The Narrows - Michael Connelly [43]
As I added the date into the chronology I noted that it was the day before the GPS device was reported stolen from The Following Sea. This meant it was likely the same day it was stolen. The photo stalker had been on the ferry with Graciela on the way back to the island. Could he have been the one who snuck onboard The Following Sea that night and took the GPS device? If so, why? And if so, could this also have been the night that Terry McCaleb’s medicine was tampered with, real capsules exchanged for dummies?
I circled the letters GPS on the chronology. What was the significance of this device and this theft? I wondered if I was putting too much emphasis on this. Perhaps Buddy Lockridge’s theory was the correct one, the device had simply been stolen by Finder, a competitor. Perhaps that was all it was, but the proximity to the mall stalking of Graciela made me think otherwise. My instincts told me there was a connection. I just didn’t have it yet.
Despite that, I felt as though I was getting close to something. The chronology was very helpful in allowing me to see connections and the timeliness of things. There was more still to add and I remembered I had intended to follow up with phone calls to Las Vegas this morning. I opened my cell phone and checked the battery. I had been unable to recharge it on The Following Sea. Now I was running out of juice. I had maybe one last call on it before it died. I punched in the number for the Missing Persons unit at Vegas Metro. The call went through and I asked for Detective Ritz. I was put on hold for nearly three minutes, during which time the phone started to beep every minute, warning me it was running low on power.
“This is Detective Ritz, how can I help you?”
“Detective, my name is Bosch. I’m LAPD retired. Homicide mostly. I’m doing a favor for a friend. Her husband passed away last month and I’m sort of putting his things in order. I came across a file of his that had your name and number in it and a newspaper article about one of your cases.”
“What case?”
“The six missing men.”
“And what was your friend’s husband’s name?”
“Terry McCaleb. He was FBI retired. He worked —”
“Oh, him.”
“You knew him?”
“I talked to him on the phone once. That doesn’t qualify as knowing him.”
“You talked about the missing men?”
“Look, what did you say your name is?”
“Harry Bosch.”
“Well, listen, Harry Bosch, I don’t know you and I don’t know what you are doing, but it’s usually not my practice to talk about open cases over the phone with strangers.”
“I could come see you.”
“That wouldn’t change things.”
“You know he’s dead, don’t you?”
“McCaleb? I heard he had a heart attack and he was out on his boat and nobody could get to him in time. It sounded stupid. What’s a guy with a heart transplant doing twenty-five miles out in the middle of nowhere?”
“Making a living, I guess. Look, some things have come up about that and I’m checking into what Terry was into at the time. To sort of see if he might’ve drawn somebody’s eye, if you know what I mean. All I want —”
“Actually, I don’t know what you mean. You talking voodoo? Somebody put the hex on him and gave him a heart attack? I’m kind of busy here, Bosch. Too busy for that bullshit. You retired guys think us working stiffs have all the time in the world for you and your long-shot voodoo theories. Well, guess what, we don’t.”
“Is that what you said to him when he called? You didn’t want to listen to his theory or his profile of the case? You called it voodoo?”
“Look, man, what good is a profile? Those things don’t narrow down shit. They’re bullshit and that’s what I told him and that was —”
His last word was cut off by my phone’s warning beep.
“What was that?” he asked. “Are you recording this?”
“No, it’s my phone’s low-battery warning. Terry didn’t come over there to talk to you about this?”
“Nope. I think he ran to the newspaper with it instead. Typical fed move.”
“There was a story about his take on this in the Sun?”
“I wouldn’t call it that. I think they pretty much thought he was full of shit, too.”