The Harry Bosch Novels Vol I Part 45

CHAPTER 8

At Parker Center, Harry walked past the memorial sculpture in front and into the lobby where he had to badge the officer at the front counter to get in. The department was too big and impersonal. The cops at the counter would recognize no one below the rank of commander.

The lobby was crowded with people coming and going. Some were in uniform, some in suits, some with VISITOR VISITOR stickers on their shirts and the wide-eyed look of citizens venturing into the maze for the first time. Harry had come to regard Parker Center as a bureaucratic labyrinth that hindered rather than eased the job of the cop on the street. It was eight floors with fiefdoms on every hallway on every floor. Each was jealously guarded by commanders and deputy chiefs and a.s.sistant chiefs. And each group had its suspicions about the others. Each was a society within the great society. stickers on their shirts and the wide-eyed look of citizens venturing into the maze for the first time. Harry had come to regard Parker Center as a bureaucratic labyrinth that hindered rather than eased the job of the cop on the street. It was eight floors with fiefdoms on every hallway on every floor. Each was jealously guarded by commanders and deputy chiefs and a.s.sistant chiefs. And each group had its suspicions about the others. Each was a society within the great society.

Bosch had been a master of the maze during his eight years in Robbery-Homicide. And then he crashed and burned under the weight of an Internal Affairs investigation into his shooting of an unarmed suspect in a series of killings. Bosch had fired as the man reached under a pillow in his killing pad for what Harry thought was a gun. But there was no gun. Beneath the pillow was a toupee. It was almost laughable, except for the man who took the bullet. Other RHD investigators tied him to eleven killings. His body was shipped in a cardboard box to a crematorium. Bosch was shipped out to Hollywood Division.

The elevator was crowded and smelled like stale breath. He got out on the fourth floor and walked into the Scientific Investigations Division offices. The secretary had already left. Harry leaned over the countertop and reached the b.u.t.ton that buzzed open the half door. He walked through the ballistics lab and into the squad room. Donovan was still there, sitting at his desk.

"How'd you get in here?"

"Let myself in."

"Harry, don't do that. You can't go around breaching security like that."

Bosch nodded his contrition.

"What do you want?" Donovan asked. "I don't have any of your cases."

"Sure you do."

"What one?"

"Cal Moore."

"Bulls.h.i.t."

"Look, I've got a part of it, okay? I just have a few questions. You can answer them if you want. If you don't, that's fine, too."

"What've you got?"

"I'm running down some things that came up on a couple cases I'm working and they run right across Cal Moore's trail. And so I just ...I just want to be sure about Moore. You know what I mean?"

"No, I don't know what you mean."

Bosch pulled a chair away from another desk and sat down. They were alone in the squad room but Bosch spoke low and slow, hoping to draw the SID tech in.

"Just for my own knowledge I need to be sure. What I am wondering is, can you tell me if all the stuff checked out."

"Checked out to what?"

"Come on, man. Was it him and was there anybody else in that room?"

There was a long silence and then Donovan cleared his throat. He finally said, "What do you mean, you're working cases that cross his trail?"

Fair enough question, Bosch thought. There was a small window of opportunity there.

"I got a dead drug dealer. I had asked Moore to do some checking on the case. Then, I got a dead body, a Juan Doe, in an alley off Sunset. Moore's the one who found the body. The next day he checks into that dump and does the number with the shotgun. Or so it looks. I just want some rea.s.surances it's the way it looks. I heard they got an ID over at the morgue."

"So what makes you think these two cases are connected with Moore's thing?"

"I don't think anything right now. I'm just trying to eliminate possibilities. Maybe it's all the coincidences. I don't know."

"Well," Donovan said. "I don't know what they got over at the ME's, but I got lifts in the room that belonged to him. Moore was in that room. I just got finished with it. Took me all day."

"How come?"

"The DOJ computer was down all morning. Couldn't get prints. I went up to personnel to get Moore's prints from his package and they told me Irving had already raided it. He took the prints out and took 'em over to the coroner. You know, you're not supposed to do that, but who's gonna tell him, get on his s.h.i.t list. So I had to wait for the Justice computer to come back on line. Got his prints off of that after lunch and just finished with it a little while ago. That was Moore in the room."

"Where were the prints?"

"Hang on."

Donovan rolled back his chair to a set of file cabinets and unlocked a drawer with a key from his pocket. While he was leafing through the files, Bosch lit a cigarette. Donovan finally pulled out a file and then rolled his chair back to his desk.

"Put that s.h.i.t out, Harry. I hate that s.h.i.t."

Bosch dropped the cigarette to the linoleum, stepped on it and then kicked the b.u.t.t under Donovan's desk. Donovan began reviewing some pages he had pulled from a file. Bosch could see that each one showed a top-view drawing of the motel room where Moore's body was found.

"Okay, then," Donovan said. "The prints in the room came back to Moore. All of them. I did the comp -"

"You said that."

"I'm getting to it, I'm getting to it. Let's see, we have a thumb - fourteen points - on the stock of the weapon. That, I guess, was the bell ringer, the fourteen."

Harry knew that only five matching points in a fingerprint comparison were needed for an identification to be accepted in court. A fourteen-point match of a print on a gun was almost as good as having a photo of the person holding the gun.

"Then, we ... let's see ...we had four three-pointers on the barrels of the weapon. I think these kind of got smudged when it kicked out of his hands. So we got nothing real clear there."

"What about the triggers?"

"Nope. Nothing there. He pulled the triggers with his toe and he was still wearing a sock, remember?"

"What about the rest of the place? I saw you dusting the air-conditioner."

"Yeah, but I didn't get anything there on the dial. We thought he turned the air up, you know, to control decomp. But the dial was clean. It's plastic with a rough surface, so I don't think it would have held anything for us."

"What else?"

Donovan looked back down at his charts.

"I got a lift off his badge - index and thumb, five and seven points respectively. The badge was on the bureau with the wallet. But nothing on the wallet. Only smears. On the gun on the bureau I only got a bunch of smears but a clear thumb on the cartridge.

"Then, let's see, I got the whole hand just about, a palm, thumb and three fingers on the left cabinet door under the bathroom sink. I figure he must've put his hand on it to steady himself when he was getting on the floor there. What a way to go, man."

"Yeah. That's it?"

"Yeah. Er, no. On the newspaper - there was a newspaper on the chair, I got a big match there. Thumb again and three fingers."

"And the sh.e.l.ls?"

"Only smudges. Couldn't get anything on the sh.e.l.ls."

"What about the note?"

"Nothing on it."

"Somebody check the handwriting?"

"Well, actually, it was printing. But Sheehan had it checked by somebody in suspicious doc.u.ments. He said it matched. Few months back Moore moved out on his wife and took a place in Los Feliz called The Fountains. He filled out a change-of-address form. It was there in the personnel file Irving grabbed. Anyway, the change-of-address card was printed, too. There were a lot of commonalities with the note. You know, 'Found' and 'Fountains.'"

"What about the shotgun? Anybody trace the serial?" "The number had been filed and acid-burned. No trace. You know, Harry, I shouldn't be saying so much. I think we should just..."

He didn't finish the sentence. He turned his chair back to the file cabinet and began to put his charts away.

"I'm almost done, man. What about a projectile pattern? Did you do one?"

Donovan closed and locked the file drawer and turned back around.

"Started to. Haven't finished. But you're talking side-by-side barrels, double-ought sh.e.l.ls. That's an immediate spread pattern. I'd say he could have done it from six inches away and gotten that kind of damage. No mystery there."

Bosch nodded and looked at his watch, then stood up.

"One last thing."

"Might as well. I've already told you enough to put my a.s.s in a permanent sling. You going to be careful with what I've told you?"

"Course I am. Last thing. Outstanding prints. How many lifts you get that you haven't matched to Moore?"

"Not a one. I was wondering if anybody would care about that."

Bosch sat back down. This made no sense. Bosch knew that a motel room was like a working girl. Every customer leaves a little something, his mark, behind. It didn't matter if the rooms were made up and reasonably cleaned between renters. There was always something, a telltale sign. Harry could not accept that every surface Donovan had checked had been clean except for those where Moore's prints were found.

"What do you mean n.o.body cared?"

"I mean n.o.body said s.h.i.t. I told Sheehan and that IAD stiff that's been following him around. They acted like it didn't mean a thing to them. You know? It was like 'big deal, so there were no other prints.' I guess they never did a motel-room stiff before. s.h.i.t, I thought I'd be collecting prints in there last night 'til midnight. But all I got were the ones I just told you about. That was the G.o.dd.a.m.ned cleanest motel room I've ever printed. I mean, I even put on the laser. Didn't see a thing but wipe marks where the room had been cleaned up. And if you ask me, Harry, that wasn't the kinda place the management cared too much about cleanliness."

"You told Sheehan this, right?"

"Yeah, I told him when I got done. I was thinking, you know, it being Christmas night that they were going to say I was full of s.h.i.t and just trying to get home to the family. But I told 'em and they just said, fine, that'll be all, good night, Merry Christmas. I left. f.u.c.k it."

Bosch thought about Sheehan and Chastain and Irving. Sheehan was a competent investigator. But with those two hovering over him, he could have made a mistake. They had gone into the motel room one hundred percent sure it was a suicide. Bosch would have done the same. They even found a note. After that they would have probably had to find a knife in Moore's back to change their minds. The lack of other prints in the room, no serial number on the shotgun. These were things that should've been enough to cut the percentage of their a.s.suredness back to fifty-fifty. But they hadn't made a dent in their a.s.sumption. Harry began to wonder about the autopsy results, if they would back the suicide conclusion.

He stood up once more, thanked Donovan for the information and left.

He took the stairs down to the third floor and walked into the RHD suite. Most of the desks lined in three rows were empty, as it was after five o'clock. Sheehan's was among those that were deserted in the Homicide Special bullpen. A few of the detectives still there glanced up at him but then looked away. Bosch was of no interest to them. He was a symbol of what could happen, of how easily one could fall.

"Sheehan still around?" he asked the duty detective who sat at the front desk and handled the phone lines, incoming reports and all the other s.h.i.twork.

"Gone for the day," she said without looking up from a staff vacation schedule she was filling out. "Called from the ME's office a few minutes ago and said he was code seven until the A.M. A.M."

"There a desk I can use for a few minutes? I have to make some phone calls."

He hated to ask for such permission, having worked in this room for eight years.

"Just pick one," she said. She still didn't look up.

Bosch sat down at a desk that was reasonably clear of clutter. He called the Hollywood homicide table, hoping there would still be someone there. Karen Mos.h.i.to answered and Bosch asked if he had any messages.

"Just one. Somebody named Sylvia. No last name given."

He took the number down, feeling his pulse quicken.

"Did you hear about Moore?" Mos.h.i.to asked.

"You mean the ID? Yeah, I heard."

"No. The cut is screwed up. Radio news says the autopsy is inconclusive. I never heard of a shotgun in the face being inconclusive."

"When did this come out?"

"I just heard it on KFWB at five."

Bosch hung up and tried Porter's number once more. Again there was no answer and no tape recording picked up. Harry wondered if the broken-down cop was there and just not answering. He imagined Porter sitting with a bottle in the corner of a dark room, afraid to answer the door or the phone.

He looked at the number he had written down for Sylvia Moore. He wondered if she had heard about the autopsy. That was probably it. She picked up after three rings.

"Mrs. Moore?"

"It's Sylvia."

"This is Harry Bosch."

"I know."

She didn't say anything further.

"How are you holding up?"

"I think I'm okay. I ...I called because I just want to thank you. For the way you were last night. With me."

"Oh, well, you didn't - it was..."

"You know that book I told you about last night?"

"The Long Goodbye?"