Angels Flight

was shocked. He had jumped to the conclusion that the confrontation she had mentioned had been weeks or even months earlier.
    “Yes. After you left. I knew by the questions you asked that you had probably found my notes to Howard Elias. I knew you would find Charlotte’s Web. It was a matter of time.”
    Bosch looked down at his pager. The number belonged to Lindell’s cell phone. The emergency code 911 was printed on the little screen after it. He looked back up at Kate Kincaid.
    “So I finally summoned the courage I didn’t have for all those months and years. I confronted him. And he told me. And he laughed at me. He asked me why I cared now since I didn’t care while Stacey was alive.”
    Now Bosch’s cell phone began to ring inside his briefcase. Kate Kincaid slowly stood up.
    “I’ll let you take that in private.”
    As he reached to his briefcase, he watched her pick her purse up and walk across the room in the direction of the hallway to her dead daughter’s bedroom. Bosch fumbled with the briefcase’s release but eventually got it open and got to the phone. It was Lindell.
    “I’m at the house,” the FBI agent said, his voice tight with adrenaline and excitement. “Kincaid and Richter are here. It’s not very pretty.”
    “Tell me.”
    “They’re dead. And it doesn’t look like it was an easy ride for them. They were knee-capped, both of them shot in the balls… You still with the wife?”
    Bosch looked in the direction of the hallway.
    “Yes.”
    Just as he said it he heard a single popping sound from down the hallway. He knew what it was.
    “Better bring her over here,” Lindell said.
    “Right.”
    Bosch closed the phone and placed it back in the briefcase, his eyes still on the hallway.
    “Mrs. Kincaid?”
    There was no answer. All he heard was the rain.

Chapter 32
    BY the time Bosch cleared the scene in Brentwood and got up the hill to The Summit it was almost two o’clock. Driving through the rain on the way he could think only of Kate Kincaid’s face. He had gotten to Stacey’s room less than ten seconds after hearing the shot, but she was already gone. She had used a twenty-two and placed the muzzle in her mouth, firing the bullet up into her brain. Death was instant. The kick of the gun had knocked it out of her mouth and onto the floor. There was no exit wound, often the case with a twenty-two. She simply appeared as though she was sleeping. She had wrapped herself in the pink blanket that had been used by her daughter. Kate Kincaid looked as though she was serene in death. No mortician would be able to improve on that.
    There were several cars and vans parked in front of the Kincaid residence. Bosch had to park so far away that his raincoat was soaked through by the time he got to the door. Lindell was there waiting for him.
    “Well, this certainly’s turned all to shit,” the FBI agent said by way of greeting.
    “Yeah.”
    “Should we have seen it coming?”
    “I don’t know. You never can tell what people are going to do.”
    “How’d you leave it over there?”
    “The coroner and SID are still there. A couple RHD bulls – they’re handling it.”
    Lindell nodded.
    “I saw what I needed to see. Show me what you have here.”
    They went into the house and Lindell led the way to the huge living room where Bosch had sat with the Kincaids the afternoon before. He saw the bodies. Sam Kincaid was in the same spot on the couch where Bosch had last seen him. D.C. Richter was on the floor below the window that looked out across the Valley. There was no jetliner view now. It was just gray. Richter’s body was in a pool of blood. Kincaid’s blood had seeped into the material covering the couch. There were several technicians working in the room and lights were set up. Bosch saw that numbered plastic markers had been put in place where.22-caliber shells had been located on the floor and other furniture.
    “You have the twenty-two over in Brentwood, right?”
    “Yeah, that’s what she used.”
    “You didn’t think about searching her before you started talking, huh?”
    Bosch looked at the FBI agent and shook his head slightly in annoyance.
    “Are you kidding me? It was a voluntary Q amp;A, man. Maybe you’ve never done one over there at the bureau, but rule number one is you don’t make the subject feel like a suspect before you even start. I didn’t search and it would have been a mistake if – ”
    “I know, I know. Sorry I asked. It’s just