The Black Ice hb-2 Read online

  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 shells?”

  “Only smudges. Couldn’t get anything on the shells.”

  “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 documents. 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 shells. 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 ass 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 nobody cared?”

  “I mean nobody said shit. 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. Shit, 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 goddamned 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 shit 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. Fuck 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 assuredness back to fifty-fifty. But they hadn’t made a dent in their assumption. 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 shitwork.

  “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 theA.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 Moshito 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?” Moshito 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.”r />
  “Oh, well, you didn’t-it was…”

  “You know that book I told you about last night?”

  “The Long Goodbye?”

  “There’s another line in it I was thinking about. ‘A white knight for me is as rare as a fat postman.’ I guess nowadays there are a lot of fat postmen.” She laughed very softly, almost like her crying. “But not too many white knights. You were last night.”

  Bosch didn’t know what to say and just tried to envision her on the other end of the silence.

  “That’s very nice of you to say. But I don’t know if I deserve it. Sometimes I don’t think the things I have to do make me much of a knight.”

  They moved on to small talk for a few moments and then said good-bye. He hung up and sat still for a moment, staring at the phone and thinking about things said and unsaid. There was something there. A connection. Something more than her husband’s death. More than just a case. There was a connection between them.

  He turned the pages of the notebook back to the chronological chart he had made earlier.

  Nov. 9 Dance arrested

  Nov. 13 Jimmy Kapps dead

  Dec. 4 Moore, Bosch meet

  He now started to add other dates and facts, even some that did not seem to fit into the picture at the moment. But his overriding feeling was that his cases were linked and the link was Calexico Moore. He didn’t stop to consider the chart as a whole until he was finished. Then he studied it, finding that it gave some context to the thoughts that had jumbled in his head in the last two days.

  Nov. 1 BANG cya memo on black ice

  Nov. 9 Rickard gets tip-from Jimmy Kapps

  Nov. 9 Dance arrested, case kicked

  Nov. 13 Jimmy Kapps dead

  Dec. 4 Moore, Bosch meet-Moore holds back

  Dec. 11 Moore receives DEA briefing

  Dec. 18 Moore finds body-Juan Doe #67

  Dec. 18 Porter assigned Juan Doe case

  Dec. 19 Moore checks in, Hideaway-suicide?

  Dec. 24 Juan Doe #67 autopsy-bugs?

  Dec. 25 Moore’s body found

  Dec. 26 Porter pulls pin

  Dec. 26 Moore autopsy-inconclusive?

  But he couldn’t study it too long without thinking of Sylvia Moore.

  Chapter 9

  Bosch took Los Angeles Street to Second and then up to the Red Wind. In front of St. Vibiana’s he saw an entourage of bedraggled, homeless men leaving the church. They had spent the day sleeping in the pews and were now heading to the Union Street mission for dinner. As he passed theTimes building he looked up at the clock and saw it was exactly six. He turned on KFWB for the news. The Moore autopsy was the second story, after a report on how the mayor had become the latest victim in a wave of kamikazi AIDS protests. He was hit with a balloon full of pig blood on the white stone steps of City Hall. A group called Cool AIDS took credit.

  “In other news, an autopsy on the body of Police Sergeant Calexico Moore was inconclusive in confirming that the narcotics officer took his own life, according to the Los Angeles County coroner’s office. Meanwhile, police have officially classified the death as suicide. The thirty-eight-year-old officer’s body was found Christmas Day in a Hollywood motel room. He had been dead of a shotgun blast for about a week, authorities said. A suicide note was found at the scene but the contents have not been released. Moore will be buried Monday.”

  Bosch turned the radio off. The news report had obviously come from a press release. He wondered what was meant by the autopsy results being inconclusive. That was the only grain of real news in the whole report.

  After parking at the curb in front of the Red Wind he went inside but did not see Teresa Corazon. He went into the restroom and splashed water on his face. He needed a shave. He dried himself with a paper towel and tried to smooth his mustache and curly hair with his hand. He loosened his tie, then stood there a long moment staring at his reflection. He saw the kind of man not many people approached unless they had to.

  He got a package of cigarettes from the machine by the restroom door and looked around again but still didn’t see her. He went to the bar and ordered an Anchor and then took it to an empty table by the front door. The Wind was becoming crowded with the after-work crowd. People in business suits and dresses. There were a lot of combinations of older men with younger women. Harry recognized several reporters from theTimes. He began to think Teresa had picked a bad place to meet, if she intended to show up at all. With today’s autopsy story, she might be noticed by the reporters. He drained the beer bottle and left the bar.

  He was standing in the chilled evening air on the front sidewalk, looking down the street into the Second Street tunnel, when he heard a horn honk and a car pulled to a stop in front of him. The electric window glided down. It was Teresa.

  “Harry, wait inside. I’ll just find a place to park. Sorry I’m late.”

  Bosch leaned into the window.

  “I don’t know. Lot of reporters in there. I heard on the radio about the Moore autopsy. I don’t know if you want to risk getting hassled.”

  He could see reasons for it and against it. Getting her name in the paper improved her chances of changing acting chief ME to permanent chief. But the wrong thing said or a misquote could just as easily change acting to interim or, worse yet, former.

  “Where can we go?” she asked.

  Harry opened the door and got in.

  “Are you hungry? We can go down to Gorky’s or the Pantry.”

  “Yeah. Is Gorky’s still open? I want some soup.”

  It took them fifteen minutes to wend their way through eight blocks of downtown traffic and to find a parking space. Inside Gorky’s they ordered mugs of home-brewed Russian beer and Teresa had the chicken-rice soup.

  “Long day, huh?” he offered.

  “Oh, yeah. No lunch. Was in the suite for five hours.”

  Bosch needed to hear about the Moore autopsy but knew he could not just blurt out a question. He would have to make her want to tell it.

  “How was Christmas? You and your husband get together?”

  “Not even close. It just didn’t work. He never could deal with what I do and now that I have a shot at chief ME, he resents it even more. He left Christmas Eve. I spent Christmas alone. I was going to call my lawyer today to tell her to resume filing but I was too busy.”

  “Should’ve called me. I spent Christmas with a coyote.”

  “Ahh. Is Timido still around?”

  “Yeah, he still comes around every now and then. There was a fire across the pass. I think it spooked him.”

  “Yeah, I read about that. You were lucky.”

  Bosch nodded. He and Teresa Corazon had had an on-and-off relationship for four months, each meeting sparked with this kind of surface intimacy. But it was a relationship of convenience, firmly grounded on physical, not emotional, needs and never igniting into deep passion for either of them. She had separated earlier in the year from her husband, a UCLA Medical School professor, and had apparently singled Harry out for her affections. But Bosch knew he was a secondary diversion. Their liaisons were sporadic, usually weeks apart, and Harry was content to allow Teresa to initiate each one.

  He watched her bring her head down to blow onto a spoonful of soup and then sip it. He saw slices of carrot floating in the bowl. She had brown ringlets that fell to her shoulders. She held some of the tresses back with her hand as she blew on another spoonful and then sipped. Her skin was a deep natural brown and there was an exotic, elliptical shape to her face accentuated by high cheekbones. She wore red lipstick on full lips and there was just a whisper of fine white peach fuzz on her cheeks. He knew she was in her mid-thirties but he had never asked exactly how old. Lastly, he noticed her fingernails. Unpolished and clipped short, so as not to puncture the rubber gloves that were the tools of her trade.

  As he drank the heavy beer from its heavy stein, he wondered if this was the start of another liaison or whether she really had come to tell him of something significant in
the autopsy results of Juan Doe #67.

  “So now I need a date for New Year’s Eve,” she said, looking up from the soup. “What are you staring at?”

  “Just watching you. You need a date, you got one. I read in the paper that Frank Morgan’s playing at the Catalina.”

  “Who’s he and what does he play?”

  “You’ll see. You’ll like him.”

  “It was a dumb question anyway. If he’s someone you like, then he plays the saxophone.”

  Harry smiled, more to himself than her. He was happy to know he had a date. Being alone on New Year’s Eve bothered him more than Christmas, Thanksgiving, any of the other days. New Year’s Eve was a night for jazz, and the saxophone could cut you in half if you were alone.

  She smiled and said, “Harry, you’re so easy when it comes to lonely women.”

  He thought of Sylvia Moore, remembering her sad smile.

  “So,” Teresa said, seeming to sense that he was drifting away. “I bet you want to know about the bugs inside Juan Doe #67.”

  “Finish your soup first.”

  “Nope, that’s okay. It doesn’t bother me. I always get hungry, in fact, after a long day chopping up bodies.”

  She smiled. She said things like that often, as if daring him not to like what she did for a living. He knew she was still hooked by her husband. It didn’t matter what she said. He understood.

  “Well, I hope you don’t miss the knives when they make you permanent chief. You’ll be cutting budgets then.”

  “No, I’d be a hands-on chief. I’d handle the specials. Like today. But after today, I don’t know if they’ll ever make me permanent.”

  Harry sensed that now he was the one who had shaken a bad feeling loose and sent her traveling with it. Now might be the right time.

  “You want to talk about it?”

  “No. I mean I do, but I can’t. I trust you, Harry, but I think I have to keep this close for the time being.”

  He nodded and let it go, but he intended to come back to it later and find out what had gone wrong on the Moore autopsy. He took his notebook out of his coat pocket and put it on the table.

  “Okay, then, tell me about Juan Doe #67.”