Echo Park Part 18

The ground on this level was softer and more muddy. Bosch knew that runoff from last spring's rains had likely gone down the slope and collected here. He felt his thigh muscles begin to tighten as every step was a labor to pull his work boots from the sucking mud.

In five minutes they came to a small clearing shaded by a tall, fully mature oak. Bosch saw Waits looking up and followed his eyes. A yellowish-white hair band hung limply from an overhead branch.

"It's funny," Waits said. "It used to be blue."

Bosch knew that at the time of Marie Gesto's disappearance she was believed to have had her hair tied back with a blue hair band known as a scrunchy. A friend who had seen her earlier on that last day had provided a description of what she was wearing. The scrunchy was not with the clothing found neatly folded in her car at the High Tower Apartments.

Bosch looked up at the hair band. Thirteen years of rain and exposure had taken its color.

Bosch lowered his eyes to Waits, and the killer was waiting for him with a smile.

"We're here, Detective. You've finally found Marie."

"Where?"

Waits's smile broadened.

"You're standing on her."

Bosch abruptly stepped back a pace and Waits laughed.

"Don't worry, Detective Bosch, I don't think she minds. What was it the great man wrote about sleeping the big sleep? About not caring about the nastiness of how you died or where you fell?"

Bosch looked at him for a long moment, wondering once again about the literary airs of the window washer. Waits seemed to read him.

"I've been in jail since May, Detective. I've done a lot of reading."

"Step back," Bosch said.

Waits opened his cuffed hands in a surrender move and stepped toward the trunk of the oak. Bosch looked at Olivas.

"You got him?"

"I got him."

Bosch looked down at the ground. He had left footprints in the muddy earth but it also looked like there was another, recent disturbance in the soil. It looked as though an animal had made a small dig in the ground, either foraging or burying its own dead. Bosch signaled the forensics tech over to the center of the clearing. Cafarelli stepped forward with the gas probe and Bosch pointed to the spot directly below the colorless hair band. The tech pushed the point of the probe into the soft soil and easily sank it a foot into the earth. She clicked on the reader and began studying the electronic display. Bosch stepped toward her to look over her shoulder. He knew that the probe measured the level of methane in the soil. A buried body releases methane gas as it decomposes. Even a body wrapped in plastic.

"We're getting a read," Cafarelli said. "We're above normal levels."

Bosch nodded. He felt strange inside. Out of sorts. He had been with the case for more than a decade and a part of him liked holding on to the mystery of Marie Gesto. But, while he didn't believe in something called closure, he did believe in the need to know the truth. He felt that the truth was about to reveal itself, and yet it was disconcerting. He needed to know the truth to move on, but how could he move on once he no longer needed to find and avenge Marie Gesto?

He looked at Waits.

"How far down is she?"

"Not too far," Waits replied matter-of-factly. "Back in 'ninety-three we were in drought, remember? The ground was hard and, man, I wore my a.s.s out digging a hole for her. I was lucky she was just a little thing. But, anyway, that's why I changed it up. No more digging big holes for me after that."

Bosch looked away from him and back at Cafarelli. She was taking another probe reading. She would be able to delineate the grave site by charting the highest methane readings.

They all watched the grim work silently. After taking several readings in a grid pattern Cafarelli finally moved her hand in a north-south sweep to indicate how the body was likely positioned. She then marked the limits of the grave site by dragging the point of the probe in the dirt. When she was finished she had marked out a rectangle about six feet by two feet. It was a small grave for a small victim.

"Okay," O'Shea said. "Let's get Mr. Waits back and secured in the car and then bring in the excavation group."

The prosecutor told Cafarelli that she should stay at the site so there would be no crime scene integrity issues. The rest of the group headed back toward the ladder. Bosch was last in the single-file line, his mind deep in thought about the ground they were traversing. There was something sacred about it. It was hallowed ground. He hoped that Waits had not lied to them. He hoped that Marie Gesto had not been forced to make the walk to her grave while alive.

At the ladder Rider and Olivas went up first. Bosch then walked Waits to the ladder, uncuffed him and started him up.

As the killer climbed, the deputy trained the shotgun, finger on the trigger, on his back. In that moment, Bosch realized he could slip on the muddy soil, fall into the deputy and possibly cause the shotgun to discharge and hit Waits with the deadly fusillade. He looked away from the temptation and up at the top of the sheer facing. His partner was looking down at him with eyes that told him she had just read his thoughts. Bosch tried to put an innocent look on his face. He spread his hands while mouthing the word What? What?

Rider shook her head with disapproval and moved back from the edge. Bosch noticed that she was holding her weapon at her side. As Waits got to the top of the ladder, he was welcomed by Olivas with opened arms.

"Hands," Olivas said.

"Certainly, Detective."

From Bosch's angle below he could only see Waits's back. He could tell by his posture that he had brought his hands together at his front for recuffing to the waist chain.

But then there was a sudden movement. A quick twist in the prisoner's posture as he leaned too far into Olivas. Bosch instinctively knew something was wrong. Waits was going for the gun holstered on Olivas's hip under the windbreaker.

"Hey!" Olivas shouted in panic. "Hey!"

But before Bosch or anyone else could react, Waits used his hold and leverage on Olivas to spin their bodies so that the detective's back was now at the top of the ladder. The deputy had no angle for a shot. Neither did Bosch. With a pistonlike move, Waits raised his knee and drove it twice into Olivas's crotch. Olivas started to collapse, and there were two quick gunshots, m.u.f.fled by his body. Waits pushed the detective off the edge and Olivas came crashing down the ladder onto Bosch.

Waits then disappeared from view.

Olivas's weight took Bosch down hard into the mud. As he struggled to pull his weapon Bosch heard two more shots from above and shouts of panic from those on the lower ground. Behind him he heard the sound of running. With Olivas still on top of him, he looked up but could not see Waits or Rider. Then the prisoner appeared at the edge of the precipice, calmly holding a gun. He fired down at them and Bosch felt two impacts on Olivas's body. He had become Bosch's shield.

The blast of the deputy's shotgun split the air but the slug thwacked into the trunk of an oak tree to the left of Waits. Waits returned fire at the same moment and Bosch heard the deputy go down like a dropped suitcase.

"Run, you coward!" Waits yelled. "How's your bulls.h.i.t deal looking now?"

He fired twice more indiscriminately into the woods below. Bosch managed to free his gun and fire up the ladder at Waits.

Waits ducked back out of sight as he used his free hand to grab the ladder by the top rung and yank it up to the top of the embankment. Bosch pushed Olivas's body off and got up, his gun aimed and ready for Waits to show again.

But then he heard the sound of running from above and he knew Waits was gone.

"Kiz!" Bosch yelled.

There was no reply. Bosch quickly checked both Olivas and the deputy but saw they were both dead. He holstered his weapon and scrambled up the incline, using exposed roots as handholds. The ground gave way as he dug his feet into it. A root snapped in his hand and he slid back down.

"Kiz, talk to me!"

Again no response. He tried again, this time going at an angle across the steep incline instead of by a straight-up a.s.sault. Grabbing roots and kicking his feet into the soft facing, he finally made it to the top and crawled over the edge. As he pulled himself up, he saw Waits moving off through the trees in the direction of the clearing, where the others waited. He pulled his gun again and fired five more shots but Waits never slowed.

Bosch got up, ready to give chase. But then he saw his partner's body lying crumpled and b.l.o.o.d.y in the nearby brush.

CHAPTER 16

KIZ RIDER WAS FACEUP, clutching her neck with one hand while the other lay limp at her side. Her eyes were wide and searching but not focusing. It was as if she were blind. Her limp arm was so b.l.o.o.d.y it took a moment for Bosch to spot the bullet entrance in the palm of her hand, just below the thumb. It was a through-and-through shot and he knew it wasn't as serious as the neck wound. Blood was steadily seeping from between her fingers. The bullet must have hit the carotid artery, and Bosch knew that blood loss or depletion of oxygen in the brain could kill his partner in minutes, if not seconds.

"Okay, Kiz," he said as he knelt next to her. "I'm here."

He could see that her left hand, holding the wound on the right side of her neck, was creating insufficient pressure to stop the bleeding. She was losing the strength to hold on.

"Let me take over here," he said.

He moved his hand under hers and pressed against what he now realized were two wounds, bullet entry and exit. He could feel the blood pulsing against his palm.

"O'Shea!" he shouted.

"Bosch?" O'Shea called back from below the drop-off. "Where is he? Did you kill him?"

"He's gone. I need you to get on Doolan's rover and get us a medevac up here. Now!"

It took a moment before O'Shea responded, in a panicked voice.

"Doolan's shot! So is Freddy!"

"They're dead, O'Shea. You need to get on the radio. Rider is alive and we need to get her-"

In the distance there were two gunshots, followed by a shout. It was a female voice and Bosch thought about Kathy Kohl and the people up at the parking lot. There were two more shots and Bosch heard a change in the overhead sound of the helicopter. It was banking away. Waits was shooting at it.

"Come on, O'Shea!" he shouted. "We're running out of time."

When he heard nothing in response he brought Rider's hand back up and pressed in against the neck wounds again.

"Hold it there, Kiz. Press as hard as you can and I'll be right back."

Bosch jumped up and grabbed the ladder Waits had pulled up. He lowered it back into place between the bodies of Olivas and Doolan and quickly climbed down. O'Shea was on his knees next to Olivas's body. The prosecutor's eyes were as wide and as blank as those of the dead cop next to him. Swann was standing in the lower clearing with a dazed look on his face. Cafarelli had come from the grave site and was on her knees next to Doolan, trying to turn him over to get to the radio. The deputy had fallen chest down after being shot by Waits.

"Cal, let me do it," Bosch ordered. "You go up and help Kiz. We've got to stop the bleeding from her neck."

Without a word the Forensics tech scurried up the ladder and out of sight. Bosch turned Doolan over and saw that he had been hit in the forehead. His eyes were open and looked surprised. Bosch grabbed the radio off Doolan's equipment belt and made the "officer down" call and requested a medical airship and paramedics to the lower parking lot at Sunset Ranch. Once he was a.s.sured that medical help was on the way, he reported that an armed murder suspect had escaped custody. He gave a detailed description of Raynard Waits, then shoved the radio into his belt. He went to the ladder and as he climbed back up he called down to O'Shea, Swann and the videographer, who was still holding the camera up and recording the scene.

"All of you get up here. We need to carry her out to the parking lot for the evac."

O'Shea continued to look down in shock at Olivas.

"They're dead!" Bosch shouted from the top. "There's nothing we can do for them. I need you up here."

He turned back to Rider. Cafarelli was holding her neck but Bosch could see that time was growing short. The life was leaving his partner's eyes. Bosch bent down and grabbed and held her unhurt hand. He rubbed it between his two hands. He noticed that Cafarelli had used a hair band to wrap the wound on Rider's other hand.

"Come on, Kiz, hang in there. We've got an airship coming and we're going to get you out of here."

He looked around to see what was available to them and got an idea as he saw Maury Swann come up the ladder. He quickly moved to the edge and helped the defense attorney off the last rung. O'Shea was coming up behind him and the videographer was waiting his turn.

"Leave the camera," Bosch ordered.

"I can't. I'm respons-"

"You bring it up here and I'm going to take it and throw it as far as I can."

The cameraman reluctantly put his equipment on the ground, popped out the digital tape and put it in one of the big equipment pockets on his cargo pants. He then climbed up the ladder. Once everyone was on top Bosch pulled the ladder up and carried it over to Rider. He put it down next to her.

"Okay, we're going to use the ladder as a stretcher. Two men on each side and, Cal, I need you to walk beside us and keep that pressure on her neck."

"Got it," she said.

"Okay, let's put her on the ladder."

Bosch moved by Rider's right shoulder while the other three men took positions at her legs and other shoulder. They carefully lifted her onto the ladder. Cafarelli kept her hands in place on Rider's neck.

"We have to be careful," Bosch urged. "We tip the thing and she'll fall. Cal, keep her on the ladder."

"Got it. Let's go."

They raised the ladder and started moving back up the trail. Rider's weight, distributed among the four carriers, was not a problem. But the mud was. Two times Swann, in his courthouse shoes, slipped, and the makeshift stretcher almost went over. Each time Cafarelli literally hugged Rider to the ladder and kept her in place.

It took less than ten minutes to get to the clearing. Bosch immediately saw that the coroner's van was now missing, but Kathy Kohl and her two a.s.sistants were still there, standing unharmed by the SID van.

Bosch scanned the sky for a helicopter but saw none. He told the others to put Rider down next to the SID van. Carrying it the last distance with one hand hooked under the ladder, he used his free hand to operate the radio.

"Where's my airship?" he yelled at the dispatcher.

The response was that it was on the way with a one-minute ETA. They softly lowered the ladder to the ground and looked around to make sure there was enough open s.p.a.ce in the lot to set a helicopter down. Behind him he heard O'Shea interrogating Kohl.

"What happened? Where did Waits go?"

"He came out of the woods and shot at the news helicopter. Then he took our van at gunpoint and headed down the hill."

"Did the chopper follow him?"

"We don't know. I don't think so. It flew away when he started shooting."

Bosch heard the sound of an approaching helicopter and hoped it wasn't the Channel 4 chopper coming back. He walked to the middle of the most open area of the parking lot and waited. In a few moments a silver-skinned medevac airship crested the mountaintop and he started waving it down.

Two paramedics jumped from the aircraft the moment it landed. One carried an equipment case, while the other brought a folding stretcher. They knelt on either side of Rider and went to work. Bosch stood and watched with his arms folded tightly across his chest. He saw one put a breathing mask over her face while the other inserted an IV into her arm. They then began to examine her wounds. To himself Bosch repeated the mantra, Come on, Kiz, come on, Kiz, come on, Kiz ... Come on, Kiz, come on, Kiz, come on, Kiz ...

It was more like a prayer.