A Darkness More Than Night - Michael Connelly [132]
“Did you ever have sex with them?”
Annabelle Crowe looked down at her hands and shook her head.
“Are you saying no, Ms. Crowe?”
“I am saying that I didn’t have sex with them every time they gave me money. They didn’t give me money every time we had sex. One thing had nothing to do with the other. You are trying to make it look like something it’s not.”
“I’m just asking questions, Ms. Crowe. As it is my job to do. As it is your job to tell this jury the truth.”
After a long pause Fowkkes said he had no further questions.
Bosch realized that he had been gripping the arms of his chair so tightly that his knuckles were white and had gone numb. He rubbed his hands together and tried to relax but he couldn’t. He knew that Fowkkes was a master, a cut-and-run artist. He was brief and to the point and as devastating as a stiletto. Bosch realized that his discomfort was not only for Annabelle Crowe’s helpless position and public humiliation. But for his own position. He knew the stiletto would be pointed at him next.
40
They settled into a booth at Nat’s after getting bottles of Rolling Rock from the bartender with the tattoo of the barbed-wire-wrapped heart. While she pulled the bottles from the cold case and opened them, the woman hadn’t said anything about McCaleb having come in the other night asking questions about the man he had now returned with. It was early and the place was empty except for groups of hard-cores at the bar and crowded into the booth all the way to the rear. Bruce Springsteen was on the jukebox singing, “There’s a darkness on the edge of town.”
McCaleb studied Bosch. He thought he looked preoccupied by something, probably the trial. The last witness had been a wash at best. Good on direct, bad on cross. The kind of witness you don’t use — if you have the choice.
“Looked like you guys got sandbagged there with your wit.”
Bosch nodded.
“My fault. I should’ve seen it coming. I looked at her and thought she was so beautiful she couldn’t possibly . . . I just believed her.”
“I know what you mean.”
“Last time I trust a face.”
“You guys still look like you’re in good shape. What else you got coming?”
Bosch smirked.
“That’s it. They were going to rest today but decided to wait until the morning so Fowkkes wouldn’t have the night to get ready. But we’ve fired all the bullets in the gun. Starting tomorrow we see what they’ve got.”
McCaleb watched Bosch take down almost half the bottle in one long pull. He decided he’d better get to the real questions while Bosch was still sharp.
“So tell me about Rudy Tafero.”
Bosch shook his shoulders in a gesture of ambivalence.
“What about him?”
“I don’t know. How well do you know him? How well did you know him?”
“Well, I knew him when he was on our team. He worked Hollywood detectives about five years while I was there. Then he pulled the pin, got his twenty-year pension and moved across the street. Started working on getting people we put in the bucket out of the bucket.”
“When you were both on the same team, both in Hollywood, were you close?”
“I don’t know what close means. We weren’t friends, we weren’t drinking buddies, he worked burglaries and I worked homicides. What are you asking so much about him for? What’s he got to do with —”
He stopped and looked at McCaleb, the wheels obviously turning inside. Rod Stewart was now singing “Twisting the Night Away.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Bosch finally asked. “You’re looking at —”
“Let me just ask some questions,” McCaleb interjected. “Then you can ask yours.”
Bosch drained his bottle and held it up until the bartender noticed.
“No table service, guys,” she called over. “Sorry.”
“Fuck that,” Bosch said.
He slid out of the booth and went to the bar. He came back with four more Rocks, though McCaleb had barely begun to drink his first one.
“Ask away,” Bosch said.
“Why weren’t you two close?”
Bosch put both elbows on the table and held a fresh bottle with both hands. He looked out of the booth and then at McCaleb.
“Five, ten years ago there were two groups