The Drop - Michael Connelly [131]
“Let him die!” Pell yelled. “Let that fucker die!”
Bosch shoved Pell back into his seat and then leaned his whole weight on top of him.
“You stupid fool, Clayton,” Bosch said. “You’ll go back in for this.”
“I don’t care. I got nothing outside, anyway.”
His body shuddered and he seemed to give up strength. He started moaning and crying, repeating, “I want him dead, I want him dead.”
Bosch turned to look into the aisle. Chu and the deputy were tending to Hardy. He was either unconscious or dead and the deputy was checking his neck for a pulse. Chu had his head down and his ear turned toward Hardy’s mouth.
“We need paramedics,” the deputy yelled to the driver. “Fast! I’m not finding a pulse.”
“On the way,” the driver yelled back.
The report regarding the lack of a pulse brought cheering and renewed energy from the other prisoners on the bus. They shook their chains and stomped their feet on the floor. It was unclear to Bosch whether they knew who Hardy was or if it was simply blood lust that had them calling for murder.
Through it all Bosch heard coughing and looked down to see Hardy coming to. His face was still a deep shade of red and his eyes were glassy. But they focused for a moment on Bosch until the deputy’s shoulder moved between them.
“Okay, we got him back,” the deputy reported. “He’s breathing.”
This report was greeted with a chorus of boos from the men on the bus. Pell let out a high-pitched keening sound. His whole body shook beneath Bosch. The sound seemed to sum up a lifetime of anguish and despair.
42
That night, Bosch stood on the back deck, looking down at the ribbon of lights on the freeway. He was still wearing his best suit, though the left shoulder had been scuffed with dirt during the struggle with Pell on the bus. He wanted a drink but wasn’t drinking. He’d left the sliding door open so he could hear the music. He’d gone back to the music he always went to in the solemn moments. Frank Morgan on the tenor sax. Nothing better to sculpt the mood.
He had canceled his date with Hannah Stone. The events of the day eliminated any desire to celebrate, any desire to even talk.
Chilton Hardy had survived the attack on the sheriff’s bus largely unscathed. He was transported to the jail ward at County-USC Medical Center and would remain there until doctors discharged him. His arraignment would be postponed until then.
Clayton Pell was rearrested and additional charges stemming from the attack were added. A parole violation was also added and it was clear that Pell was heading back to prison.
Normally, Bosch would be pleased to learn that a serial sex offender was going back into lockup. But he couldn’t help but be wistful about Pell’s situation and to feel somewhat responsible. And guilty.
Guilty about intervening.
When Bosch had put it all together while standing on First Street, he could have let things run their course, and the world would now be rid of a monster, a man as depraved as any Bosch had ever encountered. But Bosch had intervened. He had acted to save the monster and now his thoughts were clouded with regret. Hardy deserved death but would likely never get it, or would get it only when it was so far distant in time from his crimes as to be almost meaningless. Until then he would hold forth in court and in prison and would enter the halls of the criminal zeitgeist, where men like him were talked about, written about and in some dark corners even revered.
Bosch could have stopped all of that but didn’t. Adhering to a code of everybody counts or nobody counts hardly seemed to cover it. Or excuse it. He knew he would carry the guilt for his actions of the day for a long time.
Bosch had spent most of the day writing reports and being interviewed by fellow investigators about the events on the sheriff’s bus. It was determined that Pell knew how to get to Hardy because he knew