“Did someone here call nine—”
Bosch took two steps and launched himself over the railing to the lawn. As he did it, he yelled a warning.
“He’s got a gun! He’s got a gun!”
On the ground, Bosch heard Fox start running on the wood decking of the porch. He guessed he was going for the door. Then came the first shot. He was sure it came from behind him, from Fox. Then the two cops opened up like the Fourth of July. Bosch couldn’t count all the shots. He stayed on the grass with his arms spread wide and his hands up, just hoping they wouldn’t send one his way.
It was over in no more than eight seconds. When the echoes died and silence returned, Bosch yelled again.
“I’m unarmed! I’m a police officer! I am no threat to you! I am an unarmed police officer!”
He felt the end of a hot gun barrel pressed against his neck.
“Where’s the ID?”
“Right inside coat pocket.”
Then he remembered he still didn’t have it. The cop’s hands grasped him by the shoulders.
“I’m going to roll you over.”
“Wait a minute. I don’t have it.”
“What is this? Roll over.”
Bosch complied.
“I don’t have it with me. I’ve got other ID though. Left inside pocket.”
The cop started going through his jacket. Bosch was scared.
“I’m not going to do anything wrong here.”
“Just be quiet.”
The cop got Bosch’s wallet out and looked at the driver’s license that was behind a clear plastic window.
“Whaddaya got, Jimmy?” the other cop yelled. Bosch couldn’t see him. “He legit?”
“Says he’s a cop, got no badge. Got a DL here.”
Then he hunched back down over Bosch and patted the rest of his body in a search for weapons.
“I’m clean.”
“All right, turn back over.”
Bosch did so and his hands were cuffed behind his back. He then heard the man above him call in for backup and an ambulance on his radio.
“All right, get up.”
Bosch did as he was told. For the first time he could see the porch. The other cop stood with his handgun pointing down at Fox’s crumpled body at the front door. Bosch was led up the steps to the porch. He could see Fox was still alive. His chest was heaving, he had wounds in both legs and the stomach and it looked like one slug had gone through both cheeks. His jaw hung open. But his eyes seemed even wider as he stared at death coming for him.
“I knew you’d fire, you fuck,” Bosch said to him. “Just die now.”
“Shut up,” the one called Jimmy ordered. “Right now.”
The other cop pulled him away from the front door. Out in the street, Bosch could see neighbors joining together in little knots or watching from their own porches. Nothing like gunshots in suburbia for getting people together, he thought. The smell of spent gunpowder in the air does it better than a barbecue any day.
The young cop got right up in Bosch’s face. Harry could see that his name plate identified him as D. Sparks.
“Okay, what the fuck’s going on here? If you’re a cop, tell us what’s going on.”
“You two are a couple of heroes, that’s what’s going on.”
“Tell the story, man. I don’t have time for bullshit.”
Bosch could hear approaching sirens now.
“My name’s Bosch. I’m with LAPD. This man you shot is the suspect in the killing of Arno Conklin, the former district attorney of this county, and LAPD Lieutenant Harvey Pounds. I’m sure you’ve heard about these cases.”
“Jim, you hear that?” He turned back to Bosch. “Where’s your badge?”
“Stolen. I can give you a number to call. Assistant Chief Irvin Irving. He’ll tell you about me.”
“Never mind that. What’s he doing here?”
He pointed to Fox.
“He told me he was hiding out. Earlier today I got a call to come to this address and he was here waiting to ambush me. See, I could identify him. He had to take me out.”
The cop looked down at Fox wondering if he should believe such an incredible story.
“You got here right in time,” Bosch said. “He was going to kill me.”
D. Sparks nodded. He was beginning to like the sound of this story. Then concern creased his brow.
“Who called 911?” he asked.
“I did,” Bosch said. “I came here, found the door open and went in. I was calling 911 when he got the jump on me. I just dropped the phone because I knew you people would come.”
“Why call 911 if he hadn’t grabbed you yet?”
“Because of what’s in the back bedroom.”
“What?”
“There’s a woman in the bed. She looks like she’s been dead about a week.”
“Who is she?”
Bosch looked at the young cop’s face.
“I don’t know.”
Chapter 50
“Why didn’t you reveal that you knew she was your mother’s killer? Why did you lie?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t figured it out. It’s just that there was something about what she wrote and what she did at the end that . . . I don’t know, I just felt like that was enough. I just wanted to let it go.”
Carmen Hinojos nodded her head as if she understood but Bosch wasn’t sure he did himself.
“I think that’s a good decision, Harry.”
“You do? I don’t think anybody else would think it was a good decision.”
“I’m not talking about on a procedural or criminal justice level. I’m just talking about on a human level. I think you did the right thing. For yourself.”
“I guess . . .”
“Do you feel good about it?”
“Not really . . . You were right, you know.”
“I was? About what?”
“About what you said about me finding out who did it. You warned me. Said it might do me more harm than good. Well, that was an understatement . . . Some mission I gave myself, right?”
“I’m sorry if I was right. But as I said in the last session, the deaths of those men can’t be—”
“I’m not talking about them anymore. I’m talking about something else. You see, I know now that my mother was trying to save me from that place I was at. Like she had promised me that day out by the fence that I told you about. I think that whether she loved Conklin or not, she was thinking of me. She had to get me out and he was the way to do it. So, ultimately, you see, it was because of me that she died.”
“Oh, please, don’t tell yourself that, Harry. That’s ridiculous.”
Bosch knew that the anger in her voice was real.
“If you are going to take that form of logic,” she continued, “you can come up with any reason why she was killed, you can argue that your own birth set circumstances in motion that led to her death. You see how silly that is?”
“Not really.”
“It’s the same argument you made the other day about people not taking responsibility. Well, the inverse of that is people who take too much responsibility. And you are becoming one of them. Let that go, Harry. Let it go. Let someone else take some responsibility for some things. Even if that someone else is dead. Being dead does not absolve them of everything.”
He was cowed by the forcefulness of her admonition. He just looked at her for a long moment. He could tell her outburst would signal a natural break in the session. The discussion of his guilt was done. She had ended it and he had his instructions.
“I’m sorry to have raised my voice.”
“No problem.”
“Harry, what do you hear from the department?”
“Nothing. I’m waiting on Irving.”
“What do you mean?”
“He kept my . . . culpability out of the paper. Now it’s his move. He’s either going to come at me with IAD— if he can make a case against me impersonati
ng Pounds— or he’s going to let it go. I’m betting he’s going to let it go.”
“Why?”
“The one thing about the LAPD is that it is not into self-flagellation. Know what I mean? This case is very public and if they do something to me, they know there’s always the danger it will get out and it will be one more black eye for the department. Irving sees himself as the protector of the department’s image. He’ll put that ahead of taking me down. Besides, he’ll have leverage on me now. I mean, he thinks he will.”
“You seem to know Irving and the department well.”
“Why?”
“Chief Irving called me this morning and asked me to forward a positive RTD evaluation to his office as soon as possible.”
“He said that? He wants a positive return-to-duty report?”
“Yes, those were his words. Do you think you are ready for that?”
He thought a few moments but didn’t answer the question.
“Has he done that before? Told you how to evaluate somebody?”
“No. It’s a first time and I’m very concerned about it. It undermines my position here if I simply accede to his wishes. It’s quite a dilemma because I don’t want you caught in the middle.”
“What if he didn’t tell you which way to go, what would your evaluation be? Positive or negative?”
She played with a pencil on the desktop for a few moments while considering the question.
“It’s very close, Harry, but I think you need more time.”
“Then don’t do it. Don’t give in to him.”
“That’s quite a change. Only a week ago all you could talk about was getting back to the job.”
“That was a week ago.”
There was a palpable sadness in his voice.
“Stop beating yourself to death with it,” she said. “The past is like a club and you can only hit yourself in the head with it so many times before there is serious and permanent damage. I think you’re at your limit. For what it’s worth, I think you are a good and clean and ultimately kind man. Don’t do this to yourself. Don’t ruin what you have, what you are, with this kind of thinking.”
The Harry Bosch Novels, Volume 2 Page 38
