“Not necessarily. I’ve been sitting here reading one of the manuals. One-ten can stop your heart, but it all depends on the amps. There’s a formula. It has to do with resistance to the charge. You know, like dry skin versus moist skin, things like that.”
“This guy just took his glove off. He probably had sweaty hands.”
“Exactly. So if the resistance was low and Servan had somehow rigged a one-ten line going directly into that lock, then the initial jolt could have contracted the muscles and left our burglar unable to let go of the pick. The juice goes through him, hits the heart and the heart goes into V-fib.”
“Ventricular fibrillation is a natural cause, Harry.”
“Not when you use one-ten to get it.”
“Then we’re talking more than just homicide. This is lying in wait.”
“The DA can decide all of that. We just have to bring in the facts.”
“By the way, how’d you know to take off his sock and look for the exit burn?”
“The burns on his fingers. I saw them and just took a shot.”
“Well, I’d say you hit the bull’s-eye, partner.”
“Got lucky. So now you have to get into that case and find out how he wired it. Did SID leave?”
“They’re still packing up.”
“Tell them to take the case as evidence.”
“The whole case? It’s ten feet long.”
“Tell them to take it with them. You go with it. The case is the key. And tell them to be careful with it.”
“They’re going to have to get a Special Services truck out here.”
“Whatever. Call them now. Get it done.”
Bosch closed the phone and got up from his desk. He went down the hallway past the watch office to the locker rooms. He bought two packages of peanut butter crackers from the vending machine. He opened one and ate all the squares while he was walking back to the detective bureau. He put the other package in his coat pocket for later. He stopped once on the way back to get a drink from the water fountain.
Braxton was waiting for him at the homicide table with a sheet of paper in his hand.
“You got lucky,” he told Bosch as he approached. “The guy pawned that saxophone two years ago but they still had the slip.”
He gave the sheet of paper to Bosch. It was a photocopy of the pawn slip. It contained the name, address and phone numbers of the customer. The man who had pawned Quentin McKinzie’s saxophone was named Donald Teed. He lived in the Valley. Nikolai Servan had given him $200 for the instrument.
Bosch sat down and noticed that Teed had listed his work phone number with a 323 area code and a Hollywood exchange. That might explain why a man who lived in the Valley had used a pawnshop in Hollywood. He picked up the phone and punched in Teed’s work number. It was answered immediately by a woman who said, “Splendid Age.”
“Excuse me?” Bosch said.
“Splendid Age Retirement Home, how can I help you?”
“Yes, is Donald Teed a resident there?”
“A resident? No. We have a Donald Teed who works here. Is that who you mean?”
“I think so. Is he there?”
“He is here today but I am not sure where he is right now. He’s a custodian and moves around. Who is calling? Is this a solicitation?”
Bosch felt things falling into place. He decided to take a shot.
“I’m a friend. Can you tell me if another friend of mine is there? His name is Quentin McKinzie.”
“Yes, Mr. McKinzie is a resident here. What is this about?”
“I’ll call back.”
Bosch hung up the phone and his eyes drifted to the saxophone.
Nikolai Servan opened his eyes the moment Bosch came through the door. Bosch put the piece of paper he carried down on the table and took the seat across from Servan, folding his arms and putting his elbows on the table in almost a mirror image.
“We’ve hit a snag, Mr. Servan.”
“A snag?”
“A problem. Actually a few imaually aof them. And what I’d like to do here is give you the opportunity to tell me the truth this time.”
“I don’t understand. I tol’ you truth. I tol’ you truth.”
“I think you left some things out, Mr. Servan.”
Servan clasped his hands together on the table and shook his head.
“No, I tol’ everything.”
“I’m going to advise you of your rights now, Mr. Servan. Listen closely to what I read you.”
Bosch read Servan his rights from the paper on the table. He then turned it around and asked the pawnbroker to sign it. He gave him the pen. Servan hesitated and seemed to slowly reread the rights waiver form all over again. He then picked up the pen and signed. Bosch asked the first question the instant the point of the pen came off the paper.
“So what did you do with the burglar’s lock picks, Mr. Servan?”
Servan held his lips tightly together for a long moment and then shook his head.
“I don’t understand.”
“Sure you do, Mr. Servan. Where are the picks?”
Servan only stared at him.
“Okay,” Bosch said, “let’s try this one. Tell me how you wired that display case.”
Servan bowed his head once.
“I have attorney now,” he said. “Please, I have attorney now.”
Bosch pulled to a stop in front of the Splendid Age Retirement Home and got out with the saxophone and its stand. He heard Christmas music drifting out of an open window. Elvis Presley singing “Blue Christmas.”
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?”
