Angels Flight

won’t have much sympathy then. Where are we going anyway, back to the scene?”
    “Go to his apartment first. You know Dellacroce’s pager number?”
    “Not offhand, no. Look at your list.”
    Bosch opened his notebook and looked up the pager number Dellacroce had written down. He punched the number into his phone and made the page.
    “What about Tuggins?” Chastain asked. “You call him, you give him the head start on getting the south end ready to rock and roll.”
    “I know. I’m thinking.”
    Bosch had been thinking about that decision since the moment Millie Elias had mentioned the name Preston Tuggins. As with many minority communities, pastors carried as much weight as politicians when it came to shaping that community’s response to a social, cultural or political cause or event. In the case of Preston Tuggins, he carried even more. He headed a group of associated ministers and together they were a force, a major media-savvy force that could hold the whole community in check – or unleash it like an earthquake. Preston Tuggins had to be handled with utmost care.
    Bosch dug through his pocket and pulled out the card Irving had given him earlier. He was about to call one of the numbers on it when the phone rang in his hand.
    It was Dellacroce. Bosch gave him the address of Elias’s apartment at The Place and told him to draw up an additional search warrant. Dellacroce cursed because he had already wakened a judge to fax him the office search warrant. He would now have to do it again.
    “Welcome to homicide,” Bosch said as he clicked off.
    “What?” Chastain said.
    “Nothing. Just bullshit.”
    Bosch punched in Irving’s number. The deputy chief answered after one ring, giving his full name and rank. It seemed odd to Bosch that Irving seemed fully alert, as if he had not been asleep.
    “Chief, it’s Bosch. You said to call if – ”
    “No problem, Detective. What is it?”
    “We just made notification. To Elias’s wife and son. Uh, she wanted me to call her minister.”
    “I do not see the problem.”
    “The minister is Preston Tuggins and I thought maybe somebody a little further up the ladder might be better making – ”
    “I understand. It was good thinking. I will have it taken care of. I think perhaps the chief will want to handle that. I was just about to call him anyway. Anything else?”
    “Not at this time.”
    “Thank you, Detective.”
    Irving hung up. Chastain asked what he said and Bosch told him.
    “This case…,” Chastain said. “I have a feeling things are going to get hairy.”
    “Say that again.”
    Chastain was about to say something else but Bosch’s pager sounded. He checked the number. Again it wasn’t a call from home but Grace Billets’s second page. He had forgotten to call her earlier. He called now and the lieutenant answered after one ring.
    “I wondered if you were going to call me back.”
    “Sorry. I sort of got tied up, then I forgot.”
    “So what’s going on? Irving wouldn’t tell me who was dead, just that RHD and Central couldn’t handle it.”
    “Howard Elias.”
    “Oh, shit… Harry… I’m sorry it’s you.”
    “It’s okay. We’ll make out.”
    “Everybody will be watching you. And if it’s a cop… it’s a no-win situation. Do you get any sense from Irving, does he want to go at it balls to the wall?”
    “Mixed signals.”
    “You can’t talk freely?”
    “Right.”
    “Well, I’m getting mixed signals here, too. Irving told me to take your team off the rotation but he said it would only be until Friday. Then I’m supposed to talk to him about it. Now that I know who is dead, I think the translation of that is that you have till then before he probably ships you back to Hollywood and you have to take Howard Elias back here with you and work it when you can.”
    Bosch nodded but didn’t say anything. It went with the other moves Irving had made. The deputy chief had created a large team to work the case, but it looked as though he was only giving them a week to work it full-time. Maybe he hoped that the media glare would drop off to a more manageable level by then and the case could eventually disappear into the unsolved files. But Bosch thought Irving was kidding himself if he thought that.
    He and Billets talked for a few minutes more before Billets finally signed off with a warning.
    “Watch yourself, Harry. If a cop did this, one of those RHD guys…”
    “What?”
    “Just be careful.”
    “I