blue gas tank.
“That’s Dowler’s,” he said.
They heard another shot from the house. And then another.
“We’re too late.”
35
The front door was unlocked. Bosch and Mendenhall entered, covering the angles from both sides of the frame. They came into a circular entry room with a thick oval of glass sitting atop a three-foot-high stump of cypress. There was nothing else in the room, just the table for keys and mail and packages. From there they started down the main hallway, clearing first a dining room with a table long enough to seat twelve, and then a living room that had to have been at least two thousand square feet, with twin fireplaces at opposite ends. They moved back into the hall, which jogged around a grand staircase and into a smaller back hallway that led to the kitchen. On the floor here was the dog that had charged toward Bosch the night before. Cosmo. He had been shot behind the left ear.
They hesitated in front of the dog, and almost immediately the kitchen lights went out. Bosch knew what was coming.
“Get down!”
He threw himself forward to the floor, coming up behind the dog’s body. A figure appeared in the darkness of the kitchen doorway and Bosch saw the gunpowder flashes before he heard the shots. He felt the dog’s body jerk with the impact of shots meant for him and he returned fire, putting four shots through the doorway into the dark. He heard glass shattering and wood splintering. Then he heard a door opening and the sound of footsteps running away.
No shots followed his volley. He looked around and saw Mendenhall huddled next to a bookcase that stood against the right wall, filled with cookbooks.
“Okay?” he whispered.
“Fine,” she responded.
He turned and looked down the hallway behind them. They had left the front door open. The shooter could be circling the house to come in on them from behind. It was time to move. Time to clear the kitchen.
Bosch pulled himself up into a crouch, then sprang forward, jumping over the dog’s body and moving quickly toward the dark doorway to the kitchen.
He entered the room and immediately swept his hand up the wall to his right, flicking four switches and bathing the kitchen in harsh light from above. To his left was an open door leading to a backyard pool area.
He swept his aim back across the room and saw no one else.
“It’s clear!”
He moved toward the open doorway, stepped out and then immediately to the right so he would not be silhouetted in the door’s light. The dark water of the rectangular pool shimmered in the light from the kitchen, but beyond that there was only darkness. Bosch could see nothing.
“Is he gone?”
Bosch turned. Mendenhall was standing behind him.
“He’s out there somewhere.”
He went back through the kitchen door to check the rest of the house and immediately saw a lip of what looked like blood pooling out from beneath a door next to the massive stainless-steel refrigerator. Bosch pointed it out as Mendenhall returned to the kitchen. She stood in firing position as he reached for the knob.
Bosch opened the door to a walk-in pantry, and there on the floor were the bodies of two men. One he immediately recognized as Carl Cosgrove. The other he guessed was Frank Dowler. Like the dog, both had been shot once behind the left ear. Cosgrove’s body was on top of Dowler’s, suggesting the sequence of murders.
“Drummond gets Cosgrove to call Dowler to come to the house. He pops Dowler in here—that was the first shot. He then kills the dog and then finally the master.”
Bosch knew he might have the sequence wrong but he had no doubt that it had been his gun that Drummond had used. He also couldn’t help but note the similarities to the Christopher Henderson murder fourteen years before. He had been pushed into a small walk-in space in a kitchen and executed with a bullet to the back of the head.
Mendenhall crouched down and checked the bodies for a pulse. Bosch knew it was a hopeless cause. Mendenhall shook her head and started to say something, but she was cut off by a high-pitched, metallic whirring sound that blasted down the hallway.
“What the hell is that?” Mendenhall called over the growing noise.
Bosch looked at the open kitchen door and then at the hallway that offered a direct view front to back through the house.
“Cosgrove’s helicopter,” he yelled as he headed into the hallway. “Drummond’s a pilot.”
Bosch ran down the hallway and charged through the open front door, Mendenhall just a few steps behind him. Almost immediately they were met with a volley of shots that exploded into the plaster-and-wood framing around the door. Once more Bosch dropped and rolled forward, this time finding cover behind one of the concrete planters that lined the turnaround and the front walkway.
He looked up over the edge and saw the helicopter still sitting on its concrete pad, the rotors turning and gathering speed for lift. He looked back at the front door, lit from within, and saw Mendenhall rolling on the floor, just inside the threshold, her hand clamped to her left eye.
“Mendenhall!” he yelled. “Get inside! Are you hit?”
Mendenhall didn’t respond. She rolled herself farther inside the door toward cover.
Bosch looked back over the edge of the planter at the chopper. The engine was whining loudly as the craft was almost at lift speed. Bosch could see the door was still open but he could not see into the craft. He knew it had to be Drummond. His plan destroyed by Bosch’s escape, he was simply trying to escape himself.
Bosch jumped from cover and fired repeatedly at the helicopter. After four shots his gun was dry and he ran back to the front door. He crouched next to Mendenhall as he ejected his gun’s magazine.
“Detective, are you hit?”
He slapped the second magazine into the gun and racked one bullet into the chamber.
“Mendenhall! Are you hit?”
“No! I mean, I don’t know. Something hit my eye.”
He grasped her arm to pull her hand from her eye. She resisted.
“Let me look.”
She gave way and he pulled her hand back. He looked closely into her eye but could not see anything.
“You’re not hit, Mendenhall. You must’ve caught a splinter or some of the plaster dust.”
She pulled her hand back over the eye. Outside, the revving turbine hit critical speed, and Bosch knew Drummond was taking off. He got up and started back toward the front door.
“Just let him go,” Mendenhall called. “He won’t be able to hide.”
Bosch ignored her and ran back out, moving into the middle of the turnaround just as the helicopter started to rise from the pad.
Bosch was two hundred feet away, with the helicopter moving right to left along the tree line as it rose. He extended the gun in a two-armed grip and aimed for the turbine housing. He knew he had seven shots to bring the chopper down.
“Bosch, you can’t shoot at him!”
Mendenhall had come out of the house and was behind him.
“The hell I can’t! He shot at us!”
“It’s not in policy!”
She had now come up next to him. She still held a hand over her injured eye.
“It’s in
“Listen to me! There is no longer a threat to you! He’s flying away! You are
“Bullshit!”
But Bosch raised his aim high and fired three quick shots into the sky, hoping Drummond would hear them or
