Sheehan took a double gulp from his new beer. Bosch was still only halfway through his first. He was content to let Sheehan talk and tell the story at his own pace without interrupting him with questions.
“On the last day some of the guys lost it a little bit. Did things.”
Bosch closed his eyes. He had been wrong about Sheehan.
“Me, too, Harry.”
He said it matter of factly, as if it felt good to finally say it out loud. He drank more of his beer, turned on his stool and looked about the bar as if seeing it for the first time. There was a TV mounted in a corner. It was tuned to ESPN.
“We’re off the record here, right, Harry?”
“Sure.”
Sheehan turned back and leaned toward Bosch in a conspiratorial sort of way.
“What Harris says happened… happened. But that doesn’t excuse what he did. He rapes and strangles that little girl; we stick a pencil in his ear. Big fucking deal. He gets off and I’m the new Mark Fuhrman – a racist cop who planted evidence. I just wish somebody could tell me how the fuck I could’ve planted those prints?”
He was getting loud. Luckily, only the bartender was noticing.
“I know,” Bosch said. “I’m sorry, man. I shouldn’t have asked.”
Sheehan went on as if he hadn’t heard Bosch.
“I guess I always carried around a set of throw-down prints that belonged to a douche bag I wanted to send away. I then put them on the book – don’t ask me how – and voila, we got our douche bag. Only why would I pick Harris to pin it on? I never knew the mutt or had anything to do with him. And there’s nobody on this planet that can prove I did because it’s not there to be proved.”
“You’re right.”
Sheehan shook his head and looked down into his beer.
“I quit caring about shit when that jury came in and said not guilty. When they said I was guilty… when they believed that man instead of us.”
Bosch remained silent. He knew that Sheehan had to say his piece.
“We’re losing the battle, man. I see that now. It’s all a game. The fucking lawyers, what they can do to you. To the evidence. I give up, Harry. I really do. I already decided. It’s twenty-five and out for me. I got eight more months and I’m counting the fuckers down. I’m gonna punch out, move on up to Blue Heaven and leave this toilet for all the douche bags.”
“I think that’s a good idea, Frankie,” Bosch said quietly.
He couldn’t think of what else he could say. He was hurt and stunned by his friend’s lapse into a complete state of hate and cynicism. He understood it but was simply surprised by the complete toll it had taken. He was also disappointed in himself and privately embarrassed at how wholeheartedly he had defended Sheehan to Carla Entrenkin.
“I remember on that last day,” Sheehan said. “I was in there with him. In the room. And I got so fucking angry I just wanted to take my gun out and blow his shit away. But I knew I couldn’t. Because he knew where she was. He had the girl!”
Bosch just nodded.
“We had tried everything and got nothing. He broke us before we could break him. It got down to where I was just begging him to tell us. It was embarrassing, Harry.”
“And what did he do?”
“He just stared at me as if I wasn’t there. He said nothing. He did nothing. And then… then the anger just came over me like… like I don’t know what. Like it was a bone caught in my throat. Like it never had before. There was a trash can in the corner of the room. I went over and pulled the bag out and just pulled it right down over his fucking head. And I grabbed it around his neck and I held it and I held it and…”
Sheehan started crying and trying to finish.
“… and they… they had to pull me off of him.”
He put his elbows on the bar and pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes. For a long time he didn’t move. Bosch saw a drop fall from his chin and into his beer. He reached over and put his hand on his old partner’s shoulder.
“It’s okay, Frankie.”
Without moving his hands away from his face, Sheehan spoke.
“You see, Harry, I became the very thing that I spent all these years hunting. I wanted to kill him right there and then. I would have if my guys hadn’t come in. I’m never going to be able to forget that.”
“It’s okay, man.”
Sheehan drank some beer and seemed to recover somewhat.
“After I did what I did, that opened the door. The other guys, they did that thing with the pencil – popped his fucking ear drum. We all became monsters. Like Vietnam, going wild in the villages. We probably would’ve killed the guy but you know what saved him? The girl. Stacey Kincaid saved him.”
“How’s that?”
“They found the body. We got the word and went out to the scene. We left Harris in a cell. Alive. He was lucky the word came when it did.”
He stopped to take another gulp of beer.
“I went out there – just a block from Harris’s place. She was pretty much decomposed, the young ones go fast. But I remember how she looked. Like a little angel, her arms out like she was flying…”
Bosch remembered the pictures from the newspapers. Stacey Kincaid had been a pretty little girl.
“Harry, leave me alone now,” Sheehan said quietly. “I’m going to walk back.”
“No, let me give you a ride.”
“No thanks. I’m walking.”
“You sure you’re all right?”
“I’m fine. Just a little worked up. That’s all. This is going to stay between us, right?”
“Till the end, man.”
Sheehan tried a weak smile. But he still didn’t look at Bosch.
“Do me one favor, Hieronymus.”
Bosch remembered when they had been a team. They only used their formal names, Hieronymus and Francis, when they were talking seriously and from the heart.
“Sure, Francis. What?”
“When you catch the guy who did Elias, I don’t care if it’s a cop or not, shake his hand for me. You tell him he’s my hero. But tell him he missed a good chance. Tell him he should’ve gotten Harris, too.”
A half hour later Bosch opened the door to his home. He found his bed empty. But this time he was too tired to stay awake waiting for Eleanor. He started stripping off his clothes and thinking about his plans for the next day. He finally sat down on the bed ready for sleep and reached for the light. The moment he was in darkness, the phone rang.
He turned the light back on and picked up the phone.
“You bastard.”
A woman’s voice – familiar, but he couldn’t place it.
“Who is this?”
“Carla Entrenkin, who do you think? Do you really think I wouldn’t know what you did?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. What happened?”
“I just watched Channel Four. Your buddy Harvey Button.”
“What did he have?”
“Oh, he blew it up real big. Let’s see if I can quote him correctly. ‘A link between Elias and an Internet prostitution ring was found in Elias’s office, a source close to the investigation says. It is believed by this source that Elias may have had liaisons with at least one of the women who advertised her services as a dominatrix on the web site.’ I think that about sums it up. I hope you are happy.”
“I didn’t – ”
“Don’t bother.”
She hung up. Bosch sat there a long time thinking about what she had said.
