McCaleb watched Bosch’s dark eyes scan across the harbor.
“And the mainland Indians thought of the ones out here as these fierce wizards who could control weather and waves through worship and sacrifices to their God. I mean, they had to be fierce and strong to be able to cross the bay so they could trade their pottery and sealskins on the mainland.”
McCaleb studied Bosch, trying to get a bead on the message he was sure the detective was trying to convey.
“What are you saying, Harry?”
Bosch shrugged his shoulders.
“I don’t know. I guess I’m saying that people find God where they need Him to be. In the sun, in a new baby’s eyes… in a new heart.”
He looked at McCaleb, his eyes as dark and as unreadable as the painted owl’s.
“And some people,” McCaleb began, “find their salvation in truth, in justice, in that which is righteous.”
Now Bosch nodded and offered his crooked smile again.
“That sounds good.”
He turned and started the engine with one pull. He then mock saluted McCaleb and pulled away, angling the rental boat back toward the pier. Not knowing the etiquette of the harbor, he cut across the fairway and between unused mooring buoys. He didn’t look back. McCaleb watched him all the way. A man all alone on the water in an old wooden boat. And in that thought came a question. Was he thinking about Bosch or himself?
Chapter 30
On the ferry ride back Bosch bought a Coke at the concession stand and hoped it would settle his stomach and prevent seasickness. He asked one of the stewards where the steadiest ride on the boat was and he was directed to one of the middle seats on the inside. He sat down and drank some of the Coke, then pulled the folded pages he had printed in McCaleb’s office out of his jacket pocket.
He had printed two files before he had seen McCaleb approaching in the Zodiac. One was titled SCENE PROFILE and the other was called SUBJECT PROFILE. He had folded them into his jacket and disconnected the portable printer from the laptop before McCaleb entered the boat. He’d only had time to glance at them on the computer and now began a thorough reading.
He took the scene profile first. It was only one page. It was incomplete and appeared to be simply a listing of McCaleb’s rough notes and impressions from the crime scene video.
Still, it gave an insight into how McCaleb worked. It showed how his observations of a scene turned into observations about a suspect.
SCENE
Ligature Nude Head wound Tape/gag – “Cave”?
Bucket?
Owl – watching over? highly organized detail oriented statement – the scene is his statement he was there – he watched (the owl?) exposure = victim humiliation = victim hatred, contempt bucket – remorse? killer – prior knowledge of victim personal knowledge – previous interaction personal hatred killer inside the wire what is the statement?
Bosch reread the page and then thought about it. Though he did not have full knowledge of the crime scene from which McCaleb’s notes were drawn, he was impressed by the leaps in logic McCaleb had made. He had carefully gone down the ladder to the point where he concluded that Gunn’s killer was someone he knew, that it was someone who would be found inside the perimeter wire that circled Gunn’s existence. It was an important distinction to make in any case. Investigative priorities were usually set upon the determination of whether the suspect being sought had intersected with the victim only at the point of the killing or before. McCaleb’s read on the nuances of the scene were that the killer was someone known to Gunn, that there was a prelude to this final and fatal crossing of killer and victim.
The second page continued the listing of shorthand notes that Bosch assumed McCaleb planned to turn into a fleshed-out profile. As he read he realized that some of the word groupings were phrases McCaleb had taken from him.
SUSPECT
Bosch: institutional – youth hall, Vietnam, LAPD outsider – alienation obsessive-compulsive eyes – lost, loss mission man – avenging angel the big wheel always turning – nobody walks away what goes around comes around alcohol divorce – wife? why? alienation/obsession mother cases justice system – “bullshit” carriers of the plague guilt?
Harry = Hieronymus owl = evil evil = Gunn death of evil = release stressors paintings – demons – devils – evil darkness and light – the edge punishment mother – justice – Gunn God’s hand – police – Bosch punishment = God’s work A darkness more than night – Bosch Bosch wasn’t sure how to interpret the notes. His eyes were drawn to the last line and he repeatedly read it, unsure what it was that McCaleb was saying about him.
After a while he carefully folded the page closed and sat still for a long moment. It felt somehow surrealistic to be sitting there on the boat, having just tried to interpret someone else’s notes and reasons as to why he should be considered a murder suspect. He felt himself getting queasy and realized he might be getting seasick. He gulped down the rest of the Coke and got up, putting the pages back into his jacket pocket.
Bosch headed toward the front of the boat and pushed through the heavy door to the bow. The cool air blasted him immediately. He could see the dim outline of the mainland in the distance. He kept his eyes on the horizon and breathed in deeply. In a few minutes he started feeling better.
Chapter 31
McCaleb sat on the old couch in the salon thinking about his encounter with Bosch for a long time. It was the first time in all of his experiences as an investigator that a murder suspect had come to him to enlist his aid. He had to decide if it had been the act of a desperate or a sincere man. Or, possibly, something else. What if McCaleb had not noticed the rental skiff and come to the boat. Would Bosch have waited for him?
He went down to the front stateroom and looked at the documents spread on the floor. He wondered if Bosch had intentionally tossed them so that they would fall to the floor and become mixed up. Had he taken something?
He went to the desk and studied his laptop. It was not attached to the printer but he knew that didn’t mean anything. He closed the file that was on the screen and opened the print manager window. He clicked the jobs file and saw that two files had been printed that day – the scene and suspect profiles. Bosch had taken them.
McCaleb imagined Bosch riding on the Express ferry back across, sitting by himself and reading what McCaleb had written about him. It made him feel uncomfortable. He didn’t think any suspect he had ever profiled had read the report McCaleb had put together on him.
He shook it off and decided to occupy his mind with something else. He slid off the chair to his knees and began picking up the murder book reports, putting them into a neat pile first before worrying about putting them back in order.
Once he had the mess cleaned up he sat down at the desk, the reports in a squared-off pile in front of him. McCaleb took a blank page of typing paper out of a drawer and wrote on it with the thick black marker he used for labeling cardboard boxes containing his files.
YOU MISSED SOMETHING
He took a piece of tape off a dispenser on the desk and taped the page to the wall behind the desk. He looked at it for a long time. Everything Bosch had said to him came down to that one line. He now had to decide if it was true, if it was possible. Or if it was the last manipulation of a desperate man.