The Black Echo

“Lieutenant, I didn’t say one thing,” Edgar began. “I-”

“Shut up! Everybody! Shut up a minute,” Pounds barked. “Jesus Christ! Edgar, for the record, these two are from Internal Affairs, if you didn’t already know, Detectives Lewis and Clarke. What this is-”

“I want a lawyer,” Bosch said.

“Me too, I guess,” added Edgar.

“Oh, bullshit,” Pounds said. “We are going to talk about this and get some things straight, and we aren’t bringing any Police Protective League bullshit into it. If you want a lawyer, you get one later. Right now you are going to sit here, the both of you, and answer some questions. If not, Edgar, you are going to be bounced out of that eight-hundred-dollar suit and back into uniform, and Bosch, shit, Bosch, you’ll probably go down for the count this time.”

For a few moments there was silence in the small room, even though the tension among the five men threatened to shatter the windows. Pounds looked out at the squad room and saw about a dozen detectives acting as if they were working but who were actually trying to pick up whatever they could through the glass. Some had been attempting to read the lieutenant’s lips. He got up and lowered a set of venetian blinds over the windows. He rarely did this. It was a signal to the squad that this was big. Even Edgar showed his concern, audibly exhaling. Pounds sat back down. He tapped a long fingernail on the blue plastic binder that lay closed on his desk.

“Okay, now let’s get down to it,” he began. “You two guys are off the Meadows case. That’s number one. No questions, you’re done. Now, from the top, you are going to tell us anything and everything.”

At that, Lewis snapped open a briefcase and pulled out a cassette tape recorder. He turned it on and put it on Pounds’s spotless desk.

Bosch had been partnered with Edgar only eight months. He didn’t know him well enough to know how he would take this kind of bullying, or how far he could hold out against these bastards. But he did know him well enough to know he liked him and didn’t want him to get jammed up. His only sin in this whole thing was that he had wanted Sunday afternoon off to sell houses.

“This is bullshit,” Bosch said, pointing to the recorder.

“Turn that off,” Pounds said to Lewis, pointing to the recorder, which was actually closer to him than to Lewis. The Internal Affairs detective stood up and picked up the recorder. He turned it off, hit the rewind button and replaced it on the desk.

After Lewis sat back down Pounds said, “Jesus Christ, Bosch, the FBI calls me today and tells me they’ve got you as a possible suspect in a goddam bank heist. They say this Meadows was a suspect in the same job, and by virtue of that you should now be considered a suspect in the Meadows kill. You think we aren’t going to ask questions about that?”

Edgar was exhaling louder now. He was hearing this for the first time.

“Keep the tape off and we’ll talk,” Bosch said. Pounds contemplated that for a moment and said, “For now, no tape. Tell us.”

“First off, Edgar doesn’t know shit about this. We made a deal yesterday. I take the Meadows case and he goes home. He does the wrap-up on Spivey, the TV stabbed the night before. This FBI stuff, the bank job, he doesn’t know for shit. Let him go.”

Pounds seemed to make a point of not looking at Lewis or Clarke or Edgar. He’d make this decision on his own. It produced a slight glimmer of respect in Bosch, like a candle set out in the eye of a hurricane of incompetence. Pounds opened his desk drawer and pulled out an old wooden ruler. He fiddled with it with both hands. He finally looked at Edgar.

“That right, what Bosch says?”

Edgar nodded.

“You know it makes him look bad, like he was trying to keep the case for himself, conceal the connections from you?”

“He told me he knew Meadows. He was up front all the way. It was a Sunday. We weren’t going to get anybody to come out and take it off us on account of him knowing the guy twenty years ago. Besides, most of the people who end up dead in Hollywood the police have known one way or the other. This stuff about the bank and all, he must’ve found out after I left. I’m finding it all out sitting here.”

“Okay,” Pounds said. “You got any of the paper on this one?”

Edgar shook his head.

“Okay, finish up what you’ve got on the-what did you call it?-Spivey, yeah, the Spivey case. I’m assigning you a new partner. I don’t know who, but I’ll let you know. Okay, go on, that’s all.”

Edgar let out one more audible breath and stood up.

***

Harvey “Ninety-eight” Pounds let things settle in the room for a few moments after Edgar left. Bosch wanted a cigarette badly, even to just hold one unlit in his mouth. But he wouldn’t show them such a weakness.

“Okay, Bosch,” Pounds said. “Anything you want to tell us about all this?”

“Yeah. It’s bullshit.”

Clarke smirked. Bosch paid no mind. But Pounds gave the IAD detective a withering look that further increased his stock of respect with Bosch.