Angels Flight

yourself.
    Light washing across the mirrors caught Bosch’s eyes. He checked the side view and saw the lights of a car that was being parked against the curb a block or so back. He doubted it was a reporter. A reporter would have pulled right into Sheehan’s driveway, made no effort at concealment. He started thinking about what he wanted to ask Sheehan.
    A few minutes later his former partner came out of the house carrying a grocery bag. He opened the back door and tossed it in, then got in up front. He was smiling.
    “Margie took all the suitcases,” he said. “I didn’t realize that till tonight.”
    They took Beverly Glen up the hill to Mulholland and then took it east to Woodrow Wilson. Bosch usually loved driving Mulholland at night. The curving road, the city lights coming in and out of view. But along the way they drove by The Summit and Bosch studied the gate and thought about the Kincaids somewhere behind it in the safety of their home with jetliner views.
    “Frankie, I have to ask you something,” he said.
    “Shoot.”
    “Back on the Kincaid thing, during the investigation, did you talk to Kincaid much? Sam Kincaid, I mean.”
    “Yeah, sure. Guy like that you handled with kid gloves. Him and the old man. You be careful, else it might come back on you.”
    “Yeah. So you were pretty much keeping him informed on what was happening?”
    “Yeah, pretty much. What about it? You’re sounding like those bureau guys who were all over me all day, Harry.”
    “Sorry, just asking. Did he call you a lot or did you call him?”
    “Both ways. He also had a security guy who was talking to us, staying in touch.”
    “D.C. Richter?”
    “Yeah, that’s him. Harry, you going to tell me what’s goin’ on or what?”
    “In a minute. Let me ask you something first. How much did you tell Kincaid or Richter about Michael Harris, you remember?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Look, I’m not saying you did anything wrong. A case like that, you keep the principals involved and informed. So did you go to them and tell them you had brought Harris in on the fingerprints and, you know, that you were smoking him in the rooms?”
    “Sure we did. Standard operating procedure.”
    “Right. And did you tell them about who Harris was and where he came from, that sort of thing?”
    “I suppose I did.”
    Bosch let it go for a while. He turned onto Woodrow Wilson and drove the winding road down to the house. He pulled into the carport.
    “Hey, this looks nice,” Sheehan said.
    Bosch put the car into park but paused before getting out.
    “Did you tell the Kincaids or Richter specifically where Harris lived?” he asked.
    Sheehan looked over at him.
    “What are you telling me?”
    “I’m asking you. Did you tell any of them where Harris lived?”
    “I might have. I don’t remember.”
    Bosch got out and headed to the kitchen door. Sheehan got his stuff out of the back seat and followed.
    “Talk to me, Hieronymus.”
    Bosch unlocked the door.
    “I think you made a mistake.”
    He went inside.
    “Talk to me, Hieronymus.”
    Bosch led Sheehan to the guest room and Sheehan threw his bag onto the bed. Back out in the hall Bosch pointed into the bathroom and headed back into the living room. Sheehan was silent, waiting.
    “The toilet handle in that one is broken,” Bosch said, not looking at him. “You have to hold it down the whole time it’s flushing.”
    He now looked at his former partner.
    “We can explain Harris’s fingerprints. He didn’t abduct or kill Stacey Kincaid. In fact, we don’t even think there was an abduction. Kincaid killed his stepdaughter. He was abusing her and killed her, then staged the abduction scene. He got lucky when the prints on the book tied in Harris. He then used it. We think it was him – or his man, Richter – who dumped the body near Harris’s place because he knew where that place was. So think, Francis. I don’t want probablys. I need to know if you told Kincaid or his security man where Harris lived.”
    Sheehan looked dumbfounded and his eyes wandered to the floor.
    “You’re saying we were wrong about Harris…”
    “You guys had blinders on, man. Once those prints came up, you could only see Harris.”
    Sheehan kept his eyes on the floor and slowly nodded his head.
    “We all make mistakes, Frankie. Sit down and think about what I just asked. What did you tell Kincaid and at what point did you tell him? I’ll be right back.”
    While he left Sheehan to ponder