The Black Echo

“Of course. Yes. But just as a cover for the real thing they wanted. The bracelet. Way I see it, Meadows was killed because whoever killed him wanted the bracelet. He was tortured before he was murdered because they wanted to know where it was. They got what they needed, killed him, then went and got the bracelet. Mind if I smoke?”

“Yes, I do. What could be so important about one bracelet? This bracelet is only a drop in the bucket of what was taken, of what hasn’t ever turned up.”

Bosch had thought of that and didn’t have an answer. He said, “I don’t know.”

“If he was tortured as you say, why was the pawn ticket there for you to find? And why did they have to break into the pawnshop? You’re suggesting that he told them where the bracelet was but didn’t give up the ticket?”

Bosch had thought about this, too. He said, “I don’t know. Maybe he knew they wouldn’t let him live. So he only gave them half of what they needed. He kept something back. It was a clue. He left the pawn stub behind as a clue.”

Bosch thought about the scenario. He had first begun to put it together when rereading his notes and the reports he had typed. He decided it was time to play one more card.

“I knew Meadows twenty years ago.”

“You knew this victim, Detective Bosch?” Her voice was louder now, accusatory. “Why didn’t you say that when you first came in here? Since when does the LAPD allow its detectives to go around investigating the deaths of their friends?”

“I didn’t say that. I said I knew him. Twenty years ago. And I didn’t ask for the case. It was my turn in the bucket. I got the call out. It was…”

He didn’t want to say coincidence.

“This is all very interesting,” Wish said. “It is also irregular. We-I’m not sure we can help you. I think-”

“Look, when I knew him, it was with the U.S. Army, First Infantry in Vietnam. Okay? We were both there. He was what they called a tunnel rat. Do you know what that means?… I was one too.”

Wish said nothing. She was looking down at the bracelet again. Bosch had totally forgotten about Gray Suit.

“The Vietnamese had tunnels under their villages,” Bosch said. “Some were a century old. The tunnels went from hootch to hootch, village to village, jungle to jungle. They were under some of our own camps, everywhere. And that was our job, the tunnel soldiers, to go down into those things. There was a whole other war under the ground.”

Bosch realized that aside from a shrink and a circle group at the VA in Sepulveda he had never told anyone about the tunnels and what he did.

“And Meadows, he was good at it. As much as you could like going down into that blackness with just a flashlight and a.45, well, he did. Sometimes we’d go down and it would take hours, and sometimes it would take days. And Meadows, well, he was the only one I ever knew over there that wasn’t scared of going down there. It was life above ground that scared him.”

She didn’t say anything. Bosch looked over at Gray Suit, who was writing on a yellow tablet Bosch couldn’t read. Bosch heard someone report on the tac channel that he was transporting two prisoners to the Metro lockup.

“So now twenty years later you’ve got a tunnel caper and I’ve got a dead tunnel fighter. He was found in a pipe, a tunnel. He had property from your caper.” Bosch felt around in his pockets for his cigarettes, then remembered she had said no. “We have to work together on this one. Right now.”

He knew by her face it hadn’t worked. He emptied his coffee cup, ready for the door. He didn’t look at Wish now. He heard Gray Suit pick up the phone again and punch a number out. He stared down at the residue of sugar in the bottom of his cup. He hated sugar in his coffee.

“Detective Bosch,” Wish began, “I am sorry you had to wait in the hall so long this morning. I am sorry this fellow soldier you knew, Meadows, is dead. Whether it was twenty years ago or not, I am. I have sympathy for him, and you, and what you may have had to go through… But I am also sorry that I can’t help you at the moment. I will have to follow established protocol and talk to my supervisor. I will get back to you. As soon as possible. That is all I can do at the moment.”

Bosch dropped the cup into a trash can next to her desk and reached over to pick up the Polaroid and the bulletin page.

“Can we keep the photo here?” Agent Wish asked. “I need to show it to my supervisor.”

Bosch kept the Polaroid. He got up and stepped in front of Gray Suit’s desk. He held the Polaroid up to the man’s face. “He’s seen it,” he said over his shoulder as he walked out of the office.

***