Angels Flight

mentioned earlier that you decided to help Howard Elias. Why is that?”
    “He was suing on behalf of Michael Harris. I wanted Michael Harris completely exonerated. And I wanted my husband and his friends exposed. I knew the authorities probably wouldn’t do it. But I knew Howard Elias was not part of that establishment. He wouldn’t be controlled by money and power. Only the truth.”
    “Did you ever speak with Mr. Elias directly?”
    “No. I thought my husband might be watching me. After that day when I heard them, when I knew it was him, it was impossible for me not to be completely repulsed by him. I think he realized I had come to a conclusion. I think he had Richter watch me. Richter or people working for him.”
    Bosch realized that Richter could be nearby, having followed her to the house. Lindell had said the security man’s whereabouts were currently unknown. He looked at the front door and realized he had left it unlocked.
    “So you sent Elias notes.”
    “Yes, anonymous. I guess I wanted him to expose these people but leave me out of it… I know it was selfish. I was a horrible mother. I guess I had this fantasy that the bad men would be shown to the world without it happening to the bad woman.”
    Bosch saw a lot of pain in her eyes as she said it. He waited for the tears to start again but it didn’t happen.
    “I just have a few more questions at this point,” he said. “How did you know the web page address and about how to get to the secret site?”
    “You mean Charlotte’s Web? My husband is not a smart man, Detective Bosch. He is rich, and that always gives the appearance of intellect. He wrote the directions down so he wouldn’t have to memorize them and he hid them in his desk. I found them. I know how to use a computer. I went to that awful place… I saw Stacey there.”
    Again no tears. Bosch was puzzled. Kate Kincaid had dropped her voice into a monotone. She was reciting the story, it seemed, out of duty. But whatever impact it personally had on her was done with and compartmentalized, put away from the surface.
    “Do you believe that to be your husband on the images with Stacey?”
    “No. I don’t know who that was.”
    “How can you be sure?”
    “My husband has a birthmark. A discoloration on his back. I said he wasn’t smart, but he was at least smart enough not to appear on that web site.”
    Bosch thought about this. Though he did not doubt Kate Kincaid’s story, he also knew that hard evidence backing it up would be needed to prosecute Kincaid. For the same reason she felt she could not bring her story to the authorities, Bosch needed to be able to go into the district attorney’s office with Sam Kincaid solidly locked down by the evidence. Right now all he had was a wife saying evil things about her husband. The fact that Kincaid apparently was not the man in the web site images with his stepdaughter was a major loss of corroborative evidence. He thought about the searches. Teams were descending on Kincaid’s home and office at that moment. It was Bosch’s hope that they would find evidence that would prove his wife’s story.
    “Your last note to Howard Elias,” he said. “You warned him. You said your husband knew. Did you mean your husband knew that Elias had found the secret web site?”
    “At the time, yes.”
    “Why?”
    “Because of the way he was acting – on edge, suspicious of me. He asked me if I had been on his computer. It made me think that they must have known someone was poking around. I sent the message, but now I’m not so sure.”
    “Why is that? Howard Elias is dead.”
    “I’m not sure he did that. He would have told me.”
    “What?”
    Bosch was thoroughly confused by her logic.
    “He would have told me. He told me about Stacey, why wouldn’t he tell me about Elias as well? And the fact that you know about the web site. If they thought Elias knew, wouldn’t they have closed it down or hidden it somewhere else?”
    “Not if they were just going to kill the intruder instead.”
    She shook her head. She didn’t see it the way Bosch obviously did.
    “I still think he would’ve told me.”
    Still confused, Bosch said, “Wait a minute. Are you talking about the confrontation you mentioned at the start of this interview?”
    Bosch’s pager went off and he reached down and silenced it without taking his eyes off Kate Kincaid.
    “Yes.”
    “Well, when was this confrontation?”
    “Last night.”
    “Last night?”
    Bosch