The Black Echo

by Michael Connelly

  He was referring to the department practice of forbidding a retiring cop to keep his badge. The chief and the city council didn’t like the idea of some of the city’s former finest floating around the city with buzzers to show off. Shakedowns, free meals, free flops, it was a scandal they could see coming a hundred miles away. So if you wanted to take your badge with you, you could: set nicely in a Lucite block with a decorative clock. It was about a foot square. Too big to fit in the pocket.

  Irving nodded and Junior pushed the button again. Bosch told it like it had been, leaving out nothing and stopping only when Junior needed to turn the tape over. The suits asked him questions from time to time but mostly just let him tell it. Irving wanted to know what Bosch had dropped from the Malibu pier. Bosch almost didn’t even remember. Nobody took notes. They just watched him tell it. He finally finished the tale an hour and a half after starting. Irving looked at Junior then and nodded. Junior stopped the tape.

  When they had no more questions, Bosch asked his.

  “What did you find at Rourke’s place?”

  “That’s not your business,” Irving said.

  “The hell it isn’t. It’s part of a murder investigation. Rourke was the murderer. He admitted it to me.”

  “Your investigation has been reassigned.”

  Bosch said nothing as the anger pushed its way into his throat. He looked around the room and noticed that none of the others, even Junior, would look at him.

  Irving said, “Now, before I would go around shooting my mouth off about fellow law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty, I would make sure I knew the facts. And I would make sure that I had the evidence supporting those facts. We don’t want any rumors being spread about good men.”

  Bosch couldn’t hold back.

  “You think you people will pull this off? What about your two goons? How are you going to explain that? First they put the bug in my phone, then they blunder into a fucking surveillance and get themselves shot. And you want to make them heroes. Who are you kidding?”

  “Detective Bosch, it already has been explained. That is not your worry. It is also not your role to contradict the public statements of the department or the bureau on this matter. That, Detective, is an order. If you talk to the press about this, it will be the last time you do as a Los Angeles police detective.”

  Now it was Bosch who could not look at them. He stared at the flowers on the table and said, “Then why the tape, the statement, all the suits here with you? What’s the point when you don’t want to know the truth?”

  “We want the truth, Detective. You are confusing that with what we choose to tell the public. But out of the public eye I guarantee and the Federal Bureau of Investigation guarantees that we will complete your investigation and take appropriate action where fitting.”

  “That’s pathetic.”

  “And so are you, Detective. So are you.” Irving leaned over the bed with his face close enough that Bosch could smell his sour breath. “This is one of those rare times when you hold your future in your own hands, Detective Bosch. You do what is right, maybe you find yourself back at Robbery-Homicide. Or you can pick up that phone — yes, I am going to have the nurse turn it on — and call your pals at that rag over on Spring Street. But if you do that, you better ask them if there are any career opportunities there for a former homicide detective.”

  The five of them then left, leaving Bosch alone with his anger. He sat up and was ready to take a swing with his good arm at a vase of daisies on the bedside table, when the door opened and Irving came back in. Alone. No tape recorder.

  “Detective Bosch, this is unofficial. I told the others I forgot to give you this.”

  He pulled a greeting card out of his coat pocket and propped it upright on the windowsill. On the front was a busty policewoman with her uniform blouse unbuttoned to the navel. She was rapping her nightstick in her hand impatiently. A bubble from her mouth said Get Well Soon or. . . . Bosch would have to read the inside to get the punch line.

  “I didn’t forget. I just wanted to say something private.” He stood mute at the foot of the bed until Bosch nodded. “You are good at what you do, Detective Bosch. Anybody knows that. But that doesn’t mean you are a good police officer. You refuse to be part of the Family. And that’s not good. And, meantime, you see, I have this department to protect. To me, that’s the most important job in the world. And one of the best ways to do that is to control public opinion. Keep everybody happy. So if it means putting out a couple of nice press releases and putting on a couple of big funerals with the mayor and the TV cameras and all the brass there, that’s what we are going to do. The protection of the department is more important than the fact that two dumb cops made a mistake.

  “Same goes for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. They will grind you up before they publicly flog themselves with Rourke. So what I am telling you is that rule one is you have to go along to get along.”

  “That’s bullshit and you know it.”

  “No, I do not know it. Deep down neither do you. Let me ask you something. Why is it, you think, that Lewis and Clarke were pulled back on the investigation of the Dollmaker shooting? Who do you think reined them in?”

  When Bosch didn’t say anything Irving nodded. “You see, we had to make a decision. Would it be better to see one of our detectives dragged through the papers and brought up on criminal charges, or for him to be quietly demoted and transferred?” He let that hang there a few seconds before continuing. “Another thing. Lewis and Clarke came to me last week with the story about what you did to them. Cuffing them to that tree. Very brutal, that was. But they were as happy as a couple of high school cheerleaders after an evening with the football team. They had you by the balls and were ready to put the paper in right then. They—”

  “They had me, but I had them.”

  “No. That’s what I’m telling you. They came to me with this story about the bug in the phone, what you told them. But the thing is, they didn’t drop the bug in your phone, like you thought. I checked it out. That is what I am telling you. They had you.”

  “Then who—” Bosch stopped right there. He knew the answer.

  “I told them to hold back a few days. To watch, see what happened. Something was going on. Those two men were always hard to bridle when it came to you. They overstepped when they decided to stop that fellow Avery and then told him to take them back to the vault. They paid the price.”

  “What about the FBI, what do they say about the bug?”

  “I don’t know and I’m not asking. If I did, they would say, ‘What bug?’ You know that.”

  Bosch nodded and was immediately tired of the man. A thought was pushing into his head that he didn’t want to allow in. He looked away from Irving to the window. Irving told him once more to think of the department before he did anything, then walked out. When he was sure Irving had made his way down the hall, Bosch lashed out with his left arm and sent the vase of daisies tumbling into the corner of the room. The vase was plastic and didn’t break. The damage was just spilled water and flowers. Galvin Junior’s ferret face momentarily poked in and then out of the room. He said nothing, but it tipped Bosch that the IAD man was posted outside in the hall. Was that for his protection? Or for the department’s? Bosch didn’t know. He didn’t know anything anymore.

  Bosch pushed away an untouched tray containing an institutional meal of turkey loaf with flour gravy, corn, yams, a hard roll that was supposed to be soft, and strawberry shortcake with flat whipped cream.

  “You eat that, you might never get out of here.”

  He looked up. It was Eleanor. She stood in the open door, smiling. He smiled back. He couldn’t help himself.

  “I know.”

  “How are you, Harry?”

  “Okay. I’ll be okay. Might not be able to do chin-ups anymore, but I’ll survive with that. How are you, Eleanor?”

  “I’m fine,” she said, and her smile just slayed him. “They put you thro
ugh the Veg-O-Matic today?”

  “Oh, yeah. Sliced and diced. The best and the brightest of my fine department — a couple of your pals, too — had me on the ropes all morning. There’s a chair on this side.”

  She circled the bed but continued standing next to the chair. She looked around and a slight frown creased her brow, as if she knew this room and therefore knew something wasn’t right.

  “They got me, too. Last night. They wouldn’t let me come see you till they were through with you. Orders. Didn’t want us going together on the story. But I guess our stories came out all right. At least they didn’t pull me back in after they talked to you today. Told me that was it.”

  “They find the diamonds?”

  “Not that I’ve heard, but they aren’t telling me much anymore. They’ve got two crews working it today, but I’m out of it. I’m on a desk till it cools off and the shooting team finishes up. They’re still probably at Rourke’s place looking.”

  “What about Tran and Binh, they cooperate?”

  “No. They aren’t saying one word. I know that from a friend who was on the interrogation. They don’t know anything about any diamonds. Probably got their own people together in a posse. They’ll be out on the treasure hunt, too.”

  “Where do you think the treasure is?”

  “I don’t have any idea. This whole thing, Harry, it’s kind of thrown me. I don’t know what I think about things anymore.”

  That included how she thought about him, he knew. He didn’t say anything and after a while the silence became uneasy.

  “What happened, Eleanor? Irving told me Lewis and Clarke intercepted Avery. But that’s all I know. I don’t understand.”

  “They watched us watch the vault all night. They must’ve gotten it into their heads that we were lookouts. If you start with the assumption that you were a bad cop, like they did, then you might come to the same conclusion. So when they see you turn Avery away and send the two uniforms home, they figure they know your game. They grab Avery at Darling’s and he tells them about your visit the day before, and all the alarms this week, and then he lets it slip that you didn’t want him to open the vault.”

  “And they said, ‘You mean you can open the vault?’ and the next thing is they are sneaking down the alley.”

  “Yeah. They had an idea about being heroes. Catching the bad cops and the robbers all at once. Nice plan until the payoff.”

  “Poor dumb jerks.”

  “Poor dumb jerks.”

  The silence came back then and Eleanor didn’t wait for it to settle.

  “Well, I just wanted to see how you were doing.”

  He nodded.

  “And . . . and to tell you—”

  Here it is, he thought, the kiss good-bye.

  “—I’ve decided to quit. I’m going to leave the bureau.”

  “What about. . . . What will you do?”

  “I don’t know. But I’m going to leave here, Harry. I have some money so I’ll travel awhile and then see what I want to do.”

  “Eleanor, why?”

  “I don’t — it’s hard for me to explain. But everything that happened. Everything about the job has turned to shit. And I don’t think I can go back and work in that squad room again after what has happened.”

  “Will you come back to L.A.?”

  She looked down at her hands and then around the room again.

  “I don’t know. Harry, I’m sorry. It seemed like — I don’t know, I’m very confused about things right now.”

  “What things?”

  “I don’t know. Us. What’s happened. Everything.”

  Silence filled the room again and it seemed so loud that Bosch hoped a nurse or even Galvin Junior would stick a head in to see if everything was all right. He needed a cigarette badly. He realized it was the first time today that he had thought about smoking. Eleanor looked down at her feet now, and he looked over at his untouched food. He picked up the roll and started to toss it up and down in his hand like a baseball. After a while Eleanor’s eyes made their third trip around the room without seeing whatever it was she was looking for. Bosch couldn’t figure it out.

  “Didn’t you get the flowers I sent?”

  “Flowers?”

  “Yes, I sent daisies. Like the ones growing on the hill below your house. I don’t see any in here.”

  Daisies, Bosch thought. The vase he had knocked against the wall. Where are my goddam cigarettes, he wanted to yell.

  “They’ll probably come later. They only make deliveries up here once a day.”

  She frowned.

  “You know,” Bosch said, “if Rourke knew we’d found the second vault and were watching it, and if he knew that we watched Tran go in and clear his box, why didn’t he get his people out? That really bothers me about this whole thing. Why’d he go through with it?”

  She shook her head slowly. “I don’t know. Maybe . . . well, I’ve been thinking that maybe he wanted them to go down. He knew those guys, maybe he knew it would work out that they’d go down shooting, that without them he’d get to keep all the diamonds from the first vault.”

  “Yeah. But you know, I’ve been remembering things all day. About when we were down there. It’s been coming back, and I remember that he didn’t say he’d get it all. He said something about his share being bigger now with Meadows and the other two dead. He still used the word ‘share,’ like there was still someone else to split it with.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Maybe, but it’s just semantics, Harry.”

  “Maybe.”

  “I’ve got to go. You know how long they’ll keep you?”

  “Haven’t been told, but I think tomorrow I’ll take myself out. Thinking about going to Meadows’s funeral over at veterans.”

  “A Memorial Day funeral. Sounds appropriate to me.”

  “Want to go with me?”

  “Mmmm, no. I don’t think I want anything more to do with Mr. Meadows. . . . But I’ll be at the bureau tomorrow. Clearing out my desk and writing up status sheets on the cases I’ll have to pass to other agents. You could come by if you’d like. I’ll brew you some fresh coffee like before. But, you know, I don’t really think they are going to let you out so fast, Harry. Not with a bullet wound. You need to rest. You need to heal some.”

  “Sure,” Bosch said. He knew she was saying good-bye to him.

  “Okay, then, maybe I’ll see you.”

  She leaned over and kissed him good-bye, and he knew it was good-bye to everything about them. She was almost out the door before he opened his eyes.

  “One last thing,” he said, and she turned at the door and looked back at him. “How’d you find me, Eleanor? You know, in the tunnels with Rourke.”

  She hesitated and her eyebrows went up again.

  “Well, I went down with Hanlon. But when we got out of the hand-dug tunnel we split up. He went one way in that first line and I went the other. I picked the winner. I found the blood. Then I found Franklin. Dead. And after that I was a little lucky. I heard the shots and then the voices. Mostly Rourke’s voice. I followed that. Why did you think of that now?”

  “I don’t know. It just sort of came up. You saved my life.”

  They looked at each other. Her hand was on the door handle and it was open just enough so that Bosch could look past her and see Galvin Junior still there, sitting in a chair in the hallway.

  “All I can say is thanks.”

  She made a shushing sound, dismissing his gratitude.

  “You don’t have to say anything.”

  “Don’t quit.”

  He saw the crack in the door disappear, Junior with it. She stood there silently.

  “Don’t leave.”

  “I must. I’ll see you, Harry.”

  She pulled the door all the way open now.

  “Good-bye,” she said, and then she was gone.

  Bosch remained motionless on the hospital bed for the better part of an hour. He was thinking about two people: Eleanor
Wish and John Rourke. For a long time he closed his eyes and dwelt on the look on Rourke’s face as he crumpled and went down into the black water. I’d be surprised, too, Bosch thought, but there was also something else there, something he couldn’t exactly identify. Some kind of knowing look of recognition and resolution — not of his dying, but of another, secret knowledge.

  After a while he got up and took a few tentative steps alongside his bed. His body felt weak, yet all the sleep in the last thirty-six hours had made him restless. After he got his bearings and his shoulder made a slightly painful adjustment to gravity, he began to pace back and forth alongside the bed. He was wearing pale green hospital pajamas, not one of the opened-back smocks that he would have found humiliating. He padded around the room in bare feet, stopping to read the cards that had come with the flowers. The protective league had sent one of the vases. The others came from a couple of cops he knew but wasn’t particularly close to, the widow of an old partner, his union lawyer and another old partner who lived in Ensenada.

  He walked away from the flowers and went to the door. He opened it a crack and saw Galvin Junior still sitting there, reading a police equipment catalog. Bosch pulled the door all the way open. Galvin’s head jerked up and he slapped the magazine closed and slipped it into a briefcase at his feet. He didn’t say anything.

  “So, Clifford — I hope I can call you that — what are you doing here? Am I supposed to be in danger?”

  The younger cop didn’t say anything. Bosch glanced up and down the hall and saw that it was empty all the way down to the nurses’ station about fifty feet away. He looked at his door and noticed he was in room 313.

  “Detective, please go back in your room,” Galvin finally said. “I am only here to keep the press out of your room. The deputy chief thinks they will probably try to get in to get an interview with you, and my job is to prevent that, to prevent you from being disturbed.”

  “What if they use the sneaky method of just” — Bosch made a show of looking up and down the hall to make sure no one would hear — “using the telephone?”