The Last Coyote

coffee fund.
    “There, that’s for you,” Bosch said. “Now we’re even.”
    He walked out and in the hallway he heard Sakai call him an asshole. To Bosch that was a sign that all might be right in the world. His world, at least.
    When Bosch got to Parker Center fifteen minutes later, he realized he had a problem. Irving had not returned his ID tag because it was part of the evidence recovered from Mittel’s jacket in the hot tub. So Bosch loitered around the front of the building until he saw a group of detectives and administrative types walking toward the building from the City Hall annex. When the group moved inside and around the entry counter, Bosch stepped up behind them and got by the duty officer without notice.
    Bosch found Hirsch at his computer in the Latent Fingerprint Unit and asked him if he still had the Lifescan from the prints off the belt buckle.
    “Yeah, I’ve been waiting for you to pick them up.”
    “Well, I got a set I want you to check against them first.”
    Hirsch looked at him but hesitated only a second.
    “Let’s see ’em.”
    Bosch got the print card Sakai had made out of his briefcase and handed it over. Hirsch looked at it a moment, turning the card so it reflected the overhead light better.
    “These are pretty clean. You don’t need the machine, right? You just want to compare these to the prints you brought in before.”
    “That’s right.”
    “Okay, I can eyeball it right now if you want to wait.”
    “I want to wait.”
    Hirsch got the Lifescan card out of his desk and took it and the coroner’s card to the work counter, where he looked at them through a magnifying lamp. Bosch watched his eyes going back and forth between the prints as if he were watching a tennis ball go back and forth across a net.
    Bosch realized as he watched Hirsch work that more than anything else in the world he wanted the print man to look up at him and say that the prints from the two cards in front of him matched. Bosch wanted this to be over. He wanted to put it away.
    After five minutes of silence, the tennis match was over and Hirsch looked up at him and gave him the score.

Chapter Forty-seven
    WHEN CARMEN HINOJOS opened her waiting room door she seemed pleasantly surprised to see Bosch sitting on the couch.
    “Harry! Are you all right? I didn’t expect to see you here today.”
    “Why not? It’s my time, isn’t it?”
    “Yes, but I read in the paper you were at Cedars.”
    “I checked out.”
    “Are you sure you should have done that? You look…”
    “Awful?”
    “I didn’t want to say that. Come in.”
    She ushered him in and they took their usual places.
    “I actually look better than I feel right now.”
    “Why? What is it?”
    “Because it was all for nothing.”
    His statement put a confused look on her face.
    “What do you mean? I read the story today. You solved the murders, including your mother’s. I thought you’d be quite different than this.”
    “Well, don’t believe everything you read, Doctor. Let me clarify things for you. What I did on my so-called mission was cause two men to be murdered and another to die by my own hands. I solved, let’s see, I solved one, two, three murders, so that’s good. But I didn’t solve the murder I set out to solve. In other words, I’ve been running around in circles causing people to die. So, how did you expect me to be during our session?”
    “Have you been drinking?”
    “I had a couple beers with lunch but it was a long lunch and I think that a minimum of two beers is required considering what I just told you. But I am not drunk, if that is what you want to know. And I’m not working, so what’s the difference?”
    “I thought we agreed to cut back on-”
    “Oh, fuck that. This is the real world here. Isn’t that what you called it? The real world? Between now and the last time we talked, I’ve killed someone, Doc. And you want to talk about cutting back on booze. Like it means anything anymore.”
    Bosch took out his cigarettes and lit one. He kept the pack and the Bic on the arm of the chair. Carmen Hinojos watched him for a long time before speaking again.
    “You’re right. I’m sorry. Let’s go to what I think is the heart of the problem. You said you didn’t solve the murder you set out to solve. That, of course, is your mother’s death. I am only going by what I read, but today’s Times attributes her killing to Gordon Mittel. Are you telling me that you now know that to be