He knew his words were hurting her. He was drawing a line. One of them had to capitulate. He was saying it wasn’t going to be him.
“Look, let’s think about this. This isn’t a good place to talk. What I am going to do is finish my work on this thing and then we’ll sit down and talk about our future. Is that okay?”
She slowly nodded but didn’t look at him.
“You do what you have to do,” she said in a tone McCaleb knew would make him feel guilty forever. “I just hope you’ll be careful.”
He pulled himself over and kissed her again.
“I’ve got too much here with you not to be.”
He got up and came around the table to the baby. He kissed her on top of the head and then unhitched the chair’s safety belt and lifted her out.
“I’ll take her down to the cart,” he said. “Why don’t you get Raymond?”
He carried the baby down to the cart and secured her in the safety seat. He put her bouncing chair in the rear storage compartment. Graciela came down with Raymond a few minutes later. Her eyes were swollen from the crying. McCaleb put his hand on Raymond’s shoulder and walked him to the front passenger seat.
“Raymond, you’re going to have to watch the second game without me. I have some work I have to do.”
“I can go with you. I can help you.”
“No, it’s not a charter.”
“I know, but I can still help you.”
McCaleb knew Graciela was looking at him and he felt the guilt like the sun on his back.
“Thanks but maybe next time, Raymond. Put on your seat belt.”
Once the boy was safely in, McCaleb stepped back from the cart. He looked at Graciela, who was no longer looking at him.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. And I’ll have the phone with me if you want to call.”
Graciela didn’t acknowledge him. She pulled the cart away from the curb and headed up Marilla Avenue. He watched them until they were out of sight.
Chapter 33
On the walk back to the pier his cell phone chirped. It was Jaye Winston returning his call. She was talking very quietly and said she was calling from her mother’s house. McCaleb had difficulty hearing so he sat down on one of the benches along the casino walk. He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, one hand holding the phone tightly to one ear, his other hand clasped over the other.
“We missed something,” he said. “I missed something.”
“Terry, what are you talking about?”
“In the murder book. In Gunn’s arrest record. He was -”
“Terry, what are you doing? You’re off the case.”
“Says who, the FBI? I don’t work for them anymore, Jaye.”
“Then says me. I don’t want you getting any further -”
“I don’t work for you, either, Jaye. Remember?”
There was a long silence on the phone.
“Terry, I don’t know what you are doing but it’s got to stop. You have no authority, no standing in this case anymore. If those guys Twilley and Friedman find out you’re still snooping around on this, they can arrest you for interference. And you know they’re just the type that will.”
“You want standing, I have standing.”
“What? I withdrew my authorization to you yesterday. You can’t use me on this.”
McCaleb hesitated and then decided to tell her.
“I have standing. I guess you could say I’m working for the accused.”
Now Winston’s silence was even longer. Finally she spoke, her words delivered very slowly.
“Are you telling me that you went to Bosch with this?”
“No. He came to me. He showed up on my boat this morning. I was right about the other night. The coincidence; me showing up at his place, then the call from his partner about you. He put it together. The reporter from the New Times called him, too. He knew what was going on without me having to tell him a thing. The point is, Jaye, none of that matters. What matters is that I think I jumped on Bosch too soon. I missed something and now I’m not so sure. There’s a chance all of this could be a setup.”
“He’s convinced you.”
“No, I convinced myself.”
There were voices in the background and Winston told McCaleb to hold on. He then heard voices muffled by a hand over the phone. It sounded like arguing. McCaleb stood up and continued walking toward the pier. Winston came back on in a few seconds.
“Sorry,” she said. “This is not a good time. I’m in the middle of something right now.”
“Can we meet tomorrow morning?”
“What are you talking about?” Winston said, her voice almost shrill. “You just told me you are working for the target of an investigation. I’m not going to meet with you. How the fuck would that look? Hold on -”
He heard her muffled voice apologizing for her language to someone. She then came back on the line.
“I really have to go.”
“Look, I don’t care how it would look. I’m interested in the truth and I thought you would be, too. You don’t want to meet me, fine, don’t meet me. I’ve gotta go myself.”
“Terry, wait.”
He listened. She said nothing. He sensed that she was distracted by something there.
“What, Jaye?”
“What is this thing you said we missed?”
“It was in the arrest package from Gunn’s last duice. I guess after Bosch told you he had spoken to him in lockup you pulled all the records. I just scanned through it the first time I looked at the book.”
“I pulled the records,” she said in a defensive tone. “He spent the night of December thirtieth in the Hollywood tank. That’s where Bosch saw him.”
“And he bonded out in the morning. Seven-thirty.”
“Yeah. Okay? I don’t get it.”
“Look who bailed him out.”
“Terry, I’m at my parents’. I don’t have -”
“Right, sorry. He was bailed out by Rudy Tafero.”
Silence. McCaleb was at the pier. He walked out toward the gangway that led down to the skiff dock and leaned on the railing. He cupped his free hand over his ear again.
“Okay, he was bailed out by Rudy Tafero,” Winston said. “I assume he is a licensed bail bondsman. What does that mean?”
“You haven’t been watching your TV. You’re right, Tafero is a licensed bail bondsman – at least he put a license number on the bail sheet. But he’s also a PI and security consultant. And – ready for this – he works for David Storey.”
Winston didn’t say anything but McCaleb could hear her breathing into the phone.
“Terry, I think you better slow down. You are reading too much into this.”
“No coincidences, Jaye.”
“What coincidence? The man’s a bail bondsman. It’s what he does. He gets people out of jail. I’ll bet you a box of doughnuts his office is right across the street from Hollywood station with all the others. He probably bails every third drunk and fourth prostitute out of the tank there.”
“You don’t believe it’s that simple and you know it.”
“Don’t tell me what I believe.”
“This was when he was in the middle of preparing for Storey’s trial. Why would Tafero come over and write a duice ticket himself?”
“Because maybe he’s a one-man show and maybe, like I said, all he had to do was cross the street.”
“I don’t buy it. And there’s something else. On his booking slip it says Gunn got his one phone call at three A.M. December thirty-first. The number’s on the slip – he called his sister in Long Beach.”
“Okay, what about it? We knew that.”
“I called her today and asked if she’d called a bondsman for him. She said no. She said she was tired of getting calls in the middle of the night and literally bailing him out all the time. She told him he was on his own this time.”
“So he went with Tafero. What about it?”