younger brother who worked in the bail bonds office. Now most of his face was gone.
Bosch got up and went into the head to grab a tissue, which he then used to take the gun out of the dead man’s grip. He carried it back into the master cabin and put it down on the night stand. The gun McCaleb had used was now lying on the bed. McCaleb stood on the other side of the bed. He had the sweatpants on and was pulling the shirt over his head. Once his head came through he looked at Bosch.
Their eyes held for a long moment. They had saved each other. Bosch finally nodded.
Tafero worked his way up into a sitting position against the wall. Blood had run out of his nose and down around both sides of his mouth. It looked like a grotesque Fu Manchu mustache. Bosch guessed that his nose had been broken when he’d gone face-first into the wall. He sat slumped against the wall, his eyes staring in horror through the doorway to the body in the hallway.
Bosch used the tissue to pick the gun up off the bed and put it next to the other one on the nightstand. He then took a cell phone out of his pocket and punched in a number. While he waited for the call to connect he looked at Tafero.
“You got your little brother killed, Rudy,” he said. “That’s too bad.”
Tafero lowered his eyes and started crying.
Bosch’s call was answered at central dispatch. He gave the address of the marina and said he was going to need a homicide team from the officer involved-shooting unit. He would need a coroner’s crew and techs from Scientific Investigation Division to respond as well. He told the dispatcher to make all notifications by landline. He didn’t want the media to get wind of the incident from a police scanner until the time was right.
He closed the phone and held it up for McCaleb to see.
“You want an ambulance? You should get checked out.”
“I’m fine.”
“Your neck looks like it could -”
“I said I’m fine.”
Bosch nodded.
“Suit yourself.”
He came around the bed and stood in front of Tafero.
“I’m going to get him out of here, put him in the car.”
He dragged Tafero to his feet and pushed him to the door. As he passed his brother’s body in the hallway Tafero let out a loud animal-like wail, a kind of sound Bosch was surprised to hear coming from such a big man.
“Yeah, it’s too bad,” Bosch said without a note of sympathy in his voice. “The kid had a bright future helping you kill people and getting people out of jail.”
He shoved Tafero toward the steps up to the salon. On the way up the gangway to the parking lot Bosch saw a man standing on the deck of a sailboat cluttered with rafts and surfboards and other junk. The man looked at Bosch and then Tafero and then back to Bosch. His eyes were wide and it was clear he recognized them, probably from the trial coverage on TV.
“Hey, I heard shots. Is Terry okay?”
“He’s going to be fine.”
“Can I go talk to him?”
“Better not. The cops are coming. Let them handle it.”
“Hey, you’re Bosch, aren’t you? From the trial?”
“Yeah. I’m Bosch.”
The man said nothing else. Bosch kept moving with Tafero.
When Bosch came back onto the boat a few minutes later McCaleb was in the galley drinking a glass of orange juice. Behind him and down the steps the splayed legs of the dead man were visible.
“A neighbor of yours out there asked about you.”
McCaleb nodded.
“Buddy.”
That’s all he said.
Bosch looked out the window and back up at the parking lot. He thought he could hear sirens in the distance but thought it might just be the wind playing sound games.
“They’re going to be here any minute,” he said. “How’s the throat? I hope you can talk, ’cause we’re going to have a lot of explaining to do.”
“It’s fine. Why were you here, Harry?”
Bosch put his car keys down on the countertop. He didn’t answer for a long moment.
“I just sort of guessed you might be drawing a bead, that’s all.”
“How so?”
“You busting in on his brother at the office this morning. I figured that if he followed you, he might’ve gotten a plate or something they could trace to you here.”
McCaleb looked pointedly at him.
“And what, you were hanging out in the marina and saw Rudy but not the little brother?”
“No, I just drove down and cruised around a little. I saw Rudy’s old Lincoln parked up there in the lot and figured something was going on. I never saw the little brother – he must’ve been hiding somewhere and watching.”
“I’m thinking he was on the docks looking for an owl he could take off a boat to use at Winston’s. They were improvising tonight.”
Bosch nodded.
“Anyway, I was looking around and saw the door open on your boat and decided to check it out. I thought it was too cold a night and you were too careful a guy to sleep with the door open like that.”
McCaleb nodded.
Bosch now heard the unmistakable sound of approaching sirens and looked out the window and across the docks to the parking lot. He saw two patrol cars glide in and stop near his slickback where Tafero was locked in the back. They killed the sirens but left the blue lights flashing.
“I better go meet the boys in blue,” he said.
Chapter 44
For most of the night they were separated and questioned and then questioned again. Then the interrogators switched rooms and they heard the same questions once more from different mouths. Five hours after the shooting on The Following Sea the doors were opened and McCaleb and Bosch stepped out into a hallway at Parker Center. Bosch came up to him then.
“You okay?”
“Tired.”
“Yeah.”
McCaleb watched him put a cigarette in his mouth but not light it.
“I’m heading out to the sheriff’s,” Bosch said. “I want to be there.”
McCaleb nodded.
“I’ll see you there.”
They stood side by side behind the one-way glass, squeezed in next to the videographer. McCaleb was close enough to smell Bosch’s menthol cigarette breath and the glove-box cologne he had seen him put on in his car
