A Darkness More Than Night - Michael Connelly [110]
McCaleb watched Bosch’s dark eyes scan across the harbor.
“And the mainland Indians thought of the ones out here as these fierce wizards who could control weather and waves through worship and sacrifices to their God. I mean, they had to be fierce and strong to be able to cross the bay so they could trade their pottery and sealskins on the mainland.”
McCaleb studied Bosch, trying to get a bead on the message he was sure the detective was trying to convey.
“What are you saying, Harry?”
Bosch shrugged his shoulders.
“I don’t know. I guess I’m saying that people find God where they need Him to be. In the sun, in a new baby’s eyes . . . in a new heart.”
He looked at McCaleb, his eyes as dark and as unreadable as the painted owl’s.
“And some people,” McCaleb began, “find their salvation in truth, in justice, in that which is righteous.”
Now Bosch nodded and offered his crooked smile again.
“That sounds good.”
He turned and started the engine with one pull. He then mock saluted McCaleb and pulled away, angling the rental boat back toward the pier. Not knowing the etiquette of the harbor, he cut across the fairway and between unused mooring buoys. He didn’t look back. McCaleb watched him all the way. A man all alone on the water in an old wooden boat. And in that thought came a question. Was he thinking about Bosch or himself?
30
On the ferry ride back Bosch bought a Coke at the concession stand and hoped it would settle his stomach and prevent seasickness. He asked one of the stewards where the steadiest ride on the boat was and he was directed to one of the middle seats on the inside. He sat down and drank some of the Coke, then pulled the folded pages he had printed in McCaleb’s office out of his jacket pocket.
He had printed two files before he had seen McCaleb approaching in the Zodiac. One was titled SCENE PROFILE and the other was called SUBJECT PROFILE. He had folded them into his jacket and disconnected the portable printer from the laptop before McCaleb entered the boat. He’d only had time to glance at them on the computer and now began a thorough reading.
He took the scene profile first. It was only one page. It was incomplete and appeared to be simply a listing of McCaleb’s rough notes and impressions from the crime scene video.
Still, it gave an insight into how McCaleb worked. It showed how his observations of a scene turned into observations about a suspect.
SCENE
Ligature
Nude
Head wound
Tape/gag — “Cave”?
Bucket?
Owl — watching over?
* * *
highly organized
detail oriented
statement — the scene is his statement
he was there — he watched (the owl?)
exposure = victim humiliation
= victim hatred, contempt
bucket — remorse?
killer — prior knowledge of victim
personal knowledge — previous interaction
personal hatred
killer inside the wire
what is the statement?
Bosch reread the page and then thought about it. Though he did not have full knowledge of the crime scene from which McCaleb’s notes were drawn, he was impressed by the leaps in logic McCaleb had made. He had carefully gone down the ladder to the point where he concluded that Gunn’s killer was someone he knew, that it was someone who would be found inside the perimeter wire that circled Gunn’s existence. It was an important distinction to make in any case. Investigative priorities were usually set upon the determination of whether the suspect being sought had intersected with the victim only at the point of the killing or before. McCaleb’s read on the nuances of the scene were that the killer was someone known to Gunn, that there was a prelude to this final and fatal crossing of killer and victim.
The second page continued the listing of shorthand notes that Bosch assumed McCaleb planned to turn into a fleshed-out profile. As he read he realized