Angels Flight

them the A question?”
    “Yeah. They were both at home last night. Neither went out. They’re each other’s alibi.”
    “Great,” Chastain said.
    “Okay, Kiz,” Bosch said. “Anybody else got something they want to bring up?”
    Bosch leaned forward on the table so he could look down his side and see every face. No one said anything. He noticed everybody had finished eating their sandwiches.
    “Well, I don’t know if you’ve heard anything about the press conference, but the chief called in the cavalry. Tomorrow morning the bureau enters the case. We have a meet at eight in Irving’s conference room.”
    “Shit,” Chastain said.
    “What the hell are they going to do that we can’t?” Edgar asked.
    “Probably nothing,” Bosch said. “But his announcing it at the press conference will probably go a long way toward keeping the peace. At least, for now. Anyway, let’s worry about that tomorrow when we see how things shake out. We still have the rest of today. Irving gave me an unofficial cease and desist until the agents show up but that’s bullshit. I say we keep working.”
    “Yeah, we don’t want the shark to drown, do we?” Chastain said.
    “That’s right, Chastain. Now, I know nobody’s had much sleep. My thinking is that some of us keep working and knock off early, some of us go home, take a nap and come back in fresh tonight. Any problem with that?”
    Again no one said anything.
    “All right, this is how we break it up. I’ve got three boxes of files from Elias’s office in my trunk. I want you IAD guys to take them and go back to Irving’s conference room. You take the files, pull out names of cops and anybody else to be checked out. I want a chart made up. When we get legit alibis we scratch the names off the chart and move on. I want this ready by the time the bureau arrives tomorrow. When you have it done, then you guys can knock off for the night.”
    “And what are you going to be doing?” Chastain asked.
    “We’re going to run down Elias’s secretary and his clerk. Then after that, I’m going home to take a nap. Hopefully. Then tonight we’re going to talk to Harris and chase down that Internet thing. I want to know what that’s all about before the bureau comes in.”
    “You better be careful with Harris.”
    “We will. That’s one reason we’re waiting until tonight. We play it right and the media doesn’t even find out we talked to the guy.”
    Chastain nodded.
    “What about these files you’re giving us, they old or new?”
    “They’re old ones. Entrenkin started on the closed cases.”
    “When are we going to see the Black Warrior file? That’s the one. The rest of this is bullshit.”
    “Hopefully, I’ll be picking that up later today. But the rest isn’t bullshit. We have to look at every damn file in that office. Because the one we skip is likely to be the one some lawyer shoves up our ass in trial. You understand that? Don’t skip anything.”
    “I got it.”
    “Besides, what do you care so much about the Black Warrior file for? You cleared those guys on it, right?”
    “Yeah, so?”
    “So what are you going to find in the file other than what you already know? You think you missed something, Chastain?”
    “No, but…”
    “But what?”
    “It’s the case of the moment. I think there’s gotta be something there.”
    “Well, we’ll see. All in good time. For now stick to the old files and don’t skip anything.”
    “I told you, we won’t. It’s just a pain in the ass to know you’re wasting time.”
    “Welcome to homicide.”
    “Yeah, yeah.”
    Bosch reached into his pocket and pulled out a small brown bag. It contained several copies of the key Irving had given him that he had had made in Chinatown on his way to the restaurant. He turned the bag over on the center of the table and keys clattered onto the table.
    “Everybody take a key. They’ll open the door to Irving’s conference room. Once the files are in there I want the room locked at all times.”
    Everybody reached to the center of the table and took a key except Bosch. He had already put the original on his key ring. He stood up and looked at Chastain.
    “Let’s go get those files out of my car.”

Chapter 16
    THE interviews with the secretary and the clerk were so uneventful that Bosch wished the detectives could have spent the time in their beds sleeping. Tyla Quimby, the secretary, had been out with the flu and holed up in her home in the Crenshaw district