"His hat. You grabbed it on the way out."
"DNA?"
"Hopefully, though I'm not sure what good it will be."
She looked back at the flaming trailer bed. We were too close. I could feel the heat of the fire. But I still wasn't sure she should be moving.
"Rachel, why don't you lie back down? I think you have a concussion. You might have other injuries."
"Yeah, I think that's a good idea."
She put her head down on the ground and just looked up at the sky. I decided that wasn't a bad position and did the same. It was like we were at the beach or something. If it had been night we could have counted the stars.
Before I could hear them coming, I felt the approach of the helicopters. A deep vibration in my chest made me look to the southern sky and I saw the two air force choppers coming over the top of Titanic Rock. I weakly raised an arm and waved them in.
CHAPTER 34
What the hell happened out there?" Special Agent Randal Alpert's face was rigid and almost purple. He had been waiting for them in the hangar at Nellis when the helicopter landed. His political instincts had apparently told him not to go to the scene himself. At all costs he had to be able to distance himself from the blowback that would rise from the explosion in the desert and possibly reach all the way to Washington.
Rachel Walling and Cherie Dei stood in the huge hangar and braced for the onslaught. Rachel didn't answer his question because she thought it was only the opener on a tirade. She was reacting slowly, her head still a bit fuzzy from the blast.
"Agent Walling, I asked you a question!"
"He had rigged the trailer," Cherie Dei said. "He knew she-"
"I asked her, not you," Alpert barked. "I want Agent Walling to tell me exactly why she could not follow orders and how this whole thing has gotten completely fucked up beyond recognition."
Rachel raised her hands palms out as if to signify there was not a damn thing she could have done about what happened out there in the desert.
"We were going to wait for the ERT," she said. "As Agent Dei instructed. We were on the periphery of the location and that's when we realized it smelled like there was a body in there and then we thought maybe there could be someone alive in there. Somebody hurt."
"And how the hell did you get that idea simply because you smelled a dead body?"
"Bosch thought he heard something."
"Oh, here we go, the old cry for help routine."
"No, he did. But it was the wind, I guess. Out there it picks up. The windows were left open. It must have created a sound that he heard."
"And what about you? Did you hear it?"
"No. I didn't."
Alpert looked at Dei and then back at Rachel. She could feel his eyes burning through her. But she knew it was a good story and she wasn't going to blink. She and Bosch had worked it out. Bosch was beyond Alpert's reach. If she was acting on Bosch's alarm she could not be faulted either. Alpert could rant and rave but could do nothing more than that.
"You know what the problem with your story is? It's with your first word. We. You said we. There was no we. You were given an assignment of maintaining a cover on Bosch. Not joining him in the investigation. Not joining him in his car and driving up there. Not questioning witnesses together and entering that trailer together." "I understand that, but given the circumstances I decided it was in the best interest of the investigation to pool our knowledge and resources. Quite frankly, Agent Alpert, Bosch was the one who found that place. We wouldn't have what we have right now if not for him."
"Don't kid yourself, Agent Walling. We would have gotten there."
"I know that. But velocity was a factor. You said so yourself after the morning briefing. The director was going before the cameras. I wanted to push the case so that he would have as much information as possible."
"Well, forget about that now. Now we don't know what we have. He postponed the news conference and has given us until noon tomorrow to figure out what we have out there."
Cherie Dei cleared her voice and risked intruding again.
"That's impossible," she said. "That's a well-done crispy critter out there. They're using multiple bags to get it out of there. ID and cause of death are going to take weeks, if an ID and cause of death are even possible. Luckily, it appears that Agent Walling was able to obtain a DNA sampling from the body and that would speed things but we have no comparative evidence. We-"
"Maybe you weren't listening ten seconds ago," Alpert said, "but we don't have weeks. We've got less than twenty-four hours."
He turned away from them and put his hands on his hips, striking a pose that showed the burden that weighed upon him as the only intelligent and savvy agent left on the planet. "Then let us go back up there," Rachel said. "Maybe in the debris we'll find something that-"
"No!" Alpert yelled.
He spun back around to them.
"That won't be necessary, Agent Walling. You have done enough."
"I know Backus and I know the case. I should be out there."
"I decide who should be and shouldn't be out there. I want you to get back to the field office and start the paperwork on this fiasco. I want it on my desk by eight a.m. tomorrow. I want a detailed listing of everything you saw inside that trailer."
He waited to see if she would argue the order. Rachel remained silent and this seemed to please him.
"Now, I've got the media all over this. What do we put out that doesn't give away the store and won't upstage the director tomorrow?"
Dei shrugged.
"Nothing. Tell them the director will address it tomorrow, end of story."
"That won't work. We have to give them something."
"Don't give them Backus," Rachel said. "Tell them agents wanted to speak to a man named Thomas Walling about a missing persons case. But Walling had rigged his trailer and it exploded while agents were on the premises."
Alpert nodded. It sounded good to him.
"What about Bosch?"
"I'd leave him out of it. We don't have any control over him. If a reporter got to him he might lay the whole thing out." "And the body. Do we say it was Walling?"
"We say we don't know because we don't. ID is forthcoming, so on and so forth. That should be enough."
"If the reporters go to the brothels they'll get the whole story."
"No, they won't. We never told anyone the whole story."
"By the way, what happened to Bosch?"
Dei answered that one.
"I took his statement and released him. Last I saw he was driving back to Vegas."
"He'll keep quiet about this?"
Dei looked at Rachel and then back at Alpert.
"Put it this way, he isn't going to be looking to talk to anybody about it. And as long as we keep bis name out of it, there will be no reason for anyone to go looking for him."
Alpert nodded. He dug a hand into one of his pockets and came out with a cell phone.
"When we are finished here I have to call Washington. Gut reaction time: Was that Backus in that trailer?"
Rachel hesitated, not wanting to respond first.
"At this point there is no way to tell," Dei said. "If you are asking if you should tell the director that we got him, my answer right now is no, don't tell the director that. That could've been anybody in that trailer. For all we know it was an eleventh victim and we may never know who it was. Just somebody who went to one of the brothels and was intercepted by Backus."
Alpert looked at Rachel, expecting her take.
"The fuse," she said.
"What about it?" "It was long. It was like he wanted me to see the body but not get too close. But he also wanted me to get out of there."
"And?"
"On the body there was a black cowboy hat. I remember there was a man on my plane from Rapid City in a black cowboy hat."
"For chrissake, you were flying from South Dakota. Doesn't everybody wear cowboy hats there?"
"But he was there, with me. I think this wh
ole thing was a setup. The note in the bar, the long fuse, the photos in the trailer and the black hat. He wanted me to get out of there in time to tell the world he was dead."
Alpert didn't respond. He looked down at the phone in his hands.
"There's too much we don't know yet, Randal," Dei offered.
He shoved the phone back into his pocket.
"Very well. Agent Dei, is your car here?"
"Yes."
'Take Agent Walling to the field office now."
They were dismissed, but not before Alpert looked at Rachel and threw one more grimace at her.
"Remember, Agent Walling, my desk by eight."
"You got it," Rachel said.
CHAPTER 35
Eleanor Wish answered my knock and that surprised me. She stepped back to let me in.
"Don't look at me that way, Harry," she said. "You have this impression that I'm never here and that I work every night and leave her with Marisol. I don't. I work three or four nights a week and that's usually it."
I raised my hands in surrender and she saw the bandage around my right palm.
"What happened to you?"
"Cut myself on a piece of metal."
"What metal?"
"It's a long story."
"That thing up in the desert today?"
I nodded.
"I should have known. Is that going to hurt you playing the saxophone?"
Bored with retirement, I had started taking lessons the year before from a retired jazzman I had come across on a case. One night, when things were good between Eleanor and me, I had brought the instrument with me and played her a tune called "Lullaby." She had liked it.
"Actually, I haven't been playing anyway."
"How come?"
I didn't want to tell her that my teacher had died and music had dropped out of my life for a while.
"My teacher wanted me to switch from alto to tenor-as in ten or fifteen miles away from him."
She smiled at the lame joke and we left it at that. I had followed her through the house and into the kitchen, where the table was actually a felt-covered poker table-with cereal milk stains on it thanks to Maddie. Eleanor had dealt six hands faceup for practice. She sat down and started gathering up the cards.
"Don't let me stop you," I said. "I just came by to see if I could put Maddie to bed. Where is she?"
"Marisol's giving her a bath. But I was counting on putting her to bed tonight. I've worked the last three nights."
"Oh, well, that's fine. I'll just say hello then. And good-bye. I'm driving back tonight."
"Then why don't you do it? I got a new book to read her. It's on the counter."
"No, Eleanor, I want you to do it. I just want to see her because I don't know when I'll get back."
"Are you still working a case?"
"No, that all sort of ended up there today."
"The TV news didn't have much on it when I watched. What is it?"
"It's a long story."
I didn't feel like telling it once again. I walked over to the counter to look at the book she had bought. It was called Billy's Big Day and its cover showed a monkey standing on the highest step at an Olympics-style award ceremony. The gold medal was being put around his neck. A lion had received the silver and an elephant the bronze.
"Are you going back to join the department again?" I was about to open the book but I put it down and looked at Eleanor.
"I'm still thinking about it but it's looking that way." She nodded as though it was a done deal. "Any further thoughts from you on it?" "No, Harry, I want you to do what you want." I wondered why it was that when people tell you what you want them to tell you, it always comes with suspicion and second-guessing attached. Did Eleanor really want me to do what I wanted to do? Or was her saying that a way of undermining the whole thing?
Before I could say anything my daughter came into the kitchen and stood at attention. She wore blue-and-orange-striped pajamas and her dark hair was wet and slicked back on her head.
"Presenting a little girl," she said. Eleanor and I both broke out the smiles and simultaneously offered our opened arms for hugs. Maddie went to her mother first and that was all right with me. But it felt a little like when you hold out your hand to someone to shake and they don't see it or just plain ignore it. I lowered my arms and after a few moments Eleanor saved me.
"Go give Daddy a hug."
Maddie came to me and I lifted her up into a hug. She was no more than forty pounds. It is an amazing thing to be able to hold everything that is important to you in one arm. She put her damp head against my chest and I didn't mind that she was getting my shirt wet. That was no problem at all.
"How are you, baby?"
"I'm fine. I drew your picture today."
"You did? Can I see it?"
"Put me down."
I did as instructed and she ran off, out of the kitchen, her bare feet slapping on the stone tiles as she headed to the playroom. I looked at Eleanor and smiled. We both knew the secret. No matter what we had or didn't have for each other, we would always have Madeline and that might be enough.
The running of tiny feet could be heard again and soon she was back in the kitchen, towing a piece of paper held high like a kite. I took it from her and studied it. It showed the figure of a man with a mustache and dark eyes. He had his hands out and in one hand was a gun. On the other side of the page was another figure. This one was drawn in reds and oranges and had eyebrows drawn in a severe black V to indicate he was a bad guy.
I crouched down to my daughter's height to look at the drawing with her.
"Is this me with the gun?"
"Yes, because you were a policeman."
I nodded. She had said it like pleaseman.
"And who is this mean guy?"
She pointed a tiny finger at the other figure on the drawing. "That is Mr. Demon."
I smiled.
"Who is Mr. Demon?"
"He's a wrestler. Mommy says you wrestle with demons and he's the boss of all of them."
"I see."
I looked over her head at Eleanor and smiled. I wasn't mad about anything. I was simply in love with my daughter and how she viewed her world. The literal way in which she took it all in and took it on. I knew it wouldn't last long and so I treasured every moment I saw and heard of it.
"Can I keep this picture?"
"How come?"
"Because it is beautiful and I want to always have it. I have to go away for a while and I want to be able to look at it all the time. It will remind me of you."
"Where are you going?"
"I'm going back to the place they call the City of Angels."
She smiled.
"That's silly. You can't see angels."
"I know. But look, Mommy has a new book to read to you about a monkey named Billy. So I'm going to say good night now and I'll get back to see you as soon as I can. Is that okay, baby?"
"Okay, Daddy."
I kissed her on both cheeks and hugged her tight. Then I kissed the top of her head and let her go. I stood up with my picture and handed her the book Eleanor would read to her.
"Marisol?" Eleanor called. Marisol appeared within a few seconds, as if she had been waiting in the nearby living room for her cue. I smiled and nodded to her as she received her instructions.
"Why don't you take Maddie in and get her set up and I'll be right in after saying good night to her father."
I watched my daughter leave with her nanny.
"I'm sorry about that," Eleanor said.
"What, the picture? Don't worry about it. I love it. It's going on my refrigerator."
"I just don't know where she picked it up. I didn't directly say to her that you fight demons. She must have overheard me on the phone or something."
Somehow I would have liked it better knowing she had said it directly to our daughter. The idea that Eleanor was talking about me in such a way to someone else-someone she didn't mention at the moment- bothered me. I trie
d not to show it.
"It's all right," I said. "Look at it this way, when she goes to school and kids say their dad is a lawyer or a fireman or a doctor or something, she's got the trump card. She'll tell them her daddy fights demons."
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