was a vindictive shot. More than a coup de grace, it showed anger and hatred. It contradicted the cool skill of the other shots. It also told Bosch that Garwood had been wrong about the shooting sequence. Whether the captain had been intentionally wrong, he didn’t know.
He stood up and backed to the rear door of the car so that he was in the spot where the shooter had probably stood. He surveyed the carnage in front of him once more and nodded to no one in particular, just trying to commit it all to memory. Edgar and Rider were still between the bodies and making their own observations.
Bosch turned around and looked down the tracks to the turnstile station below. The detectives he had seen before were gone. Now a lone cruiser sat down there and two patrol officers guarded the lower crime scene.
Bosch had seen enough. He made his way past the bodies and carefully around Sally Tam again and up onto the platform. His partners followed, Edgar moving by Tam more closely than he had to.
Bosch stepped away from the train car so they could huddle together privately.
“What do you think?” he said.
“I think they’re real,” Edgar said, looking back toward Tam. “They’ve got that natural slope to them. What do you think, Kiz?”
“Funny,” Rider said, not taking the bait. “Can we talk about the case, please?”
Bosch admired how Rider took Edgar’s frequent comments and sexual innuendo without more than a sarcastic remark or complaint fired back at him. Such comments could get Edgar in serious trouble but only if Rider made a formal complaint. The fact that she didn’t indicated either she was intimidated or she could handle it. She also knew that if she went formal, she’d get what cops called a “K-9 jacket,” a reference to the city jail ward where snitches were housed. Bosch had once asked her in a private moment if she wanted him to talk to Edgar. As her supervisor he was legally responsible for resolving the problem but he knew that if he talked to Edgar, then Edgar would know he had gotten to her. Rider knew this as well. She had thought about all of this for a few moments and told Bosch to let things alone. She said she wasn’t intimidated, just annoyed on occasion. She could handle it.
“You go first, Kiz,” Bosch said, also ignoring Edgar’s comment, even though he privately disagreed with his conclusion about Tam. “Anything catch your eye in there?”
“Same as everybody else, I guess. Looks like the victims were not together. The woman either got on ahead of Elias or was about to get off. I think it’s pretty clear Elias was the primary target and she was just an also-ran. The shot up the ass tells me that. Also, like you said in there, this guy was a hell of a shot. We’re looking for someone who’s spent some time at the range.”
Bosch nodded.
“Anything else?”
“Nope. It’s a pretty clean scene. Nothing much to work with.”
“Jerry?”
“Nada. What about you?”
“Same. But I think Garwood was telling us a story. His sequence was for shit.”
“How?” Rider said.
“The shot up the pipe was the last one, not the first. Elias was already down. It’s a contact wound and the entry is in the underside, where all the seams of the pants come together. It would be hard to get a muzzle up there if Elias was standing – even if he was up a step from the shooter. I think he was already down when the shooter popped that cap.”
“That changes things,” Rider said. “Makes the last one a ‘fuck you’ shot. The shooter was angry at Elias.”
“So he knew him,” Edgar said.
Bosch nodded.
“And you think Garwood knew this and was just trying to steer us wrong by planting the suggestion?” Rider asked. “Or do you think he just missed it?”
“What I know about Garwood is that he is not a stupid man,” Bosch said. “He and fifteen of his men were about to be pulled into federal court on Monday by Elias and dragged right through the shit. He knows any one of those boys might possibly be capable of this. He was protecting them. That’s what I think.”
“Well, that’s bullshit. Protecting a killer cop? He should be – ”
“Maybe protecting a killer cop. We don’t know. He didn’t know. I think it was probably a just-in-case move.”
“Doesn’t matter. If that’s what he was doing, he shouldn’t have a badge.”
Bosch didn’t say anything to that and Rider wasn’t placated. She shook her head in disgust. Like most cops in the department, she was tired of fuck-ups and cover-ups, of the few tainting the many.
“What about the scratch on the hand?”
Edgar and Rider looked at him with arched eyebrows. “What about it?” Edgar said. “Prob’ly happened when the shooter pulled off the watch. One of those with the expanding band. Like a Rolex. Knowing Elias, it was prob’ly a Rolex. Makes a nice motive.”
“Yeah, if it was a Rolex,” Bosch said.
He turned and looked out across the city. He doubted Elias wore a Rolex. For all of his flamboyance, Elias was the kind of lawyer who also knew the nuances of his profession. He knew that a lawyer wearing a Rolex might turn jurors off. He wouldn’t wear one. He would have a nice and expensive watch, but not one that advertised itself like a Rolex.
“What, Harry?” Rider said. “What about the scratch?”
Bosch looked back at them.
“Well, whether it was a Rolex or a high-priced watch or not, there’s no blood in the scratch.”
“Meaning?”
“There is a lot of blood in there. The bullet wounds bled out, but there was no blood in the scratch. Meaning I don’t think the shooter took the watch. That scratch was made after the heart stopped. I’d say long after. Which means it was made after the shooter left the scene.”
Rider and Edgar considered this.
“Maybe,” Edgar finally said. “But that vascular system shit is hard to nail down. Even the coroner isn’t gonna be definitive on that.”
“Yeah,” Bosch said, nodding. “So call it gut instinct. We can’t take it to court but I know the shooter didn’t take the watch. Or probably the wallet, for that matter.”
“So what are you saying?” Edgar asked. “Somebody else came along and took it?”
“Something like that.”
“You think it was the guy who ran the train – the one who called it in?”
Bosch looked at Edgar but didn’t answer him. He hiked his shoulders.
“You think it was one of the RHD guys,” Rider whispered. “Another just-in-case move. Send us down the robbery path, just in case it was one of their own.”
Bosch looked at her a moment, thinking about how to respond and how thin the ice was where they now stood.
“Detective Bosch?”
He turned. It was Sally Tam.
“We’re clear and the coroner’s people want to bag ’em and tag ’em if that’s okay.”
“Fine. Hey, listen, I forgot to ask, did you get anything with the laser?”
“We got a lot. But probably nothing that will help. A lot of people ride that car. We probably got passengers, not the shooter.”
“Well, you’ll run them anyway, right?”
“Sure. We’ll put everything through AFIS and DOJ. We’ll let you know.”
Bosch nodded his thanks.
“Also, did you collect any keys from the guy?”
“We did. They’re in one of the brown bags. You want them?”
“Yeah, we’re probably going to need them.”
“Be right back.”
She smiled and went back to the train car. She seemed too cheerful to be at a crime scene. Bosch knew that would wear off after a while.
