The Harry Bosch Novels Vol I Part 111

"No. He's dead."

"Okay, he's dead. You stay here. We're going out into the hall to talk for a minute. We'll be right back."

Outside, they decided it might be worth booking her on an under-theinfluence charge into Sybil Brand and trying her again when she came off the high. Bosch noted that Edgar was eager to do this and volunteered to drive her downtown to Sybil. Bosch knew this was because it would make Edgar's OT envelope thicker, not because he wanted to get the woman into the narco unit at Sybil and get her straightened out for a while. Compa.s.sion had nothing to do with it.

26

Sylvia had pulled the bedroom's heavy curtains across the blinds and the room stayed dark until well after the sun was up on Sat.u.r.day morning. When Bosch awoke alone in her bed, he pulled his watch off the nightstand and saw it was already eleven. He had dreamed but when he woke the dream receded into the darkness and he couldn't reach back to grasp it. He lay there for nearly fifteen minutes trying to bring it back, but it was gone.

Every few minutes he would hear Sylvia make some kind of household noise. Sweeping the kitchen floor, emptying the dishwasher. He could tell she was trying to be quiet but he heard it anyway. There was the back door being opened and the splashing of water in the potted plants that lined the porch. It hadn't rained in at least seven weeks.

At 11:20 the phone rang and Sylvia got to it after one ring. But Bosch knew it was for him. His muscles tensed as he waited for the bedroom door to open and for her to summon him to the call. He had given Sylvia's phone number to Edgar when they were leaving the Van Nuys Division seven hours earlier.

But Sylvia never came and when he relaxed again he could hear parts of her conversation on the phone. It sounded like maybe she was counseling a student. After a while it sounded like she was crying.

Bosch got up, pulled on his clothes and walked out of the bedroom while trying to smooth his hair. She was at the table in the kitchen, holding the cordless phone to her ear. She was drawing circles on the tabletop with her finger and he had been right, she was crying.

"What?" he whispered.

She held her hand up, signaling him not to interrupt. He didn't. He just watched her on the phone.

"I'll be there, Mrs. Fontenot, just call me with the time and address ...yes...yes, I will. Once again, I am so very sorry. Beatrice was such a fine young woman and student. I was very proud of her. Oh, my gosh..."

A strong gush of tears came as she hung up. Bosch came to her and put his hand on her neck.

"A student?"

"Beatrice Fontenot."

"What happened?"

"She's dead."

He leaned down and held her. She cried.

"This city ...," she began but didn't finish. "She's the one who wrote what I read to you the other night about Day of the Locust Day of the Locust."

Bosch remembered. Sylvia had said she worried about the girl. He wanted to say something but he knew there was nothing to say. This city. It seemed to say it all.

They spent the day around the house, doing odd jobs, cleaning up. Bosch cleared the charred logs out of the fireplace and then joined Sylvia in the backyard, where she was working in the garden, pulling weeds and cutting flowers for a bouquet she was going to take to Mrs. Fontenot.

They worked side by side but Sylvia spoke very little. Every now and then she would offer a sentence. She said it had been a drive-by shooting on Normandie. She said it happened the night before and that the girl was taken to Martin Luther King, Jr., Hospital, where she was determined to be brain-dead. They turned the machine off in the morning and harvested the organs for donating.

"That's weird, that they call it harvesting," she said. "Sounds like a farm or people growing on trees or something."

In the midafternoon she went into the kitchen and made an egg salad sandwich and a tuna fish sandwich. She cut them in half and they each had a half of both sandwiches. He made iced tea with slices of orange in the gla.s.s. She said that after the huge steaks they'd eaten the night before, she never wanted beef again. It was the day's only attempt at humor, but n.o.body smiled. She put the dishes in the sink afterward but didn't bother to rinse them. She turned and leaned on the counter and stared down at the floor.

"Mrs. Fontenot said the funeral would be sometime next week, probably Wednesday. I think I'm going to bring the cla.s.s down. Get a bus."

"I think that'd be nice. Her family would appreciate it."

"Her two older brothers are dealers. She told me they sell crack."

He didn't say anything. He knew that was probably the reason the girl was dead. Since the Bloods-Crips gang truce, the street dealing in South Central had lost its command structure. There was a lot of infringement of turfs. A lot of drive-bys, a lot of innocents left dead.

"I think I'll ask her mother if I could read her book report. At the service. Or after. Maybe they'd know then what a loss this was."

"They probably know already."

"Yes."

"You want to take a nap, try to sleep?"

"Yes, I think I will. What are you going to do?"

"I have some stuff to do. Make some calls. Sylvia, I'm going to have to go out tonight. Hopefully, not for long. I'll get back as soon as I can."

"I'll be all right, Harry."

"Good."

Bosch looked in on her at about four and she was sleeping soundly. He could see where the pillow was wet from her crying.

He went down the hall to a bedroom that was used as a study. There was a desk with a phone on it. He closed the door so as not to disturb her.

The first call he made was to Seventy-seventh Street Division detectives. He asked for the homicide table and got a detective named Hanks. He didn't give a first name and Bosch didn't know him. Bosch identified himself and asked about the Fontenot case.

"What's your angle, Bosch? Hollywood, you said?"

"Yeah, Hollywood, but there's no angle. It's private. Mrs. Fontenot called the girl's teacher this morning. The teacher's a friend of mine. She's upset and I was, you know, just trying to find out what happened."

"Look, I don't have time to be holding people's hands. I'm working a case."

"In other words, you've got nothing."

"You've never worked the seven-seven, have you?"

"No. This the part where you tell me how tough it is?"

"Hey, f.u.c.k you, Bosch. What I'm gonna tell you is that there is no such thing as a witness south of Pico. Only way we clear a case is we get lucky and pull some prints, or we get luckier and the dude walks in and says, 'I's sorry, I did it.' You wanna guess how many times that happens?"

Bosch didn't say anything.

"Look, the teacher ain't the only one upset, okay? This is a bad one. They're all bad but some are bad on bad. This is one of those. Sixteen-year-old girl home reading a book, babysittin' her younger brother."

"Drive-by?"

"Yeah, you got it. Twelve holes in the walls. It was an AK. Twelve holes in the walls and one round in the back of her head."

"She never knew, did she?"

"No, she never knew what hit her. She must've caught the first one. She never ducked."

"It was a round meant for one of the older brothers, right?"

Hanks was quiet for a couple of seconds. Bosch could hear a radio squawking in the background of the squad room.

"How you know that, the teacher?"

"The girl told her the brothers sell crack."

"Yeah? They were walking around MLK this morning boo-hooing like they was altar boys. I'll check it out, Bosch. Anything else I can do you for?"

"Yeah. The book. What was she reading?"

"The book?"

"Yeah."

"It was called The Big Sleep The Big Sleep. And that's what she got, man."

"You can do me a favor, Hanks."

"What's that?"

"If you talk to any reporters about this, leave the part about the book out."

"What do you mean?"

"Just leave it out."

Bosch hung up. He sat at the desk and felt ashamed that when Sylvia had first talked of the girl, he had been suspicious of her fine school work.

After a few minutes thinking about that, he picked the phone up again and called Irving's office. The phone was picked up on half a ring.

"h.e.l.lo, this is Los Angeles Police Department a.s.sistant Chief Irvin Irving's office, Lieutenant Hans Rollenberger speaking, how can I help you?"

Bosch figured Hans Off must be expecting Irving himself to call in and therefore trotted out the full-count official telephone greeting that was in the officer's manual but was roundly ignored by most of the people who answered phones in the department.

Bosch hung up without saying anything and redialed so the lieutenant could go through the whole spiel again.

"It's Bosch. I'm just checking in."

"Bosch, did you just call a few moments ago?"

"No, why?"

"Nothing. I'm here with Nixon and Johnson. They just came in and Sheehan and Opelt are with Mora now."

Bosch noticed how Rollenberger didn't dare call them the presidents when they were in the same room with him.

"Anything happen today?"

"No. The subject spent the morning at home, then a little while ago he went up to the Valley, visited a few more warehouses. Nothing suspicious."

"Where is he now?"

"At home."

"What about Edgar?"

"Edgar was here. He went over to Sybil to interview the survivor. He found her last night but she apparently was too dopey to talk to. He's giving it another try, now."

Then in a lower voice, he said, "If she confirms an ID of Mora, do we move?"

"I don't think it would be a good idea. It's not enough. And we'd tip our hand."

"My thoughts exactly," he said louder now, so the presidents would know he was clearly in command here. "We stick to him like glue and we'll be there when he makes his move."

"Hopefully. How're you working this with the surveillance teams? They giving you blow by blow?"

"Absolutely. They're on rovers and I'm listening here. I know every move the subject makes. I'm staying on late tonight. I have a feeling."

"About what?"

"I think t'night's the night, Bosch."

Bosch woke Sylvia at five but then sat on the bed and rubbed her back and neck for a half hour. After that, she got up and took a shower. Her eyes still looked sleepy when she came out to the living room. She wore her gray cotton T-shirt dress. Her blonde hair was tied in a tail behind her head.

"When do you have to go?"

"A little while."

She didn't ask where he was going or what for. He didn't offer to tell her.

"You want me to make you some soup or something?" he asked.

"No, I'm fine. I don't think I'm going to be hungry tonight."