A Darkness More Than Night - Michael Connelly [95]
He finally answered after the fifth chirp.
“Hey, Agent McCaleb, it’s Jack McEvoy from the New Times. You got a couple minutes to talk?”
McCaleb looked across the table at Twilley, wondering if he could hear the voice on the phone.
“Actually, I don’t. I’m in the middle of something here. How’d you get this number?”
“Information on Catalina. I called the number and your wife answered. She gave me your cell. That a problem?”
“No, no problem. But I can’t talk now.”
“When can we talk? It’s important. Something’s come up that I really want to talk —”
“Just call me later. In an hour.”
McCaleb closed the phone and put it down on the table. He looked at it, half expecting McEvoy to call back right away. Reporters were like that.
“Terry, everything all right?”
He looked up at Winston.
“Yeah, fine. My charter tomorrow. He wanted to know about the weather.”
He looked at Twilley.
“What was your question again?”
“Do you know Jack McEvoy? The reporter who called Captain Hitchens.”
McCaleb paused, looking at Winston and then back at Twilley.
“Yeah, I know him. You know I know him.”
“That’s right, the Poet case. You had a piece of that.”
“A small piece.”
“When was the last time you talked to McEvoy?”
“Well, that would’ve been, let’s see . . . that would have been a couple days ago.”
Winston visibly stiffened. McCaleb looked over at her.
“Relax, would you, Jaye? I ran into McEvoy at the Storey trial. I went up there to talk to Bosch. McEvoy’s covering it for New Times and he said hello — I hadn’t talked to him in five years. And I did not tell him what I was doing or what I was working on. In fact, at the time I saw him Bosch wasn’t even a suspect.”
“Well, did he see you with Bosch?”
“I’m sure he did. Everybody did. There’s as much media up there as there was for O. J. Did he specifically mention me to your captain?”
“If he did, Hitchens didn’t tell me.”
“All right, then, if it wasn’t you and it wasn’t me, where else did the leak come from?”
“That’s what we are asking you,” Twilley said. “Before we come into this case we want to know the lay of the land and who’s talking to who.”
McCaleb didn’t reply. He was getting claustrophobic. Between the conversation and Twilley being in his face, and the people standing around in the small restaurant waiting for tables, he was beginning to feel like he couldn’t breathe.
“What about this bar you went to last night?” Friedman asked.
McCaleb leaned back and looked over at him.
“What about it?”
“Jaye told us what you told her. You specifically asked about Bosch and Gunn there, right?”
“Yeah, right. And what? You think the bartender then jumped on the phone and called the New Times and asked for Jack McEvoy? All because I showed her a picture of Bosch? Give me a fucking break.”
“Hey, it’s a media-conscious town. People are plugged in. People sell stories, info, data all the time.”
McCaleb shook his head, refusing to buy into the possibility that the bartender in the vest had enough intelligence to put together what he was doing and to then make a call to a reporter.
Suddenly, he realized who did have the intelligence and information to do it. Buddy Lockridge. And if it had been him, it might as well have been McCaleb who leaked the story. He felt sweat start to warm his scalp as he thought about Lockridge hiding down on the lower deck while he had made his case against Bosch to Winston.
“Did you have anything to drink while you were in the bar? I hear you take a mess of pills every day. Mixing that with alcohol . . . you know, loose lips sink ships.”
Twilley had asked the question but McCaleb looked sharply at Winston. He was stung with a sense of betrayal by the whole scene and at how quickly things had shifted. But before he could say anything he saw the apology in her eyes and he knew she wished things had been handled differently. He finally looked back at Twilley.
“You think maybe I mixed a few too many