Angle of Investigation

said.
    “Splendid Age Retirement Home, how can I help you?”
    “Yes, is Donald Teed a resident there?”
    “A resident? No. We have a Donald Teed who works here. Is that who you mean?”
    “I think so. Is he there?”
    “He is here today but I am not sure where he is right now. He’s a custodian and moves around. Who is calling? Is this a solicitation?”
    Bosch felt things falling into place. He decided to take a shot.
    “I’m a friend. Can you tell me if another friend of mine is there? His name is Quentin McKinzie.”
    “Yes, Mr. McKinzie is a resident here. What is this about?”
    “I’ll call back.”
    Bosch hung up the phone and his eyes drifted to the saxophone.
    Nikolai Servan opened his eyes the moment Bosch came through the door. Bosch put the piece of paper he carried down on the table and took the seat across from Servan, folding his arms and putting his elbows on the table in almost a mirror image.
    “We’ve hit a snag, Mr. Servan.”
    “A snag?”
    “A problem. Actually a few imaually aof them. And what I’d like to do here is give you the opportunity to tell me the truth this time.”
    “I don’t understand. I tol’ you truth. I tol’ you truth.”
    “I think you left some things out, Mr. Servan.”
    Servan clasped his hands together on the table and shook his head.
    “No, I tol’ everything.”
    “I’m going to advise you of your rights now, Mr. Servan. Listen closely to what I read you.”
    Bosch read Servan his rights from the paper on the table. He then turned it around and asked the pawnbroker to sign it. He gave him the pen. Servan hesitated and seemed to slowly reread the rights waiver form all over again. He then picked up the pen and signed. Bosch asked the first question the instant the point of the pen came off the paper.
    “So what did you do with the burglar’s lock picks, Mr. Servan?”
    Servan held his lips tightly together for a long moment and then shook his head.
    “I don’t understand.”
    “Sure you do, Mr. Servan. Where are the picks?”
    Servan only stared at him.
    “Okay,” Bosch said, “let’s try this one. Tell me how you wired that display case.”
    Servan bowed his head once.
    “I have attorney now,” he said. “Please, I have attorney now.”
    Bosch pulled to a stop in front of the Splendid Age Retirement Home and got out with the saxophone and its stand. He heard Christmas music drifting out of an open window. Elvis Presley singing “Blue Christmas.”
    He thought about Nikolai Servan spending Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in the Parker Center jail. It would probably be the only jail time he’d ever see.
    The District Attorney’s Office would not decide until after the holiday whether to charge him or kick him loose. And Bosch knew it would probably be the latter. Prosecuting the case against the pawnbroker was fraught with difficulties. Servan had lawyered up and stopped talking. Afternoon-long searches of his home, car, the pawnshop and the trash containers in the alley failed to produce Monty Kelman’s lock picks or the method by which the display case had been rigged to deliver the fatal charge. Even the cause of death would be difficult to prove in a court of law. Kelman’s heart had stopped beating. A burst of electricity had most likely caused ventricular fibrillation, but in court a defense lawyer could easily and most likely successfully argue that the burn marks on the victim’s hand and foot were inconclusive and possibly not even related to cause of death.
    And all of these obstacles were minor in comparison with the main difficulty—the victim was a thief killed during the commission of a crime. He had engaged in repeated offenses against the defendant. Would a jury even care that Nikolai Servan had set a fatal trap for him? Probably not, the prosecutor told Bosch and Edgar.
    Bosch planned to go back to the pawnshop the following morning. In his personal ledger, everybody counted or nobody counted. That included burglars. He would look until he found the picks or the wire Servan had used to kill Monty Kelman.
    As he approached the front doors of the retirement home he noticed that not much about it looked particularly splendid. It looked like a final stop for pensioners and people who hadn’t planned on living as long as they had. Quentin McKinzie, for example. Few jazzmen and drug users went the distance. He probably never thought he’d make it this far. According to the information Bosch got off the computer,