'Whatever it is you're doing. If you ever feel like telling it, the number's in the paper. But you already know that.'
Bosch nodded. He was speechless. He stepped through the door and closed it behind him.
By the time he drove back to where he had seen the Town Car, his face had returned to its normal color but he still felt embarrassed about being cornered by the woman. He tried to dismiss it and concentrate on the task at hand. He parked and went to the first-floor door that was nearest the Town Car and knocked. Eventually, an old woman opened the door and stared at him with frightened eyes. One hand clasped the handle of a small two- wheeled cart that carried an oxygen bottle. Two clear plastic tubes snaked over her ears and across both cheeks to her nose.
'I'm sorry to disturb you,' he said quickly. 'I was looking for the McKittricks.'
She raised a frail hand, formed a fist with the thumb out and jerked it up toward the ceiling. Her eyes went up that way, too.
'Upstairs?'
She nodded. He thanked her and headed for the stairs.
The woman who had picked up the red envelope answered the next door he knocked on and Bosch exhaled as if he had spent a lifetime looking for her. It almost felt that way.
'Mrs McKittrick?'
'Yes?'
Bosch pulled out his badge case and flipped it open.
He held the wallet so that his first two fingers crossed most of the badge, obscuring the lieutenant.
'My name's Harry Bosch. I'm a detective with the LAPD. I was wondering if your husband was here. I'd like to talk to him.'
An immediate concern clouded her face.
'LAPD? He hasn't been out there in twenty years.'
'It's about an old case. I was sent out to ask him about it.'
'Well, you could've called.'
'We didn't have a number. Is he here?'
'No, he's down with the boat. He's going fishing.'
'Where's that? Maybe I can catch him.'
'Well, he doesn't like surprises.'
'I guess it will be a surprise whether you tell him or I tell him. Doesn't make any difference to me. I just have to talk to him, Mrs McKittrick.'
Maybe she was used to the no-debate tone that cops can put into their voice. She gave in.
'You walk around the building here and go straight back past the next three buildings. Go left, you'll see the docks after that.'
'Where's his boat?'
'It's slip six. It says Trophy in big letters on the side. You can't miss it. He hasn't left yet because I'm supposed to bring his lunch down.'
'Thanks.'
He had started away from the door to the side of the building when she called after him.
'Detective Bosch? Are you going to be a while? Should I make you a sandwich, too?'
'I don't know how long I'll be but that would be nice of you.'
As he headed toward the docks, he realized that the
woman named Jasmine had never offered him the lemonade she had promised.
It took Bosch fifteen minutes to find the little inlet where the docks were. After that, McKittrick was easy enough to spot. There were maybe forty boats in slips but only one of them was occupied. A man with a deep tan set off by his white hair stood in the stern bending over the outboard engine. Bosch studied him as he got closer but saw nothing recognizable about the man. He did not fit with the image Bosch had in his mind's eye of the man who had pulled him from the pool so long ago.
The cover was off the boat engine and the man was doing something with a screwdriver. He wore khaki shorts and a white golf shirt that was too old and stained for golf but was fine for boating. The boat was about twenty feet long, Bosch guessed, and had a small cabin near the bow, where the helm was. There were fishing rods erected in holders along the sides of the boat, two rods per side.
Bosch stopped on the dock at the bow of the boat on purpose. He wanted to be at a distance from McKittrick when he showed the badge. He smiled.
'Never thought I'd see somebody from the Hollywood homicide table so far away from home,' he said.
McKittrick looked up but showed no surprise. He showed nothing.
'Nope, you're wrong. This is home. When I was over there, that's when I was far away.'
Bosch gave a that's-fair-enough nod and showed the
badge. He held it the same way as when he'd showed it to McKittrick's wife.
'I'm Harry Bosch, from Hollywood homicide.'
'Yeah, that's what I heard.'
Bosch was the one who showed surprise. He could not think of who in LA would have tipped McKittrick to his arrival. No one knew. He had only told Hinojos and he could not fathom that she would betray him.
McKittrick relieved him by gesturing to the portable phone on the dashboard of the boat.
'The wife called.'
'Oh.'
'So what's this all about, Detective Bosch? When I used to work there, we did things in pairs. It was safer that way. You folks that understaffed, you're going singleton?'
'Not really. My partner's chasing down another old case. These are such long shots, they're not wasting money sending two.'
'I assume you're going to explain that.'
'Yeah. As a matter of fact, I am. Mind if I come down there?'
'Suit yourself. I'm fixing to shove off as soon as the wife comes with the food.'
Bosch began walking along the finger dock to the side of McKittrick's boat. He then stepped down into the craft. It wobbled on the water with the added weight but then steadied. McKittrick lifted the engine cover and began snapping it back in place. Bosch felt grossly out of place. He wore street shoes with black jeans, an Army green T-shirt and a black light-weight sport jacket. And he was still hot. He took the jacket off and folded it over one of the two chairs in the cockpit.
'What are you going for?'
'Whatever's biting. What are you going for?'
He looked directly at Bosch when he asked this and Harry saw that his eyes were brown like beer-bottle glass.
'Well, you heard about the earthquake, didn't you?'
'Sure, who didn't? You know, I've been through quakes and 'canes and you can keep the quakes. At least with a hurricane, you see it coming. You take Andrew, he left a lot of devastation, but think how much it woulda been if nobody knew he was about to hit. That's what you get with your earthquakes.'
It took Bosch a few moments to place Andrew, the hurricane that had slammed the South Florida coast a couple of years earlier. It was hard to keep track of all the disasters in the world. There were enough just in LA. He looked out across the inlet. He saw a fish jump and its reentry create a stampede of jumping among the others in the school. He looked at McKittrick and was about to tell him when he realized it was probably something McKittrick saw every day of his life.
'When'd you leave LA?'
'Twenty-one years ago. I got my twenty in and pfft, I was gone. You can have LA, Bosch. Shit, I was out there for the Sylmar quake in seventy-one. Knocked down a hospital and a couple freeways. At the time we were living in Tujunga, a few miles from the epicenter. I'll always remember that one. It was like God and the devil meetin' in the room and you were there with 'em playin' referee. Goddamn ... So what's the quake got to do with you being here?'
'Well, it's kind of a strange phenomenon but the murder rate's fallen off. People are being more civil, I
