Bosch nodded as he reached into the right side pocket of his coat for his notebook.
“I saw you checking rigor. Anything on time of death yet?”
“We’ve done liver temperature and rigor confirms death last evening. I estimate between ten and midnight. We can try to narrow it down further after we take Mr. Barclay to the autopsy suite.”
Bosch wrote it down.
“Can you give me an idea about the weapon?” he asked.
“I can point out to you that the tool set belonging to the fireplace behind me is missing the poker,” Doyle said. “This specific tool is usually a combination of spear and barb so that burning wood can be poked, prodded, hooked and pulled.”
Bosch looked over Doyle’s shoulder at the iron stand next to the stone fireplace. It had individual forks for holding the tools—a spade, a broom, and a two-handled vice for gripping firewood. The fourth prong held no tool.
Bosch scanned the room and didn’t see the poker anywhere evident.
“Anything you can tell me that I wouldn’t have found on my own?” he asked.
Doyle frowned and adjusted his own position at the head of the body, revealing his infirmity. Doyle was close to seventy and scoliosis had bent his back over time. It was as curved as the Pacific Coast Highway and required him to walk with forearm crutches to maintain balance. Bosch always thought it must pain Doyle deeply to be betrayed by the very thing he had spent his life studying.
“I can tell you a lot, Detective,” Doyle said. “Only you can determine if you would have made these discoveries on your own.”
“I’m ready when you are.”
“Very well. Something for you to note first.”
Doyle leaned forward with two gloved hands and pressed down on the victim’s chest and stomach area, then continued.
“When we evacuate the decedent’s air passages we emit a distinctively chalky scent of almonds and oak.”
Bosch was immediately confused. Doyle had just reported that the blow to the head was the likely cause of death.
“I don’t follow,” he said. “The scent of almonds? Are you saying he was poisoned, too?”
“No, not at all. I am saying if you retreat to the living room you will notice a collection of cognacs and brandies atop a Louis Fourteen giltwood center table.”
“I saw the bottles, yeah. I wouldn’t know a Louis Fourteen from a Louis C.K.”
“Yes, I know this. Anyway, on the table, look for a bottle of tear drop design displayed either in or on an oaken shrine. I believe our victim ingested a quantity of Jenssen Arcana shortly before his death.”
“And Jenssen Arcana is what?”
“It’s a cognac, Detective. One of the finest in the world. One of the most concentrated, too. Aged ninety-eight years in French oak. Five thousand, five hundred dollars a bottle the last I checked.”
Bosch stared at Doyle for a long moment and had to give in.
“So you are saying that you can tell what kind of brandy this guy was drinking by what you just burped out of his dead body?”
“Quite so, Detective.”
“You’ve tasted this stuff at fifty-five hundred dollars a bottle?”
“Actually, no. I am told that a taste of Jenssen Arcana is a life changing experience but to this date I have not imbibed. On a public servant’s salary I have only had the occasion to sample the aroma of the great cognacs—the Arcana included.”
“So you’ve sniffed it.”
“It is said that the olfactory experience related to cognac is indispensible to the pleasure derived. I should not forget the Arcana. I do have a predilection for fine cognac and I have categorized the scent of those I have been lucky enough to both imbibe and sniff, as you say.”
Bosch looked down at the body for a moment.
“Well, I’m not sure what our knowing what he was drinking gets us, but okay, I’ll take it, I guess.”
“It means a lot, Detective. You savor Louis Fourteen. It’s for very special occasion or—”
“Look at this place, Doc,” Bosch interrupted, raising his arms as if to take in the opulence far beyond the walls of the library. “I don’t think five grand a bottle would bankrupt this guy. Louis Fourteen could’ve been the house juice, for all we know.”
“That could not be the case, Detective. Quantities of the fourteen are extremely limited. You must have wealth to afford a bottle, true, but one bottle may be all you ever get in a lifetime.”
Bosch grudgingly saw his point.
“Okay, so what do you think it means?”
“I think it means that before his death, something happened in this house. Something bad.”
Bosch nodded, even though Doyle’s conclusion did not help him. Usually something bad happens before every murder. A guy getting drunk on five-hundred-buck-a-shot cognac was indicative of nothing.
“I assume you drew blood and you’ll get me an alcohol content,” he said.
“You’ll have it the moment we have it,” Doyle said. “We’ll run it as soon as we get Mr. Barclay to Mission Road.”
He was referring to the location near downtown where the coroner’s office was located.
“Good,” Bosch said. “So then let’s move on. What else you got, Doc?”
“Next, I refer you to the decedent’s extremities,” Doyle said. “First the left hand.”
Doyle lifted the left arm and hand and presented it to Bosch. He immediately noticed a slight discoloration on the points of all four knuckles.
“Bruising?” he asked.
“Correct,” Doyle said. “Ante-mortem. The impact was very close to time of death. The blood vessels are damaged and just beginning to leak blood into the tissue. But the process was almost immediately halted when the heart stopped.”
“So, signs of a struggle. We’re looking for a killer who might have bruises from the punch.”
“Not exactly, Detective.”
Doyle manipulated the hand into a fist and then took a ruler and laid it across the knuckles. Its surface met the bruise point of every knuckle.
“What are you saying?” Bosch asked.
“I am saying that the bruise pattern indicates he punched a flat surface,” Doyle replied. “It is rare that you find uniformity in bruising from a physical altercation. People are not flat surfaces.”
Bosch drummed his pen on his notebook. He wasn’t sure what the bruising report got him.
“Don’t be impatient, Harry. Let’s move to the lower extremities. The underside of the right foot in particular.”
Bosch crab-walked down to the lower extremities of the body and looked at the bottom of the dead man’s shoe. At first he saw nothing but upon leaning down further saw a tiny twinkle of reflection. He leaned down further and looked into the shoe’s treads. He saw it again.
“What is that?”
“It’s glass, Detective. I believe you will be able to match it to the array of glass on the floor by the door.”
Bosch looked over at the French doors and the spread of glass on the floor.
“He walked on the glass . . . ,” he said.
“He did indeed.”
Bosch looked at the body for a moment and then stood up. Both of his knees cracked. He took a half step back to steady himself.
Doyle signaled his assistant and was helped up into a standing position. The assistant handed him his crutches and he slipped his arms through the forearm cuffs and leaned forward on the supports. He looked at Bosch, turning his head slightly as if trying to get a better angle on something.
“What?” Bosch said.
“I would not dismiss that as a symptom of aging,” Doyle said quietly.
Bosch looked back at him.
“Dismiss what?”
“BPPV—you have it, Detective.”
“Really. And what is BPPV?”
“Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo. You needed to balance yourself both when you squatted down and when you got back up. How long has this been going on?”
Bosch was annoyed with the intrusion.
“I don’t know. Look, I’m sixty years old and my balance isn’t what it—”
“I repeat. It is not a symptom of aging. More often than not it is caused by an infection in the inner ear. My guess, since you listed both times to your right, that the problem is in your right ear. Would you like me to take a look at it? I have an otoscope with me.”
“What, a thing you stick in dead people’s ears? Thanks, but I’ll pass.”
“Then you should see your own doctor and have it checked. Soon.”
“Okay, okay, I’ll do that. Can we get back to the case now?”
“Of course.”
Doyle pointed one of his aluminum poles toward the French doors and they moved across the room. They looked down at the glass as if the pieces were like tea leaves waiting to be read.
“So . . . ,” Bosch began. “You’re thinking he’s the guy who came through the door?”
“The bruises on the knuckles suggest impact with a flat surface,” Doyle reminded.
“You’re thinking he was on the outside and he tried to break the glass with his fist at first.”
“Exactly. Then the rock.”
Doyle pointed his right pole at the rock.
“So punching plate glass like that, not smart,” Bosch said.
“If he broke through he would have torn his arm up to the elbow,” Doyle said.
“He wasn’t thinking clearly,” Bosch said.
“He wasn’t thinking at all,” Doyle said.
“The cognac,” Bosch said.
“He was possibly drunk,” Doyle said.
“And angry—someone was in here he was angry at,” Bosch said.
“Someone who had locked the doors to get away from him,” Doyle said.
“He couldn’t break the interior door down so he went outside,” Bosch said. “He thought he could break the glass.”
“Impact resistant glass,” Doyle said. “He hurt his hand.”
“So he picked up the rock,” Bosch said.
“He broke the glass,” Doyle said.
“He reached in and unlocked the door,” Bosch said.
“And he came in,” Doyle said.
They had spoken quickly, brainstorming and filling in the story as if joined in a single thought process.
Now Bosch moved away from the door and back toward the body. He looked down upon James Barclay. His eyes were open, frozen in surprise.
“Whoever was in here was ready for him,” he said.
“Quite so,” Doyle said.
“She probably had the lights out,” Bosch said. “And she hit him with the poker as he moved into the room.”
“She?” Doyle asked.
“Percentages,” Bosch said. “Most homicides in the home are the result of domestic disputes.”
“Elementary,” Doyle said.
“Don’t start with that shit,” Bosch said.
He looked around the room. He saw nothing else suspicious.
“Now we just need to find the poker,” he said. “She left him here all night. She could have driven it out to the Pacific in all of that time.”
“Or it could have never left the house,” Doyle said.
Bosch looked at him. He knew Doyle knew something, or had surmised something.
“What?” he said. “Give.”
With a half smile on his face, Doyle slid the rubber tip of his left crutch across the floor toward the shelves until it reached a line scratched in the floor. It was a perfect quarter of a circle.
“What would make a mark like that?” Doyle asked.
Bosch moved over and looked down.
“I don’t know,” he said. “What?”
Doyle toyed with him for five seconds but knew not to push it further.
“A door, perhaps?” he said.
Then Bosch understood. He looked at the shelves. This section was lined with old leather-bound tomes that looked as old as Doyle. Bosch stepped closer and studied the framing of the shelves. He saw nothing of suspicion. From behind him Doyle spoke.
“Doors that are not pulled open are often pushed open.”
Bosch put his hand on the vertical support of the three-foot wide section he stood in front of. He pushed on the seemingly stationary edifice and the section moved in a half inch, engaging a spring-loaded release. He let go and the entire section came out a few inches and Bosch was then able to pull it open like a foot-thick door. As it swung outward, he heard it scrape slightly on the floor. The quarter circle.
A light switched on automatically revealing the secret room beyond. Bosch stepped in, discovering it to be nothing more than a closet. It was a windowless space of dimensions not much larger than an interrogation room or a single-cell accommodation at Men’s Central Jail downtown. The room was crowded with boxes. Some were open, revealing their contents to be books waiting to be shelved or disposed of through donation or other means. There were a couple wooden boxes with wine logos branded on them.
“Well?” Doyle said from behind.
Bosch moved in. There was a musty smell to the space.
“It looks like it’s just storage.”
Bosch saw a black smear on the white wall above a stack of five boxes. It looked like it might be dried blood. He lifted the top box so he could get closer to it and he heard something heavy drop down behind. He leaned in closer and quickly started moving the boxes, creating a new stack in the middle of the space. When he pulled the last box away from the wall he was looking at a fireplace poker lying against the wall trim.
“Got it,” he said.
Bosch backed out of the space and told the photographer to document the poker in its position. Once that was done Bosch went back into the small space to collect the iron tool. He picked it up by its middle, careful not to touch the handle or the pointer and barb, which appeared to be covered in dried blood and hair. He walked it out of the hidden room into the library where the criminalist put plastic evidence bags over both ends and secured them with snap ties.
“So, Detective,” Doyle said, “do you have what you need?”
Bosch thought a moment and then nodded.
“I think so,” he said.
“Is it murder?” Doyle asked.
Bosch took a moment before answering.
“I think it’s looking like she could make a case for self-defense,” he said. “But she’s got to lay it out for me. If her attorney is smart he’ll let her talk to me. We might be able to clean this whole thing up right here and now.”
“Then good luck to you,” Doyle said.
Bosch thanked him and headed toward the door.
“Remember, Detective Bosch,” Doyle called after him.
Bosch turned back.
“Remember what?”
“Go see your doctor about that ear.”
Doyle smiled and Bosch returned it.
“Will do,” he said.
When Bosch got to the library door he paused as he considered something. He decided his desire to know outweighed his desire not to give Doyle his due. He once again turned back to the deputy coroner.
“Okay, how did you know?” he asked.
Doyle feigned ignorance.
“Know what?” he asked.
“That I left a woman behind in my bed this morning.”
“Oh, that was easy. When you squatted next to the body, Detective, the cuffs of your pants came up. That revealed one black sock and one blue.”
Bosch resisted the urge to confirm the report by looking at his ankles.
“So?” he said.
“Elementary,” Doyle said. “It confirmed your early start. You dressed before dawn. It also confirmed that you dressed without turning on the bed lamp. A man would only do that if he wished not to disturb a sleeping partner.”
Bosch nodded but then thought of something and pointed at Doyle.
“You said I left a woman in bed. How do you know it wasn’t a man?”
Proud of himself, Bosch smi
led. He had him.
But Doyle was undaunted.
“Detective, aside from previous knowledge that you are a father and formerly married to a person of the female gender, my olfactory skills are not related to the scent of cognac exclusively. I detected on you from the earliest stage of your arrival the lingering scent of white musk. I knew you had been with a woman. The socks merely confirmed it.”
A glib smile played on Doyle’s face.
“Any other questions, Detective?” he asked. “We need to get Mr. Barclay packed up and off to Mission Road.”
“No, I’m good,” Bosch said. “No more questions.”
“Then good luck with the widow.”
“Thank you, Sherlock.”
Bosch turned from Doyle and finally left the room.
THE CURIOUS AFFAIR OF THE ITALIAN ART DEALER
by Sara Paretsky
My wife having been called to the bedside of the governess who had been almost a mother to her, I was spending some weeks in my old lodgings on Baker Street. My wife’s departure to Exeter, where her governess now resided, coincided with my own desire to spend time with my old friend and flatmate, Mr. Sherlock Holmes. On the one recent occasion when we had persuaded him to dine with us, I had seen that Holmes had fallen into that state of nervous irritability he was subject to when no case or other intellectual pursuit occupied his mind.
As was typical of him on such occasions, he screeched away on his violin at all hours. I found the sound painful enough, but the occupants of the flat above threatened an action at law if he didn’t desist between the hours of two and six a.m. “We know Mr. Holmes is a great genius who has often saved our monarch from acute embarrassment, but we must beg for a few hours repose,” their solicitor explained. Whereupon my old friend took up his pernicious cocaine habit once again.
I pled both as a friend and a medical attendant, to no avail: Holmes hunched himself deep in his chair and muttered that he had not inflicted his company upon mine, that I had chosen to come uninvited, when I could have been in uxorious attendance on Mary in Exeter. At times like this, my friend often displayed a petulant jealousy of my wife, or perhaps of my preference for her company: upon our marriage he was wounded by our refusal to take lodgings across the landing from his own.
In an effort to rouse him from his stupor, I tried to draw Holmes’s attention to crimes reported in the sensationalist press. The stabbing of a cabman in Fleet Street “was banal beyond bearing,” while the theft of the Duchess of Hoovering’s emerald tiara “would prove to be the work of a criminal housemaid.” When later reports confirmed he was wrong in both cases—the Hoovering cadet, bitter at the privations of a youngest son, had sold the tiara to fund a disastrous trip to Monte Carlo, while the cabman turned out to have been a Russian spy trying to overhear secrets of a Hapsburg diplomat—Holmes sank deeper into his drugged stupor.
In the Company of Sherlock Holmes Page 2
