I badged the guy and told him to give me five minutes. But he’ll be back.”
“Oh, shit!” She glanced back at Entrenkin as she headed out the door. “I’ll be right back.”
As she moved by him Bosch stepped into the office and closed the door behind him. He then locked it and turned back to Entrenkin.
“Why did you lock that?” she asked. “Please leave it open.”
“I just thought it might be better if I said what I want to say without anybody interrupting us.”
Entrenkin folded her arms across her chest as if bracing for an attack. He studied her face and got the same vibe he had gotten before, when she had told them all they had to leave. There was a certain stoicism there, propping her up despite some clear pain beneath. She reminded Bosch of another woman he knew only from TV: the Oklahoma law school teacher who was brutalized in Washington by the politicians a few years before during the confirmation of a Supreme Court justice.
“Look, Detective Bosch, I really don’t see any other way around this. We have to be careful. We have to think about the case as well as the community. The people have to be reassured that everything possible is being done – that this won’t be swept under in the manner they have seen so many times before. I want – ”
“Bullshit.”
“Excuse me?”
“You shouldn’t be on this case and we both know it.”
“That’s what is bullshit. I have the trust of this community. You think they will believe anything you say about this case? Or Irving or the police chief?”
“But you don’t have the trust of the cops. And you’ve got one big conflict of interest, don’t you, Inspector General?”
“What are you saying? I think it was rather wise of Judge Houghton to choose me to act as special master. As inspector general I already have a degree of civilian oversight on the case. This just streamlines things instead of adding another person to the mix. He called me. I didn’t call him.”
“I’m not talking about that and you know it. I’m talking about a conflict of interest. A reason you shouldn’t be anywhere near this case.”
Entrenkin shook her head in an I-don’t-understand gesture but her face clearly showed she feared what Bosch knew.
“You know what I’m saying,” Bosch said. “You and him. Elias. I was in his apartment. Must’ve been just before you got there. Too bad we missed each other. We could’ve settled all of this then.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about but I was just led to believe by Miss Langwiser that you people waited on warrants before entering his apartment and the office. Are you telling me that is not true?”
Bosch hesitated, realizing he had made a mistake. She could now turn his move away or back on him.
“We had to make sure no one was hurt or in need of help in the apartment,” he said.
“Sure. Right. Just like the cops who jumped the fence at O. J. Simpson’s house. Just wanting to make sure everybody was okay.”
She shook her head again.
“The continued arrogance of this department amazes me. From what I had heard about you, Detective Bosch, I expected more.”
“You want to talk about arrogance? You were the one who went in there and removed evidence. The inspector general of the department, the one who polices the police. Now you want to – ”
“Evidence of what? I did no such thing!”
“You cleared your message off the phone machine and you took the phone book with your name and numbers in it. I’m betting you had your own key and garage pass. You came in through the garage and nobody saw you. Right after Irving called to tell you Elias was dead. Only Irving didn’t know that you and Elias had something going on.”
“That’s a nice story. I’d like to see you try to prove any of it.”
Bosch held his hand up. On his palm were Elias’s keys.
“Elias’s keys,” he said. “There’s a couple on there that don’t fit his house or his apartment or his office or his cars. I was thinking of maybe pulling your address from DMV and seeing if they fit your door, Inspector.”
Entrenkin’s eyes moved quickly away from the keys. She turned and walked back into Elias’s office. Bosch followed and watched as she slowly walked around the desk and sat down. She looked as if she might cry. Bosch knew he had broken her with the keys.
“Did you love him?” he asked.
“What?”
“Did you love – ”
“How dare you ask me that?”
“It’s my job. There’s been a murder. You’re involved.”
She turned away from him and looked to her right. She was staring through the window at the painting of Anthony Quinn. Again, the tears appeared to be barely holding back.
“Look, Inspector, can we try to remember one thing? Howard Elias is dead. And believe it or not, I want to get the person who did it. Okay?”
She nodded tentatively. He continued, talking slowly and calmly.
“In order to get this person, I’m going to need to know everything I can about Elias. Not just what I know from television and newspapers and other cops. Not just from what’s in his files. I’ve got to know – ”
Out in the reception area someone tried the locked door and then knocked sharply on the glass. Entrenkin got up and went to the door. Bosch waited in Elias’s office. He listened as Entrenkin answered the door and spoke to Langwiser.
“Give us a few minutes, please.”
She closed the door without waiting for a response, locked it again and came back to Elias’s office, where she took the seat behind the desk. Bosch spoke to her in a voice low enough not to be heard outside of the office.
“I’ve got to know it all,” he said. “We both know you are in a position to help. So can’t we come to some sort of truce here?”
The first tear fell down Entrenkin’s cheek, soon followed by another on the other side. She leaned forward and began opening drawers in the desk.
“Bottom left,” Bosch said from memory of his inventory of the desk.
She opened the drawer and removed the box of tissues. She placed it on her lap, took one tissue and dabbed at her cheeks and eyes. She began to speak.
“It’s funny how things change so quickly…”
A long silence went by.
“I knew Howard superficially for a number of years. When I was practicing law. It was strictly professional, mostly ‘How are you’s in the hallways of the federal building. Then when I was appointed inspector general, I knew it was important that I knew the critics of the police department as well as I knew the department. I arranged to meet Howard. We met right here – him sitting right here… It went from there. Yes, I loved him…”
This confession brought more tears and she pulled out several tissues to take care of them.
“How long were you two… together?” Bosch asked.
“About six months. But he loved his wife. He wasn’t going to leave her.”
Her face was dry now. She returned the tissue box to its drawer and it seemed as though the clouds that had crossed her face moments before were gone. Bosch could see she had changed. She leaned forward and looked at him. She was all business.
“I’ll make a deal with you, Detective Bosch. But only with you. Despite everything… I think if you give me your word then I can trust you.”
“Thank you. What is your deal?”
“I will only talk to you. In return I want you to protect me. And by that I mean keep the source of your information confidential. You don’t have to worry, nothing I tell you would be admitted in court anyway. You can keep everything I tell you in background. It may help you, it may not.”
Bosch thought about this for a moment.
“I should be treating you as a suspect, not a source.”
