The Last Coyote

like old age, like dust and mold and urine. In the kitchen a gnome-like woman with white hair sat in a wheelchair, barely taking up half of the space it gave for an occupant. There was a slide-on tray in front of it and the woman’s gnarled pearl-white hands were folded together on top of it. There were milky blue cataracts on both eyes and they seemed dead to the world outside the body. Bosch noticed a bowl of applesauce on the nearby table. It only took him a few seconds to size up the situation.
    “She’ll be ninety in August,” said the sister. “If she makes it.”
    “How long has she been like this?”
    “Long time. I’ve been taking care of her for three years now.” She then bent into the gnome’s face and loudly added, “Isn’t that right, Olive?”
    The loudness of the question seemed to kick a switch and Olive Eno’s jaw started working but no sound that was intelligible issued. She stopped the effort after a while and the sister straightened up.
    “Don’t worry about it, Olive. I know you love me.”
    She wasn’t as loud with that sentence. Maybe she feared Olive might actually muster a denial.
    “What’s your name?” Bosch asked.
    “Elizabeth Shivone. What’s this about? I saw that badge of yours says Los Angeles, not Las Vegas. Aren’t you off the beat here a bit?”
    “Not really. It’s about her husband. One of his old cases.”
    “Claude’s been dead going on five years now.”
    “How did he die?”
    “Just died. His pump went out. Died right there on the floor, about where you’re standing.”
    They both looked down at the floor as if maybe his body was still there.
    “I came to look through his things,” Bosch said.
    “What things?”
    “I don’t know. I was thinking maybe he kept files from his time with the police.”
    “You better tell me what you’re doing here. This doesn’t sound right to me.”
    “I’m investigating a case he worked back in 1961. It’s still open. Parts of the file are missing. I thought maybe he’d taken it. I thought maybe there might be something important that he kept. I don’t know what. Anything. I just thought it was worth a try.”
    He could see that her mind was working and her eyes suddenly froze for a second when her memory snagged on something.
    “There is something, isn’t there?” he said.
    “No. I think you should go.”
    “It’s a big house. Did he have a home office?”
    “Claude left the police thirty years ago. He built this house in the middle of nowhere just to be away from all of that.”
    “What did he do when he moved out here?”
    “He worked casino security. A few years at the Sands, then twenty at the Flamingo. He was getting two pensions and took good care of Olive.”
    “Speaking of which, who’s signing those pension checks these days?”
    Bosch looked at Olive Eno to make his point. The other woman was silent a long moment, then went on the offense.
    “Look, I could get power of attorney. Look at her. It wouldn’t be a problem. I take care of her, mister.”
    “Yeah, you feed her applesauce.”
    “I have nothing to hide.”
    “You want somebody to make sure or do you want to let it end right here? I don’t really care what you’re doing, lady. I don’t really care if you’re even her sister or not. If I was betting, I’d say you’re not. But I don’t really care right now. I’m busy. I just want to look through Eno’s things.”
    He stopped there and let her think about it. He looked at his watch.
    “No warrant then, right?”
    “I don’t have a warrant. I’ve got a cab waiting. You make me get a warrant and I’m going to stop being such a nice guy.”
    Her eyes went up and down his body as if to measure how nice and how not nice he could be.
    “The office is this way.”
    She said the words as if they were bites out of wood planks. She swiftly led him down the hall again and then off to the left into a study. There was an old steel desk as the room’s centerpiece, a couple of four-drawer file cabinets, an extra chair and not much else.
    “After he died, Olive and I moved everything into those file cabinets and haven’t looked at it since.”
    “They’re all full?”
    “All eight. Have at it.”
    Bosch reached his hand into his pocket and took out another twenty-dollar bill. He tore it in half and gave one side to Shivone.
    “Take that out to the cab driver. Tell her I’m going to be a little longer than I thought.”
    She exhaled loudly, snatched the half and left