Angels Flight

of lightning spread across the purple horizon to the east. And he thought about his old partner. He tried to think about old cases and the Irish jokes that Sheehan used to tell. Anything to keep from thinking about what he had done and Bosch’s own guilt and culpability.
    He had brought a homemade tape with him and played it on the car stereo. It contained recordings of saxophone pieces Bosch particularly liked. He fast-forwarded until he found the one he wanted. It was Frank Morgan’s “Lullaby.” It was like a sweet and soulful funeral dirge to Bosch, a good-bye and apology to Frankie Sheehan. A good-bye and apology to Eleanor. It went well with the rain. Bosch played it over and over as he drove.
    He got to the house where Margaret Sheehan and her two daughters were living before two. There was an outside light still on and light could be seen through the curtains of the front windows. Bosch got the idea that Margie was in there waiting for his call, or maybe for him to show up. He hesitated at the door, wondering about how many times he had made this kind of call, then finally knocked.
    When Margie answered the door Bosch was reminded of how there was never any planning for these things. She stared at him for a moment and he thought she didn’t recognize him. It had been a lot of years.
    “Margie, it’s – ”
    “Harry? Harry Bosch? We just – ”
    She stopped and put it together. Usually they did.
    “Oh, Harry, no. Oh no. Not Francis!”
    She brought both hands up to her face. Her mouth was open and she looked like that famous painting of someone on a bridge screaming.
    “I’m sorry, Margie. I really am. I think maybe I should come in.”

    • • •

    She was stoic about the whole thing. Bosch gave her the details and then Margie Sheehan made coffee for him so he wouldn’t fall asleep on the ride back. That was a cop’s wife thinking. In the kitchen Bosch leaned against a counter as she brewed the coffee.
    “He called you tonight,” he said.
    “Yes, I told you.”
    “Tell me how he seemed.”
    “Bad. He told me what they did to him. He seemed so… betrayed? Is that the right word? I mean, his own people, fellow cops, had taken him in. He was very sad, Harry.”
    Bosch nodded.
    “He gave his life to that department… and this is what they did to him.”
    Bosch nodded again.
    “Did he say anything about…”
    He didn’t finish.
    “About killing himself? No, he didn’t say that… I read up on police suicide once. Long time ago. In fact, back when Elias sued him the first time over that guy he killed. Frankie got real depressed then and I got scared. I read up on it. And what I read said that when people tell you about it or say they’re going to do it, what they are really doing is asking you to stop them.”
    Bosch nodded.
    “I guess Frankie didn’t want to be stopped,” she continued. “He didn’t say anything about it to me.”
    She pulled the glass coffeepot out of the brewer and poured some into a mug. She then opened a cabinet and took down a silver Thermos. She started filling it.
    “This is for the road home. I don’t want you falling asleep on the clothesline.”
    “What?”
    “I mean the Grapevine. I’m not thinking straight here.”
    Bosch stepped over and put his hand on her shoulder. She put the coffee pot down and turned to him to be hugged.
    “This last year,” she said. “Things… things just went haywire.”
    “I know. He told me.”
    She broke away from him and went back to filling the Thermos.
    “Margie, I have to ask you something before I head back,” Bosch said. “They took his gun from him today to run ballistics. He used another. Do you know anything about that one?”
    “No. He only had the one he wore on the job. We didn’t have other guns. Not with two little girls. When Frankie would come home he’d lock his job gun up in a little safe on the floor of the closet. And only he had the key. I just didn’t want any more guns than were required in the house.”
    Bosch understood that if it was her edict that there be no more weapons than the one Sheehan was required to carry, then that left a hole. He could have taken a weapon in and hidden it from her – in a spot so obscure even the FBI didn’t find it when they searched his house. Maybe it was wrapped in plastic and buried in the yard. Sheehan also could have gotten the weapon after she and the girls moved out and up to Bakersfield. She would never have known about it.
    “Okay,”