The Last Coyote

be like fishing in a cesspool by now.”
    “I guess.”
    McKittrick laughed and shook his head.
    “Why do you stay there, Bosch? Doesn’t sound like they particularly want you.”
    Bosch thought a moment before answering. The comment was on point but he wondered if it was on point from McKittrick or whoever the source was he had called.
    “Who’d you call back there about me?”
    “I’m not telling you. That’s why he talked to me, because he knew I wouldn’t tell you.”
    Bosch nodded, signaling he’d let it go.
    “Well, you’re right,” he said. “I don’t think they particularly want me back there. But I don’t know. It’s kind’ve like the more they push one way, the more I push the other. I feel like if they’d stop asking or trying to make me leave, then I’d probably want to do it.”
    “I guess I know what you mean.”
    McKittrick stowed the two rods they had used and set to work outfitting the other two with hooks and buckshot weights.
    “We’re going to use mullet.”
    Bosch nodded. He didn’t know the first thing about it. But he watched McKittrick closely. He thought it might be a good time to start.
    “So you punched out after your twenty in L.A. What’d you do after that?”
    “You’re looking at it. I moved back here-I’m from Palmetto, up the coast, originally. I bought a boat and became a fishing guide. Did that another twenty, retired and now I fish for my own damned self.”
    Bosch smiled.
    “Palmetto? Isn’t that the name of those big cockroaches?”
    “No. Well, yeah, but it’s also the name of a scrub palm. That’s what the town’s named for, not the bug.”
    Bosch nodded and watched as McKittrick opened a bag of mullet strips and hooked pieces on each line. After opening fresh beers, they cast on separate sides of the boat and then sat on the gunwales, waiting.
    “Then how’d you end up in L.A.?” Bosch asked.
    “What was that somebody said about going west young man? Well, after Japan surrendered I passed through L.A. on my way back home and I saw those mountains going all the way up from the sea to the sky…Damn, I ate dinner at the Derby my first night in town. I was going to blow my whole wallet and you know who saw me there in uniform and picked up the tab? Goddamn Clark Gable. I’m not kidding you. I fuckin’ fell in love with that place and it took me almost thirty years to see the light…Mary’s from L.A., you know. Born and raised. She likes it out here fine.”
    He nodded to reassure himself. Bosch waited a few moments and McKittrick was still looking off at distant memories.
    “He was a nice guy.”
    “Who’s that?”
    “Clark Gable.”
    Bosch crunched the empty beer can in his hand and got another.
    “So tell me about the case,” he said after popping it. “What happened?”
    “You know what happened if you read the book. It was all in there. It got dumped. One day we had an investigation, the next we were writing ‘No leads at this time.’ It was a joke. That’s why I remember the case so well. They shouldn’t’ve done what they did.”
    “Who’s they?”
    “You know, the big shots.”
    “What did they do?”
    “They took it away from us. And Eno let them. He cut some deal with them himself. Shit.”
    He shook his head bitterly.
    “Jake,” Bosch tried. He got no protest this time over using the first name. “Why don’t you start at the beginning. I need to know everything I can from you.”
    McKittrick was quiet while he reeled in. His bait hadn’t been touched. He recast it, put the rod in one of the gunwale pipes and got another beer. From beneath the console he grabbed a Tampa Bay Lightning cap and put it on. He leaned on the gunwale with his beer and looked at Bosch.
    “Okay, kid, listen, I got nothin’ against your mother. I’m just gonna tell you this the way it fell, okay?”
    “That’s all I want.”
    “You want a hat? You’re gonna get burned.”
    “I’m fine.”
    McKittrick nodded and finally started.
    “Okay, so we got the call out from home. It was a Saturday morning. One of the footbeat guys had found her. She hadn’t been killed in that alley. That much was clear. She’d been dropped off. By the time I got down there from Tujunga, the crime scene investigation was already underway. My partner was there, too. Eno. He was the senior man, he was there first. He took charge of it.”
    Bosch put his rod in a pipe and went to his jacket.
    “You mind if I take notes?”
    “No, I don’t mind. I