A Darkness More Than Night - Michael Connelly [127]
“Let me see.”
He walked over and looked at the framed photo. “You know, you’re right, that’s Harry. I must’ve been in the one they took the year before. I was working undercover when they took this one and couldn’t be in the picture.”
McCaleb nonchalantly took a step toward the door. Inside he was bracing to get hit with the bat.
“Just tell him I was here, okay? Tell him Terry stopped by.”
He made it to the door but one last framed photo caught his eye. It showed Tafero and another man side by side, jointly holding a polished wood plaque in their hands. The picture was old, Tafero looked almost ten years younger. His eyes were brighter and his smile seemed genuine. The plaque itself was hanging on the wall next to the photo. McCaleb leaned closer and read the brass plate attached at the bottom.
RUDY TAFERO
HOLLYWOOD BOOSTERS DETECTIVE OF THE MONTH
FEBRUARY 1995
He glanced back at the photo again and then moved through the door to the front room.
“Terry what?” the man said as he passed.
McCaleb walked to the front door before turning back to him.
“Just tell him it was Terry, the undercover guy.”
He left the office and walked back up the street without looking back.
• • •
McCaleb sat in his car in front of the post office. He felt uneasy, the way he always did when he knew the answer was within reach but he just couldn’t quite see it. His gut told him he was on the right track. Tafero, the PI who hid his upscale Hollywood practice behind a bail bonds shack, was the key. McCaleb just couldn’t find the door.
He realized he was very hungry. He started the car and thought about a place to eat. He was a few blocks from Musso’s but had eaten there too recently. He wondered if they served food at Nat’s but figured if they did that it would be dangerous to the stomach. Instead, he drove over to the In ’n Out on Sunset and ordered at the drive-through.
While he was eating his hamburger over the to-go box in the Cherokee, his phone chirped. He put the burger down in the box, wiped his hands on a napkin and opened the phone.
“You’re a genius.”
It was Jaye Winston.
“What?”
“Tafero got a ticket on his Mercedes. A black four-thirty C-L-K. He was in the fifteen-minute zone right in front of the post office. The ticket was written at eight-nineteen A.M. on the twenty-second. He hasn’t paid it yet. He has till five today and then it’s overdue.”
McCaleb was silent as he considered this. He felt nerve synapses firing like dominoes running up his backbone. The ticket was a hell of a break. It proved absolutely nothing but it told him that he was following the correct path. And sometimes knowing you were on the right path was better than having the proof.
His thoughts jumped to his visit to Tafero’s office and the photographs he had seen.
“Hey, Jaye, did you get a chance to look up anything on the case with Bosch’s old lieutenant?”
“I didn’t have to go looking. Twilley and Friedman already had a file on it with them today. Lieutenant Harvey Pounds. Somebody beat him to death about four weeks after he had that altercation with Bosch over Gunn. Because of the bad blood Bosch was a likely suspect. But he apparently was cleared — by the LAPD at least. The case is open but inactive. The bureau kind of watched from afar and has kept an open file, too. Twilley told me today that there are some people in the LAPD who think Bosch was cleared on it a little too quickly.”
“Oh, and I bet Twilley loves that.”
“He does. He already has Bosch down for it. He thinks Gunn is only the tip of the iceberg with Harry.”
McCaleb shook his head but immediately moved on. He couldn’t dwell on other peoples’ foibles and motivations. There was a lot to think about and plan for with the investigation at hand.
“By the way, do you have a copy of the parking ticket?” he asked.
“Not yet. It was all phone work. But it’s being faxed. The thing is, you and I know what it means but it’s a long way off from being proof of anything.”
“I know. But it will make a good prop when the time comes.”