"The Last Coyote" - читать интересную книгу автора (Connelly Michael)

Chapter Six

THE MIDDAY DRIVE out to Santa Monica was long. Bosch had to take the long way, the 101 to the 405 and then down, because the 10 was still a week away from being reopened. By the time he got into Sunset Park it was after three. The house he was looking for was on Pier Street. It was a small Craftsman bungalow set on the crest of a hill. It had a full porch with red bougainvillea running along the railing. He checked the address painted on the mailbox against the envelope that contained the old Christmas card on the seat next to him. He parked at the curb and looked at the card once more. It had been addressed to him five years earlier, care of the LAPD. He had never responded to it. Not until now.

As he got out he could smell the sea and guessed that there might be a limited ocean view from the house’s western windows. It was about ten degrees cooler than it had been at his home and so he reached back into his car for the sport coat. He walked to the front porch while putting it on.

The woman who answered the white door after one knock was in her mid-sixties and looked it. She was thin, with dark hair, but the gray roots were beginning to show and she was ready for another dye job. She wore thick red lipstick, a white silk blouse with blue seahorses on it over navy blue slacks. She readily smiled a greeting and Bosch recognized her, but he could see that his own image was completely alien to her. It had been almost thirty-five years since she had seen him. He smiled back anyway.

“Meredith Roman?”

She lost her smile as quickly as she had found it before.

“That’s not my name,” she said in a clipped tone. “You have the wrong place.”

She moved to close the door but Bosch put his hand on it to stop her. He tried to be as unthreatening about it as he could. But he could see panic starting in her eyes.

“It’s Harry Bosch?” he said quickly.

She froze and looked Bosch in the eyes. He saw the panic go away. Recognition and memories flooded her eyes like tears. The smile came back.

“Harry? Little Harry?”

He nodded.

“Oh, darling, c’mere.” She drew him into a tight hug and talked in his ear. “Oh, so good to see you after-let me look at you.”

She pushed him back and held her hands wide as if appraising a roomful of paintings at once. Her eyes were animated and sincere. It made Bosch feel good and sad at the same time. He shouldn’t have waited so long. He should have visited for reasons other than the one that brought him here now.

“Oh, come in, Harry. Come in.”

Bosch entered a nicely furnished living room. The floor was red oak and the stucco walls were clean and white. The furniture was mostly matching white rattan. The place was light and bright but Bosch knew he was there to bring darkness.

“Meredith is no longer your name?”

“No, Harry, not for a long time.”

“What do I call you?”

“My name is Katherine. With a K. Katherine Register. Spelled like the cash register but you pronounce it ree as in reefer. That’s what my husband used to say. Boy, he was so straight. Outside of me the closest that man ever came to something illegal was to say the word.”

“He used to say that?”

“Have a seat, Harry, for crying out loud. Yes, used to. He passed away five years ago last Thanksgiving.”

Bosch sat down on the couch and she took the chair across the glass coffee table.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, you didn’t know. You never even knew him and I’ve been a different person for a long time. Can I get you something? Some coffee or maybe something stronger?”

It occurred to him that she had sent him the card on the Christmas soon after her husband’s death. He was hit with another wave of guilt for not having responded.

“Harry?”

“Oh, uh, no, I’m fine. I…do you want me to call you by your new name?”

She started laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation and he joined in.

“Call me any damn thing you want.” She laughed girlishly, a laugh he remembered from a long time before. “It’s great to see you. You know, to see how, uh…”

“I turned out?”

She laughed again.

“I guess so. You know, I knew you were with the police because I had read your name in some of the news stories.”

“I know you knew. I got the Christmas card you sent to the station. That must have been right after your husband died. I, uh, I’m sorry I never wrote back or visited. I should have.”

“That’s okay, Harry, I know you’re busy with the job and a career and all…I’m glad you got my card. Do you have a family?”

“Uh, no. How about you? Any children?”

“Oh, no. No children. You have a wife, don’t you, a handsome man like you.”

“No, I’m alone right now.”

She nodded, seeming to sense that he wasn’t here to reveal his personal history to her anyway. For a long moment they just both looked at each other and Bosch wondered what she really thought of his being a cop. The initial delight in seeing each other was descending into the uneasiness that comes when old secrets come close to the surface.

“I guess…”

He didn’t finish the thought. He was grappling for a way into the conversation. His interviewing skills had deserted him.

“You know, if it’s not too much trouble, I’d take a glass of water.” It was all he could think of.

“Be right back.”

She got up quickly and went to the kitchen. He heard her getting ice out of a tray. It gave him time to think. It had taken him an hour to drive to her house but he hadn’t given one thought to what this would be like or how he would get to what he wanted to say and ask. She came back in a few minutes with a glass of ice water. She handed it to him and put a round coaster made of cork on the glass-topped coffee table in front of him.

“If you’re hungry, I can bring out some crackers and cheese. I just didn’t know how much time you-”

“No, I’m fine. This is great, thanks.”

He saluted her with the glass and drank half of it, then put it down on the table.

“Harry, use the coaster. Getting rings out of the glass is murder.” Bosch looked down at what he had done.

“Oh, sorry.”

He corrected the placement of his glass.

“You’re a detective.”

“Yes. I work in Hollywood now…Uh, but I’m not really working right now. I’m on sort of a vacation.”

“Oh, that must be nice.”

Her spirits seemed to lift, as if she knew there was a chance he was not here on business. Bosch knew it was time to get to the point.

“Uh, Mer-uh, Katherine, I need to ask you about something.”

“What is it, Harry?”

“I look around here and I see you have a very nice home, a different name, a different life. You’re no longer Meredith Roman and I know you don’t need me to tell you that. You’ve got…I think what I’m saying is the past may be a difficult thing to talk about. I know it is for me. And, believe me, I don’t want to hurt you in any way.”

“You’re here to talk about your mother.”

He nodded and looked down at the glass on the cork coaster.

“Your mother and I were best friends. Sometimes I think I had almost as much a hand in raising you as she did. Until they took you away from her. From us.”

He looked back up at her. Her eyes were looking hard at distant memories.

“I don’t think a day goes by that I don’t think about her. We were just kids. Having a good time, you know. We never thought either of us could get hurt.”

She suddenly stood up.

“Harry, come here. I want to show you something.”

He followed her down a carpeted hallway and into a bedroom. There was a four-poster bed with light blue coverings, an oak bureau and matching bedside tables. Katherine Register pointed to the bureau. There were several photos in ornate stand-up frames on top. Most of them were of Katherine and a man who seemed much older than she was in the photos. Her husband, Bosch guessed. But she pointed to one that was to the right side of the grouping. The photo was old, its color faded. It was a picture of two young women with a tiny boy of three or four.

“I’ve always had that there, Harry. Even when my husband was alive. He knew my past. I told him. It didn’t matter. We had twenty-three great years together. You see, the past is what you make of it. You can use it to hurt yourself or others or you can use it to make yourself strong. I’m strong, Harry. Now, tell me why you came to visit me today.”

Bosch reached for the framed photo and picked it up.

“I want…” He looked up from the photo to her. “I’m going to find out who killed her.”

An undecipherable look froze on her face for a moment and then she wordlessly took the frame out of his hands and put it back on the bureau. Then she pulled him into another deep embrace, her head against his chest. He could see himself holding her in the mirror over the bureau. When she pulled back and looked up at him he saw the tears were already down her cheeks. There was a slight tremor in her lower lip.

“Let’s go sit down,” he said.

She pulled two tissues out of a box on the bureau and he led her back to the living room and to her chair.

“Do you want me to get you some water?”

“No, I’m fine. I’ll stop crying, I’m sorry.”

She wiped at her eyes with the tissues. He sat back down on the couch.

“We used to say we were the two musketeers, both for one and one for both. It was stupid, but it was because we were so young and so close.”

“I’m starting from scratch with it, Katherine. I pulled the old files on the investigation. It-”

She made a dismissing sound and shook her head.

“There was no investigation. It was a joke.”

“That’s my sense of it, too, but I don’t understand why.”

“Look, Harry, you know what your mother was.” He nodded and she continued. “She was a party girl. We both were. I’m sure you know that’s the polite way of saying it. And the cops really didn’t care that one of us ended up dead. They just wrote the whole damn thing off. I know you’re a policeman now, but that’s the way it was then. They just didn’t care about her.”

“I understand. Things probably are not too much different now, believe it or not. But there has to have been more to it than that.”

“Harry, I don’t know how much you want to know about your mother.”

He looked at her.

“The past made me strong, too. I can handle it.”

“I’m sure it did…I remember that place where they put you. McEvoy or something like-”

“McClaren.”

“That’s it, McClaren. What a depressing place. Your mother would come home from visiting you and just sit down and cry her eyes out.”

“Don’t change the subject, Katherine. What is it I should know about her?”

She nodded but hesitated for a moment before continuing.

“Mar knew some policemen. You understand?”

He nodded.

“We both did. It was the way it worked. You had to get along to go along. That’s what we called it anyway. And when you have that situation and she ends up dead, it’s usually best for the cops to just sweep it under the rug. Let sleeping dogs lie, as they say. You pick the cliché. They just didn’t want anyone embarrassed.”

“Are you saying you think it was a cop?”

“No. I’m not saying that at all. I have no idea who did it, Harry. I’m sorry. I wish I did. But what I’m saying is, I think those two detectives that were assigned to investigate this knew where it could lead. And they weren’t going to go that way because they knew what was good for them in the department. They weren’t stupid in that way and like I said, she was a party girl. They didn’t care. Nobody did. She got killed and that was that.”

Bosch looked around the room, not sure what to ask next.

“Do you know who the policemen she knew were?”

“It was a long time ago.”

“You knew some of the same policemen, didn’t you?”

“Yes. I had to. That was the way it worked. You used your contacts to keep you out of jail. Everybody was for sale. Back then, at least. Different people wanted different forms of payment. Some of them, money. Some of them, other things.”

“It said in the mur-the file that you never had a record.”

“Yes, I was lucky. I was picked up a few times but never booked once. They always turned me loose once I could make a call. I kept a clean record because I knew a lot of policemen, honey. You understand?”

“Yes, I understand.”

She didn’t look away when she said it. All these years in the straight life and she still had a whore’s pride. She could talk about the low points of her life without flinching or batting an eye. It was because she had made it through and there was dignity in that. Enough to last the rest of her life.

“Do you mind if I smoke, Harry?”

“No, not if I can.”

They took out cigarettes and Bosch got up to light them.

“You can use that ashtray on the side table. Try not to get ashes on the rug.”

She pointed to a small glass bowl on the table at the other end of the couch. Bosch reached over for it and then held it with one hand while he smoked with the other. He looked down into it as he spoke.

“The policemen you knew,” he said, “and who she probably knew, you don’t remember any names?”

“I said it was a long time ago. And I doubt they had anything to do with this, with what happened to your mother.”

“Irvin S. Irving. Do you remember that name?”

She hesitated a moment as the name rolled around in her mind.

“I knew him. I think she did, too. He was on the beat on the Boulevard. I think it would have been hard for her not to know him…but I don’t know. I could be wrong.”

Bosch nodded.

“He was the one who found her.”

She hiked her shoulders in a what’s-that-prove gesture.

“Well, somebody had to find her. She was left out there in the open like that.”

“What about a couple of vice guys, Gilchrist and Stano?”

She hesitated before answering.

“Yes, I knew them…they were mean men.”

“Would my mother have known them? In that way?”

She nodded.

“What do you mean that they were mean? In what way?”

“They just…they just didn’t care about us. If they wanted something, whether it was a little piece of information you might have picked up on a date or something more…personal, they just came and took it. They could be rough. I hated them.”

“Did they-”

“But could they have been killers? My feeling at the time, and now, is no. They weren’t killers, Harry. They were cops. True, they were bought and paid for, but it seemed everybody was. But it wasn’t like it is today where you read the paper and you see some cop on trial for killing or beating or whatever. It’s-sorry.”

“It’s okay. Anybody else you can think of?”

“No.”

“No names?”

“I put that all out of my mind a long time ago.”

“Okay.”

Bosch wanted to take out his notebook but he didn’t want to make this seem like an interview. He tried to remember what else he had read in the murder book that he could ask about.

“What about this guy Johnny Fox?”

“Yes, I told those detectives about him. They got all excited but then nothing ever happened. He was never arrested.”

“I think he was. But then he was let go. His fingerprints didn’t match the killer’s.”

She raised her eyebrows.

“Well, that’s news to me. They never told me anything about any fingerprints.”

“On your second interview-with McKittrick, you remember him?”

“Not really. I just remember that there were police, you know? Two detectives. One was smarter than the other, that’s what I remember. But I don’t remember which one was which. It seemed like the dumber one was in charge and that was par for the course in those days.”

“Well, anyway, McKittrick talked to you the second time. In his report he said you changed your story and you told about this party in Hancock Park.”

“Yes, the party. I didn’t go because that…Johnny Fox hit me the night before and I had a bruise on my cheek. It was gorgeous. I played around with makeup but I couldn’t do anything about the swelling. Believe me there wasn’t much business in Hancock Park for a party girl with a knot on her face.”

“Who was having the party?”

“I don’t remember. I don’t know if I even knew whose party it was.”

Something about the way she answered bothered Bosch. Her tone had changed and it came across as almost a rehearsed answer.

“Are you sure don’t remember?”

“Of course, I’m sure.” Katherine stood up. “I think I’m going to get some water now.”

She took his glass to refill and left the room again. Bosch realized that his familiarity with the woman, his emotion in seeing her again after so long, had blocked most of his investigative instincts. He had no feel for the truth. He could not tell whether there was more to what she was telling him or not. He decided he had to somehow steer the conversation back to the party. He thought she knew more than she had said all those years ago.

She came back with two glasses filled with ice water and placed his back down on the cork coaster. Something about the way she was so careful about putting the glass down gave him a knowledge about her that had not come through in her spoken words. It was simply that she had worked hard to attain the level she was at in life. That position and the material things it brought with it-like glass coffee tables and plush carpets-meant a lot to her and were to be taken care of.

She took a long drink from her glass after sitting down.

“Let me tell you something, Harry,” she said. “I didn’t tell them everything. I didn’t lie, but I didn’t tell them everything. I was afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

“I became afraid on the day they found her. You see, I’d gotten a call that morning. Before I even knew what had happened to her. It was a man, but a voice I didn’t recognize. He told me if I said anything I would be next. I remember, he said, ‘My advice to you, little lady, is to get the hell out of Dodge.’ Then, of course, I heard the police were in the building and had gone to her apartment. Then I heard she was dead. So I did what I was told. I left. I waited about a week until the police said they were done with me, then I moved to Long Beach. I changed my name, changed my life. I met my husband down there and then years later we moved here…You know, I’ve never been back to Hollywood, not even to drive through. It’s an awful place.”

“What was it that you didn’t tell Eno and McKittrick?”

Katherine looked down at her hands as she spoke.

“I was afraid, you see, so I didn’t tell everything…but I knew who she was going to see there, at the party. We were like sisters. Lived in the same building, shared clothes, secrets, everything. We talked every morning, had our coffee together. We had no secrets between us. And we were going to go to the party together. Of course, after that…after Johnny hit me, she had to go alone.”

“Who was she going to meet there, Katherine?” Bosch prompted.

“You see that is the right question but the detectives never asked that. They only wanted to know whose party it was and where it was. That didn’t matter. What was important was who was she going to meet there and they never asked that.”

“Who was it?”

She looked away from her hands and to the fireplace. She stared at the cold, blackened logs left from an old fire the way some people stare mesmerized by a burning fire.

“It was a man named Arno Conklin. He was a very important man in the-”

“I know who he was.”

“You do?”

“His name came up in the records. But not that way. How could you not tell the cops this?”

She turned and looked at him sharply.

“Don’t you look at me that way. I told you I was scared. I’d been threatened. And they wouldn’t have done anything with it anyway. They were bought and paid for by Conklin. They wouldn’t go near him on just the word of a…call girl who didn’t see anything but knew a name. I had to think of myself. Your mother was dead, Harry. There was nothing I could do about it.”

He could see the sharp edges of anger in her eyes. He knew it was directed at him but more toward herself. She could list all her reasons out loud but inside Bosch thought she paid a price every day for not having done the right thing.

“You think Conklin did it?”

“I don’t know. All I know is that she’d been with him before and there was never anything violent. I don’t know the answer to that.”

“Any idea now who called you?”

“No, none.”

“Conklin?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t know his voice anyway.”

“Did you ever see them together, my mother and him?”

“Once, at a dance at the Masonic. I think it was the night they met. Johnny Fox introduced them. I don’t think Arno knew…anything about her. At least, then.”

“Could it have been Fox who called you?”

“No. I would’ve recognized his voice.”

Bosch thought a moment.

“Did you ever see Fox again after that morning?”

“No. I avoided him for a week. It was easy because I think he was hiding from the cops. But after that I was gone. Whoever called me, he put the fear of God in me. I left town for Long Beach the day the cops said they were done with me. Packed one suitcase and took the bus…I remember, your mother had some of my clothes in her apartment. Things that she had borrowed. I didn’t even bother to try to get them. I just took what I had and left.”

Bosch was silent. He had nothing else to ask.

“I think about those days a lot, you know,” Katherine said. “We were in the gutter, your mother and I, but we were good friends and we had fun in spite of it all.”

“You know, all my memories…you’re in a lot of them. You were always there with her.”

“We had a lot of laughs in spite of everything,” she said wistfully. “And you, you were the highlight of it all. You know, when they took you away from her, it nearly killed her right then…She never stopped trying to get you back, Harry. I hope you know that. She loved you. I loved you.”

“Yes, I know that.”

“But after you were gone, she wasn’t the same. Sometimes I think what happened to her was sort of inevitable. Sometimes I think it was like she had been heading toward that alley for a long time beforehand.”

Bosch stood up, looking at the sorrow in her eyes.

“I better go. I’ll let you know what happens.”

“I’d like that. I’d like to stay in touch.”

“I’d like that, too.”

He headed toward the door knowing that they wouldn’t stay in touch. Time had eroded the bond between them. They were strangers who shared the same story. On the outside step he turned and looked back at her.

“The Christmas card you sent. You wanted me to look into this back then, didn’t you?”

She brought out the faraway smile again.

“I don’t know. My husband had just died and I was taking stock, you know? I thought about her. And you. I’m proud of how I turned out, Little Harry. So I think about what there could have been for her and you. I’m still mad. Whoever did this should…”

She didn’t finish but Bosch nodded.

“Good-bye, Harry.”

“You know, my mother, she had a good friend.”

“I hope so.”