Echo Park

record of the murder investigation for seemingly little reason or gain. He had run the risk that Bosch would discover the deceit and call him on it. He had run the risk of the deceit possibly being revealed by a smart lawyer like Maury Swann in court one day. And he did all of this knowing that he didn’t have to, knowing that Waits would be tied solidly into the case with a confession.
    Now Olivas was dead and could not be confronted. There was no one to answer why.
    Except maybe Raynard Waits.
    “How’s your bullshit deal looking now?”
    And maybe Rick O’Shea.
    Bosch thought about everything and all in a moment it came together. Bosch suddenly knew why Olivas had taken the risk and put the specter of Raynard Waits into the Marie Gesto murder book. He saw it with a clarity that left him no room for doubt.
    Raynard Waits didn’t kill Marie Gesto.
    He jumped up and started gathering the files together. Clutching them with both hands, he hurried through the rotunda toward the exit. His footfalls echoed behind him in the great room like a crowd of people chasing him. He looked back but there was nobody there.

22

    BOSCH HAD LOST TRACK of time while in the library. He was late. Rachel was already seated and waiting for him. She was holding a large one-sheet menu that obscured the look of annoyance on her face as Bosch was led to the table by a waiter.
    “Sorry,” Bosch said as he sat down.
    “It’s okay,” she replied. “But I already ordered for myself. I didn’t know if you were going to show or not.”
    She handed the menu across to him. He immediately handed it to the waiter.
    “I’ll have what she’s having,” he said. “And just the water is fine.”
    He drank from the glass already poured for him while the waiter hurried away. Rachel smiled at him, but not in a nice way.
    “You’re not going to like it. You’d better call him back.”
    “Why? I like seafood.”
    “Because I ordered the sashimi. You told me the other night that you like your seafood cooked.”
    The news gave him momentary pause but he decided he deserved to pay for his mistake of arriving late.
    “It all goes to the same place,” he said, dismissing the issue. “But why do they call this place the Water
Grill
if they’re not grilling the food?”
    “Good question.”
    “Forget about it. We need to talk. I need your help, Rachel.”
    “With what? What’s wrong?”
    “I don’t think Raynard Waits killed Marie Gesto.”
    “What do you mean? He led you to her body. Are you saying that wasn’t Marie Gesto?”
    “No, ID was confirmed today at the autopsy. It was definitely Marie Gesto in that grave.”
    “And Waits was the one who led you to it, right?”
    “Right.”
    “And Waits was the one who confessed to killing her, right?”
    “Right.”
    “At autopsy, was the cause of death in agreement with that confession?”
    “Yeah, from what I hear, it was.”
    “Then, Harry, you’re not making sense. With all of that, how can he not be the killer?”
    “Because something is going on that we don’t know about, that I don’t know about. Olivas and O’Shea had some sort of play going with him. I’m not sure what it was but it all went to shit in Beachwood Canyon.”
    She held up her hands in a hold-it-right-there gesture.
    “Why don’t you start at the beginning. Only tell me facts. No theory, no conjecture. Just give me what you’ve got.”
    He told her everything, starting with the tampering with the murder book by Olivas and concluding with the detail-by-detail accounting of what had happened when Waits started to climb up the ladder in Beachwood Canyon. He told her what Waits had yelled at O’Shea and what had been edited out of the field trip video.
    It took him fifteen minutes and during that time their lunch was served. Of course it came fast, Bosch thought. It didn’t have to be cooked! He felt lucky to be the one doing all the talking. It gave him a ready excuse not to eat the raw fish put down in front of him.
    By the time he was finished recounting the story he could see that Rachel’s mind had gone to work on everything. She was grinding it down.
    “Putting Waits in the murder book doesn’t make sense,” she said. “It connects him to the case, yes, but he is already connected through his confession and his leading you to the body. So why bother with the murder book?”
    Bosch leaned across the table to respond.
    “Two things. One, Olivas thought he might need to sell the confession. He