Angels Flight (1998) Read online

  “I know what you said about it being cops,” Bosch said in summation. “At the moment we don’t know that. It is too early in the investigation to know anything about a motive. We are in a gathering phase at this time. But soon we’ll move to the sifting phase and any cop who might have had even a remote reason to harm your husband will be looked at. I know there will be many in that category. You have my word that they will be looked at very closely.”

  He waited. The mother and son were huddled together on a couch with a cheerful floral pattern. The son kept closing his eyes like a child hoping to ward off a punishment. He was flagging under the weight of what he had just been told. It was finally hitting home that he would not see his father again.

  “Now, we know this is an awful time for you,” Bosch said softly. “We would like to put off any kind of prolonged questioning so that you have time to yourselves. But there are a few questions that would help us right now.”

  He waited for an objection but none came. He continued.

  “The main one is that we can’t figure out why Mr. Elias was on Angels Flight. We need to find out where he was — ”

  “He was going to the apartment,” Martin said, without opening his eyes.

  “What apartment?”

  “He kept an apartment near the office so he could just stay over on court days or when he was busy getting ready for trial.”

  “He was going to stay there tonight?”

  “Right. He’d been staying there all week.”

  “He had depos,” the wife said. “With the police. They were coming in after work so he was staying late at the office. Then he would just go over to the apartment.”

  Bosch was silent, hoping either one of them would add something more about the arrangement but nothing else was said.

  “Did he call you and tell you he was staying over?” he asked.

  “Yes, he always called.”

  “When was this? This last time, is what I mean.”

  “Earlier today. He said he’d be working late and needed to get back into it on Saturday and Sunday. You know, preparing for the trial on Monday. He said he would try to be home on Sunday for supper.”

  “So you weren’t expecting him to be home here tonight.”

  “That’s right,” Millie Elias said, a note of defiance in her voice as if she had taken the tone of Bosch’s question to mean something else.

  Bosch nodded as if to reassure her that he was not insinuating anything. He asked the specific address of the apartment and was told it was in a complex called The Place, just across Grand Street

  from the Museum of Contemporary Art. Bosch took out his notebook and wrote it down, then kept the notebook out.

  “Now,” he said, “Mrs. Elias, can you remember more specifically when it was you last spoke to your husband?”

  “It was right before six. That is when he calls and tells me, otherwise I have to figure out what’s for supper and how many I’m cooking for.”

  “How about you, Martin? When did you last speak to your father?”

  Martin opened his eyes.

  “I don’t know, man. Couple days ago, at least. But what’s this got to do with anything? You know who did it. Somebody with a badge did this thing.”

  Tears finally began to slide down Martin’s face. Bosch wished he could be somewhere else. Anywhere else.

  “If it was a cop, Martin, you have my word, we will find him. He won’t get away with it.”

  “Sure,” Martin replied, without looking at Bosch. “The man gives us his word. But who the hell is the man?”

  The statement made Bosch pause a moment before continuing.

  “A few more questions,” he finally said. “Did Mr. Elias have an office here at home?”

  “No,” the son said. “He didn’t do his work here.”

  “Okay. Next question. In recent days or weeks, had he mentioned any specific threat or person who he believed wanted to harm him?”

  Martin shook his head and said, “He just always said that it was the cops who would get him someday. It was the cops . . .”

  Bosch nodded, not in agreement but in his understanding of Martin’s belief.

  “One last question. There was a woman who was killed on Angels Flight. It looks like they were not together. Her name was Catalina Perez. Does that name mean anything to either of you?”

  Bosch’s eyes moved from the woman’s face to her son’s. Both stared blankly and shook their heads.

  “Okay then.”

  He stood up.

  “We will leave you alone now. But either myself or other detectives will need to speak with you again. Probably later on today.”

  Neither the mother nor son reacted.

  “Mrs. Elias, do you have a spare photo of your husband we could borrow?”

  The woman looked up at him, her face showing confusion.

  “Why do you want a picture of Howard?”

  “We may need to show people in the course of the investigation.”

  “Everybody already knows Howard, what he looks like.”

  “Probably, ma’am, but we might need a photo in some cases. Do you — ”

  “Martin,” she said, “go get me the albums out of the drawer in the den.”

  Martin left the room and they waited. Bosch took a business card from his pocket and put it down on the wrought-iron-and-glass coffee table.

  “There’s my pager number if you need me or if there is anything else I can do. Is there a family minister you would like us to call?”

  Millie Elias looked up at him again.

  “Reverend Tuggins over at the AME.”

  Bosch nodded but immediately wished he hadn’t made the offer. Martin came back into the room with a photo album. His mother took it and began to turn through the pages. She began to weep silently again at the sight of so many pictures of her husband. Bosch wished he had put off getting the photo until the follow-up interview. Finally, she came upon a close-up shot of Howard Elias’s face. She seemed to know it would be the best photo for the police. She carefully removed it from the plastic sleeve and handed it to Bosch.

  “Will I get that back?”

  “Yes, ma’am, I’ll see that you do.”

  Bosch nodded and was about to make his way to the door. He was wondering if he could just forget about calling Reverend Tuggins.

  “Where’s my husband?” the widow suddenly asked.

  Bosch turned back.

  “His body is at the coroner’s office, ma’am. I will give them your number and they will call you when it is time for you to make arrangements.”

  “What about Reverend Tuggins? You want to use our phone?”

  “Uh, no, ma’am. We’ll contact Reverend Tuggins from our car. We can see ourselves out now.”

  On the way to the door, Bosch glanced at the collection of framed photographs that hung on the wall in the entrance hallway. They were photos of Howard Elias with every notable black community leader in the city as well as many other celebrities and national leaders. There he was with Jesse Jackson, with Congresswoman Maxine Waters, with Eddie Murphy. There was a shot of Elias flanked by Mayor Richard Riordan on one side and City Councilman Royal Sparks on the other. Bosch knew that Sparks had used outrage over police misconduct to forge his rise in city politics. He would miss having Elias around to keep the fire fanned, though Bosch also knew that Sparks would now use the lawyer’s murder to any advantage he could. Bosch wondered how it was that good and noble causes often seemed to bring slick opportunists to the microphones.

  There were also family photos. Several depicted Elias and his wife at social functions. There were shots of Elias and his son — one of them on a boat, both holding up a black marlin and smiling. Another photo showed them at a firing range posing on either side of a paper target with several holes shot through it. The target depicted Daryl Gates, a former police chief whom Elias had sued numerous times. Bosch remembered that the targets, created by a local artist, were popular toward the end of
Gates’s tumultuous stewardship of the department.

  Bosch leaned forward to study the photo and see if he could identify the weapons Elias and his son held but the photo was too small.

  Chastain pointed to one of the photos, which showed Elias and the chief of police at some formal affair, supposed adversaries smiling at the camera.

  “They look cozy,” he whispered.

  Bosch just nodded and went out through the door.

  Chastain pulled the car out of the driveway and headed down out of the hills and back to the freeway. They were silent, both absorbing the misery they had just brought to a family and how they had received the blame for it.

  “They always shoot the messenger,” Bosch said.

  “I think I’m glad I don’t work homicide,” Chastain replied. “I can deal with cops being pissed at me. But that, that was bullshit.”

  “They call it the dirty work — next-of-kin notification.”

  “They ought to call it something. Fucking people. We’re trying to find out who killed the guy and they’re saying it was us. You believe that shit?”

  “I didn’t take it literally, Chastain. People in that position are entitled to a little slack. They’re hurting, they say things, that’s all.”

  “Yeah, you’ll see. Wait until you see that kid on the six o’clock news. I know the type. You won’t have much sympathy then. Where are we going anyway, back to the scene?”

  “Go to his apartment first. You know Dellacroce’s pager number?”

  “Not offhand, no. Look at your list.”

  Bosch opened his notebook and looked up the pager number Dellacroce had written down. He punched the number into his phone and made the page.

  “What about Tuggins?” Chastain asked. “You call him, you give him the head start on getting the south end ready to rock and roll.”

  “I know. I’m thinking.”

  Bosch had been thinking about that decision since the moment Millie Elias had mentioned the name Preston Tuggins. As with many minority communities, pastors carried as much weight as politicians when it came to shaping that community’s response to a social, cultural or political cause or event. In the case of Preston Tuggins, he carried even more. He headed a group of associated ministers and together they were a force, a major media-savvy force that could hold the whole community in check — or unleash it like an earthquake. Preston Tuggins had to be handled with utmost care.

  Bosch dug through his pocket and pulled out the card Irving had given him earlier. He was about to call one of the numbers on it when the phone rang in his hand.

  It was Dellacroce. Bosch gave him the address of Elias’s apartment at The Place and told him to draw up an additional search warrant. Dellacroce cursed because he had already wakened a judge to fax him the office search warrant. He would now have to do it again.

  “Welcome to homicide,” Bosch said as he clicked off.

  “What?” Chastain said.

  “Nothing. Just bullshit.”

  Bosch punched in Irving’s number. The deputy chief answered after one ring, giving his full name and rank. It seemed odd to Bosch that Irving seemed fully alert, as if he had not been asleep.

  “Chief, it’s Bosch. You said to call if — ”

  “No problem, Detective. What is it?”

  “We just made notification. To Elias’s wife and son. Uh, she wanted me to call her minister.”

  “I do not see the problem.”

  “The minister is Preston Tuggins and I thought maybe somebody a little further up the ladder might be better making — ”

  “I understand. It was good thinking. I will have it taken care of. I think perhaps the chief will want to handle that. I was just about to call him anyway. Anything else?”

  “Not at this time.”

  “Thank you, Detective.”

  Irving hung up. Chastain asked what he said and Bosch told him.

  “This case . . . ,” Chastain said. “I have a feeling things are going to get hairy.”

  “Say that again.”

  Chastain was about to say something else but Bosch’s pager sounded. He checked the number. Again it wasn’t a call from home but Grace Billets’s second page. He had forgotten to call her earlier. He called now and the lieutenant answered after one ring.

  “I wondered if you were going to call me back.”

  “Sorry. I sort of got tied up, then I forgot.”

  “So what’s going on? Irving wouldn’t tell me who was dead, just that RHD and Central couldn’t handle it.”

  “Howard Elias.”

  “Oh, shit . . . Harry . . . I’m sorry it’s you.”

  “It’s okay. We’ll make out.”

  “Everybody will be watching you. And if it’s a cop . . . it’s a no-win situation. Do you get any sense from Irving, does he want to go at it balls to the wall?”

  “Mixed signals.”

  “You can’t talk freely?”

  “Right.”

  “Well, I’m getting mixed signals here, too. Irving told me to take your team off the rotation but he said it would only be until Friday. Then I’m supposed to talk to him about it. Now that I know who is dead, I think the translation of that is that you have till then before he probably ships you back to Hollywood and you have to take Howard Elias back here with you and work it when you can.”

  Bosch nodded but didn’t say anything. It went with the other moves Irving had made. The deputy chief had created a large team to work the case, but it looked as though he was only giving them a week to work it full-time. Maybe he hoped that the media glare would drop off to a more manageable level by then and the case could eventually disappear into the unsolved files. But Bosch thought Irving was kidding himself if he thought that.

  He and Billets talked for a few minutes more before Billets finally signed off with a warning.

  “Watch yourself, Harry. If a cop did this, one of those RHD guys . . .”

  “What?”

  “Just be careful.”

  “I will.”

  He closed the phone and looked out the windshield. They were almost to the 110 transition. They would be back at California Plaza soon.

  “Your lieutenant?” Chastain asked.

  “Yeah. She just wanted to know what was going on.”

  “So what’s the deal with her and Rider? They still munching each other’s pie on the side?”

  “It’s none of my business, Chastain. And none of yours.”

  “Just asking.”

  They rode in silence for a while. Bosch was annoyed by Chastain’s question. He knew it was the IAD detective’s way of reminding Bosch that he knew secrets, that he might be out of his element when it came to straight homicide investigation but he knew secrets about cops and should not be taken lightly. Bosch wished he hadn’t made the call to Billets while Chastain was in the car.

  Chastain seemed to sense his misstep and broke the silence by trying some harmless banter.

  “Tell me about this hard-boiled eggs caper I keep hearing people talk about,” he said.

  “It was nothing. Just a case.”

  “I missed the story in the paper, I guess.”

  “Just a piece of luck, Chastain. Like we could use on this case.”

  “Well, tell me. I want to know — especially now that we’re partnering up, Bosch. I like stories about luck. Maybe it will rub off.”

  “It was just a routine call out on a suicide. Patrol called us to come out and sign off on it. Started when a mother got worried about her daughter because she hadn’t shown up at the airport up in Portland. She was supposed to fly up there for a wedding or something and never showed up. The family was left waiting at the airport. Anyway, the mother called up and asked for a drive-by check of the daughter’s apartment. A little place over on Franklin near La Brea. So a blue suit went by, got the manager to let him in and they found her. She had been dead a couple of days — since the morning she was supposed to have flown up to Portland.”

  “What did she
do?”

  “It was made to look like she took some pills and then cut her wrists in the bathtub.”

  “Patrol said suicide.”

  “That’s the way it was supposed to look. There was a note. It was torn out of a notebook and it said things about life not being what she expected and about being lonely all the time and stuff. It was kind of a ramble. Very sad, actually.”