“You knew I’d get hooked, Jaye. ‘Beware, beware, God sees?’ I mean, come on. You’re going to tell me you thought I’d look it all over and phone in the report? Besides, I’m not complaining. I’m here because I want to be. If you feel guilty, you can buy the pancakes.”
“What did your wife say about it?”
“Nothing. She knows it’s something I have to do. I called her from the dock after I crossed. It was too late for her to really say anything by then anyway. She just told me to pick up a bag of green corn tamales at El Cholo before I headed back. They sell ’em frozen.”
The pancakes came. They stopped talking and McCaleb politely waited for Winston to choose a syrup first but she was using a fork to move her pancakes around on her plate and he finally couldn’t wait. He doused his stack with maple syrup and started eating. The waitress came back by and put a check down. Winston quickly grabbed it.
“The sheriff will pay for this.”
“Tell him thanks.”
“You know, I don’t know what you expect from Harry Bosch. He told me he’d only had a handful of contacts with Gunn in the six years since the prostitute case.”
“When were those, when he got popped?”
Winston nodded as she poured boysenberry syrup on her pancakes.
“That means he would have seen him the night before he was killed. I didn’t see anything about it in the book.”
“I haven’t written it up. There’s not much to it. The watch sergeant called him and told him Gunn was in the drunk tank on a DUI.”
McCaleb nodded.
“And?”
“And he came in to look at the guy. That was it. He said they didn’t even talk because Gunn was too blitzed.”
“Well…, I still want to talk to Harry. I worked a case with him once. He’s a good cop. Intuitive and observant. He might know something I could use.”
“That is, if you can get to talk to him.”
“What do you mean?”
“You don’t know? He’s riding the prosecution table on the David Storey murder case. Up in Van Nuys. Don’t you watch the news?”
“Ah, damn, I forgot about that. I remember reading his name in the newspapers after they took Storey down. That was, what, in October? They’re already in trial?”
“They sure are. No delays and they didn’t need a prelim because they went through the grand jury. They started jury selection right after the first. Last I heard, they had the panel so openers will probably be this week, maybe even today.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah, good luck getting to Bosch. I’m sure this is just what he’ll want to hear about.”
“Are you saying you don’t want me to talk to him?”
Winston shrugged her shoulders.
“No, I’m not saying that at all. Do whatever you want to do. I just didn’t think you’d be doing so much legwork on this. I can talk to my captain about maybe getting a consulting fee for you but -”
“Don’t worry about it. The sheriff’s buying breakfast. That’s enough.”
“Doesn’t seem like it.”
He didn’t tell her that he’d work the case for free, just to be back in the life for a few days. And he didn’t tell her that he couldn’t take any money from her anyway. If he made any “official” income he would lose his eligibility for the state medical assistance that paid for the fifty-four pills he swallowed every day. The pills were so expensive that if he had to pay for them himself he’d be bankrupt inside six months, unless he happened to be drawing a six-figure salary. It was the ugly secret behind the medical miracle that had saved him. He got a second chance at life, just as long as he didn’t use it to try to earn a living. It was the reason the charter business was in Buddy Lockridge’s name. Officially, McCaleb was an unpaid deckhand. Buddy simply rented the boat for charter from Graciela, the rent being 60 percent of all charter fees after expenses.
“How are your pancakes?” he asked Winston.
“The best.”
“Damn right.”
Chapter 8
The Grand Royale was a two-story eyesore, a deteriorating stucco box whose attempt at style began and ended with the modish design of the letters of its name tacked over the entranceway. The streets of West Hollywood and elsewhere in the flats were lined with such banal designs, the high-density apartments that crowded out smaller bungalow courts in the fifties and sixties. They replaced true style with phony ornamental flourishes and names that reflected exactly what they were not.
McCaleb and Winston entered the second-floor apartment that had belonged to Edward Gunn with the building manager, a man named Rohrshak – “Like the test, only spelled different.”
If he hadn’t known where to look, McCaleb would have missed what was left of the bloodstain on the carpet where Gunn had died. The carpet had not been replaced. Instead it had been shampooed, leaving only a small, light brown trace stain that would probably be mistaken by the next renter as the remnant of a soda or coffee spill.
The place had been cleaned and readied for renting. But the furnishings were the same. McCaleb recognized them from the crime scene video.
He looked across the room at the china cabinet but it was empty. There was no plastic owl perched atop it. He looked at Winston.
“It’s gone.”
Winston turned to the manager.
“Mr. Rohrshak. The owl that was on top of that cabinet. We think it was important. Are you sure you don’t know what happened to it?”
Rohrshak spread his arms wide and then dropped them to his side.
“No, I don’t know. You asked before and I thought, ‘I don’t remember any owl.’ But if you say so…”
He shrugged his shoulders and jutted his chin, then nodded as if reluctantly agreeing that there had been an owl on the china cabinet.
McCaleb read his body language and words as the classic mannerisms of a liar. Deny the existence of the object you have stolen and you eliminate the theft. He assumed Winston had picked up on it as well.
“Jaye, you have a phone? Can you call the sister to double-check?”
“I’ve been holding out until the county buys me one.”
McCaleb had wanted to keep his phone free in case Brass Doran called back but put his leather bag down on an overstuffed couch and dug out his phone and handed it to her.
She had to get the sister’s number out of a notebook in her briefcase. While she made the call McCaleb walked slowly around the apartment, taking it all in and trying to get a vibe from the place. In the dining area he stopped in front of the round wooden table with four straight-back chairs placed around it. The crime scene analysis report said that three of the chairs had numerous smears, partials and complete latent fingerprints on them – all of them belonging to the victim, Edward Gunn. The fourth chair, the one found on the north side of the table, was completely devoid of fingerprint evidence in any condition. The chair had been wiped down. Most likely, the killer had done this after handling the chair for some reason.
McCaleb checked his directions and went to the chair on the north side of the table. Careful not to touch the back of it, he hooked his hand under the seat and pulled it away from the table and over to the china cabinet. He positioned it at center and then stepped up onto the seat. He raised his arms as if placing something on top of the cabinet. The chair wobbled on its uneven legs and McCaleb instinctively reached one hand to the top edge of the china cabinet to steady himself. Before he grabbed on he realized something and stopped himself. He braced his forearm across the frame of one of the cabinet’s glass doors instead.
“Steady there, Terry.”
He looked down. Winston was standing next to him. His phone was folded closed in her hand.