The Last Coyote (1995) Page 6

  She hesitated a moment as the name rolled around in her mind.

  “I knew him. I think she did, too. He was on the beat on the Boulevard. I think it would have been hard for her not to know him…but I don’t know. I could be wrong.”

  Bosch nodded.

  “He was the one who found her.”

  She hiked her shoulders in a what’s-that-prove gesture.

  “Well, somebody had to find her. She was left out there in the open like that.”

  “What about a couple of vice guys, Gilchrist and Stano?”

  She hesitated before answering.

  “Yes, I knew them…they were mean men.”

  “Would my mother have known them? In that way?”

  She nodded.

  “What do you mean that they were mean? In what way?”

  “They just…they just didn’t care about us. If they wanted something, whether it was a little piece of information you might have picked up on a date or something more…personal, they just came and took it. They could be rough. I hated them.”

  “Did they—”

  “But could they have been killers? My feeling at the time, and now, is no. They weren’t killers, Harry. They were cops. True, they were bought and paid for, but it seemed everybody was. But it wasn’t like it is today where you read the paper and you see some cop on trial for killing or beating or whatever. It’s—sorry.”

  “It’s okay. Anybody else you can think of?”

  “No.”

  “No names?”

  “I put that all out of my mind a long time ago.”

  “Okay.”

  Bosch wanted to take out his notebook but he didn’t want to make this seem like an interview. He tried to remember what else he had read in the murder book that he could ask about.

  “What about this guy Johnny Fox?”

  “Yes, I told those detectives about him. They got all excited but then nothing ever happened. He was never arrested.”

  “I think he was. But then he was let go. His fingerprints didn’t match the killer’s.”

  She raised her eyebrows.

  “Well, that’s news to me. They never told me anything about any fingerprints.”

  “On your second interview—with McKittrick, you remember him?”

  “Not really. I just remember that there were police, you know? Two detectives. One was smarter than the other, that’s what I remember. But I don’t remember which one was which. It seemed like the dumber one was in charge and that was par for the course in those days.”

  “Well, anyway, McKittrick talked to you the second time. In his report he said you changed your story and you told about this party in Hancock Park.”

  “Yes, the party. I didn’t go because that…Johnny Fox hit me the night before and I had a bruise on my cheek. It was gorgeous. I played around with makeup but I couldn’t do anything about the swelling. Believe me there wasn’t much business in Hancock Park for a party girl with a knot on her face.”

  “Who was having the party?”

  “I don’t remember. I don’t know if I even knew whose party it was.”

  Something about the way she answered bothered Bosch. Her tone had changed and it came across as almost a rehearsed answer.

  “Are you sure don’t remember?”

  “Of course, I’m sure.” Katherine stood up. “I think I’m going to get some water now.”

  She took his glass to refill and left the room again. Bosch realized that his familiarity with the woman, his emotion in seeing her again after so long, had blocked most of his investigative instincts. He had no feel for the truth. He could not tell whether there was more to what she was telling him or not. He decided he had to somehow steer the conversation back to the party. He thought she knew more than she had said all those years ago.

  She came back with two glasses filled with ice water and placed his back down on the cork coaster. Something about the way she was so careful about putting the glass down gave him a knowledge about her that had not come through in her spoken words. It was simply that she had worked hard to attain the level she was at in life. That position and the material things it brought with it—like glass coffee tables and plush carpets—meant a lot to her and were to be taken care of.

  She took a long drink from her glass after sitting down.

  “Let me tell you something, Harry,” she said. “I didn’t tell them everything. I didn’t lie, but I didn’t tell them everything. I was afraid.”

  “Afraid of what?”

  “I became afraid on the day they found her. You see, I’d gotten a call that morning. Before I even knew what had happened to her. It was a man, but a voice I didn’t recognize. He told me if I said anything I would be next. I remember, he said, ‘My advice to you, little lady, is to get the hell out of Dodge.’ Then, of course, I heard the police were in the building and had gone to her apartment. Then I heard she was dead. So I did what I was told. I left. I waited about a week until the police said they were done with me, then I moved to Long Beach. I changed my name, changed my life. I met my husband down there and then years later we moved here.…You know, I’ve never been back to Hollywood, not even to drive through. It’s an awful place.”

  “What was it that you didn’t tell Eno and McKittrick?”

  Katherine looked down at her hands as she spoke.

  “I was afraid, you see, so I didn’t tell everything…but I knew who she was going to see there, at the party. We were like sisters. Lived in the same building, shared clothes, secrets, everything. We talked every morning, had our coffee together. We had no secrets between us. And we were going to go to the party together. Of course, after that…after Johnny hit me, she had to go alone.”

  “Who was she going to meet there, Katherine?” Bosch prompted.

  “You see that is the right question but the detectives never asked that. They only wanted to know whose party it was and where it was. That didn’t matter. What was important was who was she going to meet there and they never asked that.”

  “Who was it?”

  She looked away from her hands and to the fireplace. She stared at the cold, blackened logs left from an old fire the way some people stare mesmerized by a burning fire.

  “It was a man named Arno Conklin. He was a very important man in the—”

  “I know who he was.”

  “You do?”

  “His name came up in the records. But not that way. How could you not tell the cops this?”

  She turned and looked at him sharply.

  “Don’t you look at me that way. I told you I was scared. I’d been threatened. And they wouldn’t have done anything with it anyway. They were bought and paid for by Conklin. They wouldn’t go near him on just the word of a…call girl who didn’t see anything but knew a name. I had to think of myself. Your mother was dead, Harry. There was nothing I could do about it.”

  He could see the sharp edges of anger in her eyes. He knew it was directed at him but more toward herself. She could list all her reasons out loud but inside Bosch thought she paid a price every day for not having done the right thing.

  “You think Conklin did it?”

  “I don’t know. All I know is that she’d been with him before and there was never anything violent. I don’t know the answer to that.”

  “Any idea now who called you?”

  “No, none.”

  “Conklin?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t know his voice anyway.”

  “Did you ever see them together, my mother and him?”

  “Once, at a dance at the Masonic. I think it was the night they met. Johnny Fox introduced them. I don’t think Arno knew…anything about her. At least, then.”

  “Could it have been Fox who called you?”

  “No. I would’ve recognized his voice.”

  Bosch thought a moment.

  “Did you ever see Fox again after that morning?”

  “No. I avoided him for a week. It was easy because I think he was
hiding from the cops. But after that I was gone. Whoever called me, he put the fear of God in me. I left town for Long Beach the day the cops said they were done with me. Packed one suitcase and took the bus…I remember, your mother had some of my clothes in her apartment. Things that she had borrowed. I didn’t even bother to try to get them. I just took what I had and left.”

  Bosch was silent. He had nothing else to ask.

  “I think about those days a lot, you know,” Katherine said. “We were in the gutter, your mother and I, but we were good friends and we had fun in spite of it all.”

  “You know, all my memories…you’re in a lot of them. You were always there with her.”

  “We had a lot of laughs in spite of everything,” she said wistfully. “And you, you were the highlight of it all. You know, when they took you away from her, it nearly killed her right then…She never stopped trying to get you back, Harry. I hope you know that. She loved you. I loved you.”

  “Yes, I know that.”

  “But after you were gone, she wasn’t the same. Sometimes I think what happened to her was sort of inevitable. Sometimes I think it was like she had been heading toward that alley for a long time beforehand.”

  Bosch stood up, looking at the sorrow in her eyes.

  “I better go. I’ll let you know what happens.”

  “I’d like that. I’d like to stay in touch.”

  “I’d like that, too.”

  He headed toward the door knowing that they wouldn’t stay in touch. Time had eroded the bond between them. They were strangers who shared the same story. On the outside step he turned and looked back at her.

  “The Christmas card you sent. You wanted me to look into this back then, didn’t you?”

  She brought out the faraway smile again.

  “I don’t know. My husband had just died and I was taking stock, you know? I thought about her. And you. I’m proud of how I turned out, Little Harry. So I think about what there could have been for her and you. I’m still mad. Whoever did this should…”

  She didn’t finish but Bosch nodded.

  “Good-bye, Harry.”

  “You know, my mother, she had a good friend.”

  “I hope so.”

  Chapter Seven

  BACK IN HIS car Bosch took his notebook out and looked at the list.

  Conklin

  McKittrick & Eno

  Meredith Roman

  Johnny Fox

  He drew a line through Meredith Roman’s name and studied those left on it. He knew that the way he had ordered the names was not the same order in which he would attempt to interview them. He knew that before he could approach Conklin, or even McKittrick and Eno, he needed more information.

  He took his phone book out of his coat pocket and his portable from his briefcase. He dialed the Department of Motor Vehicles law enforcement line in Sacramento and identified himself to the clerk as Lieutenant Harvey Pounds. He gave Pounds’s serial number and asked for a license check on Johnny Fox. After checking his notebook, he gave the appropriate date of birth. As he did this he ran the numbers and figured that Fox was now sixty-one years old.

  As he continued to wait he smiled because Pounds would have some explaining to do in about a month. The department had recently begun to audit use of the DMV trace service. Because the Daily News had reported that cops all over the department were secretly doing the traces for friendly reporters and private detectives with liberal expense accounts, the new chief had cracked down by requiring all calls and computer link-ups to DMV to be documented on the newly implemented DMVT form, which required attribution of traces to a specific case or purpose. The forms were sent to Parker Center and then audited against the list of traces provided each month by the DMV. When the lieutenant’s name showed up on the DMV list in the next audit and there was no corresponding DMVT form, he’d get a call from the auditors.

  Bosch had gotten the lieutenant’s serial number off his ID card one day when Pounds had left it clipped to his jacket on the coatrack outside his office. He’d written it down in his phone book on a hunch that one day it would come in handy.

  The DMV clerk finally came back on the line and said there was no driver’s license presently issued to a Johnny Fox with the birth date Bosch had provided.

  “Anything close?”

  “No, honey.”

  “That’s Lieutenant, miss,” Bosch said sternly. “Lieutenant Pounds.”

  “That’s Ms., Lieutenant. Ms. Sharp.”

  “And I bet you are. Tell me, Ms. Sharp, how far back does that computer run go?”

  “Seven years. Anything else?”

  “How do I check the years before that?”

  “You don’t. If you want a hand records search you drop us a letter, Loo-ten-ANT. It will take ten to fourteen days. In your case, count on the fourteen. Anything else?”

  “No, but I don’t like your demeanor.”

  “That makes us even. Good-bye.”

  Bosch laughed out loud after flipping the phone closed. He was sure now that trace wouldn’t get lost in the process. Ms. Sharpe would see to that. The name Pounds would probably be on the top of the list when it came in to Parker Center. He dialed Edgar’s number on the homicide table next and caught him before he had left the bureau for the day.

  “Harry, what’s up?”

  “You busy?”

  “No. Nothing new.”

  “Can you run a name for me? I already did DMV but I need somebody to do the computer.”

  “Uh…”

  “Look, can you or can’t you? If you’re worried about Pounds, then—”

  “Hey, Harry, cool it. What’s wrong with you, man? I didn’t say I couldn’t do it. Just give me the name.”

  Bosch couldn’t understand why Edgar’s attitude enraged him. He took a breath and tried to calm down.

  “The name’s John Fox. Johnny Fox.”

  “Shit, there’s going to be a hundred John Foxes. You got a DOB?”

  “Yeah, I got a DOB.”

  Bosch checked his notebook again and gave it to him.

  “What’d he do to you? Say, how you doing?”

  “Funny. I’ll tell you later. You going to run it?”

  “Yes, I said I’ll do it.”

  “Okay, you got my portable number. If you can’t get through, leave me a message at home.”

  “When I can get to it, Harry.”

  “What, you said nothing’s happening.”

  “Nothing is, but I’m working, man. I can’t be running around doing shit for you all the time.”

  Bosch was stunned into a short moment of silence.

  “Hey, Jerry, fuck you, I’ll do it myself.”

  “Look, Harry, I’m not saying I’m—”

  “No, I mean it. Never mind. I don’t want to compromise you with your new partner or your fearless leader. I mean after all, that’s what it’s about, isn’t it? So don’t give me this shit about working. You’re not working. You’re about to go out the door for home and you know it. Or wait a minute, maybe it’s drinks with Burnsie again tonight.”

  “Harry—”

  “Take care, man.”

  Bosch flipped the phone closed and sat there letting the anger work out of him like heat from the grill of a radiator. The phone rang while it was still in his hand and he immediately felt better. He flipped it open.

  “Look, I’m sorry, okay?” he said. “Forget it.”

  There was a long silence.

  “Hello?”

  It was a woman’s voice. Bosch felt immediately embarrassed.

  “Yes?”

  “Detective Bosch?”

  “Yes, I’m sorry, I thought it was someone else.”

  “Like who?”

  “Who is this?”

  “It’s Dr. Hinojos.”

  “Oh.” Bosch closed his eyes and the anger came back. “What can I do for you?”

  “I was just calling to remind you that we have a session tomorrow. Three-thirty. You will be there?”<
br />
  “I don’t have a choice, remember? And you don’t have to call to remind me about our sessions. Believe it or not, I have an appointment calendar, a watch, an alarm clock, all of that stuff now.”