The Drop hb-17

by Michael Connelly

  Irving leaned across the table and pointed a finger at Bosch.

  “This is where you are way off base,” he said. “I know who you are talking about and that was a request made in response to a complaint to my office. It was a request passed on in a social setting, nothing more. In fact, it was my grandson’s graduation party.”

  Bosch nodded.

  “Yes, a party that occurred two weeks after your son signed a one-hundred-thousand-dollar service contract with Regent Taxi, which would later announce plans to seek the city franchise currently being held by the company you complained about. I’m just guessing but I think a grand jury would find the coincidence of that hard to believe. I am sure your office would be able to provide the name of the citizen who made the complaint and she and her story would be vetted.”

  Bosch pointedly looked at the aide with the legal pad.

  “You might want to write that down.”

  He turned his attention back to the head of the table.

  “The officer in question learned that he was being used by the Irvings and confronted George Irving. Their friendship ended there. In the course of four weeks George lost three of the most important people in his life. His friend exposed him as a user if not a criminal, his only child left his home for college and life after, and last week his wife of twenty years told him she was leaving. She had stayed in the marriage until their son was gone, and now she, too, was finished.”

  Irving reacted as if slapped in the face. He clearly knew nothing about the implosion of the marriage.

  “George tried for a week to talk Deborah out of her decision and to hang on to the one person he had left,” Bosch continued. “To no avail. On Sunday—twelve hours before his death—he bought his son an airplane ticket to come home the next day. The plan was to tell the boy of the split. But instead, that night George checked into the Chateau Marmont with no luggage. When he was told suite seventy-nine was available he took it because that was the suite he and Deborah shared on their honeymoon.

  “He spent about five hours in that room. Our information is that he was drinking heavily—an entire twelve-ounce bottle of whiskey. He was visited by a former cop named Mark McQuillen who knew by happenstance that he was in the hotel. McQuillen had been run out of the police department in a political witch hunt headed by Deputy Chief Irving twenty-five years ago. Now he was part owner of the taxi franchise George Irving was trying to destroy. He confronted George in the room and, yes, assaulted him. But he didn’t throw him from that balcony. He was in an all-night restaurant three blocks away when George jumped. We have confirmed the alibi and I have come to no other conclusion about this case. George Irving jumped.”

  Bosch leaned back in his chair, finished with his report. There was no immediate response from anyone at the table. It took Irving a few moments to look at all the angles in the story and come up with something.

  “McQuillen should be placed under arrest. This was obviously a carefully planned crime. I was correct when I said it was a payback. McQuillen perceived that I took his career. He took my son’s life.”

  “McQuillen is on video in that restaurant from two till six,” Bosch said. “His alibi holds up. He was with your son at least two hours before his death. But he was not in the hotel when your son jumped.”

  “And there’s the airline ticket,” Chu added. “Chad Irving was already flying down Monday. It wasn’t because his father had died, as the family suggested to us Monday. He had the ticket before, and there is no way McQuillen could have made that play.”

  Bosch glanced at his partner. Chu had disobeyed Bosch’s order to maintain silence twice now. But both times it had been to great effect.

  “Councilman Irving, I think we’ve heard enough for now,” the chief said. “Detectives Bosch and Chu, I want the full summary of the investigation on my desk before two o’clock today. I’ll review it and then I’ll hold a press conference. I plan to keep it brief and keep the details of the investigation brief. Councilman, you are invited to join me if you like, but I know that this is a very personal matter and you may want it to close up and simply go away. I’ll expect to hear from your office if you are coming.”

  The chief nodded once and waited a split second for any reply. There was none, so he stood up. The meeting was over and so was the case. Irving knew he could press it and call for reviews and re-investigations but that path would be fraught with political peril.

  Bosch had him pegged as a pragmatist who would let this one go. The question was, Would the police chief? Bosch had delivered the elements of a crime of political corruption. It would be difficult to pursue, particularly with a key player dead. And it was unknown whether they could get anything by leaning on the people at Regent Taxi. Would the chief follow up or would he hold it as an ace in a card game played on a level Bosch knew nothing about?

  Either way, Bosch was pretty sure he had just delivered to the chief the means of turning a powerful anti-police voice in city government toward the positive. If he worked it right, he might even be able to get the overtime budget funded again. Meantime, Bosch was satisfied that he had completed his job. An old nemesis now had renewed enmity toward him but that was of no consequence. Bosch would never be able to live in a world without enemies. It came with the turf.

  Everyone stood to leave the meeting, which was going to present an awkward situation when Irving and Bosch went out and waited for the elevator together. Rider saved Harry from it by inviting him into her office, along with Chu.

  As the Irving entourage left the suite of offices, Bosch and Chu followed Rider into her space.

  “Can I get you men something?” she asked. “I guess the time to have asked was at the start of the meeting.”

  “I’m good,” Bosch said.

  “Same here,” Chu said.

  Rider appraised Chu. She had no idea about Chu’s traitorous activities.

  “That was good work, gentlemen,” she said. “And Detective Chu, I admire your willingness to stand up in there for your partner and your case. Well done.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant.”

  “Now, do you mind stepping out into the waiting area? I have some things to discuss with Detective Bosch relating to his DROP date.”

  “No problem. Harry, I’ll be out here.”

  Chu left and Rider closed the door. She and Bosch were left looking at each other for a long moment. She then slowly broke into a smile and shook her head.

  “You must’ve been lovin’ that in there,” she said. “Seeing Irving have to shut down or be put down like the dog he is.”

  Bosch shook his head.

  “Not really. I don’t care about him anymore. I still don’t get it, though. Why did he really want me on the case?”

  “I think it was exactly what he said. He knew you would be relentless and he needed to know if somebody went through his son to get to him. The only thing is, he didn’t think you’d get to the place you got to.”

  Bosch nodded.

  “Maybe.”

  “Now, the chief didn’t show it in front of Irving, but you just gave him the golden ticket. And the good news is, he is going to be happy to reward you. I was thinking I’d start by getting your DROP moved up to the whole five years. How would that be, Harry?”

  She smiled, anticipating that Bosch would be delighted by the additional twenty-one months on the job.

  “Let me think about that,” he said.

  “You sure? You might want to strike while the iron’s hot.”

  “Tell you what. See if you can get Chu moved out of OU, but keep him in RHD. Get him a good gig over there.”

  She narrowed her eyes and he continued before she could speak.

  “And do it no questions asked.”

  “You sure you don’t want to talk to me about this?”

  “No, Kiz, I don’t.”

  “Okay. I’ll see what I can do. Irving’s probably down the elevator by now. You should get back down to OU to work on your report. By two o’cl
ock, remember?”

  “See you at two.”

  Bosch stepped out of the office and closed the door behind him. Chu was waiting there, smiling with pride over the stand he had made and completely unaware that his career path had just been set without a word of input or preference from him.

  32

  Saturday started early for Bosch and his daughter. While still in darkness they drove down out of the hills, took the 101 freeway into downtown and then pivoted south on the 110 toward Long Beach. They caught the first ferry over to Catalina, Bosch never letting go of the locked gun case as they rode into a cold gray dawn. Once on the island, they ate breakfast at the Pancake Cottage in Avalon, the only place Harry had ever thought compared favorably to Du-par’s back in L.A.

  Bosch wanted his daughter to eat a full breakfast because the plan was to eat lunch late in the day, after the pistol competition. He knew that the little tickle of hunger she’d get in the early afternoon would help her stay focused and keep her aim tight.

  A year earlier when she had announced to him that her plan was to become a police officer, she had begun learning about guns and their safe use and storage. There was no philosophical debate about it. Bosch was a cop and there were guns in the house. It was simply a given and he considered it good parenting to teach his daughter how to use and safeguard the weapons. He supplemented his mentoring by enrolling her in courses at a firing range up in Newhall.

  But Maddie had taken it far past a rudimentary knowledge of practice and safety. She took to shooting at paper targets with a passion and developed a steady hand and cold eye. Within six months her marksmanship put her father’s to shame. They ended each training lesson with a one-on-one match and she soon became unbeatable. She owned the ten ring at ten yards and could keep her aim steady through a sixteen-round clip.

  Soon beating her old man with his own guns was not enough. And that brought them to Catalina. Maddie’s first competition was a junior match at the gun club on the back side of the island. It was a single-elimination pistol match that would pit her against all teenage entrants. Each face-off involved shooting six rounds at paper targets from ten, fifteen and twenty-five yards.

  They had chosen Catalina for her first foray into competitive shooting because it was a small tournament and they knew they could make a fun day of it no matter how she performed. Maddie had never been to Catalina, and Harry had not been out to the barrier island in years.

  As it turned out, she was the only girl in the competition. It was Maddie and seven boys, randomly bracketed into one-on-one matches. She won her first match going away, overcoming a weak grouping on the ten-yard target to hit seven of eight rings in the fifteen- and twenty-five-yard distances. Bosch was so proud and happy for her that he wanted to rush to the line and hug her. But he held back, knowing it would only underline that she was the only girl. Instead, he was the lone spectator applauding from the picnic tables behind the shooting line. He then put on his sunglasses so no stranger would see the look in his eyes.

  His daughter was eliminated in the next round by a single-ring shot but took the disappointment well. The fact that she had competed and won her first match had made the journey worth it. She and Bosch stuck around to watch the final round and then the start of the adult competition. Maddie tried to goad Harry into entering the adult round but he demurred. His eyes were not what they once were and he knew he didn’t stand a chance.

  They ate a late lunch at the Busy Bee and window-shopped along Crescent before catching the four-o’clock ferry back to the mainland. They sat inside because the sea air was cold, and along the way, Bosch put his arm around his daughter’s shoulders. He knew that other girls her age weren’t learning about guns and shooting. They weren’t watching their fathers at night poring over murder books and autopsies and crime scene photos. They weren’t left alone in the house while their fathers went out with their guns to chase bad guys. Most parents were raising citizens of the future. Doctors, teachers, mothers, keepers of family businesses. Bosch was raising a warrior.

  A momentary thought of Hannah Stone and her son shot through him and he squeezed his daughter’s shoulder again. He had been thinking about something and it was now time to discuss it.

  “You know,” he said, “you don’t have to do any of this if you don’t want to. Don’t do it for me, Mads. The gun stuff. The being a cop thing, too. You do what you want to do. You make your own choices.”

  “I know, Dad. I do make my own choices and it’s what I want. We talked about this a long time ago.”

  It was Bosch’s hope that she would be able to leave her past behind and forge something new. He had been unable to do it himself and it haunted him that she might be the same way.

  “Okay, baby. There’s a lot of time between now and then anyway.”

  A few minutes went by while he thought of things. He could see the disguised oil derricks in the harbor just coming into view. A call came in on his cell and he saw it was from David Chu. He let it go to message. He wasn’t going to spoil this moment with work or, more likely, Chu groveling for a second chance. He put the phone away and kissed the top of his daughter’s head.

  “I guess I’ll always have to worry about you,” he said. “It’s not like you could want to be a teacher or something safe like that.”

  “I hate school, Dad. Why would I want to be a teacher?”

  “I don’t know. To change the system, make it better so the next kids don’t hate it.”

  “One teacher? Forget it.”

  “It just takes one. It always starts with one. Anyway, like I said, you do what you want. You’ve got time. I guess I’ll worry about you no matter what you do.”

  “Not if you teach me all you know. Then you won’t have to worry because I’ll be like you out there.”

  Bosch laughed.

  “If you’re like me out there, then I’ll have to walk around all day with rosary beads in one hand, a rabbit’s foot in the other and maybe a four-leaf clover tattooed on my arm.”

  She drove an elbow into his side.

  Bosch let another few minutes go by. He pulled his phone and checked to see if Chu had left a message. There was nothing and Bosch figured his partner had been calling to once again plead his case. It was not the kind of thing you would put into a voicemail.

  He put the phone away and turned the father-daughter conversation more serious.

  “Look, Mads, I’ve been wanting to tell you something else, too.”

  “I know, you’re marrying the lady with the lipstick?”

  “No, serious now, and there was no lipstick.”

  “I know. What is it?”

  “Well, I’m thinking about turning in my badge. Retiring. It might be time.”

  She didn’t respond for a long time. He had expected an immediate and urgent demand that he trash such thoughts but to her credit she seemed to be running it through her processes and not kicking out a first and possibly wrong response.

  “But why?” she finally asked.

  “Well, I am thinking that I’m tailing off, you know? Like anything—athletics, shooting, playing music, even creative thinking—there’s a drop-off of skills at a certain point. And, I don’t know, but maybe I’m getting there and I should get out. I’ve seen people lose their edge and it increases the danger. I don’t want to miss the chance to see you grow up and shine at whatever you decide you want to do.”

  She nodded as if in agreement but then the keen perception and disagreement came out.

  “You’re thinking all of this because of one case?”

  “Not just the one case but that’s a good example. I totally went the wrong way with it. I have to think that wouldn’t have happened five years ago. Even two years ago. I might be losing the edge you need to do this.”

  “But sometimes you have to go the wrong way to find the right way.”

  She turned in her seat to look directly at him.

  “Like you told me, you make your own choices. But if I were you, I wo
uldn’t do anything real quick.”

  “I’m not. There’s a guy out there that I have to find first. I was thinking that would be a good one to go out on.”

  “But what would you do if you quit?”

  “I’m not sure but I know one thing. I think I would be able to be a better father. You know, be around more.”

  “That doesn’t necessarily make you a better father. Remember that.”

  Bosch nodded. He sometimes had a hard time believing he was talking to a fifteen-year-old. This was one of those times.

  33

  On Sunday morning, Bosch dropped his daughter off at the mall in Century City. The day had been reserved a week earlier for her and her friends Ashlyn and Konner to meet at the mall at eleven and then spend the day shopping, eating and gossiping. The girls scheduled mall days once a month and targeted a different shopping center each time. This time Bosch felt the most comfortable leaving them on their own. No mall was safe from predators but he knew that security would be at its maximum on a Sunday and the Century City mall had a good record of vigilance. They had undercover officers posing as shoppers all through the place and much of the weekend security force was composed of moonlighting cops.

  On most mall Sundays, Bosch would head downtown after the daughter drop and work in the deserted OU squad room. He liked the stillness of the place on the weekends and it usually brought a strong focus to his case work. But this time he wanted to stay away from the PAB. He had picked up the Times early that morning when he went down the hill to buy milk and coffee at the convenience store. Standing in line, he had noticed that there was another front-page story related to George Irving’s death. He bought the paper and read the story in the car. Reported by Emily Gomez-Gonzmart, it focused on George Irving’s work for Regent Taxi and raised questions about the seeming coincidence of his representation of the company and the rise of legal issues that befell Black & White, its competitor for the Hollywood area franchise. The story made the leap to Irvin Irving. Arrest records led them to Officer Robert Mason, who told the same tale of being directly asked by the councilman to crack down on B&W.