The Drop

by Michael Connelly

  “You got it, Harry.”

  “Good. Go away.”

  Bosch punched in the combination, reentered the room and sat across from McQuillen.

  “Something important?” McQuillen asked.

  “No, just some bullshit. Why don’t you keep telling the story? You said Irving was on the balcony and—”

  “Yeah, I was standing there behind him against the wall. As soon as he turned to go back in I was going to be like a sitting duck.”

  “So what did you do?”

  “I don’t know. Instinct took over. I made a move. I came up behind him and grabbed him. I started dragging him back into the room. All those houses on the hillside. I thought somebody might see us out there. I just wanted to get him back into the room.”

  “You say you grabbed him. How exactly did you grab him?”

  “Around the neck. I used the choke hold. Like old times.”

  McQuillen looked directly at Bosch as he said it, as if passing on some sort of significance.

  “Did he struggle? Did he put up any resistance?”

  “Yeah, he was shocked as shit. He started fighting but he was sort of drunk. I backed him in through the door. He flopped around like a fucking marlin but it didn’t take long. It never did. He went to sleep.”

  Bosch waited to see if he would continue but that was it.

  “He was unconscious then,” he said.

  “That’s right,” McQuillen said.

  “What happened next?”

  “He started breathing again pretty quick but he was asleep. I told you, he drank that whole bottle of Jack. He was snoring. I had to shake him and wake him up. He finally came to and he was drunk and confused and when he saw me he didn’t know me from Adam. I had to tell him who I was and why I was there. He was on the floor, sort of propped up on his elbow. And I was standing over him like God.”

  “What did you say to him?”

  “I told him he was fucking with the wrong guy and that I wasn’t going to let him do what his father had done to me. And that’s when things sort of went screwy because I didn’t know what he was going to do.”

  “Wait a minute, I’m not tracking that. What do you mean by ‘things going screwy’?”

  “He started laughing at me. I had just jumped the fucker and choked him out and he thinks it’s funny. I’m trying to scare the shit out of him and he’s too drunk. He’s on the floor laughing his ass off.”

  Bosch thought about this a long moment. He didn’t like the way this was going because it was not in any direction he could have expected.

  “Is that all he did, laugh? He didn’t say anything?”

  “Yeah, eventually he got over laughing and that’s when he told me I didn’t have anything to worry about anymore.”

  “What else?”

  “That’s pretty much it. He said I had nothing to worry about and that I could go on home. He waved me off, like good-bye now.”

  “Did you ask him how he was sure there was nothing to worry about?”

  “I didn’t think I had to.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I just sort of got it. He was there to off himself. When he went out on the balcony looking over the wall, he was picking his spot. His plan was to jump and he was drinking the Jack to give him the courage to do it. So I left and that’s . . . that’s what he did.”

  Bosch said nothing at first. McQuillen’s story was either an elaborate cover story or just strange enough to be true. There were elements of it that could be checked. The results of the blood-alcohol test were not in yet, but the mention of the bottle of Jack Daniel’s was new. There had been no sign of it on the video of Irving checking in. No witness had reported seeing him taking a bottle to his room.

  “Tell me about the bottle of Jack,” he said.

  “I told you, he drank it and then chucked it.”

  “How big was it? Are you talking about a whole fifth?”

  “No, no, smaller. It was a six-shooter.”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  “It’s like a smaller flask bottle they put out. Holds a good six shots. I drink Jack myself and I recognized the bottle. We call ’em six-shooters.”

  Bosch was thinking that six good-sized shots probably added up to ten or twelve ounces. It was possible Irving could have concealed a flask-shaped bottle that size while he was checking in. Harry also remembered the array of bottles and snacks lined up on the kitchenette counter in the hotel suite. It could have come from there as well.

  “Okay, when he threw the bottle, what happened?”

  “I heard it shatter out there in the darkness. I think it hit the street or somebody’s roof or something.”

  “Which direction did he throw it?”

  “Straight out.”

  Bosch nodded.

  “Okay, sit tight, McQuillen. I’ll be back.”

  Bosch got up, punched in the combo again and left the room. He started down the hall toward Open-Unsolved.

  As he passed the video room, the door came open and Kiz Rider stepped out. She had been watching the interview. Bosch wasn’t surprised. She knew he was bringing McQuillen in.

  “Holy shit, Harry.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, do you believe him?”

  Bosch stopped and looked at her.

  “The story hangs together and it’s got parts we can check. When he went into the interview room he had no idea what we had—the button on the floor, the wounds on the shoulder, the witness who put him on the fire escape three hours too early—and his story hit every marker.”

  Rider put her hands on her hips.

  “And at the same time, he puts himself in that room. He admits choking the vic out.”

  “It was a risky move, putting himself in the dead guy’s room.”

  “So you believe him?”

  “I don’t know. There’s something else. McQuillen was a cop. He knows—”

  Bosch stopped cold and snapped his fingers.

  “What?”

  “He’s covered by an alibi. That’s what he hasn’t said. Irving didn’t go down for another three or four hours. McQuillen’s got an alibi and he’s waiting to see if we jack him up. Because if we do, he can ride it out, then drop the alibi and walk. It would embarrass the department, maybe give him a little payback for all that happened to him.”

  Bosch nodded. That had to be it.

  “Look, Harry, we’ve already primed the pump. Irvin Irving’s expecting the announcement of an arrest. You said the Times already has it.”

  “Fuck Irving. I don’t care what he’s expecting. And my partner claims we don’t have to worry about the Times.”

  “How’s that?”

  “I don’t know how but he got them to kill the story. Look, I need to put Chu on the Jack Daniel’s bottle and then get back in there and get the alibi.”

  “All right, I’m going back up to ten. You call me as soon as you’re finished with McQuillen. I need to know where we stand.”

  “You got it.”

  Bosch went down the hall to Open-Unsolved and found Chu at his computer.

  “I need you to check something. Did you release the room at the Chateau?”

  “No, you didn’t tell me to so I—”

  “Good. Call the hotel and see if they put bottles of Jack Daniel’s in their suites. I’m not talking about miniatures. Something bigger in a flask-size bottle. If they do, have them see if the bottle is missing from suite seventy-nine.”

  “I put a seal on the door.”

  “Have them cut it. When you’re finished with that, call the M.E. and see if the blood-alcohol on Irving has come back yet. I’m going back to McQuillen.”

  “Harry, you want me to come in when I get this?”

  “No, don’t come in. Just get it and wait for me.”

  Bosch punched in the combo and opened the door. He swiftly moved back to his seat.

  “Back so soon?” McQuillen asked.

  “Yeah, I forgot so
mething. I didn’t get the full story from you, McQuillen.”

  “Yes, you did. I told you exactly what happened in that room.”

  “Yeah, but you didn’t tell me what happened after.”

  “He jumped, that’s what happened after.”

  “I’m not talking about him. I’m talking about you, what you did. You knew what he was going to do and rather than, say, pick up a phone and call somebody to try to stop it, you just shagged your ass on out of there and let him jump. But you were smart, you knew it could come back to you. That someone like me might show up.”

  Bosch leaned back in his chair and appraised McQuillen and nodded.

  “So you went and got yourself alibied.”

  McQuillen kept a straight face.

  “You came in here hoping we’d arrest you and then you’d eventually pop the alibi out there and embarrass the department for all the shit you got dragged through before. Maybe get a lawsuit for false arrest going. You were going to use Irving for some payback.”

  McQuillen showed nothing. Bosch leaned forward and across the table.

  “You might as well tell me because I’m not arresting you, McQuillen. I’m not giving you this play, no matter what I think of what was done to you twenty-five years ago.”

  McQuillen finally nodded and flicked a hand as though to say, What the hell, it was worth a try.

  “I had parked over at the Standard across Sunset. They know me there.”

  The Standard was a boutique hotel a few blocks from the Chateau.

  “Good customers of ours. Technically, that’s West Hollywood, so we can’t sit on the place but we’ve got the doormen wired. When a customer needs a cab, they call us. We always have a car sitting nearby.”

  “So you went there after seeing Irving.”

  “Yeah, they got a restaurant there called Twenty-four/Seven. It never closes and it’s got a camera over the counter. I went there and I never left that counter until the sun came up. You go get the disc and I’ll be on it. When Irving jumped, I was drinking hot coffee.”

  Bosch shook his head like the story didn’t add up.

  “How’d you know Irving wouldn’t jump before you got there—when you were still in the Chateau or walking over? What was that, fifteen minutes at least. That was risky.”

  McQuillen shrugged.

  “He was temporarily incapacitated.”

  Bosch stared at him for a long moment until understanding came. McQuillen had choked Irving out again.

  Bosch leaned across the table and stared hard at McQuillen.

  “You put him to sleep again. You choked him out, made sure he was breathing and left him there snoring on the floor.”

  Bosch remembered the alarm clock in the room.

  “Then you went into the bedroom and brought the clock out. You plugged it in next to him on the floor and set the alarm for four A.M. to make sure he’d wake up. Just so he could jump while you were alibied at the Standard with your hot coffee.”

  Another shrug from McQuillen. He was finished talking.

  “You’re a hell of a guy, McQuillen, and you’re free to go.”

  McQuillen nodded smugly.

  “I appreciate that.”

  “Yeah, well, appreciate this. For twenty-five years I thought you got a bad deal. Now I think maybe they got it right. You’re a bad guy and that means you were a bad cop.”

  “You don’t know shit about me, Bosch.”

  “I know this. You went up to that room to do something. You don’t climb the fire escape just to confront a guy. So I don’t care that you got a bad deal before. What I care about is that you knew what Irving was going to do and you didn’t try to stop it. Instead, you allowed it to happen. No, actually, you helped it happen. To me, that’s not small stuff. If it’s not a crime, then it should be. And when this is all over I’m going to hit up every prosecutor I know until I find one who will take it to the grand jury. You can walk out of here tonight, but the next time you won’t be so lucky.”

  McQuillen kept nodding while Bosch spoke, as if he was impatiently allowing Bosch his final say. When Harry was finished, McQuillen was nonchalant in his response.

  “Then I guess it’s good to know where I stand.”

  “Sure. Glad to help with that.”

  “How do I get back to B and W? You promised me a ride.”

  Bosch got up from the table and headed to the door.

  “Call a cab,” he said.

  29

  Chu was just hanging up the phone as Bosch got back to the cubicle.

  “What did you get?” Harry asked.

  Chu looked down at the scratch pad on his desk as he answered.

  “Yes, the hotel stocks Jack Daniel’s in the suites. A flask bottle containing twelve ounces. And yes, the bottle is missing from suite seventy-nine.”

  Bosch nodded. It was a further confirmation of McQuillen’s story.

  “What about the blood-alcohol?”

  Chu shook his head.

  “Not done yet. The M.E.’s office said next week.”

  Bosch shook his head, annoyed that he hadn’t used Kiz Rider and the chief’s office to push the M.E. on the blood testing. He went to his desk and started stacking reports on top of the murder book. He spoke to Chu with his back to him.

  “How’d you kill the story?”

  “I called her. I told her if she ran the story, I would go to her boss and say that she was trading sex for information. I figure even over there that’s gotta be an ethical violation. She might not lose her job but she’d be tainted. She knows they’d start looking at her differently.”

  “You handled it like a real gentleman, Chu. Where are the credit-card records?”

  “Here. What’s going on?”

  Chu handed over the file containing the purchase records he had received from the credit-card companies.

  “I’m taking all of this home.”

  “What about McQuillen? Are we booking him?”

  “No. He’s gone.”

  “You kicked him?”

  “That’s right.”

  “What about the warrant on the watch? I’m about to print it out.”

  “We won’t need it. He admitted he choked Irving out.”

  “He admitted it and you cut him loose? Are you—”

  “Listen, Chu, I don’t have time to walk you through it. Go watch the tape if you have an issue with what I’m doing. No, better yet, I want you to go out to the Standard on the Sunset Strip. You know where that is?”

  “Yeah, but why am I going there?”

  “Go to their twenty-four-hour restaurant and get their disc from the camera over the counter for Sunday night into Monday morning.”

  “Okay, what’s on it?”

  “Should be McQuillen’s alibi. Call me when you confirm it.”

  Bosch put all the loose reports in his briefcase and then carried the murder book separately because the binder was too thick for the case. He started to walk out of the cubicle.

  “What are you going to do?” Chu called after him.

  Bosch turned and looked back at him.

  “Start over.”

  He resumed his movement toward the squad room exit. He stopped at the lieutenant’s status board and put his magnet in the out slot. When he turned to the door, Chu was standing there.

  “You’re not going to do this to me,” he said.

  “You did it to yourself. You made a choice. I don’t want anything to do with you.”

  “I made a mistake. And I told you—no, I promised you—that I would make up for it.”

  Bosch reached out and gently moved him by the arm to the side so he could open the door. He went out into the hallway without another word to Chu.

  On his way home Bosch drove into East Hollywood and stopped behind the El Matador truck on Western. He remembered Chu’s comment about the incongruity of Western Avenue being in East Hollywood. Only in L.A., he thought as he got out.

  There was no one in line at the truck because
it was still early. The taquero was just setting up for the night. Bosch had him put enough carne asada for four tacos into a to-go cup and asked him to roll the flour tortillas up in foil. He added sides of guacamole, rice and salsa and the man put it all in a bag for transport. While Bosch was waiting he sent a text to his daughter telling her he was coming home with dinner because he would be too busy working to cook something. She answered that that was okay because she was starved.

  Twenty minutes later he walked through the front door of his home to find his daughter reading a book and playing music in the living room. He stood there frozen in the entranceway, taco bag in one hand, briefcase in the other, murder book under his arm.

  “What?” she said.

  “You’re listening to Art Pepper?”

  “Yeah. I think it’s good music to read by.”

  He smiled and went into the kitchen.

  “What do you want to drink?”

  “I have water already.”

  Bosch made a plate of tacos for her with all the sides and took it out to her. He came back into the kitchen and ate his tacos, fully loaded, while leaning over the sink. When he was finished, he bent down to the faucet and chased it with water right out of the pipe. Wiping his face with a paper towel, he went out to work at the dining room table.

  “How was school?” he asked while opening his briefcase. “Did you skip lunch again?”

  “School was a drag like always. I skipped lunch to study for the algebra quiz.”

  “How’d you do?”

  “I probably flunked.”

  He knew she was exaggerating. She was a good student. She hated algebra because she could not perceive a life where it would become useful. Especially when at the moment she wanted to be a cop—or so she said.

  “I’m sure you did fine. Are you reading that for IR? What is it?”

  She held the book up so he could see it. It was The Stand by Stephen King.

  “It’s my optional choice.”

  “Pretty thick for a school read.”

  “It’s really good. Are you trying to avoid the subject of the two wineglasses by not eating with me and then asking all of these questions?”

  She had nailed him.

  “I’m not avoiding anything. I do have work to do and I already explained the wineglasses in the dishwasher.”