He put the keys back in his pocket and told Rider and Dellacroce to drive cars down the hill and over to the Bradbury. He said he and Chastain would take the train down and walk over, making a check of the sidewalks Elias would have covered between his office building and the lower Angels Flight terminus. As the detectives broke up and headed toward their assignments, Bosch went to the station window and looked in on Eldrige Peete. He was sitting on the chair by the cash register, earplugs in place and his eyes closed. Bosch rapped gently on the window but the train operator was startled anyway.
“Mr. Peete, I want you to send us down once more and then you can close up, lock up and go home to your wife.”
“Okay, whatever you say.”
Bosch nodded and turned to head to the train, then he stopped and looked back at Peete.
“There’s a lot of blood. Do you have someone who is going to clean up the inside of the train before it opens tomorrow?”
“Don’t worry, I’ll get that. I’ve got a mop and bucket back here in the closet. I called my supervisor. Before you got here. He said I gotta clean Olivet up so she’s ready to go in the morning. We start at eight Satadays.”
Bosch nodded.
“Okay, Mr. Peete. Sorry you have to do that.”
“I like to keep the cars clean.”
“Also, down at the bottom, they left fingerprint dust all over the turnstile. It’s nasty stuff if you get that on your clothes.”
“I’ll get that, too.”
Bosch nodded.
“Well, thanks for your help tonight. We appreciate it.”
“Tonight? Hell, it’s morning a’ready.”
Peete smiled.
“I guess you’re right. Good morning, Mr. Peete.”
“Yeah, not if you ask them two that were on the train.”
Bosch started away and then once more came back to the man.
“One last thing. This is going to be a big story in the papers. And on TV. I’m not telling you what to do but you might want to think about taking your phone off the hook, Mr. Peete. And maybe not answering your door.”
“I gotcha.”
“Good.”
“I’m gonna sleep all day, anyway.”
Bosch nodded to him one last time and got on the train. Chastain was already on one of the benches near the door. Bosch walked past him and again went down the steps to the end where Howard Elias’s body had fallen. He was careful again not to step in the pooled and coagulated blood.
As soon as he sat down the train began its descent. Bosch looked out the window and saw the gray light of dawn around the edges of the tall office buildings to the east. He slumped on the bench and yawned deeply, not bothering to raise a hand to cover his mouth. He wished he could turn his body and lie down. The bench was hard, worn wood but he had no doubts that he would quickly fall into sleep and that he would dream about Eleanor and happiness and places where you did not have to step around the blood.
He dropped the thought and brought his hand up and all the way into the pocket of his jacket before he remembered there were no cigarettes to be found there.
Chapter 10
THE Bradbury was the dusty jewel of downtown. Built more than a century before, its beauty was old but still brighter and more enduring than any of the glass-and-marble towers that now dwarfed it like a phalanx of brutish guards surrounding a beautiful child. Its ornate lines and glazed tile surfaces had withstood the betrayal of both man and nature. It had survived earthquakes and riots, periods of abandonment and decay, and a city that often didn’t bother to safeguard what little culture and roots it had. Bosch believed there wasn’t a more beautiful structure in the city – despite the reasons he had been inside it over the years.
In addition to holding the offices for the legal practice of Howard Elias and several other attorneys, the Bradbury housed several state and city offices on its five floors. Three large offices on the third floor were leased to the LAPD’s Internal Affairs Division and used for holding Board of Rights hearings – the disciplinary tribunals police officers charged with misconduct must face. The IAD had leased the space because the rising tide of complaints against officers in the 1990s had resulted in more disciplinary actions and more BORs. Hearings were now happening every day, sometimes two or three running at a time. There was not enough space for this flow of misconduct cases in Parker Center. So the IAD had taken the space in the nearby Bradbury.
To Bosch, the IAD was the only blemish on the building’s beauty. Twice he had faced Board of Rights hearings in the Bradbury. Each time he gave his testimony, listened to witnesses and an IAD investigator – once it had been Chastain – report the facts and findings of the case, and then paced the floor beneath the atrium’s huge glass skylight while the three captains privately decided his fate. He had come out okay after both hearings and in the process had come to love the Bradbury with its Mexican tile floors, wrought-iron filigree and suspended mail chutes. He had once taken the time to look up its history at the Los Angeles Conservancy offices, and found one of the more intriguing mysteries of Los Angeles: the Bradbury, for all its lasting glory, had been designed by a $5-a- week draftsman. George Wyman had no degree in architecture and no prior credits as a designer when he drew the plans for the building in 1892, yet his design would see fruition in a structure that would last more than a century and cause generations of architects to marvel. To add to the mystery, Wyman never again designed a building of any significance, in Los Angeles or anywhere else.
It was the kind of mystery Bosch liked. The idea of a man leaving his mark with the one shot he’s given appealed to him. Across a whole century, Bosch identified with George Wyman. He believed in the one shot. He didn’t know if he’d had his yet – it wasn’t the kind of thing you knew and understood until you looked back over your life as an old man. But he had the feeling that it was still out there waiting for him. He had yet to take his one shot.
Because of the one-way streets and traffic lights Dellacroce and Rider faced, Bosch and Chastain got to the Bradbury on foot before them. As they approached the heavy glass doors of the entrance, Janis Langwiser got out of a small red sports car that was parked illegally at the curb out front. She was carrying a leather bag on a shoulder strap and a Styrofoam cup with the tag of a tea bag hanging over the lip.
“Hey, I thought we said an hour,” she said good-naturedly.
Bosch looked at his watch. It was an hour and ten minutes since they had talked.
“So you’re a lawyer, sue me,” he said, smiling.
He introduced Chastain and gave Langwiser a more detailed rundown on the investigation. By the time he was finished, Rider and Dellacroce had parked their cars in front of Langwiser’s car. Bosch tried the doors to the building but they were locked. He got out the key ring and hit the right key on the second try. They entered the atrium of the building and each of them involuntarily looked up, such was the beauty of the place. Above them the atrium skylight was filled with the purples and grays of dawn. Classical music played from hidden speakers. Something haunting and sad but Bosch couldn’t place it.
“Barber’s ‘Adagio,’ ” Langwiser said.
“What?” Bosch said, still looking up.
“The music.”
“Oh.”
A police helicopter streaked across the skylight, heading home to Piper Tech for change of shift. It broke the spell and Bosch brought his eyes down. A uniformed security guard was walking toward them. He was a young black man with close-cropped hair and startling green eyes.
“Can I help you people? The building’s closed right now.”
“Police,” Bosch said, pulling out his ID wallet and flipping it open. “We’ve got a search warrant here for suite five-oh-five.”
