believe exonerates Michael Harris. We -”
“Impossible,” Sam Kincaid barked. “Harris was the killer. His fingerprints were found in the house, the old house. You’re going to tell me that the Los Angeles Police Department now believes its own people planted this evidence?”
“No, sir, I’m not. I’m telling you that we now have what we think is a reasonable explanation for that evidence.”
“Well, I’d love to hear it.”
Bosch took two folded pieces of paper from his jacket pocket and opened them. One was a photocopy of the car wash receipt Pelfry had found. The other was a photocopy of Harris’s time card, also from Pelfry.
“Mrs. Kincaid, you drive a white Volvo station wagon with license plate number one-bravo-henry-six-six-eight, correct?”
“No, that’s wrong,” Richter answered for her.
Bosch looked up at him for a moment and then back at the woman.
“Did you drive this car last summer?”
“I drove a white Volvo station wagon, yes,” she said. “I don’t remember the license number.”
“My family owns eleven dealerships and parts of six more in this county,” her husband said. “Chevy, Cadillac, Mazda, you name it. Even a Porsche store. But no Volvo franchise. And so what do you know, that’s the car she picks. She says it’s safer for Stacey and then she ends up… anyway.”
Sam Kincaid brought a hand up to cover his lip and held himself still. Bosch waited a moment before pressing on.
“Take my word for it about the plate number. The car was registered to you, Mrs. Kincaid. On June twelve last year that car, the Volvo, was washed at Hollywood Wax and Shine on Sunset Boulevard. The person who took the car there asked for the daily special, which included interior vacuuming and polish. Here’s the receipt.”
He leaned forward and put it on the coffee table in front of the couple. They both leaned down to look at it. Richter leaned over the back of the couch for a look.
“Does either of you remember doing that?”
“We don’t wash our cars,” Sam Kincaid said. “And we don’t go to public car washes. I need a car washed I have it taken to one of my stores. I don’t need to pay to – ”
“I remember,” his wife said, cutting him off. “I did it. I took Stacey to the movies at the El Capitan. Where we parked there was construction – a new roof being put on the building next to the garage. When we came out the car had something on it. Like little spots of tar that had blown onto it. It was a white car and it was very noticeable. When I paid the parking attendant I asked him where a car wash was. He told me.”
Kincaid was looking at his wife as if she had just belched at the charity ball.
“So you got the car washed there,” Bosch said.
“Yes. I remember now.”
She looked at her husband and then back at Bosch.
“The receipt says June twelve,” Bosch said. “How long after the end of school for your daughter was that?”
“It was the next day. It was our way of kicking off the summer. Lunch and the movies. It was a movie about these two guys who can’t find a mouse in their house. It was cute… The mouse got the better of them.”
Her eyes were on the memory, and on her daughter. They then focused on Bosch once more.
“No more school,” Bosch said. “Could she have left her books from the last day in the Volvo? Maybe in the back?”
Kate Kincaid slowly nodded.
“Yes. I remember having to tell her at one point during the summer to take the books out of the car. They kept sliding around when I drove. She didn’t do it. I finally took them out and put them in her room.”
Bosch leaned forward again and put the other photocopy down for them.
“Michael Harris worked at Hollywood Wax and Shine last summer. That’s his time card for the week including June twelve. He worked a full day on the day you brought the Volvo in.”
Sam Kincaid leaned forward again and studied the photocopy.
“You mean all this time we’ve…,” Kincaid began and then stopped. “You’re saying that he – Harris – vacuumed out the Volvo and in the process touched my stepdaughter’s book? Picked it up or whatever, then the book was eventually taken to her bedroom. And after she was taken…”
“The police found the prints on it,” Bosch finished. “Yes, that’s now what we think.”
“Why didn’t this come out at the trial? Why – ”
“Because there was other evidence linking Harris to the murder,” Edgar said. “The girl’s – uh, Stacey – was found less than two blocks from his apartment. That was a strong tie-in. His lawyer decided the tack he had to take was to go after the cops. Taint the fingerprints by tainting the cops. He never went after the truth.”
“And neither did the cops,” Bosch said. “They had the prints and when the body was found in Harris’s neighborhood, that sealed it. You remember, the investigation was emotionally charged from the beginning. It changed at that point when they found the body and it all tied in to Harris. It changed from a search for a little girl to a prosecution of a specific target. In between it never was a search for the truth.”
Sam Kincaid seemed shell-shocked.
“All this time,” he said. “Can you imagine the hate I have built up inside of me for this man? This hate, this utter and complete contempt, has been the only real emotion I’ve had for the last nine months…”
“I understand, sir,” Bosch said. “But we need to start over now. We need to reinvestigate the case. That was what Howard Elias was doing. We have reason to believe that he knew what I just told you. Only he also knew or had a pretty good idea who the actual killer was. We think that got him killed.”
Sam Kincaid looked surprised.
“But the TV said a little while ago that – ”
“The TV’s wrong, Mr. Kincaid. It’s wrong and we’re right.”
Kincaid nodded. His eyes wandered out to the view and the smog.
“What do you want from us?” Kate Kincaid said.
“Your help. Your cooperation. I know we are hitting you out of the blue with this so we’re not expecting you to drop everything. But as you can tell if you’ve been watching TV, time isn’t something we have a lot of.”
“You have our full cooperation,” Sam Kincaid said. “And D.C. here can do whatever you need him to do.”
Bosch looked from Kincaid to the security man and then back to Kincaid.
“I don’t think that will be necessary. We just have a few more questions for right now and then tomorrow we want to come back and start the case over.”
“Of course. What are your questions?”
“Howard Elias learned what I just told you because of an anonymous note that came in the mail. Do either of you know who that could have come from? Who would have known about the Volvo going to that car wash?”
There was no answer for a long time.
“Just me,” Kate Kincaid said. “I don’t know who else. I don’t remember telling anyone I went there. Why would I?”
“Did you send Howard Elias the note?”
“No. Of course not. Why would I help Michael Harris? I thought he was the one who… who took my daughter. Now you tell me he is innocent and I think I believe you. But before, no, I wouldn’t have lifted a finger to help him.”
Bosch studied her as she spoke. Her eyes moved from the coffee table to the view and then to her hands clasped in front of her. She didn’t look at her questioner. Bosch had been reading people in interviews and interrogations for most of his adult life. In that moment he knew she had sent Elias the anonymous note. He just couldn’t figure out why. He glanced up again at Richter and saw that the security man was also closely studying the woman. Bosch wondered if he was reading the same thing. He decided to move on.
“The house where this crime took place. The one in Brentwood. Who owns that now?”
“We still own it,” Sam Kincaid said. “We’re not sure what we’re going to do with it. Part of us wants to get rid of it and never think of it again. But the other part… Stacey was there. She lived half of her life there…”
“I understand. What I’d like – ”
Bosch’s pager went off. He cut it off and continued.
