When Margie answered the door Bosch was reminded of how there was never any planning for these things. She stared at him for a moment and he thought she didn’t recognize him. It had been a lot of years.
“Margie, it’s – ”
“Harry? Harry Bosch? We just – ”
She stopped and put it together. Usually they did.
“Oh, Harry, no. Oh no. Not Francis!”
She brought both hands up to her face. Her mouth was open and she looked like that famous painting of someone on a bridge screaming.
“I’m sorry, Margie. I really am. I think maybe I should come in.”
• • •
She was stoic about the whole thing. Bosch gave her the details and then Margie Sheehan made coffee for him so he wouldn’t fall asleep on the ride back. That was a cop’s wife thinking. In the kitchen Bosch leaned against a counter as she brewed the coffee.
“He called you tonight,” he said.
“Yes, I told you.”
“Tell me how he seemed.”
“Bad. He told me what they did to him. He seemed so… betrayed? Is that the right word? I mean, his own people, fellow cops, had taken him in. He was very sad, Harry.”
Bosch nodded.
“He gave his life to that department… and this is what they did to him.”
Bosch nodded again.
“Did he say anything about…”
He didn’t finish.
“About killing himself? No, he didn’t say that… I read up on police suicide once. Long time ago. In fact, back when Elias sued him the first time over that guy he killed. Frankie got real depressed then and I got scared. I read up on it. And what I read said that when people tell you about it or say they’re going to do it, what they are really doing is asking you to stop them.”
Bosch nodded.
“I guess Frankie didn’t want to be stopped,” she continued. “He didn’t say anything about it to me.”
She pulled the glass coffeepot out of the brewer and poured some into a mug. She then opened a cabinet and took down a silver Thermos. She started filling it.
“This is for the road home. I don’t want you falling asleep on the clothesline.”
“What?”
“I mean the Grapevine. I’m not thinking straight here.”
Bosch stepped over and put his hand on her shoulder. She put the coffee pot down and turned to him to be hugged.
“This last year,” she said. “Things… things just went haywire.”
“I know. He told me.”
She broke away from him and went back to filling the Thermos.
“Margie, I have to ask you something before I head back,” Bosch said. “They took his gun from him today to run ballistics. He used another. Do you know anything about that one?”
“No. He only had the one he wore on the job. We didn’t have other guns. Not with two little girls. When Frankie would come home he’d lock his job gun up in a little safe on the floor of the closet. And only he had the key. I just didn’t want any more guns than were required in the house.”
Bosch understood that if it was her edict that there be no more weapons than the one Sheehan was required to carry, then that left a hole. He could have taken a weapon in and hidden it from her – in a spot so obscure even the FBI didn’t find it when they searched his house. Maybe it was wrapped in plastic and buried in the yard. Sheehan also could have gotten the weapon after she and the girls moved out and up to Bakersfield. She would never have known about it.
“Okay,” he said, deciding not to pursue it.
“Why, Harry, are they saying it was your gun? Are you in trouble?”
Bosch thought a moment before answering.
“No, Margie, I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.”
Chapter 31
THE rain continued through Monday morning and slowed Bosch’s drive into Brentwood to a frustrating crawl. It wasn’t heavy rain, but in Los Angeles any rain at all can paralyze the city. It was one of the mysteries Bosch could never fathom. A city largely defined by the automobile yet full of drivers unable to cope with even a mild inclemency. He listened to KFWB as he drove. There were far more reports of traffic tie-ups than incidents of violence or unrest during the night. Unfortunately, the skies were expected to clear by midday.
He arrived twenty minutes late for his appointment with Kate Kincaid. The house from which Stacey Kincaid had allegedly been kidnapped was a sprawling white ranch house with black shutters and a slate-gray roof. It had a broad green lawn stretching back from the street and a driveway that cut across the front of the house, and then back around to the garage in the side yard. When Bosch pulled in there was a silver Mercedes Benz parked near the covered entryway. The front door of the house was open.
When he got to the threshold Bosch called out a hello and he heard Kate Kincaid’s voice telling him to enter. He found her in the living room, sitting on a couch that was covered in a white sheet. All the furniture was covered in this way. The room looked like a meeting of big, heavy ghosts. She noticed Bosch’s eyes taking in the room.
“When we moved we didn’t take a single piece of furniture,” she said. “We decided just to start over. No reminders.”
Bosch nodded and then studied her. She was dressed completely in white, with a silk blouse tucked into tailored linen pants. She looked like a ghost herself. Her large black leather purse, which was on the couch next to her, seemed to clash with her outfit and the sheets covering the furniture.
“How are you, Mrs. Kincaid?”
“Please call me Kate.”
“Kate then.”
“I am very fine, thank you. Better than I have been in a long, long time. How are you?”
“I’m just so-so today, Kate. I had a bad night. And I don’t like it when it rains.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. It does look like you haven’t slept.”
“Do you mind if I look around a little bit before we start talking?”
He had a signed search warrant for the house in his briefcase but he didn’t want to bring it up yet.
“Please do,” she said. “Stacey’s room is down the hall to your left. First door on the left.”
Bosch left his briefcase on the tiled entryway floor and headed the way she had directed. The furniture in the girl’s room was not covered. The white sheets that had covered everything were in piles on the floor. It looked like someone – probably the dead girl’s mother – had visited here on occasion. The bed was unmade. The pink bedspread and matching sheets were twisted into a knot – not as if by someone sleeping, but maybe by someone who had lain on the bed and gathered the bedclothes to her chest. It made Bosch feel bad seeing it that way.
Bosch stepped to the middle of the room, keeping his hands in the pockets of his raincoat. He studied the girl’s things. There were stuffed animals and dolls, a shelf of picture books. No movie posters, no photos of young television stars or pop singers. It was almost as if the room belonged to a girl much younger than Stacey Kincaid had been at the end. Bosch wondered if the design was her parents’ or her own, as if maybe she had thought by holding on to the things of her past she could somehow avoid the horror of the present. The thought made him feel worse than when he had studied the bedclothes.
