The Drop

thinking McQuillen was lucky they didn’t ride the wave and prosecute him. He sued to get his job back but that was a nonstarter. He was done.”
    Bosch ended it there for the moment to see if Rider had a response. She had folded her arms across her chest and was staring into the shadows. Bosch knew she was grinding it down. Seeing how all of this played out in the present.
    “So,” she finally said. “Twenty-five years ago a task force headed by Irvin Irving results in McQuillen losing his job and career in a process that, at least in his view, was unfounded and unfair. Now we have what appears to be an attempt by Irving’s son and possibly the councilman himself to grab the franchise from the business where McQuillen now works as . . . what, a night dispatcher?”
    “Shift supervisor. Which I guess really means dispatcher.”
    “And this adds up to him murdering George Irving. I can connect the dots but am having trouble with the motive, Harry.”
    “Well, we don’t know anything about McQuillen, do we? We don’t know if he’s been carrying this grudge around like a festering wound and the opportunity simply presented itself. A driver calls in and says, ‘Guess who I just saw.’ We have the abrasion pattern on the shoulder—it’s unmistakable evidence of the choke hold. We also have a witness who saw somebody on the fire escape.”
    “What witness? You didn’t tell me you had a witness.”
    “I just found out today. The hillside behind the hotel was canvassed and they came up with a resident who saw a man on the fire escape ladder Sunday night. But he says it was twelve-forty A.M . and the coroner puts TOD no earlier than two and as late as four. So we have about a two-hour discrepancy. The guy on the ladder was going down at twelve-forty, not up. There is this, though. The witness described the guy on the ladder as wearing some sort of uniform. Gray top and gray pants. I was in B and W’s taxi barn today. It’s where the dispatch office is. The mechanics who work on the fleet wear gray coveralls. McQuillen could’ve put on coveralls before going up the ladder.”
    Bosch flipped his hands out at his sides as if to say that was it. That was all he had. Rider was silent for a long moment before asking what Bosch knew she would ask.
    “You always taught me to ask where the holes were. ‘Look at your case and find the holes. Because if you don’t find them, a defense attorney will do it for you.’ So, Harry, where are the holes?”
    Bosch shrugged.
    “The time discrepancy is a hole. And we don’t have anything that would put McQuillen in Irving’s room. All prints found in there and on the fire escape ladder were run through the computer. McQuillen’s would’ve come up.”
    “How do you deal with the time discrepancy?”
    “He was casing the place. That’s when the witness saw him. He didn’t see when McQuillen came back.”
    Rider nodded.
    “What about the marks on Irving’s shoulder? Can they be matched to McQuillen’s watch?”
    “It’s possible but it won’t be conclusive. We might get lucky and even find DNA on the watch. But I think the big hole here is Irving. Why was he at the hotel in the first place? The McQuillen angle relies upon chance. Taxi driver sees Irving. He tells McQuillen. McQuillen’s deep-seated anger and bitterness take over. At the end of shift, he grabs a set of mechanic’s coveralls and goes to the hotel. He climbs up the side, somehow gets into Irving’s suite, and chokes him out. He strips the body and folds the clothes nice and neat but misses the button on the floor. He then drops him off the balcony and it looks like suicide. It works well enough in theory, but what was Irving doing there? Was he meeting someone? Waiting for someone? And why did he put his stuff—his wallet and phone and everything—in the room safe? If we can’t answer those questions, we’ve got a hole big enough to drive a getaway car through.”
    She nodded in agreement.
    “So what are you proposing we do now?”
    “ We do nothing. I continue to work this. But you have to know and the chief has to know that as this goes forward it’s going to get close to the councilman. If I squeeze Robert Mason to find out why he started pulling over B and W drivers, it might come back directly to Irvin Irving himself. The chief should know that.”
    “He will. Is that your next move?”
    “I’m not sure yet. But I want to know as much as there is to know before I take on