Echo Park

position as a go-between who could monitor Bosch as well as all the other parties involved.
    And he realized that with Swann part of the plan, Pratt wouldn’t need Olivas or O’Shea. The more people in a conspiracy, the more likely it is that it will fail or fall apart. All Swann had to do was tell Waits that the prosecutor and investigator were behind it and he would have planted a false trail for someone like Bosch to follow.
    Bosch felt the hot flash of guilt start to burn at the back of his neck. He realized that he could be wrong about everything he had been thinking until a half hour before. Totally wrong. Olivas might not be dirty after all. Maybe he had been used as skillfully as Bosch had been used himself, and maybe O’Shea was guilty of nothing more than political maneuvering—taking credit where it was not due him, redirecting blame away from where it was due. O’Shea could have called for the department fix simply to contain Bosch’s accusations because they would be politically damaging, not because they were true.
    Bosch thought this new theory through again and it held up. He found no air in the brake lines, no sand in the gas tank. It was a car that could drive. The only thing missing was motive. Why would a guy who banked twenty-five years with the department and was looking at retiring at fifty risk it all on a scheme like this? How could a guy who had spent twenty-five years chasing bad guys let a killer go free?
    Bosch knew from working a thousand murders that motive was often the most elusive component of crime. Obviously, money could motivate, and the disintegration of a marriage could play a part. But those were unfortunate common denominators in many people’s lives. They could not readily explain why Abel Pratt had broken across the line.
    Bosch banged the palm of his hand hard on the steering wheel. The question of motive aside, he was embarrassed and angry with himself. Pratt had played him perfectly and the betrayal was deep and painful. Pratt was his boss. They had eaten together, worked cases together, told jokes and talked about their kids together. Pratt was heading toward a retirement that no one in the department believed was anything other than well-earned and well-deserved. It was time to double-dip, collect a department pension and grab a lucrative security job in the islands where the pay was high and the hours low. Everybody was shooting for that and no one would begrudge it. It was blue heaven, the policeman’s dream.
    But now Bosch saw through all of that.
    “It’s all bullshit,” he said out loud in the car.

33

    THIRTY MINUTES INTO THE DRIVE Pratt exited the freeway in the Cahuenga Pass. He took Barham Boulevard northeast into Burbank. The traffic was still thick and Bosch had no trouble following and maintaining his distance and cover. Pratt drove past the back entrance to Universal and the front entrance to Warner Bros. He then made a few quick turns and pulled to the curb in front of a row of town houses on Catalina near Verdugo. Bosch drove on by quickly, took his first right and then another and then another. He killed his lights before taking one more right and coming up on the town houses again. He pulled to the curb a half block behind Pratt’s SUV and slid down in his seat.
    Almost immediately Bosch saw Pratt standing in the street, looking both ways before crossing. But he was taking too long to do it. The street was clear but Pratt kept looking back and forth. He was looking for someone or checking to see if he had been followed. Bosch knew that the hardest thing in the world to do was to follow a cop who was looking for it. He slouched down lower in the car.
    Finally, Pratt started across the street, still looking back and forth continuously, and when he got to the other curb he turned and stepped up onto it backwards. He took a few steps back, surveying the area in both directions. When his scan came to Bosch’s car his eyes held on it for a long moment.
    Bosch froze. He didn’t think Pratt had seen him—he was slouched too far down—but he might have recognized the car as either an unmarked police cruiser or one of the cars specifically assigned to the Open-Unsolved Unit. If he walked down the street to check it out Bosch knew he would be caught without much of an explanation. And without a gun. Randolph had routinely confiscated his backup weapon for a ballistics analysis in regard to the shooting of Robert Foxworth.
    Pratt started walking