Echo Park

rectangle about six feet by two feet. It was a small grave for a small victim.
    “Okay,” O’Shea said. “Let’s get Mr. Waits back and secured in the car and then bring in the excavation group.”
    The prosecutor told Cafarelli that she should stay at the site so there would be no crime scene integrity issues. The rest of the group headed back toward the ladder. Bosch was last in the single-file line, his mind deep in thought about the ground they were traversing. There was something sacred about it. It was hallowed ground. He hoped that Waits had not lied to them. He hoped that Marie Gesto had not been forced to make the walk to her grave while alive.
    At the ladder Rider and Olivas went up first. Bosch then walked Waits to the ladder, uncuffed him and started him up.
    As the killer climbed, the deputy trained the shotgun, finger on the trigger, on his back. In that moment, Bosch realized he could slip on the muddy soil, fall into the deputy and possibly cause the shotgun to discharge and hit Waits with the deadly fusillade. He looked away from the temptation and up at the top of the sheer facing. His partner was looking down at him with eyes that told him she had just read his thoughts. Bosch tried to put an innocent look on his face. He spread his hands while mouthing the word
What?
    Rider shook her head with disapproval and moved back from the edge. Bosch noticed that she was holding her weapon at her side. As Waits got to the top of the ladder, he was welcomed by Olivas with opened arms.
    “Hands,” Olivas said.
    “Certainly, Detective.”
    From Bosch’s angle below he could only see Waits’s back. He could tell by his posture that he had brought his hands together at his front for recuffing to the waist chain.
    But then there was a sudden movement. A quick twist in the prisoner’s posture as he leaned too far into Olivas. Bosch instinctively knew something was wrong. Waits was going for the gun holstered on Olivas’s hip under the windbreaker.
    “Hey!” Olivas shouted in panic. “Hey!”
    But before Bosch or anyone else could react, Waits used his hold and leverage on Olivas to spin their bodies so that the detective’s back was now at the top of the ladder. The deputy had no angle for a shot. Neither did Bosch. With a pistonlike move, Waits raised his knee and drove it twice into Olivas’s crotch. Olivas started to collapse, and there were two quick gunshots, muffled by his body. Waits pushed the detective off the edge and Olivas came crashing down the ladder onto Bosch.
    Waits then disappeared from view.
    Olivas’s weight took Bosch down hard into the mud. As he struggled to pull his weapon Bosch heard two more shots from above and shouts of panic from those on the lower ground. Behind him he heard the sound of running. With Olivas still on top of him, he looked up but could not see Waits or Rider. Then the prisoner appeared at the edge of the precipice, calmly holding a gun. He fired down at them and Bosch felt two impacts on Olivas’s body. He had become Bosch’s shield.
    The blast of the deputy’s shotgun split the air but the slug thwacked into the trunk of an oak tree to the left of Waits. Waits returned fire at the same moment and Bosch heard the deputy go down like a dropped suitcase.
    “Run, you coward!” Waits yelled. “How’s your bullshit deal looking now?”
    He fired twice more indiscriminately into the woods below. Bosch managed to free his gun and fire up the ladder at Waits.
    Waits ducked back out of sight as he used his free hand to grab the ladder by the top rung and yank it up to the top of the embankment. Bosch pushed Olivas’s body off and got up, his gun aimed and ready for Waits to show again.
    But then he heard the sound of running from above and he knew Waits was gone.
    “Kiz!” Bosch yelled.
    There was no reply. Bosch quickly checked both Olivas and the deputy but saw they were both dead. He holstered his weapon and scrambled up the incline, using exposed roots as handholds. The ground gave way as he dug his feet into it. A root snapped in his hand and he slid back down.
    “Kiz, talk to me!”
    Again no response. He tried again, this time going at an angle across the steep incline instead of by a straight-up assault. Grabbing roots and kicking his feet into the soft facing, he finally made it to the top and crawled over the edge. As he pulled himself up, he saw Waits moving off through the trees in the direction of the clearing, where the others waited.