“Well, I don’t give a good goddamn what you find hard to believe, Detective.”
“Look, we made our deal. I’m not going to tell anyone. If I make trouble for you, you can make trouble for me. If I did tell even my partners, you know what they’d say? They’d say I was crazy for not treating you as a suspect. That’s what I should be doing but I’m not. I’m flying on pure instinct and that can be scary. So to make up for it I’m looking for any edge or piece of luck or help I can get.”
She was silent a moment before responding.
“I appreciate what you are doing for me, Detective. But I am not lying to you. Howard and I never spoke in detail about his cases or my work with the department. Never in detail. The one thing I remember him saying about the Harris case is so vague as to defy interpretation. But if you must know what it was, I will tell you. He told me to brace myself because he was going to blow the department and a few of the city’s big shots out of the water on this one. I didn’t ask him what he meant.”
“And when was that?”
“That was Tuesday night.”
“Thank you, Inspector.”
Bosch got up and walked around a bit. He found himself at the window staring out at Anthony Quinn in shadows. He looked at his watch and saw it was almost six. He was supposed to rendezvous with Edgar and Rider at seven at the Hollywood station.
“You know what this means, don’t you?” he asked, without turning back to Entrenkin.
“What does it mean?”
He turned to her.
“That if Elias was on to something and got close to identifying the killer – the real killer – then it wasn’t a cop who put him down.”
She thought a moment and said, “You’re only looking at it from one side.”
“What’s the other?”
“Say he was about to go to trial and pull the real killer out of his hat. Conclusively. That would put the lie to the police evidence, wouldn’t it? So proving Harris innocent would at the same time prove the cops framed him. If the real killer knew Howard was on to him, yes he could have come after him. But say a cop knew that Howard was going to prove that that cop framed Harris, he could have come at him, too.”
Bosch shook his head.
“It’s always the cops with you. Maybe the frame was in place before the cops even showed up.”
He shook his head again, more emphatically, as if warding off a thought.
“I don’t know what I’m saying. There was no frame. It’s too farfetched.”
Entrenkin watched him for a long moment.
“Whatever you say, Detective. Just never say I didn’t warn you.”
Bosch ignored her statement. He looked at the boxes on the floor. For the first time he noticed a two-wheeled trolley leaning against the wall near the door. Entrenkin followed his eyes to it.
“I called the security guy and told him we needed to move some boxes. He brought it up.”
Bosch nodded.
“I guess I better get this stuff to my car. Do you still have the search warrant or did Miss Langwiser take it? I need to fill out the receipt.”
“I have it and I’ve already catalogued the files. You just need to sign it.”
Bosch nodded and walked over to the trolley. He remembered something and turned back to her.
“What about the file we were looking at when you came in this morning? With the photo in it.”
“What about it? It’s in the box there.”
“Well, I mean… uh… what do you think?”
“I don’t know what to think about it. If you’re asking me if I believed Howard Elias was involved with that woman I would say no.”
“We asked his wife today if it was possible he was having an affair and she said no, it was not possible.”
“I get your point. But I still think it’s impossible. Howard was a well-known man in this city. First of all, he would hardly have to pay for sex. And secondly, he was smart enough to know that he would be vulnerable to extortion from these people if they recognized him.”
“Then what was the file doing in his desk?”
“Like I said, I don’t know. It had to be part of a case but I don’t know which one. I looked at every file in the office today and didn’t find anything that connects to it.”
Bosch just nodded. His mind was already off the file and back on the mystery letters, the last one in particular. His take on it was that it was a warning to Elias. Someone had discovered that the lawyer was in possession of a dangerous piece of information. Bosch was feeling more certain that the investigation, the true investigation, should stem from that note.
“Do you mind if I put on the television now?” Entrenkin said. “It’s six. I want to watch the news.”
Bosch came out of his reverie.
“Sure. Turn it on.”
She moved to a large oak cabinet against the wall opposite the desk and opened the doors. Inside the cabinet were two shelves, each containing a television. Elias apparently liked to watch more than one TV at a time. Probably, Bosch guessed, so he had a better chance of catching all his appearances on newscasts.
Entrenkin hit the power on both sets. As the picture came into focus on the top set, Bosch saw a reporter standing in front of a strip shopping center in which three or four stores were ablaze. Several yards behind the reporter, firefighters worked to contain the blaze but it looked to Bosch as though the buildings were beyond being saved. They were already gutted.
“It’s happening,” he said.
“Not again,” Entrenkin said, her voice a scared plea.
Chapter 18
BOSCH turned on KFWB on the car radio while driving into Hollywood. The radio reports were more conservative than the TV news at six. This was because the radio report contained only words, not images.
The bottom-line news was that there was a fire in a strip mall on Normandie, just a few blocks from the intersection of Florence, the intersection that was the flashpoint of the 1992 riots. At that moment it was the only fire burning in South L.A. and there was not yet any confirmation that the fire was an arson linked to protest or anger over the murder of Howard Elias. But every news channel that Bosch and Entrenkin had checked in the office was broadcasting from the mall. Flames filled the screens and the image projected was clear: Los Angeles was burning once again.
“Fucking TV,” he said. “Excuse my language.”
“What about TV?”
It was Carla Entrenkin. She had talked her way into being taken along for the interview with Harris. Bosch hadn’t put up much of a protest. He knew she might help put Harris at ease, if he knew who she was. Bosch knew it was important that Harris be willing to talk to them. He might be the only one to whom Howard Elias had confided the identity of Stacey Kincaid’s murderer.
“Overreacting as usual,” Bosch said. “One fire and they’re all there, showing the flames. You know what that does? That’s like throwing gasoline on it. It will spread now. People will see that in their living rooms and go outside to see what is happening. Groups will form, things will be said and people won’t be able to back down from their anger. One thing will lead to another and we’ll have our media-manufactured riot.”
“I give the people a little more credit than that,” Entrenkin responded. “They know not to trust the TV. Civil unrest occurs when the feelings of overwhelming powerlessness hit critical mass. It has nothing to do with television. It has to do with society not addressing the essential needs of overlooked people.”
Bosch noted that she called it civil unrest instead of rioting. He wondered if calling a riot a riot had become politically incorrect.
“It’s about hope, Detective,” she continued. “Most of the people in the minority communities of Los Angeles have no power, have no money, have no voice. They subsist on hope for these things. And Howard Elias was hope for many of them. A symbol of hope for a day when things will be equal, when their voice will be heard. Of a day when they need not fear the police officers in their community. When you take hope away it leaves a void. Some people fill that up with anger and with violence. To simply blame it on the media is wrong. It’s much deeper than that.”