He went back to the counter and the file.
“Is this guy still alive?” she called after him.
He walked the third sheet over and put it down on the table next to the other two.
“He’s been dead about five hundred years.”
“Jesus.”
She picked up the third sheet and looked closely at it. It was the full copy of the Seven Deadly Sins tabletop.
“That’s supposed to be God’s eye seeing all the sins of the world,” McCaleb explained. “You recognize the words in the center, running around the iris?”
“Beware, beware…,” she whispered the translation. “Oh, God, we’ve got a real nut here. Who is this?”
“One more. This one really falls into place now.”
He went back to the file for the fourth time and came back with another reproduction of a painting from the Bosch book. He handed it to her.
“It’s called The Stone Operation. In medieval times it was believed by some that an operation to remove a stone from the brain was a cure for stupidity and deceit. Note the location of the incision.”
“I noted, I noted. Just like our guy. What’s all of this around here?”
She traced the exterior of the circular painting with a finger. In the outer black margin were words that were once ornately painted in gold but which had deteriorated over time and were almost indecipherable.
“The translation is ‘Master, cut out the stone. My name is Lubbert Das.’ The critical literature on the painter who created this piece notes that in his time the name Lubbert was a derisive name applied to those who were perverted or stupid.”
Winston put the sheet down on top of the others and raised her hands, palms out.
“All right, Terry, enough. Who was the painter and who is this suspect you say you’ve come up with?”
McCaleb nodded. It was time.
“The painter’s name was Jerome Van Aiken. He was Netherlandish, considered to be one of the greats of the Northern Renaissance. But his paintings were dark, full of monsters and phantasmic demons. Owls, too. Lots of owls. The literature suggests the owls found in his paintings symbolized everything from evil to doom to the fall of mankind.”
He sorted through the sheets on the coffee table and held up the detail of the man embracing the owl.
“This kind of says it all about him. Man’s embracing of evil – the devil owl, to use Mr. Riddell’s description – leads to the inevitable destiny of hell. Here’s the whole painting.”
He went back to the file and brought to her the full copy of The Garden of Earthly Delights. He watched her eyes as she studied the images. He saw repulsion as well as fascination. He pointed out the four owls he had found in the painting, including the detail he had already shown her.
She suddenly pulled the sheet aside and looked at him.
“Wait a minute. I know I’ve seen this before. In a book or maybe an art class I took at CSUN. But I never heard of this Van Aiken, I don’t think. He painted this?”
McCaleb nodded.
“The Garden of Earthly Delights. Van Aiken painted it but you never heard of him because he wasn’t known by his real name. He used the Latin version of Jerome and took the name of his hometown for a last name. He was known as Hieronymus Bosch.”
She just looked at him for a long moment as it all clicked together, the images he had shown her, the names on the printout, her knowledge of the Edward Gunn case.
“Bosch,” she said, almost as an expulsion of breath. “Is Hieronymus…?”
She didn’t finish. McCaleb nodded.
“Yeah, that’s Harry’s real name.”
They were both pacing in the salon now, heads down but careful not to collide. Talking in sprints, a bad but fast-moving jazz in their blood.
“This is too far out there, McCaleb. Do you know what you are saying?”
“I know exactly what I’m saying. And don’t think that I didn’t think long and hard about it before I said it. I consider him to be a friend, Jaye. There was… I don’t know, at one time I thought we were a lot alike. But look at this stuff, look at the connections, the parallels. It fits. It all fits.”
He stopped and looked at her. She kept pacing.
“He’s a cop! A homicide cop, for God’s sake.”
“What, are you going to tell me it’s beyond the realm because he’s a cop? This is Los Angeles – the modern Garden of Earthly Delights. With all the same temptations and demons. You don’t even have to go beyond the city limits for examples of cops crossing the line – dealing drugs, robbing banks, even murder.”
“I know, I know. It’s just that…”
She didn’t finish.
“At minimum it fits well enough that you know we have to take a good hard look.”
She stopped and looked back at him.
“We? Forget it, Terry. I asked you to take a look at the book, not run down the leads. You’re out after this.”
“Look, if I didn’t run some of this down you’d have nothing. This owl would still be sitting on top of that guy Rohrshak’s other building.”
“I’ll give you that. And thank you very much. But you’re a civilian. You’re out.”
“I’m not walking away, Jaye. If I’m the one who puts Bosch under the glass, then I’m not walking away from it.”
Winston sat down heavily in the chair.
“All right, can we talk about that when and if we come to it? I’m still not sold on this.”
“Good. I’m not either.”
“Well, you sure made a nice show of giving me the pictures and building your case.”
“All I am saying is that Harry Bosch is connected to this. And that cuts two ways. One, he did it. Two, he’s been set up. He’s been a cop a long time.”
“Twenty-five, thirty years. The list of people he’s put in the penitentiary has got to be a yard long. And the ones who have been in and out is probably half the list. It’ll take a fucking year to run all of them down.”
McCaleb nodded.
“And don’t think he didn’t know that.”
She looked up sharply at him. He started pacing again, his head down. After too long a silence he glanced up and saw her staring at him.
“What?”
“You really like Bosch for this, don’t you? You know something else.”
“No, I don’t. I am trying to stay open. All avenues of possibility need to be pursued.”
“Bullshit, you’re driving down one avenue.”
McCaleb didn’t answer. He felt enough guilt about it without Winston having to apply more.
“Okay,” she said. “Then why don’t you step it out for me? And don’t worry, I’m not going to hold it against you when you end up wrong.”
He stopped and looked at her.
“Come on, step it out for me.”
McCaleb shook his head.
“I’m not all the way there yet. All I know is that what we have here is way, way beyond the realm of coincidence. So there has to be an explanation.”
“So tell me the explanation involving Bosch. I know you. You’ve been thinking about it.”
“All right, but remember, it’s all theory at this point.”
“I’ll remember. Go.”
“First of all, you start with Detective Hieronymus Bosch believing – no, make that knowing – that this guy,
