A Darkness More Than Night - Michael Connelly [146]
Prince brought a slim briefcase up onto the table and slid his legal pad into it. He hadn’t written a word on it.
“Thank you for your time,” he said. “I think what we’ll do is proceed to a bail hearing and go from there with discovery and other matters.”
He pushed his chair back and stood up.
Tafero slowly raised his head and looked at Winston, his eyes badly bloodshot from the hemorrhaging of his nose.
“It was his idea to make it look like a painting,” he said. “David Storey’s idea.”
There was a moment of stunned silence and then the defense attorney sat down heavily and closed his eyes in pain.
“Mr. Tafero,” Prince said. “I am strongly advising —”
“Shut up,” Tafero barked. “You little pissant. You’re not the one facing the needle.”
He looked back at Winston.
“I’ll take the deal. As long as I don’t get charged with my brother.”
Winston nodded.
Tafero turned to Short and pointed his finger and waited. She nodded.
“Deal,” she said.
“One thing,” Winston said quickly. “We’re not going into this with your word against his. What else have you got?”
Tafero looked at her and a thin, dead smile cracked across his face.
In the viewing room, Bosch stepped closer to the glass. McCaleb saw his reflection more clearly on the glass. His eyes stared unblinking.
“I’ve got pictures,” Tafero said.
Winston hooked her hair behind her ear and narrowed her eyes. She leaned across the table.
“Pictures? What do you mean, photographs? Photographs of what?”
Tafero shook his head.
“No. Pictures. He drew pictures for me while we were in the attorney visiting room in the jail. Drawings of what he wanted the scene to look like. So it would look like the painting.”
McCaleb gripped his hands into fists at his sides.
“Where are the drawings?” Winston said.
Tafero smiled again.
“Safe deposit box. City National Bank, Sunset and Doheny. The key’s on the ring that was in my pocket.”
Bosch brought his hands up and slapped them together.
“Bang!” he exclaimed, loud enough that Tafero turned and looked toward the glass.
“Please!” the videographer whispered. “We’re taping.”
Bosch went to the door of the little room and stepped out. McCaleb followed. Bosch turned and looked at him. He nodded.
“Storey goes down,” he said. “The monster goes back into the darkness from which it came.”
They looked at each other silently for a moment and then Bosch broke it away.
“I gotta go,” he said.
“Where?”
“Get ready for court.”
He turned and started walking through the deserted bullpen of the Sheriff’s Department homicide squad. McCaleb saw him bang a fist on a desk and then punch it into the air above him.
• • •
McCaleb went back into the viewing room and watched the interview continue. Tafero was telling the assemblage in the interview room that David Storey had demanded that the killing of Edward Gunn take place on the first morning of the new year.
McCaleb listened for a while and then thought of something. He stepped out of the observation room and into the bullpen. Detectives were now filtering in to start the day of work. He went to an empty desk and tore a page off a note pad on its top. He wrote, “Ask about the Lincoln” on it. He folded it and took it to the door to the interview room.
He knocked and after a moment Alice Short opened the door. He handed her the folded note.
“Give this to Jaye before the interview is over,” he whispered.
She nodded and closed the door. McCaleb went back into the observation room to watch.
45
Freshly showered and shaved, Bosch stepped off the elevator and headed toward the doors to the Division N courtroom. He walked with purpose. He felt like a true prince of the city. He had taken only a few strides when he was accosted by McEvoy, who stepped out of an alcove like a coyote that had been waiting in a cave for his unsuspecting prey. But nothing could dent Bosch’s demeanor. He smiled as the reporter fell into stride