A Darkness More Than Night - Michael Connelly [67]
Bosch was the first to look away.
20
After the courtroom emptied, Bosch conferred with Langwiser and Kretzler about their missing witness.
“Anything yet?” Kretzler asked. “Depending on how long John Reason keeps you up there, we’re going to need her tomorrow afternoon or the next morning.”
“Nothing yet,” Bosch said. “But I’ve got something in the works. In fact, I better get going.”
“I don’t like this,” Kretzler said. “This could blow up. If she’s not coming in, there’s a reason. I’ve never been a hundred percent on her story.”
“Storey could have gotten to her,” Bosch offered.
“We need her,” Langwiser said. “It shows pattern. You have to find her.”
“I’m on it.”
He got up from the table to leave.
“Good luck, Harry,” Langwiser said. “And, by the way, so far I think you’re doing very well up there.”
Bosch nodded.
“The calm before the storm.”
On his way down the hall to the elevators Bosch was approached by one of the reporters. He didn’t know his name but he recognized him from the press seats in the courtroom.
“Detective Bosch?”
Bosch kept walking.
“Look, I’ve told everybody, I’m not commenting until the trial is over. I’m sorry. You’ll have to get —”
“No, that’s okay. I just wanted to see if you hooked up with Terry McCaleb.”
Bosch stopped and looked at the reporter.
“What do you mean?”
“Yesterday. He was looking for you here.”
“Oh, yeah, I saw him. You know Terry?”
“Yeah, I wrote a book a few years ago about the bureau. I met him then. Before he got the transplant.”
Bosch nodded and was about to move on when the reporter put out his hand.
“Jack McEvoy.”
Bosch reluctantly shook his hand. He recognized the name. Five years earlier the bureau had tracked a serial cop killer to L.A., where it was believed he was about to strike his next victim — a Hollywood homicide detective named Ed Thomas. The bureau had used information from McEvoy, a reporter for the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, to track the so-called Poet and Thomas’s life was never threatened. He was retired from the force now and running a bookshop down in Orange County.
“Hey, I remember you,” Bosch said. “Ed Thomas is a friend of mine.”
Both men appraised each other.
“You’re covering this thing?” Bosch asked, an obvious question.
“Yeah. For the New Times and Vanity Fair. I’m thinking about a book, too. So when it’s all over, maybe we can talk.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
“Unless you’re doing something with Terry on it.”
“With Terry? No, that was something else yesterday. No book.”
“Okay, then keep me in mind.”
McEvoy dug into his pocket for his wallet and then removed a business card.
“I mostly work out of my home in Laurel Canyon. Feel free to give me a call if you want.”
Bosch held the card up.
“Okay. I gotta go. See you around, I guess.”
“Yeah.”
Bosch walked over and pushed the button for an elevator. He looked at the card again while he waited and thought about Ed Thomas. He then put the card into the pocket of his suit jacket.
Before the elevator came he looked down the hallway and saw McEvoy was still in the hallway, now talking to Rudy Tafero, the defense’s investigator. Tafero was a big man and he was leaning forward, close to McEvoy, as if it was some sort of conspiratorial rendezvous. McEvoy was writing in a notebook.
The elevator opened and Bosch stepped on. He watched them until the doors closed.
• • •
Bosch took Laurel Canyon Boulevard over the hill and dropped down into Hollywood ahead of the evening traffic. At Sunset he took a right and pulled to the curb a few blocks into West Hollywood. He fed the meter and went into the small, drab white office building across Sunset from a