Michael Connelly (147 page)

She, in turn, explained that she had to get out of the house because the Realtor was holding an open house. That was why she
had gone to Bosch’s house after visiting the Fontenots. He explained that he had forgotten about the open house.

“You might need to get a new Realtor after today,” he said.

They laughed together to let some of the tension go.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “This should never have involved you.”

They sat in silence for a while after that. She leaned against him as if she was weary of everything.

“Why do you do this, Harry? You deal with so much — the most awful people and the things they do. Why do you keep going?”

He thought about that but knew there was no real answer and that she wasn’t expecting one.

“I don’t want to stay here,” he said after a while.

“We can go back to my house at four.”

“No, let’s just get out of here.”

• • •

The two-room suite at the Loews Hotel in Santa Monica gave them a sweeping view of the ocean across a wide beach. It was the
kind of room that came with two full-length terrycloth robes and gold foil–wrapped chocolates left on the pillow. The suite’s
front door was off the fourth landing of a five-story atrium with a wall of glass that faced the ocean and would capture the
entire arc of the sunset.

There was a porch with two chaise lounges and a table and they had lunch delivered by room service there. Bosch had brought
the rover in with him but it was turned off. He would keep in touch as the search for Locke went on, but he was out of it
for the day.

He had called in and talked to Edgar and then Irving. He told them he would stay with Sylvia, though it seemed unlikely that
the Follower would make a move now. He was not needed anyway because the task force was in a holding pattern, waiting for
Locke to turn up or something else to break.

Irving had said the presidents had contacted the dean of the psychology department at USC who, in turn, contacted one of Locke’s
graduate assistants. She reported that Locke had mentioned on Friday that he would be in Las Vegas for the weekend, staying
at the Stardust. He taught no classes on Mondays, so he would not be back at the school until Tuesday.

“But we checked the Stardust,” Irving said. “Locke had a reservation but never checked in.”

“What about the warrant?”

“We’ve had three turn-downs from three judges. You know it’s pretty weak when a judge won’t rubber-stamp a search warrant
for us. We’re going to have to let that jell for a while. In the meantime, we’ll be watching his house and his office. I’d
like to leave it that way until he surfaces and we can talk to him.”

Bosch heard the doubt in Irving’s voice. He wondered how Rollenberger had explained the leap in the investigation from Mora
to Locke as the suspect.

“You think we’re wrong?”

He realized there was a quiver of doubt in his own voice.

“I don’t know. We traced the note. Partially. It was left at the front desk sometime Saturday night. The deskman went back
for coffee about nine, got sidetracked by the watch commander and when he came back out it was there on the counter. He had
an Explorer put it in your slot. The only thing it means for sure is that we were wrong about Mora. Anyway, the point is,
we could be wrong again. Right now all we have are hunches. Good hunches, mind you, but that’s all. I want to proceed a little
more carefully this time.”

The translation was, you screwed us up with your hunch on Mora. We are going to be more skeptical this time. Bosch understood
this.

“What if the Vegas trip was a cover? The note says something about moving on. Maybe Locke’s running.”

“Maybe.”

“Should we put out a BOLO, get an arrest warrant?”

“I think we’re going to wait until at least Tuesday, Detective. Give him a chance to come back. Just two more days.”

It was clear Irving wanted to sit tight. He was going to wait for events to control what he would do next.

“Okay, I’ll check in later.”

• • •

They napped in the king-size bed until it was dark and then Bosch turned on the news to see if any of what had happened in
the last twenty-four hours had leaked.

It hadn’t, but midway through the newscast on 2, Bosch stopped flipping through the channels with the selector. The story
that stopped him was an update on the Beatrice Fontenot killing. A photo of the girl, her hair in corn-rows, appeared on the
right side of the screen.

The blonde anchor said, “Police announced today that they have identified a suspected gunman in the death of sixteen-year-old
Beatrice Fontenot. The man they are looking for is an alleged drug dealer who was a rival of Beatrice’s older brothers, Detective
Stanley Hanks said. He said the shots fired at the Fontenot house were in all probability meant for the brothers. Instead,
a bullet struck Beatrice, an honor student at Grant High in the Valley, in the head. Her funeral is scheduled for later this
week.”

Bosch turned off the television and looked back at Sylvia, who was propped up on two pillows against the wall. They didn’t
say anything.

After a room service dinner, which they ate with almost no conversation in the front room of the suite, they took turns in
the shower. Bosch went second and as the coarse water stung his scalp, he decided that it was time for him to lose all his
baggage, to come clean. He trusted his faith in her, in her desire to know all of him. And he knew that if he did nothing,
he was risking what they had each day he kept the secrets of his life inside. Somehow, he knew facing her was facing himself.
He had to accept what he was, where he had come from and what he had become if he was to be accepted by her.

• • •

They were in their bleached white bathrobes, she in the chair by the sliding door, he standing near the bed. Beyond her through
the door, he could see the full moon casting a shifting reflection on the Pacific. He didn’t know how to start.

She had been leafing through a hotel magazine filled with suggestions for tourists on what to do in the city. None of them
were things that people who lived here ever did. She closed it and put it on the table. She looked at him and then looked
away. She started before he could say a word.

“Harry, I want you to go home.”

He sat on the edge of the bed, put his elbows on his knees and ran his hands through his hair. He had no idea what was going
on.

“What do you mean?”

“Too much death.”

“Sylvia?”

“Harry, I’ve done so much thinking this weekend that I can’t think anymore. But I know this, we have to be apart for a while.
I have to sort things out. Your life, it’s…”

“Two days ago you said our problem was that I held things back from you. Now you’re saying you don’t want to know about me.
Your —”

“I’m not talking about you. I’m talking about what you do.”

He shook his head.

“Same thing, Sylvia. You should know that.”

“Look, it’s been a rough couple of days. I just need some time to decide if this is right for me. For us. Believe me, I’m
thinking about you, too. I’m not sure I’m the right one for you.”

“I am, Sylvia.”

“Please don’t say that. Don’t make it any more difficult. I —”

“I don’t want to go back to being without you, Sylvia. That’s all I know right now. I don’t want to be alone.”

“Harry, I don’t want to hurt you and I would never ever ask you to change for me. I know you and I don’t think you could change
even if you wanted to. So … what I have to decide is whether I can live with that and live with you. …I do love you, Harry,
but I need some time…”

She was crying now. Bosch could see it in the mirror. He wanted to get up to hold her but he knew it was the wrong move. He
was the cause of her tears. There was a long silence, both of them sitting in private pain. She was looking down into her
lap where her hands held each other. He looked out at the ocean and saw a drift-fishing boat cut across the reflected path
of the moon on its way toward the Channel Islands.

“Say something to me,” she finally said.

“I’ll do whatever you want,” he said. “You know that.”

“I’ll go into the bathroom until you get dressed and leave.”

“Sylvia, I want to know that you are safe. I would like to ask you to let me sleep in the other room. In the morning, we’ll
figure something out. I’ll leave then.”

“No. We both know nothing will happen. That man, Locke, he’s probably far away, running from you, Harry. I’ll be safe. I’ll
take a taxi to school tomorrow and I’ll be safe. Just give me some time.”

“Time to decide.”

“Yes. To decide.”

She got up and walked quickly by him to the bathroom. He put his arm out but she brushed by it. After the door closed he could
hear her pull tissues from the dispenser. Then he could hear her crying.

“Please leave, Harry,” she said after a while. “Please.”

He heard her turn the water on, so she wouldn’t hear him if he said anything. Bosch felt like a fool to be sitting there in
his luxury bathrobe. It ripped when he pulled it off.

• • •

That night he took a blanket from the trunk of the Caprice and made a bed on the sand about a hundred yards from the hotel.
But he didn’t sleep. He sat with his back to the ocean and his eyes on the curtained sliding door on the fourth-floor balcony
next to the atrium. Through the glass wall of the atrium he could also see her front door and would know if anyone approached.
It was cold on the beach but he didn’t need the sea wind’s chill to stay awake.

Bosch was ten minutes late coming into the courtroom Monday morning. He had waited to make sure Sylvia got a cab and was safely
off to school before going home and changing into the same suit he had worn Friday. But as he hurried in, he saw that Judge
Keyes wasn’t on the bench and Chandler wasn’t at the plaintiff’s table. Church’s widow sat alone, looking straight forward
in a prayerful pose.

Harry sat down next to Belk and said, “What’s up?”

“We were waiting for you and Chandler. Now we’re just waiting for her. The judge was not happy about it.”

Bosch saw the judge’s clerk get up from her desk and knock on the chambers door. She then poked her head in and he could hear
her say, “Detective Bosch is here. Ms. Chandler’s secretary still hasn’t located her.”

The constricting feeling in his chest began then. Bosch felt himself immediately begin to sweat. How could he have missed
it? He leaned forward and put his face into his hands.

“I gotta make a call,” he said and stood up.

Belk turned, probably to tell him not to go anywhere, but was silenced by the opening of the chambers door. Judge Keyes strode
out and said, “Remain seated.”

He took his place on the bench and told the clerk to buzz the jury in. Bosch sat down.

“We’re going to go ahead and get them started again without Ms. Chandler being here. We’ll deal with her tardiness at a later
date.”

The jury filed in and the judge asked them if anybody had anything they wanted to bring up, a scheduling problem or anything
else. No one said a word.

“All right then, we’re going to send you back in to continue deliberations. The marshal will come speak to you later about
lunch. By the way, Ms. Chandler had a scheduling conflict this morning and that’s why you don’t see her there at the plaintiff’s
table. You are to pay no mind to that. Thank you very much.”

They filed back out. The judge instructed the parties who were present to stay within fifteen minutes of the courtroom again,
then told the clerk to keep trying to find Chandler. With that, he stood up and walked back to his chambers.

Bosch was up quickly and out the door of the courtroom. He went to the pay phones and dialed the communications center. After
giving his name and badge number, he asked the phone clerk to run a code-three DMV search on the name Honey Chandler. He said
he needed the address and would hold.

• • •

The rover would not work until he was out of the courthouse underground garage. Once he was out on Los Angeles Street he tried
again and got hold of Edgar, who had his rover on. He gave him the Carmelina Street address in Brentwood he had gotten for
Chandler.

“Meet me there.”

“On my way.”

He drove down to Third and took it up through the tunnel and onto the Harbor Freeway. He was just hitting the Santa Monica
Freeway when his pager sounded. He looked at the number while driving and didn’t recognize it. He exited the freeway and pulled
over at a Korea Town grocery store with a phone on the wall out front.

“Courtroom four,” said the woman who answered his call.

“It’s Detective Bosch, did someone beep me?”

“Yes, we did. We have a verdict. You need to get back here right away.”

“What do you mean? I was just there. How’d they —”

“It’s not unusual, Detective Bosch. They probably came to an agreement Friday and decided to take the weekend to see if they
wanted to change their minds. Look, it gets them out of another day of work.”