The Last Coyote Part 24

"You think they'd go that far over time and distance?"

"I don't have any idea. The more time that goes by, the more I doubt it. But old habits die hard. I always keep a gun nearby. Doesn't matter that most times I don't even remember why."

They rode in from the Gulf with the engine roaring and the soft spray of the sea in their faces. They didn't talk. That was done with. Occasionally, Bosch glanced over at McKittrick. His old face fell under the shadow of his cap brim. But Bosch could see his eyes in there, looking at something that had happened a long time before and no longer could be changed.

Chapter Twenty-six.

AFTER THE BOAT trip bosch felt the onset of a headache from the combination of too much beer and too much sun. He begged off an invitation to dinner from McKittrick, saying he was tired. once in his car, he took a couple of Tylenol caplets out of his overnighter, downed them without any liquid chaser and hoped they would do the job. He took out his notebook and reviewed some of the things he had written about McKittrick's story. trip bosch felt the onset of a headache from the combination of too much beer and too much sun. He begged off an invitation to dinner from McKittrick, saying he was tired. once in his car, he took a couple of Tylenol caplets out of his overnighter, downed them without any liquid chaser and hoped they would do the job. He took out his notebook and reviewed some of the things he had written about McKittrick's story.

He had come to like the old cop by the end of the fis.h.i.+ng trip. Maybe he saw some of himself in the older man. McKittrick was haunted because he had let the case go. He had not done the right thing. And Bosch knew he was guilty of the same during all the years he had ignored the case that he knew was there waiting for him. He was making up for that now, and so was McKittrick by talking to him. But both of them knew it might be too little too late.

Bosch wasn't sure what he would do next when he got back to Los Angeles. It seemed to him that his only move was to confront Conklin. He was reluctant to do this because he knew he would go into such a confrontation soft, with only his suspicions and no hard evidence. Conklin would have the upper hand.

A wave of desperation came over him. He did not want the case to come to this. Conklin hadn't flinched in almost thirty-five years. He wouldn't with Bosch in his face now. Harry knew he needed something else. But he had nothing.

He started the car but left it in Park. He turned the air conditioner on high and added what McKittrick had told him into the stew of what he already knew. He began formulating a theory. For Bosch, this was one of the most important components of homicide investigation. Take the facts and shake them down into hypothesis. The key was not to become beholden to any one theory. Theories changed and you had to change with them.

It seemed clear from McKittrick's information that Fox had a hold on Conklin. What was it? Well, Bosch thought, Fox dealt in women. The theory that emerged was that Fox had gotten a hook into Conklin through a woman, or women. The news clips at the time reported Conklin was a bachelor. The morals of the time would have dictated then as now that as a public servant and soon-to-be candidate for top prosecutor, Conklin needed not necessarily to be celibate but, at least, not to have succ.u.mbed privately to the very vices he was publicly attacking. If he had done that and was exposed, he could kiss his political career good-bye, let alone his position as commander of the DA commandos. So, Bosch concluded, if this was Conklin's flaw and it was through Fox that such dalliances were arranged, then Fox would hold an almost unbeatable hand when it came to having juice with Conklin. It would explain the unusual circ.u.mstances of the interview McKittrick and Eno conducted with Fox.

The same theory, Bosch knew, would work to an even greater degree if Conklin had done more than succ.u.mb to the vice of s.e.x but had gone further: if he had killed a woman Fox had sent to him, Marjorie Lowe. For one thing, it would explain how Conklin knew for sure that Fox was in the clear on the murder-because he was the killer himself. For another, it would explain how Fox got Conklin to run interference for him and why he was later hired as a Conklin campaign worker. The bottom line was, if Conklin was the killer, Fox's hook would be set even deeper and it would be set for good. Conklin would be like that wahoo at the end of the line, a pretty fish unable to get away.

Unless, Bosch knew, the man at the other end of the line and holding the rod were to go away somehow. He thought about Fox's death and saw how it fit. Conklin let some time separate one death from the other. He played like a hooked fish, even agreeing to Fox's demand for a straight job with the campaign, and then, when all seemed clear, Fox was run down in the street. Maybe a payoff to a reporter kept the victim's background quiet-if the reporter even knew it, and a few months later Conklin was crowned district attorney.

Bosch considered where Mittel would fit into the theory. He felt it was unlikely that all of this had transpired in a vacuum. It was Bosch's guess that Mittel, as Conklin's right-hand man and enforcer, would know what Conklin knew.

Bosch liked his theory but it angered him, largely because that was all it was, theory. He shook his head as he realized he was back to ground zero. All talk, no evidence of anything.

He grew weary thinking about it and decided to put the thoughts aside for a while. He turned the air down because it was too cool against his sunburned skin and put the car in gear. As he slowly cruised through Pelican Cove toward the gatehouse, his thoughts drifted to the woman who was trying to sell her dead father's condo. She had signed the name Jazz on the self-portrait. He liked that.

He turned the car around and drove toward her unit. It was still daylight and no lights shone from behind the building's windows when he got there. He couldn't tell if she was there or not. Bosch parked nearby and watched for a few minutes, debating what he should do, if anything at all.

Fifteen minutes later, when it seemed that indecisiveness had paralyzed him, she stepped out the front door. He was parked nearly twenty yards away, between two other cars. His paralytic affliction eased enough for him to slide down in his seat to avoid detection. She walked out into the parking lot and behind the row of cars which included Bosch's rental. He didn't move or turn to follow her movement. He listened. He waited for the sound of a car starting. Then what, he wondered. Follow her? What are you doing?

He jerked upright at the sound of sharp rapping on the window next to him. It was her. Bosch was fl.u.s.tered but managed to turn the key so he could lower the window.

"Yes?"

"Mr. Bosch, what are you doing?"

"What do you mean?"

"You've been sitting out here. I saw you."

"I..."

He was too humiliated to finish.

"I don't know whether to call security or not."

"No, don't do that. I, uh, I was just-I was going to go to your door. To apologize."

"Apologize? Apologize for what?"

"For today. For earlier, when I was inside. I-you were right, I wasn't looking to buy anything."

"Then what were you doing?"

Bosch opened the car door and stepped out. He felt disadvantaged with her looking down at him in the car.

"I'm a cop," he said. "I needed to get in here to see someone. I used you and I'm sorry. I am. I didn't know about your father and all of that."

She smiled and shook her head.

"That's the dumbest story I've ever heard. What about L.A., was that part of the story?"

"No. I'm from L.A. I'm a cop there."

"I don't know if I'd go around admitting that if I were you. You guys've got some bad PR problems."

"Yeah, I know. So..." He felt his courage rising. He told himself he was flying out in the morning and it didn't matter what happened because he'd never see her or this state again. "You said something before about lemonade but I never got any. I was thinking, maybe I could tell you the story, apologize and have some lemonade or something."

He looked over toward the door of the condo.

"You L.A. cops are pushy," she said but she was smiling. "One gla.s.s and the story better be good. After that, we both gotta go. I'm driving up to Tampa tonight."

They started walking toward the door and Bosch realized he had a smile on his face.

"What's in Tampa?"

"It's where I live and I miss it. I've been down here more than up there since I put the condo on the market. I want to spend a Sunday at my own place and in my own studio."

"That's right, a painter."

"I try to be."

She opened the door for him and allowed him in first.

"Well, that's okay by me. I have to get to Tampa sometime tonight. I fly out in the morning."

While nursing a tall gla.s.s of lemonade, Bosch explained his scam of using her to get into the complex to see another resident and she didn't seem upset. In fact, he could tell she admired the ingenuity of it. Bosch didn't tell her how it had backfired anyway when McKittrick had pulled a gun on him. He gave her a vague outline of the case, never mentioning its personal connection to himself and she seemed intrigued by the whole idea of solving a murder that happened thirty-three years earlier.

The one gla.s.s of lemonade turned into four and the last two were spiked nicely with vodka. They took care of what was left of Bosch's headache and put a nice bloom on everything. Between the third and the fourth she asked if he would mind if she smoked and he lit cigarettes for both of them. And as the sky darkened over the mangroves outside, he finally turned the conversation toward her. Bosch had sensed a loneliness about her, a mystery of some sort. Behind the pretty face there were scars. The kind that couldn't be seen.

Her name was Jasmine Corian but she said that friends called her Jazz. She spoke of growing up in the Florida sun, of never wanting to leave it. She had married once but it was a long time ago. There was n.o.body in her life now and she was used to it. She said she concentrated most of her life on her art and, in a way, Bosch understood what she meant. His own art, though few would call it that, took most of his life as well.

"What do you paint?"

"Portraits mostly."

"Who are they?"

"Just someone I know. Maybe I'll paint you, Bosch. Someday."

He didn't know what to say to that so he made a clumsy transition to safer ground.

"Why don't you give this place to a realtor to sell? That way you could stay in Tampa and paint."

"Because I wanted the diversion. I also didn't want to give a realtor the five percent. This is a nice complex. These units sell pretty well without realtors. A lot of Canadian investment. I think I'll sell it. This was only the first week I've run the ad."

Bosch just nodded and wished he had kept the conversation on her painting instead of realtors. The clumsy change seemed to have clogged things up a bit.

"I was thinking, you want to have dinner?"

She looked at him solemnly, as if the request and her answer had far deeper implications. They probably did. At least, he thought they did.

"Where would we go?"

That was a stall but he played along.

"I don't know. It's not my town. Not my state. You could pick a place. Around here or on the way up to Tampa. I don't care. I'd like your company, though, Jazz. If you want to."

"How long has it been since you were with a woman? I mean on a date."

"On a date? I don't know. A few months, I guess. But, look, I'm not a hard-luck case. I'm just in town and alone and thought maybe you'd-"

"It's okay, Harry. Let's go."

"To eat?"

"Yes, to eat. I know a place on the way up. It's above Longboat. You'll have to follow me."

He smiled and nodded.

She drove a Volkswagen Beetle convertible that was powder blue with one red fender. He couldn't lose her in a hailstorm let alone the slow-moving Florida highways.

Bosch counted two drawbridges that they had to stop for before they got to Longboat Key. From there they headed north for the length of the island, crossed a bridge onto Anna Maria Island and finally stopped at a place called the Sandbar. They walked through the bar and sat on a deck overlooking the Gulf. It was cool and they ate crabs and oysters chased with Mexican beer. Bosch loved it.

They didn't talk much but didn't need to. It was always in the silences that Bosch felt most comfortable with the women who had moved through his life. He felt the vodka and beer working on him, warming him toward her, sanding off any sharp edges to the evening. He felt a desire for her growing and tugging at him. McKittrick and the case had somehow been pushed into the darkness at the back of his mind.

"This is good," he said when he was finally nearing his capacity for food and drink. "It's great."

"Yeah, they do it right. Can I tell you something, Bosch?"

"Go ahead."

"I was only kidding about what I was saying about L.A. cops before. But I have known some cops before...and you seem different. I don't know what it is but it's like you've got too much of yourself left, you know?"

"I guess." He nodded. "Thanks. I think."

They both laughed and then in a hesitant move, she leaned over and kissed him quickly on the lips. It was nice and he smiled. He could taste garlic.

"I'm glad you're already sunburned or you'd be turning red again."

"No, I wouldn't. I mean, that was a nice thing to say."

"You want to come home with me, Bosch?"

Now he hesitated. Not because there was any deliberation in his answer. But he wanted her to have the chance to withdraw it in case she had spoken too quickly. After a moment of silence from her he smiled and nodded.

"Yes, I would like that."

They left then and cut inland to the freeway. Bosch wondered as he tailed the Volkswagen if she would change her mind as she drove alone. He got his answer at the Skyway bridge. As he pulled up to the tollbooth with his dollar already in hand, the tolltaker shook his head and waved off the money.

"Nope. That lady in the bug got ya covered."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. You know her?"

"Not yet."

"I think you're goin' to. Good luck."

"Thanks."

Chapter Twenty-seven.

NOW B BOSCH COULDN'T lose her in a blizzard. As the drive grew longer, he found himself in a growing sense of an almost adolescent euphoria of antic.i.p.ation. He was captured by the directness of this woman and he was wondering how and what that would translate to when they were making love. lose her in a blizzard. As the drive grew longer, he found himself in a growing sense of an almost adolescent euphoria of antic.i.p.ation. He was captured by the directness of this woman and he was wondering how and what that would translate to when they were making love.

She led him north to Tampa and then into an area called Hyde Park. Overlooking the bay, the neighborhood consisted of old Victorian and Craftsman-style houses with sweeping front porches. Her home was an apartment above the three-car garage set behind a gray Victorian with green trim.

As they got to the top of the steps and she was putting the key into the k.n.o.b, Bosch thought of something and didn't know what to do. She opened the door and looked at him. She read him.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing. But I was thinking, maybe I should go find a drugstore or something and then come back."