Suicide Run_ Three Harry Bosch Stories - Michael Connelly [24]
“Whaaat is it?”
Bosch stepped close to the speaker.
“Mr. Turnbull?”
“What? It’s eight o’clock in the morning!”
“LAPD, Mr. Turnbull. We need to speak to you.”
“About what?”
“It’s an emergency situation, sir, involving one of your clients. Can we come up?”
“Which client?”
“Can we come up?”
There was no response for five seconds and then there was a buzzing sound and the entrance door was electronically unlocked. They took the elevator up to the fourth floor and on the way Bosch unsnapped the safety strap on his holster. Gunn did the same.
“That a Kimber?” Bosch asked.
“Yeah, the Ultra Carry.”
Bosch nodded. It was the same weapon he carried.
“Good gun. Never jams.”
“I hope we don’t have to find out.”
When they stepped out of the elevator, there was a man standing in the hallway in blue jeans and a white T-shirt. He wore a ragged bathrobe over the ensemble, which hid much of his belt line and anything he might have hidden in it. He was in bare feet and his dark brown hair was sticking straight up on one side. He had been asleep.
“Turnbull?” Bosch asked, while using his right hand to show the man his badge.
“What’s this about?” the man asked.
“Not in the hallway. Can we come in, Mr. Turnbull?”
“Whatever.”
He pointed them toward the open door to apartment B but Bosch signaled him to go in first. Bosch wanted to keep Turnbull in front of him and in sight at all times.
“Have a seat if you can find a spot,” Turnbull said as they entered. “Coffee?”
“I could use some,” Bosch said.
“Thank you,” said Gunn.
They both remained standing. The apartment had furnishings of a contemporary design but it was cluttered with Turnbull’s work. There were files stacked on the coffee table and spread on a couch. It was clear that the living room was the nexus of his practice.
Bosch followed him to the kitchen alcove, again so he could keep a visual on him. Turnbull spoke as he filled a glass coffeepot with water.
“Which client is in the shit?” Turnbull asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You said there was an emergency. So which client is in the shit?”
Bosch decided to roll with things.
“David Blitzstein,” he said.
Turnbull was about to pour the water into the coffee brewer but paused with the glass pot held above it. He shook his head.
“Don’t know that name,” he said. “Not my client.”
“Really? You were working for him last night,” Bosch said.
Turnbull smiled.
“You’ve got your facts wrong, Detective.”
Turnbull poured the water into the brewer and set the glass pot underneath it.
“You own a weapon, Mr. Turnbull? You know I can find out with one phone call.”
“You probably already have. Yes, I own a weapon but I almost never carry it. It’s ancient. From my days with the cops. A thirty-eight-caliber Smith and Wesson. A wheel gun. No cop would use one today.”
A revolver. No ejection of shells. It was the wrong caliber and wrong kind of gun for the Blitzstein killing.
“We’ll check to make sure. You want to show it to me?”
Turnbull leaned back against a counter in the kitchen and folded his arms in a gesture of frustration.
“Sure, I’ll show it to you, just as soon as the bank down the street opens up at nine because it’s in a safe-deposit box. Like I told you, I rarely use the thing. Now, you guys are either seriously running down the wrong alley or I am missing something right in front of my face. I don’t know any David Blitzstein. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Bosch instinctively believed him. He also believed that something was wrong. They were indeed down the wrong alley. He decided to try the direct approach.
“All right, let’s stop dancing. You were at the casino in Commerce last night. Why?”
Turnbull raised his eyebrows. It was the first thing that made sense to him.
“I was working. But not