The Last Coyote

make it my business.”
    She put on a look that showed Bosch what an affront he was to her delicate sensibilities but then seemed to gain a measure of self-esteem. Whoever she was, she was proud of it.
    “You want to know who I am? I was the best woman he ever had. I was with him for a long time. She had his wedding band but I had his heart. Near the end, when they were both old and it didn’t matter, we dropped the pretension and he brought me in here. To live with them. Take care of them. So don’t you dare tell me I don’t deserve something out of it.”
    Bosch just nodded. Somehow, as sordid as the story seemed, he found a measure of respect for her for just having told the truth. And he felt sure it was.
    “When did you meet?”
    “You said one question.”
    “When did you meet?”
    “When he was at the Flamingo. We both were. I was a dealer. Like I said, he was a bird dog.”
    “He ever talk about L.A., about any cases, any people from back there?”
    “No, never. He always said that was a closed chapter.”
    Bosch pointed to the envelope stacks in the box.
    “Does the name McCage mean anything?”
    “Not to me.”
    “What about these account statements?”
    “I never saw any of those things until the day we opened that box. Didn’t know he even had an account over at Nevada Savings. Claude had secrets. He even kept secrets from me.”

Chapter Thirty
    AT THE AIRPORT Bosch paid off the cab driver and struggled into the main terminal with his overnighter and the beer box full of files and other things. In one of the stores along the main terminal mall he bought a cheap canvas satchel and transferred the items he had taken from Eno’s office into it. It was small enough so he didn’t have to check it. Printed on the side of the bag was LAS VEGAS – LAND OF SUN AND FUN! There was a logo depicting the sun setting behind a pair of dice.
    At his gate he had a half hour before they loaded the plane, so he found a section of open seats as far away as possible from the cacophony of the rows of slot machines set in the center of the circular terminal.
    He began going through the files in the satchel. The one he was most interested in was the one containing records stolen from the Marjorie Lowe murder book. He looked through the documents and found nothing unusual or unexpected.
    The summary of the McKittrick-Eno interview of Johnny Fox with Arno Conklin and Gordon Mittel present was here and Bosch could sense the contained outrage at the situation in McKittrick’s writing. In the last paragraph it was no longer contained.
    Interview with suspect was regarded by the undersigned as fruitless because of the intrusive behavior of A. Conklin and G. Mittel. Both “prosecutors” refused to allow “their” witness to answer questions fully or in the undersign’s opinion with the whole truth. J. Fox remains suspect at this time until verification of his alibi and fingerprint analysis.
    Nothing else in the documents was of note and Bosch realized that they were probably removed from the file by Eno solely because they mentioned Conklin’s involvement in the case. Eno was covering up for Conklin. When Bosch asked himself why Eno was doing this, he immediately thought of the bank statements that had been in the safe deposit box with the stolen documents. They were records of the deal.
    Bosch took out the envelopes and, going by the postmarks, began putting them in chronological order. The earliest one he could find was mailed to the McCage Inc. postal drop in November 1962. That was one year after the death of Marjorie Lowe and two months after the death of Johnny Fox. Eno had been on the Lowe case and then, according to McKittrick, he had investigated the Fox killing.
    Bosch felt in his gut that he was right. Eno had squeezed Conklin. And maybe Mittel. He somehow knew what McKittrick didn’t, that Conklin had been involved with Marjorie Lowe. Maybe he even knew Conklin had killed her. He had enough to put Conklin on the line for a thousand bucks a month for life. It wasn’t a lot. Eno wasn’t greedy, though a thousand a month in the early sixties probably more than matched what he was making on the job. But the amount didn’t matter to Bosch. The payment did. It was an admission. If it could be traced to Conklin, it was hard evidence. Bosch felt himself getting excited. The records hoarded by a corrupt cop dead five years now might be all he needed to go head to head with Conklin.
    He thought of