The bottom line was that in Hollywood a monster could move smoothly in the flow of humanity. Just one more car on the crowded freeway. And some would always be caught and some would always be untraceable, unless you counted the blood they left behind.
Porter had gone six and eight before punching out. It was a record that wouldn't get him any commendations but, still, it meant six more monsters were out of the flow. Bosch realized he could balance Porter's books if he could clear one of the eight open cases. The broken-down cop would at least go out with an even record.
Bosch didn't care about Pounds and his desire to clear one more case by midnight on New Year's Eve. He felt no allegiance to Pounds and believed the annual tabulating, charting and analyzing of lives sacrificed added up to nothing. He decided that if he was to do this job, he would do it for Porter. Fuck Pounds.
He pushed the binders to the back of the table so he would have room to work. He decided to quickly scan each murder book and separate them into two piles. One stack for possible quick turns, another for the cases he did not think he could do anything with in a short time.
He reviewed them in chronological order, starting with a Valentine's Day strangulation of a priest in a stall at a bathhouse on Santa Monica. By the time he was done two hours had passed and Harry had only two of the blue binders in his stack of possibilities. One was a month old. A woman was pulled from a bus stop bench on Las Palmas into the darkened entranceway of a closed Hollywood memorabilia store and raped and stabbed. The other was the eight-day-old discovery of the body of a man behind a twenty-four-hour diner on Sunset near the Directors Guild building. The victim had been beaten to death.
Bosch focused on these two because they were the most recent cases and experience had instilled in him a firm belief that cases become exponentially more difficult to clear with each day that passes. Whoever strangled the priest was as good as gold. Harry knew the percentages showed that the killer had gotten away.
Bosch also saw that the two most recent cases could quickly be cleared if he caught a break. If he could identify the man found behind the restaurant, then that information could lead to his family, friends and associates and most likely to a motive and maybe a killer. Or, if he could trace the stabbing victim's movement back to where she was before going to the bus stop, he might be able to learn where and how the killer saw her.
It was a toss-up and Bosch decided to read each case file thoroughly before deciding. But going with the percentages he decided to read the freshest case first. The body found behind the restaurant was the warmest trail.
On first glance, the murder book was notable for what it did not contain. Porter had not picked up a finished, typed copy of the autopsy protocol. So Bosch had to rely on the Investigator's Summary reports and Porter's own autopsy notes, which simply said the victim had been beaten to death with a "blunt object"—policespeak meaning just about anything.
The victim, estimated to be about fifty-five years old, was referred to as Juan Doe #67. This because he was believed to be Latin and was the sixty-seventh unidentified Latin man found dead in Los Angeles County during the year. There was no money on the body, no wallet and no belongings other than the clothing—all of it manufactured in Mexico. The only identification key was a tattoo on the upper left chest. It was a monocolor outline of what appeared to be a ghost. There was a Polaroid snapshot of it in the file. Bosch studied this for several moments, deciding the blue line drawing of a Casper-like ghost was very old. The ink was faded and blurred. Juan Doe #67 had gotten the tattoo as a young man.
The crime scene report Porter had filled out said the body had been found at 1:44 A.M. on December 18 by an off-duty police officer, identified only by his badge number, going in for an early breakfast or late dinner when he saw the body lying next to the Dumpster near the kitchen door of the Egg and I Diner.
R/O #1101 had recently reported code seven and parked behind the location with the intention of entering to eat. Victim was viewed on the eastern side of the Dumpster. Body was laying in a supine position, head to the north and feet to the south. Extensive injuries were readily noticeable and R/O notified the watch commander that a homicide call out was necessary. R/O saw no other individuals in the vicinity of the Dumpster before or after the body was located.
Bosch looked through the binder for a summary filed by the reporting officer but there was none. He next reviewed the other photos in the binder. These were of the body in place, before the techs had moved it to the morgue.
Bosch could see the victim's scalp had been rent open by one vicious blow. There were also wounds on the face and dried black blood on the neck and all over the once-white T-shirt the man was wearing. The dead man's hands lay open at his sides. In close-ups of the hands, Bosch saw two fingers on the right hand bent backward in compound fractures—classic defense wounds. Aside from the wounds, Bosch noted the rough and scarred hands and the ropey muscles that went up the arms. He had been a worker of some kind. What had he been doing in the alley behind the diner at one o'clock in the morning?
Next in the binder were witness statements taken from employees at the Egg and I. They were all men, which seemed wrong to Bosch because he had eaten at the Egg and I on several early mornings and remembered that there were always waitresses working the tables. Porter had apparently decided they were unimportant and concentrated only on the kitchen help. Each of the men interviewed said he did not recall seeing the victim in life or death.
Porter had scribbled a star on the top of one of the statements. It was from a fry cook who had reported to work at 1 A.M. and had walked right past the east side of the Dumpster and through the kitchen door. He had seen no body on the ground and was sure he would have seen one if there had been one to see when he made his entrance.
That had helped Porter set the timing of the slaying to sometime during the forty-four-minute window between the arrivals of the fry cook and the police officer who found the body.
Next in the file were printouts from LAPD, National Crime Index, California Department of Justice, and Immigration and Naturalization Service computer runs on the victim's fingerprints. All four were negative. No matches. Juan Doe #67 remained unidentified.
At the back of the binder were notes Porter had taken during the autopsy, which had not been conducted until Tuesday, Christmas Eve, because of the usual backlog of cases at the coroner's office. Bosch realized that it might have been Porter's last official duty to watch one more body be cut up. He didn't come back to work after the holiday.
Perhaps Porter knew he would not return, for his notes were sparse, just a single page with a few thoughts jotted down. Some of them Bosch could not read. Other notes he could understand but they were meaningless. But near the bottom of the page Porter had circled a notation that said, "TOD—12 to 6 P.M."
Bosch knew the notation meant that, based on the rate of decrease in liver temperature and other appearances of the body, the time of death was likely to have been between noon and 6 P.M., but no later than 6 P.M.
This did not make sense, Bosch thought at first. That put the time of death at least seven and a half hours before the discovery of the body. It also did not jibe with the fry cook not seeing any body by the Dumpster at 1 A.M.
These contradictions were the reason Porter had circled the notation. It meant Juan Doe #67 had not been killed behind the diner. It meant he was killed somewhere else, nearly half a day earlier, and then dumped behind the diner.
He took a notebook out of his pocket and began to make a list of people he wanted to talk to. First on the list was the doctor who had performed the autopsy; Harry needed to get the completed autopsy protocol. Then he noted Porter down for a more detailed interview. After that he wrote the fry cook's name on the list because Porter's notes only said the cook did not see a body on the ground while going into work. There was nothing about whether the cook saw anybody else or anything unusual in the alley. He also made a note to check with the waitresses who had been on duty that m
orning.
To complete his list, Bosch had to pick up the phone and call the watch commander's office.
"I want to talk to eleven-oh-one," Bosch said. "Can you look it up on the board there and tell me who that is?"
It was Kleinman again. He said, "Very funny, smart guy"
"What?" Bosch said, but at that moment it struck him. "Is it Cal Moore?"
"Was Cal Moore. Was."
Harry hung up the phone as several thoughts crowded into his brain at once. Juan Doe #67 had been found on the day before Moore checked into the Hideaway. He tried to piece out what this could mean. Moore stumbles onto a body in an alley early one morning. The next day he checks into a motel, turns up the air-conditioner and puts two barrels of double-ought buckshot into his face. The message he leaves behind is as simple as it is mysterious.
I found out who I was
Bosch lit a cigarette and crossed #1101 off his list, but he continued to center his thoughts on this latest piece of information. He felt impatient, bothered. He fidgeted in the chair, then stood up and began to walk in a circle around the table. He worked Porter into the framework this development provided and ran through it several times. Each time it was the same. Porter gets the call out on the Juan Doe #67 case. He obviously would have had to talk to Moore at the scene. The next day Moore disappears. The next week Moore is found dead, and then the next day Porter announces he is getting a doctor and is pulling the pin. Too many coincidences.
He picked up the phone and called the homicide table. Edgar answered and Harry asked him to reach across the table and check his Rolodex for Porter's home number. Edgar gave it to him and said, "Harry, where you at?"
"Why, Ninety-eight looking for me?"
"Nah. One of the guys from Moore's unit called a few minutes ago. Said he was looking for you."
"Yeah, why?"
"Hey, Harry, I'm only passing on the message, not doing your job for you."
"Okay, okay. Which one called?"
"Rickard. He just asked me to tell you they had something for you. I gave him your pager number 'cause I didn't know if you were coming back anytime soon. So, where you at?"
"Nowhere."
He hung up and dialed Porter's house. The phone rang ten times. Harry hung up and lit another cigarette. He didn't know what to think about all of this. Could Moore have simply stumbled onto the body as it said in the report? Could he have dumped it there? Bosch had no clues.
"Nowhere," he said aloud to the room full of storage boxes.
He picked up the phone again and dialed the medical examiner's office. He gave his name and asked to be connected to Dr. Corazón, the acting chief. Harry refused to say what the call was about to the operator. The phone was dead for nearly a minute before Corazón picked up.
"I'm in the middle of something here," she said.
"Merry Christmas to you, too."
"Sorry."
"It's the Moore cut?"
"Yes, but I can't talk about it. What do you need, Harry?"
"I just inherited a case and there's no autopsy in the file. I'm trying to find out who did it so I can get a copy."
"Harry, you don't need to ask for the acting chief to track that. You could ask any of the investigators I have sitting around here on their asses."
"Yeah, but they aren't as sweet to me as you."
"Okay, hurry up, what's the name?"
"Juan Doe #67. Date of death was the eighteenth. The cut was the twenty-fourth."
She said nothing and Bosch assumed she was checking a scheduling chart.
"Yeah," she said after a half minute. "The twenty-fourth. That was Salazar and he's gone now. Vacation. That was his last autopsy until next month. He went to Australia. It's summer there."
"Shit."
"Don't fret, Harry. I have the package right here. Sally expected Lou Porter would be by to pick it up today. But Lou never came. How'd you inherit it?"
"Lou pulled the pin."
"Jeez, that was kind of quick. What's his—hold on—"
She didn't wait for him to say he would. This time she was gone more than a minute. When she came back, her voice had a higher pitch to it.
"Harry, I really've got to go. Tell you what, wanna meet me after work? By then I'll've had some time to read through this and I'll tell you what we've got. I just remembered that there is something kind of interesting here. Salazar came to me for a referral approval."
"Referral to what?"
"An entomologist—a bug doctor—over at UCLA. Sally found bugs."
Bosch already knew that maggots would not have bred in a body dead twelve hours at the most. And Salazar would not have needed an entomologist to identify them anyway.
"Bugs," he said.
"Yeah. In the stomach content analysis and nasal swabs. But I don't have time at the moment to discuss this. I've got four impatient men in the autopsy suite waiting for me. And only one of 'em is dead."
"I guess that would make the live ones Irving, Sheehan and Chastain, the three musketeers."
She laughed and said, "You got it."
"Okay. When and where do you want to meet?"
He looked at his watch. It was almost three.
"Maybe around six?" she said. "That would give me time to finish here and look through this package on your Juan Doe."
"Should I come there?"
His pager began to chirp. He cut it off with a well-practiced move with his right hand to his belt.
"No, let's see," she said. "Can you meet me at the Red Wind? We can wait out the rush hour."
"I'll be there," Harry said.
After hanging up he checked the number on his pager, recognized it as a pay phone exchange and dialed it.
"Bosch?" a voice said.
"Right."
"Rickard. I worked with Cal Moore. The BANG unit?"
"Right."
"I got something for you."
Bosch didn't say anything. He felt the hairs on the top of his hands and forearms begin to tingle. He tried to place the name Rickard with a face but couldn't. The narcs kept such odd hours and were a breed unto themselves. He didn't know who Rickard was.
"Or, I should say, Cal left something for you," Rickard spoke into the silence. "You wanna meet? I don't want this to go down in the station."
"Why not?"
"I've got my reasons. We can talk about that when I see you."
"Where's that gonna be?"
"You know a place on Sunset, the Egg and I? It's a diner. Decent food. The hypes don't hang out here."
"I know it."
"Good. We're in the last booth in the back, right before the kitchen door. The table with the only black guy in the place. That's me. There's parking in the back. In the alley."
"I know. Who's 'we'?"
"Cal's whole crew is here."
"That where you guys always hang out?"
"Yeah, before we hit the street. See ya soon."
Seven
THE RESTAURANT'S SIGN HAD BEEN CHANGED since the last time he had been there. It was now the All-American Egg and I, which meant it had probably been sold to foreigners. Bosch got out of his Caprice and walked through the back alley, looking at the spot where Juan Doe #67 had been dumped. Right outside the back-door of a diner frequented by the local narc crew. His thoughts on the implications of this were interrupted by the panhandlers in the alley who came up to him shaking their cups. Bosch ignored them but their presence served to remind him of another shortcoming in Porter's meager investigation. There had been nothing in the reports about vagrants in the alley being interviewed as possible witnesses. It would probably be impossible to track them down now.
Inside the restaurant, he saw four young men, one of them black, in a rear booth. They were sitting silently with their faces turned down to the empty coffee cups in front of them. Harry noticed a closed manila file on the table as he pulled a chair away from an empty table and sat at the end of the booth.
"I'm Bosch."
"Tom Rickard," the b
lack one said. He put out his hand and then introduced the other three as Finks, Montirez and Fedaredo.
"We got tired of being around the office," Rickard said. "Cal used to like this place."
Bosch just nodded and looked down at the file. He saw the name written on the tab was Humberto Zorrillo. It meant nothing to him. Rickard slid the file across the table to him.
"What is it?" Harry asked, not yet touching it.
"Probably the last thing he worked on," Rickard said. "We were going to give it over to RHD but thought what the hell, he was working it up for you. And those boys down there at Parker are just trying to drag him through the shit. Ain't going to help with that."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean they can't let it be that the man killed himself. They hafta dissect his life and figure out exactly why he did this and why he done that. The man fucking killed himself. What else is there to say about it?"
"You don't want to know why?"
"I already know why, man. The job. It will get us all in the end. I mean, I know why."
Bosch just nodded again. The other three narcs still hadn't said anything.
"I'm just letting off steam," Rickard said. "Been one of those days. Longest fucking day of my life."
"Where was this?" Harry asked, pointing to the file. "Didn't RHD already go through his desk?"
"Yeah, they did. But that file wasn't in it. See, Cal left it in one of the BANG cars—one of those undercover pieces of shit we use. In the pocket behind the front seat. We never noticed it during the week he was missing because today was the first time any of us rode in the back of the car. We usually take two cars out on operations. But today we all jumped in one for a cruise on the Boulevard after we came in and heard the news. I saw it shoved down into the pocket. It's got a little note inside. Says to give it to you. We knew he was working on something for you 'cause of that night he peeled off early to go meet with you at the Catalina."
The Black Ice Page 6