Angle of Investigation_ Three Harry Bosch Stories - Michael Connelly [4]
“Chicago. It was made in Chicago.”
“Calumet?”
“How’d you know?”
“I’m a burglary detective. It’s my job to know. Calumet is one of the big ones. Been around a long time. We might be able to trace it.”
Bosch nodded.
“You finished here?” he asked. “Let’s go.”
On the way back to the station Bosch let Braxton drive so that he could hold and study the saxophone.
“What’s something like this worth?” he asked after they were halfway to their destination.
“Depends. New, you’re talking in the thousands. To a pawnbroker probably a fne.probablew hundred.”
“You ever heard of Quentin McKinzie?”
Braxton shook his head.
“I don’t think so.”
“They called him Sugar Ray McK. On account of when he played the sax he’d bob and weave like the fighter Sugar Ray Robinson. He was good. He was mostly a session guy but he put out a few records. ‘The Sweet Spot,’ you never heard that tune?”
“Sorry, man, not into jazz. Too much of a cliché, you know? Detectives and jazz. I listen to country myself.”
Bosch felt disappointed. He wanted to tell him about that day on the ship but if Braxton didn’t know jazz it couldn’t be explained.
“What’s the connection?” Braxton asked.
Bosch held up the saxophone.
“This was his. It says inside here, ‘Custom made for Quentin McKinzie.’ That’s Sugar Ray McK.”
“You ever see him play?”
Bosch nodded.
“One time. Nineteen sixty-nine.”
Braxton whistled.
“Long time ago. You think he’s still alive?”
“I don’t know. He’s not recording. Last disc he put out was Man with an Ax. That was at least ten years ago. Maybe longer. It was a compilation.”
Bosch looked at the saxophone.
“Can’t record without this anyway, I suppose.”
Bosch’s cell phone chirped. It was Edgar.
“Harry, whereyat?”
“On the way back to the station. We just checked out Kelman’s apartment.”
“Anything?”
“Not really. A junkie and a saxophone. What have you got?”
“First off, we’ve got lividity issues. This guy was moved.”
“And what’s the ME say about cause?”
“He’s going with your theory at the moment. Electrocution. The burns on the hand and foot—where the juice went in and out.”
“You find the source?Kelm sasource?
“I looked around. Can’t find it.”
Bosch thought about all of this. Postmortem lividity was the settling of the blood in a dead body. It was a purple gravity line. If a body is moved after the blood has settled, then a new gravity line will appear. It is an easy tip-off that most people outside of homicide investigation don’t know about.
“You looked around the case where the glove was?”
“Yeah, I looked. I can’t find any electrical source that can explain this. The case you’re talking about has internal lighting but there’s no malfunction.”
Braxton pulled into the parking lot behind the station and into a spot reserved for investigators’ cars.
“You do a property inventory on the guy yet?”
“Yeah, nothing. Pockets empty. No ID or anything else.”
“All right, we’re at the cop shop. Let me think about it and call you back.”
“Whatever, Harry. I just want to get out of here on time tonight and I don’t like the looks of this.”
“I know, I know.”
Bosch closed the phone and got out of the car with the saxophone.
“What has he got?” Braxton asked.
“Nothing much,” Bosch said over the top of the car. “It looks like an electrocution.”
“You called it.”
“When we get in, can you pull the reports on the three prior B and Es at Three Kings?”
“You got it. What about Servan?”
“I’ll check on him but I’m going to let him sit for a while.”
They went into the station and down to the detective bureau, where they split up, Braxton going to the burglary corral to get the reports, and Bosch to the rear hallway that led to the interview rooms. Servan was in interview room 3, pacing in the small space when Bosch opened the door.
“Mr. Servan, are you okay? It shouldn’t be too much longer.”
“Yeah, okay, okay. You find?”
He pointed to the saxophone. Bosch nodded.
“Did this come from your store?”
Servan studied the instrument and nodded vigorously.
“I think so, yes.”
“Okay, well, we’ll find out for sure. We’ve got