The Drop hb-17

by Michael Connelly

  She finally nodded, a tacit agreement with Bosch’s point of view.

  “Okay, even if I agree with you, there’s still the question: How does all of this get George Irving killed? And why?”

  “I’m not sure why but let me move to the—”

  Bosch stopped when there was a loud explosion of voices from the lobby. After a few seconds they were gone.

  “Okay, let me move to the night Irving took the high dive. He arrives by car at nine-forty, gives his keys to the valet and goes upstairs to the lobby to check in. Also arriving at that time is a writer from the East Coast named Thomas Rapport. He comes by cab from the airport and pulls in right behind Irving.”

  “Don’t tell me. He was in a Black and White cab.”

  “You know, Lieutenant, you really ought to be a detective.”

  “I tried it, but my partner was an asshole.”

  “I heard about that. Anyway, yes, it was a B and W cab and the driver actually recognized Irving as he was turning his car over to the valet. His picture had been shown around the garage when the application letter to the franchise board got copied to B and W. This driver, a guy named Rollins, recognizes Irving and gets on his radio and says, ‘What do you know, I just saw public enemy number one,’ or words to that effect. And on the other end of that radio call is the shift supervisor. The night man. A guy named Mark McQuillen.”

  Bosch stopped there and waited for her to recognize the name. She didn’t.

  “McQuillen as in ‘McKillin,’” he said. “That ring a bell?”

  It still didn’t break through. Rider shook her head.

  “Before your time,” Bosch said.

  “Who is he?”

  “A former cop. Maybe ten years younger than me. Back in the day, he became the poster boy for the whole choke hold thing. The controversy. And he got sacrificed to the mob.”

  “I don’t understand, Harry. What mob? What sacrifice?”

  “I told you, I was on the task force. The task force was formed to appease the citizenry of South L.A. who claimed that the choke hold was legalized murder. Cops used it and an inordinate number of people in the south end died. The truth was, they didn’t need a task force to change policy. They could’ve just changed it. But instead they go with a task force so they could feed the media the story about how the department was serious in its effort to respond to the public outcry.”

  “All right, so how does this lead to McQuillen?”

  “I was just a grunt on the task force. A gatherer. I handled the autopsies. I know this, though. The statistics matched up across racial and geographic lines. Sure, there were more choke hold deaths in the south end. Far more African Americans died than other races. But the ratios were even. There were far more incidents involving use of force in the south end. The more confrontations, scuffles, fights, resisting arrests you get, the more uses of the choke hold. The more you use the choke hold, the more deaths you will have. It was simple math. But nothing is simple when racial politics are involved.”

  Rider was black and had grown up in South L.A. But Bosch was speaking to her cop to cop and there was no awkwardness in his telling the story. They had been partners and had operated as a team under extreme pressures. Rider knew Bosch as well as anyone could. They were brother and sister and there was no holdback between them.

  “McQuillen worked P.M. watch in Seventy-seventh,” he said. “He liked action and he got it almost every night. I don’t remember the exact number but he’d had something like sixty-plus use-of-force incidents in four years. And as you know, those are only the ones they write reports on. In those incidents, he used the choke hold a lot and he ended up killing two people in a three-year span. Of all the choke hold deaths over all the years, there was nobody involved in more than one. Only him, because he had used it more than anybody else. So when the task force came along . . .”

  “He got special attention.”

  “Right. Now, every one of his use-of-force incidents came back clean on review at the time of occurrence. Including the two deaths. It was determined by a review board that both times he used the hold within policy. But one time and it’s an unlucky thing. Two times and there is a pattern. Somebody leaked his name and history to the Times, which was hovering over the task force like the smog over downtown. They ran a story and McQuillen became the face of what was wrong in the department. Didn’t matter that he was never found to have acted out of policy. He was the guy. A killer cop. The head of the ministers’ coalition at the time held a press conference it seemed every other day. He started calling him McKillin and it stuck.”

  Bosch got up from the bench so he could pace a little bit as he continued.

  “The task force recommended that the bar hold be dropped from the use-of-force progression and it was. Funny thing is, the department then told officers to rely more on their batons—in fact, you could be disciplined if you got out of a patrol car without carrying your baton in your hand or on your belt. Added to that, Tasers were coming into use just as the choke hold went out. And what did we get? Rodney King. A video that changed the world. A video of a guy being Tased and whaled on with batons when a proper choke hold would’ve just put him to sleep.”

  “Huh,” Rider said. “I never looked at it that way.”

  Bosch nodded.

  “Anyway, dropping the choke hold wasn’t enough. There had to be an offering to the angry mob and it was McQuillen. He was suspended on what I always thought were trumped-up, politically motivated charges. The review of the deaths determined that in the second case he had been out of policy in the escalation of the use-of-force sequence. In other words, the choke hold that killed the guy was okay but everything he did up until he used it was wrong. He was brought up on a board of rights and fired. The case was referred to the DA and the DA took a pass. At the time, I remember thinking McQuillen was lucky they didn’t ride the wave and prosecute him. He sued to get his job back but that was a nonstarter. He was done.”

  Bosch ended it there for the moment to see if Rider had a response. She had folded her arms across her chest and was staring into the shadows. Bosch knew she was grinding it down. Seeing how all of this played out in the present.

  “So,” she finally said. “Twenty-five years ago a task force headed by Irvin Irving results in McQuillen losing his job and career in a process that, at least in his view, was unfounded and unfair. Now we have what appears to be an attempt by Irving’s son and possibly the councilman himself to grab the franchise from the business where McQuillen now works as . . . what, a night dispatcher?”

  “Shift supervisor. Which I guess really means dispatcher.”

  “And this adds up to him murdering George Irving. I can connect the dots but am having trouble with the motive, Harry.”

  “Well, we don’t know anything about McQuillen, do we? We don’t know if he’s been carrying this grudge around like a festering wound and the opportunity simply presented itself. A driver calls in and says, ‘Guess who I just saw.’ We have the abrasion pattern on the shoulder—it’s unmistakable evidence of the choke hold. We also have a witness who saw somebody on the fire escape.”

  “What witness? You didn’t tell me you had a witness.”

  “I just found out today. The hillside behind the hotel was canvassed and they came up with a resident who saw a man on the fire escape ladder Sunday night. But he says it was twelve-forty A.M. and the coroner puts TOD no earlier than two and as late as four. So we have about a two-hour discrepancy. The guy on the ladder was going down at twelve-forty, not up. There is this, though. The witness described the guy on the ladder as wearing some sort of uniform. Gray top and gray pants. I was in B and W’s taxi barn today. It’s where the dispatch office is. The mechanics who work on the fleet wear gray coveralls. McQuillen could’ve put on coveralls before going up the ladder.”

  Bosch flipped his hands out at his sides as if to say that was it. That was all he had. Rider was silent for a long moment before asking what Bosch knew she would
ask.

  “You always taught me to ask where the holes were. ‘Look at your case and find the holes. Because if you don’t find them, a defense attorney will do it for you.’ So, Harry, where are the holes?”

  Bosch shrugged.

  “The time discrepancy is a hole. And we don’t have anything that would put McQuillen in Irving’s room. All prints found in there and on the fire escape ladder were run through the computer. McQuillen’s would’ve come up.”

  “How do you deal with the time discrepancy?”

  “He was casing the place. That’s when the witness saw him. He didn’t see when McQuillen came back.”

  Rider nodded.

  “What about the marks on Irving’s shoulder? Can they be matched to McQuillen’s watch?”

  “It’s possible but it won’t be conclusive. We might get lucky and even find DNA on the watch. But I think the big hole here is Irving. Why was he at the hotel in the first place? The McQuillen angle relies upon chance. Taxi driver sees Irving. He tells McQuillen. McQuillen’s deep-seated anger and bitterness take over. At the end of shift, he grabs a set of mechanic’s coveralls and goes to the hotel. He climbs up the side, somehow gets into Irving’s suite, and chokes him out. He strips the body and folds the clothes nice and neat but misses the button on the floor. He then drops him off the balcony and it looks like suicide. It works well enough in theory, but what was Irving doing there? Was he meeting someone? Waiting for someone? And why did he put his stuff—his wallet and phone and everything—in the room safe? If we can’t answer those questions, we’ve got a hole big enough to drive a getaway car through.”

  She nodded in agreement.

  “So what are you proposing we do now?”

  “We do nothing. I continue to work this. But you have to know and the chief has to know that as this goes forward it’s going to get close to the councilman. If I squeeze Robert Mason to find out why he started pulling over B and W drivers, it might come back directly to Irvin Irving himself. The chief should know that.”

  “He will. Is that your next move?”

  “I’m not sure yet. But I want to know as much as there is to know before I take on McQuillen.”

  Rider stood up. She was impatient to go.

  “Are you going back now?” she asked. “You want to walk?”

  “No, you go ahead,” Bosch said. “I think I’m going to make a few phone calls.”

  “All right, Harry. Good luck. Be careful out there.”

  “Yeah, you, too. Be careful up there.”

  She looked at him. She knew he meant on the tenth floor of the PAB. She smiled and he smiled back.

  20

  Bosch sat back down on the bench and composed himself. He then pulled his phone and called Hannah Stone’s cell number. She had given it to him when they parted ways Monday evening.

  She answered right away, even though Bosch’s number was blocked.

  “It’s Harry Bosch.”

  “I thought it might be you. Is there anything new?”

  “No, I’m working on something else today. But my partner is trying to run down the guy Chill.”

  “Okay.”

  “Anything new on your end?”

  “No, just doing the same good work we always do.”

  “That’s good.”

  There was an awkward pause and then Bosch plowed ahead.

  “My daughter is studying at a friend’s house tonight, so I’m free. And I was wondering—I mean, I know it’s pretty soon—but I wanted to see if you wanted to have dinner again tonight.”

  “Uh . . .”

  “It’s no big deal. It’s short notice. I’ll—”

  “No, no, it’s not that. It’s just that we have sessions on Wednesday and Thursday nights and I’m supposed to work tonight.”

  “Don’t you get a dinner break?”

  “Yes, but it’s too short. Tell you what, can I call you back?”

  “Yes, but you don’t have to jump through any—”

  “I want to, but I have to see if somebody will switch with me. I take tomorrow night if they take tonight. Can I call you back?”

  “Sure.”

  Bosch gave her his number and they disconnected. He got up, patted Charlie Chaplin on the shoulder and headed out the door.

  When Bosch got back to the unit, Chu was working on his laptop and didn’t look up as Harry entered the cubicle.

  “You find my guy yet?”

  “Not yet.”

  “How’s it looking?”

  “Not very good. There are nine hundred eleven variations of Chill in the moniker files. And that’s just in California. So don’t hold your breath.”

  “Is that total or is that just in the time frame I asked for?”

  “The time frame doesn’t matter. Your guy from ’eighty-eight could easily have been put into the database in any year before or since. It would depend on whether he was arrested, was the subject of a field interview, or was a victim. There are a lot of possibilities. I have to look at all of them.”

  Chu was speaking in a clipped tone. Bosch knew he was still angry about being shut out of the Irving investigation.

  “All of that might be true but let’s prioritize by narrowing the focus to . . . let’s say pre-’ninety-two. My hunch is that if he’s in the box, he went in before then.”

  “Fine.”

  Chu started typing. He still had not looked up or acknowledged Bosch with his eyes.

  “When I came in, I saw that the lieutenant’s alone in her office. You could go talk to her about the transfer.”

  “I want to get this done.”

  Bosch was calling Chu’s bluff and they both knew it.

  “Good.”

  Bosch’s cell buzzed and he saw it was an 818 call—the Valley. As he answered, he left the cubicle and headed out to the hallway so he could talk privately. It was Hannah Stone calling from one of her work lines.

  “I won’t be able to meet you till about eight because of some things here at work. Will that be all right?”

  “Sure, that works.”

  It would only give him about ninety minutes with her, unless he changed his daughter’s curfew.

  “Are you sure? You sound—”

  “No, it will work. I could work late, too. I’ve got stuff here. Where do you want to meet?”

  “How about somewhere in the middle this time? Do you like sushi?”

  “Uh, not really. But I guess I could try it.”

  “You mean you’ve never even tried sushi?”

  “Uh . . . I sort of have a problem with raw fish.”

  He didn’t want to mention that it related to his experience in Vietnam. The rancid fish they would come across in the tunnels. The overpowering smell.

  “Okay, then scratch sushi. How about Italian?”

  “Italian’s good. Let’s do Italian.”

  “You know where Ca’ Del Sole is in North Hollywood?”

  “I can find it.”

  “Eight o’clock?”

  “I’ll be there.”

  “See you soon, Harry.”

  “See you soon.”

  Bosch ended the call and then made another he wanted to keep private as well. Heath Witcomb had been a smoking pal from Harry’s days in Hollywood Division. They had shared the ash can behind the station countless times until Bosch gave up the habit. Witcomb was a patrol sergeant and as such he was in a position to know Robert Mason, the patrol cop credited with all three of the B&W drunk driving arrests. He also still smoked.

  “Busy, Harry,” Witcomb said as he answered. “What do you need?”

  “Just call me next time you go out back.”

  Bosch disconnected. As he pushed through the door back into the unit, Chu was pushing out.

  “Harry, where have you been?”

  “I went for a smoke.”

  “Harry, you don’t smoke.”

  “Yeah, so what’s up?”

  “Chilton Hardy.”

  “You found him?”

/>   “I think so. It fits.”

  They entered the cubicle and Chu slid into his seat in front of his computer. Bosch leaned over his shoulder to see the screen. Chu hit the space bar to rouse the computer from sleep. The screen lit, and on display was a mug shot of a white man of about thirty with spiky dark hair and acne scars. He cast a sullen look at the camera, staring with cold blue eyes.

  “Chilton Aaron Hardy,” Chu said. “Known as Chill.”

  “How old is this?” Bosch asked. “And where was it?”

  “Nineteen eighty-five. North Hollywood Division. Battery on a police officer. He was twenty-eight at the time and lived in an apartment on Cahuenga in Toluca Lake.”

  Toluca Lake was at the edge of Burbank and Griffith Park. Bosch knew it was very close to Travel Town, the place where Clayton Pell said he rode the trains when he was living with Chill.

  Bosch next did the math. Chilton Hardy would be fifty-four years old if he was still alive.

  “Did you put it through DMV?”

  Chu had not. He switched screens and plugged Hardy’s name into the state database containing the identities of the twenty-four million licensed drivers in California. Chu hit enter to begin the search and they waited to see if Hardy was one of those drivers. Seconds ticked by and Bosch expected a no-match return. As a general rule, people who get away with murder don’t stick around.

  “Bingo,” Chu said.

  Bosch leaned down and closer in toward the screen. There were two matches. Chilton Aaron Hardy, age seventy-seven and still licensed with an address down in Los Alamitos. And Chilton Aaron Hardy Jr., age fifty-four, of Woodland Hills, a suburb of Los Angeles.

  “Topanga Canyon Boulevard,” Bosch said, reading the address of the younger Hardy. “He didn’t go too far.”

  Chu nodded.

  “West Valley.”

  “Seems a little too easy. Why’d this guy hang around?”

  Chu didn’t answer because he knew Bosch was just thinking out loud.