“Why don’t we go into my office so you won’t get any more of these distractions.”
It wasn’t spoken like a question. Bosch dropped the printouts on his desk and followed the lieutenant to her office. She told him to close the door.
“Is that a murder book you are putting together?” she asked before even sitting down.
“Yes.”
“Are you saying George Irving was a homicide?”
“It’s looking that way. But not for public consumption.”
Bosch spent the next twenty minutes giving her the shorthand. She agreed with the plan to keep the new focus of the investigation quiet until more evidence was turned up or it became a strategic advantage to have the information out in the world.
“Keep me posted, Harry. Start returning my calls and e-mails.”
“Right. Will do.”
“And start using the magnets so I know where my people are.”
The lieutenant had put a squad room attendance board up with magnets that could be moved to illustrate whether a detective was in or out of the office. It was greeted by most in the unit as a waste of time. The whip usually knew where everyone was, and the lieutenant would as well if she ever came out of her office or at least opened the blinds.
“Sure,” Bosch said.
Chu was back in the cubicle when Bosch returned.
“Where were you?” he asked.
“In with the lieutenant. Where were you?”
“Uh, I went across the street. I never got breakfast.”
Chu changed the subject, pointing to a document that was on his computer screen.
“Did you read Crate and Barrel’s report on the canvass?”
“Not yet.”
“They found a guy who saw somebody on the fire escape. The timing’s off but, man, what are the chances?”
Bosch turned back to his desk and found the printout of the report on the hillside canvass. It was essentially a list of consecutive addresses on Marmont Lane. After each address it said whether the door was answered and a resident interviewed. They used abbreviations Bosch had read in LAPD canvass reports for more than two decades. There were a lot of NBHs, meaning nobody home, and a lot of D-SATs, meaning the residents didn’t see a thing, but one entry was several sentences long.
Resident Earl Mitchell (WM, DOB 4/13/61) had insomnia and went to the kitchen to get a bottle of water. The residence’s rear windows face rear and side of Chateau Marmont head-on. Resident said he noticed a man descending the fire escape ladder. Resident went to telescope in living room and looked at the hotel. The man on the fire escape was no longer in view. Resident did not call PD. Resident stated that this sighting occurred at approximately 12:40 A.M., which was the time on the bedroom clock when he decided to get up to get water. To the best of his memory, resident believes the figure on the fire escape was between the fifth and sixth floor and descending when seen.
Bosch didn’t know whether it was Crate or Barrel who had written the report. Whoever it was, he had employed short sentences in a staccato fashion, but he was no Hemingway. He had simply employed the policeman’s KISS rule—Keep It Simple, Sherlock. The fewer words in a report meant the fewer chances and angles of attack from critics and lawyers.
Bosch pulled his phone and called Jerry Solomon. When Solomon answered, it sounded like he was in a car with the windows open.
“It’s Bosch. I’m looking at your canvass report here and have a couple questions.”
“Can it wait ten minutes? I’m in the car and I’m with people. Civilians.”
“Is your partner with you or can I just call him?”
“No, he’s here with me.”
“That’s nice. You guys go out for a late lunch?”
“Look, Bosch, we haven’t—”
“One of you call me as soon as you get back to the squad.”
Harry closed the phone and focused his attention on the second report. This one dealt with the questioning of hotel guests and was set up in the same fashion as the other, only with room numbers instead of addresses. Again there were lots of NBHs and D-SATs. They did, however, manage to interview the man who checked into the hotel right after Irving.
Thomas Rapport (WM, 7/21/56, NYC resident) arrived at the hotel from the airport at 9:40 pm. Remembers seeing George Irving at check in. They did not speak to each other and Rapport never saw Irving again. Rapport is a writer in town for script conferences at Archway Studios. Confirmed.
Another completely incomplete report. Bosch checked his watch. It had been twenty minutes since Solomon said he needed ten minutes. Harry opened his phone and called him back.
“I thought you were supposed to call me in ten minutes,” he said by way of a greeting.
“I thought you said you were calling me,” Solomon countered in a phony confused tone.
Bosch closed his eyes for a moment and let the frustration pass. It wasn’t worth getting into it with an old bull like Solomon.
“I have questions about the reports you sent me.”
“Ask away. You’re the boss.”
As the conversation continued, Bosch opened a drawer and took out a three-hole punch. He started punching holes in the reports he had printed and sliding them onto the prongs of the blue binder. There was something calming about putting the murder book together while dealing with Solomon.
“Okay, first of all, on this guy Mitchell who saw the man on the fire escape, did he give a good reason why the guy just disappeared? I mean, he sees him between the fifth and sixth floors and then when he goes to the telescope, the guy is gone. What happened to floors one through four?”
“That’s simple. He said by the time he swung the scope around and got it in focus, the guy was gone. He could’ve gone all the way down or he could’ve gone inside on one of the landings.”
Bosch almost asked him why that wasn’t in the report but he knew why, just as he knew that George Irving’s death would have been written off as a suicide with Crate and Barrel in charge.
“How do we know it wasn’t Irving?” Bosch asked.
It was a curve ball and it took Solomon a moment to respond.
“I guess we don’t. But what would Irving be doing out there on the ladder?”
“I don’t know. Was there any description? Clothes, hair, race?”
“He was too far away to be sure about any of that. He thought it was a white guy and his impression was that it might’ve been a maintenance man. You know, working for the hotel.”
“At midnight? What made him think that?”
“He said his pants and shirt matched color. You know, like a uniform.”
“What color?”
“Light gray.”
“Did you check at the hotel?”
“Check what at the hotel?”
That false tone of confusion was back in his voice.
“Come on, Solomon, drop the stupid act. Did you check if there was any reason for someone in the hotel or working in the hotel to be on that fire escape? Did you ask them what color uniform their maintenance men wear?”
“No, I didn’t, Bosch. There was no need to. The guy was going down the fire escape a good two to four hours before our guy took the high dive. They are unrelated matters. You sending us up that street was a complete waste of our time. That was what was stupid.”
Bosch knew that if he lost his temper with Solomon, the detective would be completely useless for the rest of the investigation. He wasn’t ready to lose him yet. Once again, he moved on.
“Okay, on the other report, your interview with this writer, Thomas Rapport. You have any more details on
