Echo Park

by Michael Connelly

  Bosch came to an alcove where the pool’s filter pump and heater were located on a concrete pad. There was also a small opening in the hedge for a pool maintenance man to squeeze through. He slipped into the opening and stepped onto the tile surrounding a large oval pool. He was twenty feet behind Pratt, who was standing at the edge, looking down at a man in the water. Pratt held a long blue pole with a curved extension. It was for pulling people in trouble to the side but Pratt was holding it just out of reach of the man. He grabbed at it desperately but each time Pratt jerked it away.

  It was hard to identify the man in the water as Maury Swann. The pool was dark with the lights off. Swann’s glasses were gone and his hair looked like it had slipped off his scalp to the back of his head like a mud slide. On his gleaming bald dome was a strip of tape for holding his hairpiece in place.

  The sound of the pool filter gave Bosch cover. He was able to walk unnoticed to within six feet of Pratt before speaking.

  “What’s happening, Top?”

  Pratt quickly lowered the pole so that Swann could grab the hook.

  “Hang on, Maury!” Pratt yelled. “You’re all right.”

  Swann grabbed on and Pratt started pulling him toward the side of the pool.

  “I gotcha, Maury,” Pratt said. “Don’t worry.”

  “You don’t have to bother with the lifeguard act,” Bosch said. “I heard it all.”

  Pratt paused and looked down at Swann in the water. He was three feet from the side.

  “In that case,” Pratt said.

  He let go of the pole and whipped his right hand behind his back to the belt line.

  “Don’t!”

  It was Walling. She had found her own way through the hedge. She was on the other side of the pool, pointing her weapon at Pratt.

  Pratt froze and seemed to be making a decision about whether to draw or not. Bosch moved in behind him and yanked the gun out of his pants.

  “Harry!” Rachel called. “I’ve got him. Get the lawyer.”

  Swann was sinking. The blue pole was going down with him. Bosch quickly went to the pool’s edge and grabbed it. He pulled Swann to the surface. The lawyer started coughing and spitting water. He held tight to the pole and Bosch walked him down to the shallow end. Rachel came around to Pratt and ordered him to put his wrists behind his head.

  Maury Swann was naked. He came up the steps in the shallow end cupping his shriveled balls with one hand and trying to pull his toupee back on with the other. Giving up on the hairpiece, he tore it all the way off and threw it down on the tile, where it landed with a splat. He went directly to a pile of clothes by a bench and started getting dressed while still soaking wet.

  “So what was going on here, Maury?” Bosch asked.

  “Nothing that concerns you.”

  Bosch nodded.

  “I get it. A guy comes here to put you in the pool and watch you drown, maybe make it look like suicide or an accident, and you don’t want anybody concerned about it.”

  “It was a disagreement, that’s all. He was scaring me, not drowning me.”

  “Does that mean you and he had an agreement before you then had this disagreement?”

  “I’m not answering that.”

  “Why was he scaring you?”

  “I don’t have to answer any of your questions.”

  “Then maybe we should back on out of here and leave you two to finish your disagreement. Maybe that would be the best thing to do here.”

  “Do what you want.”

  “You know what I think? I think that with your client Raynard Waits dead, there’s only one person who can link Detective Pratt to the Garlands. I think your partner over there was getting rid of that link because he was getting scared. You’d be at the bottom of that pool if we hadn’t happened by here.”

  “You can do and think what you want. But what I am telling you is that we had a disagreement. He happened by while I was taking my nightly swim and we disagreed about something.”

  “I thought you didn’t know how to swim, Maury. Isn’t that what you said?”

  “I’m finished talking to you, Detective. You can leave my property now.”

  “Not yet, Maury. Why don’t you finish getting dressed and join us at the deep end.”

  Bosch left him there as he struggled to get his wet legs into a pair of silk pants. At the other end of the pool Pratt was now handcuffed and sitting on a concrete bench.

  “I’m not saying anything until I talk to a lawyer,” he said.

  “Well, there’s one over there putting his clothes on,” Bosch said. “Maybe you can hire him.”

  “I’m not talking, Bosch,” Pratt repeated.

  “Good decision,” Swann called from the far end. “Rule number one: Never talk to the cops.”

  Bosch looked at Rachel and almost laughed.

  “Can you believe this? Two minutes ago he was trying to drown the guy, and now the guy’s giving him free legal advice.”

  “Sound legal advice,” Swann said.

  Swann walked over to where the others were waiting. Bosch noticed that his clothes were sticking to his wet body.

  “I wasn’t trying to drown him,” Pratt said. “I was trying to help him. But that’s all I’m going to say.”

  Bosch looked at Swann.

  “Pull your zipper up, Maury, and sit down over here.”

  Bosch pointed to a spot on the bench next to Pratt.

  “No, I don’t think I will,” Swann replied.

  He took a step toward the house but Bosch took two steps and cut him off. He redirected him to the bench.

  “Sit down,” he said. “You’re under arrest.”

  “For what?” Swann said indignantly.

  “Double murder. Both of you are under arrest.”

  Swann laughed as though he were dealing with a child. Now that he had his clothes on he was recovering some of his swagger.

  “And what murders would these be?”

  “Detective Fred Olivas and Deputy Derek Doolan.”

  Now Swann shook his head, the smile intact on his face.

  “I’m assuming these charges fall under the felony-homicide rule, since there is ample evidence that we did not actually pull the trigger that fired the bullets that killed Olivas and Doolan.”

  “It’s always good to deal with a lawyer. I hate having to explain the law all the time.”

  “It’s a pity you need the law explained to you, Detective Bosch. The felony-homicide rule comes into play only when someone is killed during the commission of a serious crime. If that threshold is satisfied, then co-conspirators in the criminal enterprise may be charged with murder.”

  Bosch nodded.

  “I got that,” he said. “And I’ve got you.”

  “Then be so kind as to tell me what the threshold crime is that I have conspired to commit.”

  Bosch thought for a moment before answering.

  “How about suborning perjury and obstruction of justice? We could start there and move up to corruption of a public official, maybe aiding and abetting an escape from lawful custody.”

  “And we could end there as well,” Swann said. “I was representing my client. I committed none of those crimes and you have not a shred of evidence that I did. If you arrest me, it will simply prove your own undoing and embarrassment.”

  He stood up.

  “Good evening to you all.”

  Bosch stepped over and put his hand on Swann’s shoulder. He drove him back down onto the bench.

  “Sit the fuck down. You are under arrest. I’ll leave it to the prosecutors to decide about threshold crimes. I don’t give a shit about that. As far as I’m concerned, two cops are dead and my partner is going to end her career because of you, Maury. So fuck you.”

  Bosch looked over at Pratt, who sat with a slight smile on his face.

  “It’s good to have a lawyer in the house, Harry,” he said. “I think Maury makes a good point. Maybe you should think about this before doing anything ras
h.”

  Bosch shook his head.

  “You aren’t walking away from this,” he said. “Not by a long shot.”

  He waited a moment but Pratt said nothing.

  “I know you’re the setup man,” Bosch said. “The whole thing up in Beachwood Canyon was yours. It was you who made the deal with the Garlands, then you went to Maury here, who took it to Waits. You doctored the murder book after Waits gave you an alias to stick in it. Maury might have a point about the felony-murder rap but there’s more than enough there for obstruction, and if I get that, then I’ve got you. That means no island and no pension, Top. That means you go down in flames.”

  Pratt’s eyes dropped from Bosch to the dark waters of the pool.

  “I want the Garlands, and you can give them to me,” Bosch said.

  Pratt shook his head without turning his eyes from the water.

  “Then, have it your way,” Bosch said. “Let’s go.”

  He signaled Pratt and Swann to stand up. They complied. Bosch turned Swann around so he could cuff him. As he did so he looked over the lawyer’s shoulder at Pratt.

  “After we book you, who’re you going to call about bail, your wife or the girl from Hiring and Firing?”

  Pratt immediately sat back down as if hit by a sucker punch. Bosch had been saving it for his last shot. He kept the pressure on.

  “Which one was going to go with you to the island? To your sugar plantation? My guess is it was what’s-her-name.”

  “Her name is Jessie Templeton. And I made you on the tail at her place tonight.”

  “Yeah, and I made you making me. But tell me, how much does Jessie Templeton know, and is she going to be as strong as you when I go see her after I book you?”

  “Bosch, she doesn’t know anything. Leave her out of it. Leave my wife and kids out of it, too.”

  Bosch shook his head.

  “Doesn’t work that way. You know that. We’re going to turn everything upside down and shake it to see what falls out. I’m going to find the money the Garlands paid you and I’ll tie it back to you, to Maury Swann, everybody. I just hope you didn’t use your girlfriend to hide it. Because if you did, she goes down, too.”

  Pratt leaned forward on the bench. Bosch got the impression that if his hands hadn’t been cuffed behind his back, he’d have been using them at that moment to hold his head and hide his face from the world. Bosch had kept at him like a man with an axe chopping at a tree. It was barely standing now. It needed one little push and it would go down.

  Bosch walked Swann over to Rachel, who took him by one of his arms. Bosch then turned back to Pratt.

  “You fed the wrong dog,” Bosch said.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Everybody’s got choices and you made the wrong one. Problem is, we don’t pay for our mistakes alone. We take people down with us.”

  Bosch walked to the edge of the pool and looked down into the water. It shimmered on top but was impenetrably dark beneath the surface. He waited but it didn’t take long for the tree to fall.

  “Jessie doesn’t need to be part of this and my wife doesn’t need to know about her,” Pratt said.

  It was an opening offer. Pratt was going to talk. Bosch kicked his foot on the tile edging and turned back to face him.

  “I’m not a prosecutor but I’ll bet something could be worked out.”

  “Pratt, you are making a big mistake!” Swann said urgently.

  Bosch reached down to Pratt and patted his pockets until he located the keys to the Commander and pulled them out.

  “Rachel, take Mr. Swann to Detective Pratt’s car. It will be better for transporting him. We’ll be right there.”

  He threw her the keys and she started walking Swann to the opening in the hedge she had come through. Swann had to be pushed. He looked over his shoulder as he went and called back to Pratt.

  “Do not talk to that man,” he yelled. “Do you hear me? Do not talk to anyone! You will talk us all into prison!”

  Swann kept yelling legal advice through the hedge. Bosch waited until he heard the car door close on his voice. He then stood in front of Pratt and noticed that sweat was dripping from his hairline and down his face.

  “I don’t want Jessie or my family involved,” Pratt said. “And I want a deal. No jail time, I’m allowed to retire and I get to keep my pension.”

  “You want a lot for somebody who got two people killed.”

  Bosch started to pace, trying to figure out a way of making it all work for both of them. Rachel came back through the hedge. Bosch looked at her and was about to ask why she had left Swann unattended.

  “Child-proof locks,” she said. “He can’t get out.”

  Bosch nodded and gave his attention back to Pratt.

  “Like I said, you want a lot,” he said. “What are you giving back?”

  “I can give you the Garlands, easy,” Pratt said desperately. “Anthony took me up there two weeks ago and led me to the girl’s body. And Maury Swann, I can give you him on a platter. The guy’s as dirty as . . .”

  He didn’t finish.

  “You?”

  Pratt lowered his eyes and slowly nodded his head.

  Bosch tried to put everything aside so that he could think clearly about Pratt’s offer. The blood of Freddy Olivas and Deputy Doolan was on Pratt’s hands. Bosch didn’t know whether he’d be able to sell the deal to a prosecutor. He didn’t know if he could even sell it to himself. But in that moment, he was willing to try if it meant he would finally get to the man who killed Marie Gesto.

  “No promises,” he said. “We’ll go see a prosecutor.”

  Bosch moved to the last important question.

  “What about O’Shea and Olivas?”

  Pratt shook his head once.

  “They were clean on this.”

  “Garland funneled at least twenty-five grand to O’Shea’s campaign. That’s documented.”

  “He was just covering his bets. If O’Shea got suspicious, T. Rex could keep him in line because it would look like a payoff.”

  Bosch nodded. He felt the burn of humiliation over what he had thought about O’Shea and said to him.

  “That wasn’t the only thing you got wrong,” Pratt said.

  “Yeah, what else?”

  “You said I went to the Garlands with this thing. I didn’t. They came to me, Harry.”

  Bosch shook his head. He didn’t believe Pratt for the simple reason that if the Garlands had had the idea to buy off a cop, their first overture would have been to the source of their problem: Bosch. That never happened and that made Bosch feel confident that the scheme had been hatched by Pratt as he tried to juggle retirement, a possible divorce, a mistress and whatever other secrets his life held. He had gone to the Garlands with it. He had gone to Maury Swann, too.

  “Tell it to the prosecutor,” Bosch said. “Maybe he’ll care.”

  He looked at Rachel and she nodded.

  “Rachel, you take the Jeep with Swann. I’ll take Detective Pratt in my car. I want to keep them separated.”

  “Good idea.”

  Bosch signaled Pratt up.

  “Let’s go.”

  Pratt stood up again and came face-to-face with Bosch.

  “Harry, you’ve got to know something first.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Nobody was supposed to get hurt, okay? It was a perfect plan with nobody getting hurt. It was Waits—he turned it all to shit out there in the woods. If he had just done what he’d been told, everybody would still be alive and everybody’d be happy. Even you. You would’ve solved the Gesto case. End of story. That’s how it was supposed to be.”

  Bosch had to work to hold back his anger.

  “Nice fairy tale,” he said. “Except for the part of the story where the princess never wakes up and the real killer walks, everybody lives happily ever after. Keep telling yourself that one. You might actually be able to live with it someday.”

  Bosch roughly to
ok him by the arm and led him toward the opening in the hedge.

  Part Five

  ECHO PARK

  36

  AT 10 A.M. ON MONDAY Abel Pratt walked from his car across the green lawn of Echo Park to a bench where an old man was sitting beneath the protective arms of the Lady of the Lake. There were five pigeons resting on her shoulders and upturned hands and one on her head but she showed no sign of annoyance or fatigue.

  Pratt shoved the folded newspaper he carried into the overly full trash can by the statue and then sat on the bench next to the old man. He looked out at the smooth waters of Lake Echo in front of them. The old man, who held a cane down by his knee and wore a tan business suit with a maroon handkerchief in the breast pocket, spoke first.

  “I remember when you could take your family here on a Sunday and not have to worry about being shot up by gangbangers.”

  Pratt cleared his throat.

  “Is that what you’re worried about, Mr. Garland? The gangbangers? Well, I’ll give you a little tip. Right now is one of the safest hours in any neighborhood in the city. Most of your gangbangers don’t roll out of bed until the afternoon. That’s why whenever we go out with warrants we go in the morning. We always catch them in bed.”

  Garland nodded approvingly.

  “That’s good to know. But that’s not what I am worried about. I’m worried about you, Detective Pratt. Our business was concluded. I was not expecting to hear from you ever again.”

  Pratt leaned forward and scanned the park. He studied the rows of tables on the other side of the lake, where the old men played dominoes. His eyes then moved along the cars parked at the curb that edged the park.

  “Where’s Anthony?” he asked.

  “He’ll be along. He’s taking precautions.”

  Pratt nodded.

  “Precautions are good,” he said.

  “I don’t like this place,” Garland said. “It’s full of ugly people, and that includes you. Why are we here?”

  “Wait a minute,” a voice said from behind them. “Don’t say another word, Dad.”

  Anthony Garland had approached from their blind side. He came around the statue to the bench at the water’s edge. He stood in front of Pratt and signaled him to stand up.