The Black Echo

“The tunnel job? You’re not going to ask about the tunnel job, are you? Over here in downtown? All the jewelry? Negotiable bonds, stock certificates, maybe drugs?”

Bosch heard the reporter’s voice go up a notch in urgency. He had been right, it had been a tunnel and the story had played well. If Bremmer was this interested, then it was a substantial case. Still, Bosch was surprised he had not heard of it after coming back to work in October.

“Yeah, that’s the one,” he said. “I was gone then, so I missed it. Ever any arrests?”

“No, it’s open. FBI’s doing it, last I checked.”

“I want to look at the clips on it tonight. Is that all right?”

“I’ll make copies. When are you coming?”

“I’ll head over in a little while.”

“I take it this has got something to do with this morning’s stiff?”

“It’s looking that way. Maybe. I can’t talk right now. And I know the feebees have the case. I’ll go see them tomorrow. That’s why I want to see the clips tonight.”

“I’ll be here.”

After hanging up the phone, Bosch looked down at the FBI photocopy of the bracelet. There was no doubt it was the piece that had been pawned by Meadows and was in Obinna’s Polaroid. The bracelet in the FBI photo was in place on a woman’s liver-spotted wrist. Three small carved fish swimming on a wave of gold. Bosch guessed it was Harriet Beecham’s seventy-one-year-old wrist and the photo had probably been taken for insurance purposes. He looked over at the duty detective, who was still leafing through the gun catalog. He coughed loudly like he had seen Nicholson do in a movie once and at the same time tore the BOLO sheet out of the binder. The kid detective looked over at Bosch and then went back to the guns and bullets.

As he folded the BOLO sheet into his pocket, Bosch’s electronic pager went off. He picked up the phone and called Hollywood Station, expecting to be told there was another body waiting for him. It was a watch sergeant named Art Crocket, whom everyone called Davey, who took the call.

“Harry, you still out in the field?” he said.

“I’m at Parker Center. Had to check on a few things.”

“Good, then you’re already near the morgue. A tech over there name of Sakai called, said he needs to see you.”

“See me?”

“He said to tell you that something came up and they’re doing your cut today. Right now, matter of fact.”

***

It took Bosch five minutes to get over to County-USC Hospital and fifteen minutes to find a parking spot. The medical examiner’s office was located behind one of the medical center buildings that had been condemned after the ’87 earthquake. It was a two-story yellow prefab without much architectural style or life. As Bosch was going through the glass doors where the living people entered and into the front lobby, he passed a sheriff’s detective he had spent some time with while working the Night Stalker task force in the early eighties.

“Hey, Bernie,” Bosch said and smiled.

“Hey, fuck you, Bosch,” Bernie said. “The rest of us catch ones that count, too.”

Bosch stopped there a moment to watch the detective walk into the parking lot. Then he went in and to the right, down a government-green corridor, passing through two sets of double doors-the smell getting worse each time. It was the smell of death and industrial-strength disinfectant. Death had the upper hand. Bosch stepped into the yellow-tiled scrub room. Larry Sakai was in there, putting a paper gown over his hospital scrubs. He already had on a paper mask and booties. Bosch took a set of the same out of cardboard boxes on a stainless steel counter and started putting them on.

“What’s with Bernie Slaughter?” Bosch asked. “What happened in here to piss him off?”

“You’re what happened, Bosch,” Sakai said without looking at him. “He got a call out yesterday morning. Some sixteen-year-old shoots his best friend. Up in Lancaster. Looks like accidental but Bernie’s waiting on us to check the bullet track and powder stippling. He wants to close it. I told him we’d get to it late today, so he came in. Only we aren’t going to get to it at all today. ’Cause Sally’s got a bug up his ass about doing yours. Don’t ask me why. He just checked the stiff out when I brought it in and said we’d do it today. I told him we’d have to bump somebody, and he said bump Bernie. But I couldn’t get him on the line in time to stop him from coming in. So that’s why Bernie’s pissed. You know he lives all the way down to Diamond Bar. Long ride in for nothing.”

Bosch had the mask, gown and booties on and followed Sakai down the tiled hall to the autopsy suite. “Then maybe he ought to be pissed at Sally, not me,” he said.

Sakai didn’t answer. They walked to the first table, where Billy Meadows lay on his back, naked, his neck braced against a short cut of two-by-four wood. There were six of the stainless steel tables in the room. Each had gutters running alongside its edges and drain holes in the corners. There was a body on each. Dr. Jesus Salazar was huddled over Meadows’s chest with his back to Bosch and Sakai.