charge Storey with Lopez first. You want to come in and make the arrest?”
“Whatever. If you want me to.”
Bosch knew it was just a legal formality. Storey was already in custody.
“You deserve it, Harry. We want you to be there.”
“Fine.”
The judge tapped his gavel once and drew the courtroom’s attention. The reporters in the media gallery were all leaning forward in their seats. They knew something big was going on.
“We’ll stand in recess until ten o’clock,” the judge announced. “I’ll see all parties in chambers now.”
He stood up and quickly went down the three stairs to the rear door before the deputy had time to call, “All rise.”
Chapter 46
McCaleb stayed away from The Following Sea, even after the last detective and forensic technician had finished with it. From early afternoon until dark the boat was staked out by reporters and television news crews. The coupling of the shooting aboard the boat plus the arrest of Tafero and abrupt guilty pleas from David Storey had turned the boat into the central image of a story that had developed quickly through the day. Every local channel plus the networks shot their stand-up reports from the marina, The Following Sea serving as the backdrop with its yellow police tape strung across the salon door.
McCaleb hid out for most of the afternoon in Buddy Lockridge’s boat, staying below decks and donning one of Buddy’s floppy fishing hats if he poked his head up through a hatch to see what was going on outside. The two were talking again. Soon after leaving the Sheriff’s Department and getting to the marina ahead of the media, McCaleb had sought out Buddy and apologized for assuming that his charter partner had leaked the story. Buddy in turn apologized for using The Following Sea – and McCaleb’s cabin – as a rendezvous point for encounters with erotic masseuses. McCaleb agreed to tell Graciela he had been wrong about Buddy being the leak. He also agreed not to tell her about the masseuses. Buddy had explained that he didn’t want Graciela thinking less of him than she probably already did.
While they hid out in the boat, they watched Buddy’s little twelve-inch TV and remained up-to-the-minute with the day’s developments. Channel 9, which had been carrying the Storey trial live, remained most current, staying on live and continuously reporting from the Van Nuys courthouse and the sheriff’s Star Center.
McCaleb was left stunned and in awe by the day’s events. David Storey abruptly filed guilty pleas in Van Nuys to two murders as he was simultaneously charged in the downtown Los Angeles courthouse with being a conspirator in the Gunn case. The movie director had avoided the death penalty in the first cases but still would face it in the Gunn case if he did not make another plea arrangement with prosecutors.
A televised news conference at the Star Center had featured Jaye Winston prominently. She answered questions from reporters after the sheriff, flanked by LAPD and FBI brass, read a statement announcing the day’s events from an investigative standpoint. McCaleb’s name was mentioned numerous times in the discussion of the investigation and subsequent shooting aboard The Following Sea. Winston also mentioned it at the end of the news conference when she expressed her thanks to him, saying it was his volunteer work on the case that broke it open.
Bosch was also prominently mentioned but took no part in any press conferences. After Storey’s guilty verdicts were entered in the Van Nuys court, Bosch and the lawyers involved in the case were mobbed outside the doors to the courtroom. But McCaleb had seen video on one channel of Bosch pushing his way though the reporters and cameras and refusing to comment as he moved to a fire escape and disappeared down the stairs.
The only reporter who got to McCaleb was Jack McEvoy, who still had his cell phone number. McCaleb talked to him briefly but declined to comment on what had happened in the master cabin of The Following Sea and how close he had come to death. His thoughts about that were too personal and he would never share them with any reporter.
McCaleb had also talked to Graciela, calling her and filling her in on the events before she saw them on the news. He told her he probably wouldn’t get home until the next day because he was sure the media pack would be watching the boat until well after dark. She said she was glad it was over and that he’d be coming home. He sensed there was still a high level of stress in her voice and knew it was something he would have to address when he got back to the island.
Late in the day McCaleb was able to slip out of Buddy’s boat unnoticed when the media pack was distracted by activity in the marina parking lot. The LAPD was towing off the old Lincoln Continental that the Tafero brothers had been using the night before when they had come to the marina to kill McCaleb. While the news crews filmed and watched the mundane task of a car being hooked up and towed away, McCaleb was able to get to his Cherokee without being spotted. He started the car and drove out of the lot ahead of the tow truck. Not a single reporter followed.
It was fully dark by the time he got to Bosch’s house. The front door was open as it had been the time before, the screen door in place. McCaleb rapped on the wooden frame and peered through the mesh into the darkness of the house. There was a single light – a reading light – on in the living room. He could hear music and thought it was the same Art Pepper CD that had been playing during his last visit. But he didn’t see Bosch.
McCaleb looked away from the door to check the street and when he looked back Bosch was standing at the screen and it startled him. Bosch unhooked a latch and opened the screen. He was wearing the same suit McCaleb had seen him in on the news. He was holding a bottle of Anchor Steam down at his side.
“Terry. Come on in. I thought maybe you were a reporter. Bugs the hell out of me when they come to your house. Seems like there should be one place they can’t go.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean. They’re all over the boat. I had to get away.”
McCaleb passed by Bosch in the entrance hallway and stepped into the living room.
“So reporters aside, how’s it going, Harry?”
“Never better. A good day for our side. How’s your neck doing?”
“Sore as hell. But I’m alive.”
“Yeah, that’s what’s important. Want a beer?”
“Uh, that would be good.”
While Bosch got the beer McCaleb went out to the rear deck.
Bosch had the deck lights off, making the lights of the city more brilliant in the distance. McCaleb could hear the ever present sound of the freeway at the bottom of the pass. Searchlights cut across the sky from three different locations on the Valley floor. Bosch came out and handed him a beer.
“No glass, right?”
“No glass.”
They looked out into the night and drank their beers silently for a little while. McCaleb thought about how he should say what he wanted to say. He was still working on it.
“The last thing they were doing before I left was hooking up Tafero’s car,” he said after some time.
Bosch nodded.
“What about the boat? They finished with it?”
“Yeah, they’re done.”
“Is it a mess? They always leave things a mess.”
“Probably. I haven’t been inside. I’ll worry about it tomorrow.”
Bosch nodded. McCaleb took a long draw on his beer and put the bottle down on the railing. He had taken too much. It backed up in his throat and burned his sinuses.
“Okay?” Bosch asked.
“Yeah, fine.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Harry, I came up to tell you I’m not going to be your friend anymore.”
