The Last Coyote

Hollywood to see who was on it. It was Eno. Big surprise. And he never made a case on anybody. So that about confirmed what I was thinking about him, too.”
    McKittrick stared off across the water to where the sun was getting low in the sky. He threw his empty beer can at the bucket. It missed and bounced over the side into the water.
    “Fuck it,” he said. “I guess we should head in.”
    He started reeling in his line.
    “What do you think Eno got out of all of this?”
    “I don’t know exactly. He might’ve just been trading favors, something like that. I’m not saying he got rich, but I think he got something out of the deal. He wouldn’t do it for nothing. I just don’t know what it was.”
    McKittrick started taking the rods out of the pipes and stowing them on hooks along the sides of the stern.
    “In 1972 you checked the murder book out of archives, how come?”
    McKittrick looked at him curiously.
    “I signed the same checkout slip a few days ago,” Bosch explained. “Your name was still on it.”
    McKittrick nodded.
    “Yeah, that was right after I put in my papers. I was leaving, going through my files and stuff. I’d hung on to the prints we took off the belt. Kept the card. Also hung on to the belt.”
    “Why?”
    “You know why. I didn’t think it would be safe in that file or in the evidence room. Not with Conklin as DA, not with Eno doing him favors. So I kept the stuff. Then a bunch of years went by and it was there when I was cleaning shit out and going to Florida. So right before I decided to punch out, I put the print card back in the murder book and went down and put the belt back in the evidence box. Eno was already in Vegas, retired. Conklin had crashed and burned, was out of politics. The case was long forgotten. I put the stuff back. I guess maybe I hoped someday somebody like you would take a look at it.”
    “What about you? Did you look at the book when you put the card back?”
    “Yeah, and I saw I had done the right thing. Somebody had gone through it, stripped it. They pulled the Fox interview out of it. Probably was Eno.”
    “As the second man on the case you had to do the paper, right?”
    “Right. The paperwork was mine. Most of it.”
    “What did you put on the Fox interview summary that would have made Eno need to pull it?”
    “I don’t remember anything specific, just that I thought the guy was lying and that Conklin was out of line. Something like that.”
    “Anything else you remember that was missing?”
    “Nah, nothing important, just that. I think he just wanted to get Conklin’s name out of it.”
    “Yeah, well, he missed something. You’d noted his first call on the Chronological Record. That’s how I knew.”
    “Did I? Well, good for me. And here you are.”
    “Yeah.”
    “All right, we’re heading in. Too bad they weren’t really biting today.”
    “I’m not complaining. I got my fish.”
    McKittrick stepped behind the wheel and was about to start the engine when he thought of something.
    “Oh, you know what?” He moved to the cooler and opened it. “I don’t want Mary to be disappointed.”
    He pulled out the plastic bags that contained the sandwiches his wife had made.
    “You hungry?”
    “Not really.”
    “Me neither.”
    He opened the bags and dumped the sandwiches over the side. Bosch watched him.
    “Jake, when you pulled out that gun, who’d you think I was?”
    McKittrick didn’t say anything as he neatly folded the plastic bags and put them back in the cooler. When he straightened up, he looked at Bosch.
    “I didn’t know. All I knew was that I thought I might have to take you out here and dump you like those sandwiches. Seems like I’ve been hiding out here all my life, waiting for them to send somebody.”
    “You think they’d go that far over time and distance?”
    “I don’t have any idea. The more time that goes by, the more I doubt it. But old habits die hard. I always keep a gun nearby. Doesn’t matter that most times I don’t even remember why.”
    They rode in from the Gulf with the engine roaring and the soft spray of the sea in their faces. They didn’t talk. That was done with. Occasionally, Bosch glanced over at McKittrick. His old face fell under the shadow of his cap brim. But Bosch could see his eyes in there, looking at something that had happened a long time before and no longer could be changed.

Chapter Twenty-six
    AFTER THE BOAT trip Bosch felt the onset of a headache from the