A Darkness More Than Night

background with Tafero. Because that’s a question; why would he do this? Yes, there probably is money in it and a hook into Storey if he walks. But there had to be something more. And I think you just told me what it was. He’s probably hated you for a long time.”
    Bosch looked up from the table and directly at McCaleb.
    “It’s a payback.”
    McCaleb nodded.
    “For Pounds. And unless we get the proof of it, it might just work.”
    Bosch was silent. He stared down at the table. He looked tired and washed out to McCaleb.
    “Still want to shake his hand?” McCaleb asked.
    Bosch raised his eyes.
    “Sorry, Harry, that was a cheap shot.”
    Bosch shook his head, shrugging it off.
    “I deserve it. So tell me, what do you have?”
    “Not a lot. But you were right. I missed something. Tafero bailed Gunn out on New Year’s Eve. I think the plan was to kill him that night, set the scene and let things take their course. The Hieronymus Bosch connection would come to light – either through Jaye Winston or a bureau VICAP inquiry – and you’d become a natural target. But then Gunn went and got himself drunk in here.”
    He raised his bottle and gestured to the bar.
    “And then he got himself duiced while driving home. Tafero had to get him out so they could stay with the plan. So he could kill him. That bail slip is the one direct link we have.”
    Bosch nodded. McCaleb could tell he was seeing the scheme.
    “They leaked it to that reporter,” Bosch said. “Once it hit the media they could jump on it and use it and act like it was news to them, like they were behind the curve when all along they were bending the goddamn curve.”
    McCaleb nodded hesitantly. He didn’t bring up Buddy Lockridge’s admission because it threw a jam into the working theory.
    “What?” Bosch asked.
    “Nothing. I’m just thinking.”
    “You’ve got nothing other than Tafero posting the bail?”
    “A traffic ticket and that’s it for now.”
    In detail McCaleb described his morning’s visits to Valentino Bonds and the post office and how his being forty-eight minutes late at the post office might be the difference in being able to clear Bosch and take down Tafero.
    Bosch winced and picked up his bottle, but then put it down without drinking from it.
    “The parking ticket puts him at the post office,” McCaleb offered.
    “It’s nothing. He’s got an office five blocks away. He could claim it was the only parking place he could find. He could say he lent his car to somebody. It’s nothing.”
    McCaleb didn’t want to concentrate on what they didn’t have. He wanted to fill in pieces.
    “Listen, the morning watch sergeant told us you had a standing request to be notified every time Gunn was brought in. Would Tafero have known about it? Either from before when he was still in the squad or some other way?”
    “He could have. It wasn’t a secret. I was working on Gunn. Someday I was going to break him.”
    “By the way, what did Pounds look like?”
    Bosch gave him a confused look.
    “Short, wide and balding with a mustache?”
    Bosch nodded and was about to ask a question when McCaleb answered it.
    “His picture is on the wall in Tafero’s office. Pounds giving him the detective-of-the-month plaque. I bet you never got one of those, Harry.”
    “Not with Pounds making the pick.”
    McCaleb looked up and saw that Jaye Winston had entered the bar. She was carrying a briefcase. He nodded to her and she started toward the booth, walking with her shoulders up as though she were carefully stepping through a landfill.
    McCaleb moved over and she slid into the booth next to him.
    “Nice place.”
    “Harry,” McCaleb said, “I believe you know Jaye Winston.”
    Bosch and Winston looked at each other.
    “First thing,” Winston said, “I’m sorry about the thing with Kiz. I hope -”
    “We do what we have to do,” Bosch said. “You want a drink? They don’t come to the table here.”
    “I’d be shocked if they did. Maker’s Mark, rocks, if they have it.”
    “Terry, you cool?”
    “Cool.”
    Bosch slid out to get the drink. Winston turned to look at McCaleb.
    “How is it going?”
    “Little pieces, here and there.”
    “How’s he taking it?”
    “Not bad, I guess, for a guy who’s been put into a pretty big box. How’d you do?”
    She smiled in a way that McCaleb could tell meant she had come up with something.
    “I got you the photo and a couple other… interesting… pieces.”
    Bosch put