Angle of Investigation_ Three Harry Bosch Stories - Michael Connelly [8]
He thought about Nikolai Servan spending Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in the Parker Center jail. It would probably be the only jail time he’d ever see.
The District Attorney’s Office would not decide until after the holiday whether to charge him or kick him loose. And Bosch knew it would probably be the latter. Prosecuting the case against the pawnbroker was fraught with difficulties. Servan had lawyered up and stopped talking. Afternoon-long searches of his home, car, the pawnshop and the trash containers in the alley failed to produce Monty Kelman’s lock picks or the method by which the display case had been rigged to deliver the fatal charge. Even the cause of death would be difficult to prove in a court of law. Kelman’s heart had stopped beating. A burst of electricity had most likely caused ventricular fibrillation, but in court a defense lawyer could easily and most likely successfully argue that the burn marks on the victim’s hand and foot were inconclusive and possibly not even related to cause of death.
And all of these obstacles were minor in comparison with the main difficulty—the victim was a thief killed during the commission of a crime. He had engaged in repeated offenses against the defendant. Would a jury even care that Nikolai Servan had set a fatal trap for him? Probably not, the prosecutor told Bosch and Edgar.
Bosch planned to go back to the pawnshop the following morning. In his personal ledger, everybody counted or nobody counted. That included burglars. He would look until he found the picks or the wire Servan had used to kill Monty Kelman.
As he approached the front doors of the retirement home he noticed that not much about it looked particularly splendid. It looked like a final stop for pensioners and people who hadn’t planned on living as long as they had. Quentin McKinzie, for example. Few jazzmen and drug users went the distance. He probably never thought he’d make it this far. According to the information Bosch got off the computer, he was seventy-two years old.
Bosch entered and walked up to a welcome counter. The place smelled like most of the low-rent retirement homes he had ever been in. Urine and decay, the end of hopes and dreams. He asked for directions to Quentin McKinzie’s room. The woman behind the counter suspiciously eyed the saxophone under Bosch’s arm.
“Do you have an appointment?” she asked. “Evening visiting is by appointment only.”
“Is that to give you time to clean the place up before the kids come by to see dear old dad?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I don’t need an appointment. Where is Mr. McKinzie?”
He held his badge up, a foot from her face. She looked at it for a long moment—longer than it took to read it—and then cleared her throat.
“He’s in one-oh-seven. Down the hall on the left side. He’s probably sleeping.”
Bosch nodded his thanks and headed down the hall.
The door to 107 was ajar. The light was on in the room and Bosch could hear television sounds coming from inside. He knocked softly and didn’t get a response. He slowly pushed the door open and stuck his head in. He saw an old man sitting in a chair next to a bed. A television mounted high on the opposite wall was droning. The old man’s eyes were closed. He was gaunt and depleted, his body taking up only half of the chair. His black skin looked gray and powdery. Despite the thin face and loose skin gathering below his chin, Bosch recognized him. It was Sugar Ray McK.
He stepped into the room and quietly came around the bed. The man didn’t stir. Bosch stood still for a moment, wondering what he should do. He decided not to wake the man. He put the instrument stand down on the floor in the corner. He then cradled the saxophone in it. He straightened up, took another look at the sleeping jazzman and nodded to him in some sort of unnoticed acknowledgment. As he headed out of the room he reached up and turned off the television.
At the door he was stopped by