Angels Flight

abuse was tolerated when it was aimed at the guilty, it wouldn’t be long before the innocent were targeted.
    Elias was a sole practitioner. In the last decade he had sued the department more than a hundred times and won jury verdicts in more than half of the cases. His was a name that could freeze a cop’s brain when he heard it. In the department, you knew that if Elias sued you, it would not be a small case that would be cleaned up and swept away. Elias didn’t settle cases out of court – nothing in the civil rights codes gave an incentive to settle cases. No, you would be dragged through a public spectacle if Elias aimed a lawsuit at you. There would be press releases, press conferences, newspaper headlines, television stories. You’d be lucky to come out of it in one piece, let alone with your badge.
    Angel to some, devil to others, Howard Elias was now dead, shot to death on the Angels Flight railroad. Bosch knew as he looked through the small room’s window and watched the orange glow of the laser beam move about the darkened train car that he was in the calm before the storm. In just two days what might have been Elias’s biggest case was due to begin. The lawsuit against the LAPD that had become known in the media as the “Black Warrior” case was set for jury selection in U.S. District Court on Monday morning. The coincidence – or, as a wide swath of the public would undoubtedly believe, the lack of coincidence – between Elias’s murder and the start of the trial would make the investigation of the attorney’s death an easy seven on the media’s Richter scale. Minority groups would howl with rage and rightful suspicion. The whites in the West Side would whisper about their fears of another riot. And the eyes of the nation would be on Los Angeles and its police department once more. Bosch at that moment agreed with Edgar, though for different reasons than his black partner’s. He wished they could take a pass on this one.
    “Chief,” he said, turning his focus back to Irving, “when it gets out who… I mean, when the media find out it was Elias, we’re going to – ”
    “That is not your concern,” Irving said. “Your concern is the investigation. The chief and I will deal with the media. Not a word comes from anyone on the investigation. Not a word.”
    “Forget the media,” Rider said. “What about South Central? People are going to – ”
    “That will be handled,” Irving said, interrupting. “The department will institute the public disorder readiness plan beginning with the next watch. All personnel shift to twelve and twelves until we see how the city reacts. Nobody who saw nineteen ninety-two wants to see that again. But again, that is not your concern. You have one concern here.”
    “You didn’t let me finish,” Rider said. “I wasn’t going to say they would riot. I actually have faith in the people there. I don’t think there will be trouble. What I was going to say was that they will be angry about this and suspicious. If you think you can ignore that or contain it by putting more cops on the – ”
    “Detective Rider,” Irving said, interrupting again, “that is not your concern. The investigation is your concern.”
    Bosch saw that Irving’s interruptions and words, telling a black woman not to be concerned about her own community, had incensed Rider. It was on her face and Bosch had seen the look before. He decided to speak before she said something out of line.
    “We’re going to need more people. With just the three of us, we’ll be running down alibis full-time for weeks, maybe a month. Case like this, we need to move fast, not only because of the case but because of the people. We’re going to need more than just three of us.”
    “That, too, has been taken care of,” Irving said. “You will have all the help you need. But it won’t come from Robbery-Homicide. It’s a conflict of interest because of the Michael Harris matter.”
    Before speaking, Bosch noted how Irving refused to call it the Black Warrior case, instead using the plaintiff’s name.
    “Why us?”
    “What?”
    “I understand why RHD is out. But where are the Central Division teams? We’re off our beat and out of rotation here. Why us?”
    Irving exhaled audibly.
    “The entire Central Division homicide squad is in academy training this week and next. Sensitivity training and then the FBI workshop on new crime scene techniques. Robbery-Homicide was covering their