The Black Echo

He watched the gravediggers finish their job. After a while he got out and walked over. There was one small bouquet of flowers next to the flag stuck in the soft orange ground. The flowers were from the VFW. Bosch stared at the scene and didn’t know what he should feel. Maybe some kind of sentimental affection or remorse. Meadows was underground for good this time. Bosch didn’t feel a thing. After a while he looked up from the grave and toward the Federal Building. He started walking in that direction. He felt like a ghost, coming from the grave for justice. Or maybe just vengeance.

***

If she was surprised it was Bosch who had pressed the door buzzer, Eleanor Wish didn’t show it. Harry had flipped his badge to the guard on the first floor and been waved to the elevator. There was no receptionist working on the holiday, so he had pressed the night bell. It was Eleanor who opened the door. She wore faded jeans and a white blouse. There was no gun on her belt.

“I thought you might come, Harry. Were you at the funeral?”

He nodded but made no move toward the door she held open. She looked at him a long moment, her eyebrows arched in that lovely questioning look she had. “Well, are you going to come in or stand out there all day?”

“I was thinking we would take a walk. Talk alone.”

“I have to get my keycard so I can come back in.” She made a move to go back in and then stopped. “I doubt you heard this, because they haven’t put the word out. But they found the diamonds.”

“What?”

“Yes. They traced Rourke to some public storage lockers in Huntington Beach. They found receipts somewhere. They got the court order this morning and just opened them. I’ve been listening to the scanner. They’re saying hundreds of diamonds. They’ll have to get an appraiser. We were right, Harry. Diamonds. You were right. They also found all the other stuff-in a second locker. Rourke hadn’t gotten rid of it. The boxholders will get their stuff back. There’s going to be a press conference, but I doubt they will be saying whose lockers they were.”

He just nodded, and she disappeared through the door. Bosch wandered over to the elevators and pushed the button while waiting for her. She had her purse with her when she came out. It made him conscious of not having a gun. And it privately embarrassed him that he momentarily thought that was a concern. They didn’t speak on the way down, not until they were out of the building and on the sidewalk, heading toward Wilshire. Bosch had been weighing his words, wondering if the finding of the diamonds meant anything. She seemed to be waiting for him to begin but uncomfortable in the silence.

“I like the blue sling,” she finally said. “How do you feel, anyway? I’m surprised they let you out of there so soon.”

“I just left. I feel fine.” He stopped to put a cigarette in his mouth. He had bought a pack from a machine in the lobby. He lit it with the lighter.

“You know,” she said, “this would be a good time to quit those. Make a new start.”

He ignored the suggestion and breathed the smoke in deeply.

“Eleanor, tell me about your brother.”

“My brother? I told you.”

“I know. I want to hear again. About what happened to him and what happened when you visited the wall in Washington. You said it changed things for you. Why did it change things for you?”

They were at Wilshire. Bosch pointed across the street and they crossed toward the cemetery. “I left my car over here. I’ll drive you back.”

“I don’t like cemeteries. I told you.”

“Who does?”

They walked through the opening in the hedge and the sound of traffic was quieted. Before them was the expanse of green lawn, white stones and American flags.

“My story’s the same as a thousand others,” she said. “My brother went over there and didn’t come back. That’s all. And then, you know, going to the memorial, well, it filled me with a lot of different feelings.”

“Anger?”

“Yes, there was that.”

“Outrage?”

“Yes, I guess. I don’t know. It was very personal. What’s going on, Harry? What has this got to do with… with anything?”

They were on the gravel drive that ran alongside the rows of white stone. Bosch was leading her toward the replica.

“You said your father was career military. Did you get the details of what happened to your brother?”

“He did, but he and my mother never really said anything to me. About details. I mean, they just said he was coming home soon, and I had gotten a letter from him saying he was coming. Then, like the next week, you know, they said he had been killed. He didn’t make it home after all. Harry, you are making me feel… What do you want? I don’t understand this.”

“Sure you do, Eleanor.”