The Drop - Michael Connelly [59]
“Well, were these legit busts or not? Did they blow?”
“They blew and the busts were legit as far as I know. But three busts starting a month after Irving was hired. The DUIs, the moving violations and the accident report then become the centerpiece of Regent’s application to the franchise board to take Hollywood away from B and W. He had it completely greased and it just doesn’t smell right, Kiz.”
She finally nodded, a tacit agreement with Bosch’s point of view.
“Okay, even if I agree with you, there’s still the question: How does all of this get George Irving killed? And why?”
“I’m not sure why but let me move to the—”
Bosch stopped when there was a loud explosion of voices from the lobby. After a few seconds they were gone.
“Okay, let me move to the night Irving took the high dive. He arrives by car at nine-forty, gives his keys to the valet and goes upstairs to the lobby to check in. Also arriving at that time is a writer from the East Coast named Thomas Rapport. He comes by cab from the airport and pulls in right behind Irving.”
“Don’t tell me. He was in a Black and White cab.”
“You know, Lieutenant, you really ought to be a detective.”
“I tried it, but my partner was an asshole.”
“I heard about that. Anyway, yes, it was a B and W cab and the driver actually recognized Irving as he was turning his car over to the valet. His picture had been shown around the garage when the application letter to the franchise board got copied to B and W. This driver, a guy named Rollins, recognizes Irving and gets on his radio and says, ‘What do you know, I just saw public enemy number one,’ or words to that effect. And on the other end of that radio call is the shift supervisor. The night man. A guy named Mark McQuillen.”
Bosch stopped there and waited for her to recognize the name. She didn’t.
“McQuillen as in ‘McKillin,’” he said. “That ring a bell?”
It still didn’t break through. Rider shook her head.
“Before your time,” Bosch said.
“Who is he?”
“A former cop. Maybe ten years younger than me. Back in the day, he became the poster boy for the whole choke hold thing. The controversy. And he got sacrificed to the mob.”
“I don’t understand, Harry. What mob? What sacrifice?”
“I told you, I was on the task force. The task force was formed to appease the citizenry of South L.A. who claimed that the choke hold was legalized murder. Cops used it and an inordinate number of people in the south end died. The truth was, they didn’t need a task force to change policy. They could’ve just changed it. But instead they go with a task force so they could feed the media the story about how the department was serious in its effort to respond to the public outcry.”
“All right, so how does this lead to McQuillen?”
“I was just a grunt on the task force. A gatherer. I handled the autopsies. I know this, though. The statistics matched up across racial and geographic lines. Sure, there were more choke hold deaths in the south end. Far more African Americans died than other races. But the ratios were even. There were far more incidents involving use of force in the south end. The more confrontations, scuffles, fights, resisting arrests you get, the more uses of the choke hold. The more you use the choke hold, the more deaths you will have. It was simple math. But nothing is simple when racial politics are involved.”
Rider was black and had grown up in South L.A. But Bosch was speaking to her cop to cop and there was no awkwardness in his telling the story. They had been partners and had operated as a team under extreme pressures. Rider knew Bosch as well as anyone could. They were brother and sister and there was no holdback between them.
“McQuillen worked P.M. watch in Seventy-seventh,” he said. “He liked action and he got it almost every night. I don’t remember the exact number but he’d had something like sixty-plus use-of-force incidents in four years. And as you know, those are only the ones they write reports