A Darkness More Than Night

Chapter 46

McCaleb stayed away from The Following Sea, even after the last detective and forensic technician had finished with it. From early afternoon until dark the boat was staked out by reporters and television news crews. The coupling of the shooting aboard the boat plus the arrest of Tafero and abrupt guilty pleas from David Storey had turned the boat into the central image of a story that had developed quickly through the day. Every local channel plus the networks shot their stand-up reports from the marina, The Following Sea serving as the backdrop with its yellow police tape strung across the salon door.

McCaleb hid out for most of the afternoon in Buddy Lockridge’s boat, staying below decks and donning one of Buddy’s floppy fishing hats if he poked his head up through a hatch to see what was going on outside. The two were talking again. Soon after leaving the Sheriff’s Department and getting to the marina ahead of the media, McCaleb had sought out Buddy and apologized for assuming that his charter partner had leaked the story. Buddy in turn apologized for using The Following Sea – and McCaleb’s cabin – as a rendezvous point for encounters with erotic masseuses. McCaleb agreed to tell Graciela he had been wrong about Buddy being the leak. He also agreed not to tell her about the masseuses. Buddy had explained that he didn’t want Graciela thinking less of him than she probably already did.

While they hid out in the boat, they watched Buddy’s little twelve-inch TV and remained up-to-the-minute with the day’s developments. Channel 9, which had been carrying the Storey trial live, remained most current, staying on live and continuously reporting from the Van Nuys courthouse and the sheriff’s Star Center.

McCaleb was left stunned and in awe by the day’s events. David Storey abruptly filed guilty pleas in Van Nuys to two murders as he was simultaneously charged in the downtown Los Angeles courthouse with being a conspirator in the Gunn case. The movie director had avoided the death penalty in the first cases but still would face it in the Gunn case if he did not make another plea arrangement with prosecutors.

A televised news conference at the Star Center had featured Jaye Winston prominently. She answered questions from reporters after the sheriff, flanked by LAPD and FBI brass, read a statement announcing the day’s events from an investigative standpoint. McCaleb’s name was mentioned numerous times in the discussion of the investigation and subsequent shooting aboard The Following Sea. Winston also mentioned it at the end of the news conference when she expressed her thanks to him, saying it was his volunteer work on the case that broke it open.

Bosch was also prominently mentioned but took no part in any press conferences. After Storey’s guilty verdicts were entered in the Van Nuys court, Bosch and the lawyers involved in the case were mobbed outside the doors to the courtroom. But McCaleb had seen video on one channel of Bosch pushing his way though the reporters and cameras and refusing to comment as he moved to a fire escape and disappeared down the stairs.

The only reporter who got to McCaleb was Jack McEvoy, who still had his cell phone number. McCaleb talked to him briefly but declined to comment on what had happened in the master cabin of The Following Sea and how close he had come to death. His thoughts about that were too personal and he would never share them with any reporter.

McCaleb had also talked to Graciela, calling her and filling her in on the events before she saw them on the news. He told her he probably wouldn’t get home until the next day because he was sure the media pack would be watching the boat until well after dark. She said she was glad it was over and that he’d be coming home. He sensed there was still a high level of stress in her voice and knew it was something he would have to address when he got back to the island.

Late in the day McCaleb was able to slip out of Buddy’s boat unnoticed when the media pack was distracted by activity in the marina parking lot. The LAPD was towing off the old Lincoln Continental that the Tafero brothers had been using the night before when they had come to the marina to kill McCaleb. While the news crews filmed and watched the mundane task of a car being hooked up and towed away, McCaleb was able to get to his Cherokee without being spotted. He started the car and drove out of the lot ahead of the tow truck. Not a single reporter followed.

It was fully dark by the time he got to Bosch’s house. The front door was open as it had been the time before, the screen door in place. McCaleb rapped on the wooden frame and peered through the mesh into the darkness of the house. There was a single light – a reading light – on in the living room. He could hear music and thought it was the same Art Pepper CD that had been playing during his last visit. But he didn’t see Bosch.

McCaleb looked away from the door to check the street and when he looked back Bosch was standing at the screen and it startled him. Bosch unhooked a latch and opened the screen. He was wearing the same suit McCaleb had seen him in on the news. He was holding a bottle of Anchor Steam down at his side.

“Terry. Come on in. I thought maybe you were a reporter. Bugs the hell out of me when they come to your house. Seems like there should be one place they can’t go.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean. They’re all over the boat. I had to get away.”

McCaleb passed by Bosch in the entrance hallway and stepped into the living room.

“So reporters aside, how’s it going, Harry?”

“Never better. A good day for our side. How’s your neck doing?”

“Sore as hell. But I’m alive.”

“Yeah, that’s what’s important. Want a beer?”

“Uh, that would be good.”

While Bosch got the beer McCaleb went out to the rear deck.

Bosch had the deck lights off, making the lights of the city more brilliant in the distance. McCaleb could hear the ever present sound of the freeway at the bottom of the pass. Searchlights cut across the sky from three different locations on the Valley floor. Bosch came out and handed him a beer.

“No glass, right?”

“No glass.”

They looked out into the night and drank their beers silently for a little while. McCaleb thought about how he should say what he wanted to say. He was still working on it.

“The last thing they were doing before I left was hooking up Tafero’s car,” he said after some time.

Bosch nodded.

“What about the boat? They finished with it?”

“Yeah, they’re done.”

“Is it a mess? They always leave things a mess.”

“Probably. I haven’t been inside. I’ll worry about it tomorrow.”

Bosch nodded. McCaleb took a long draw on his beer and put the bottle down on the railing. He had taken too much. It backed up in his throat and burned his sinuses.

“Okay?” Bosch asked.

“Yeah, fine.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Harry, I came up to tell you I’m not going to be your friend anymore.”

Bosch started to laugh but then stopped.

“What?”

McCaleb looked at him. Bosch’s eyes were still piercing in the darkness. They had caught a speck of reflected light from somewhere and McCaleb could see the two pinpoints holding on him.

“You should’ve hung around a little longer this morning while Jaye interviewed Tafero.”

“I didn’t have the time.”

“She asked him about the Lincoln and he said it was his undercover car. He said he used it on jobs when he didn’t want there to be any chance of a trace. It has stolen plates on it. And the registration is phony.”

“Makes sense, a guy like that, having a car for the wet work.”

“You don’t get it, do you?”

Bosch had finished his beer. He was leaning with his elbows on the railing. He was peeling the label off the bottle and dropping the little pieces into the darkness below.

“No, I don’t get it, Terry. Why don’t you tell me what you’re talking about?”

McCaleb picked up his beer but then put it back down without drinking any more.

“His real car, the one he used every day, is a Mercedes Four-thirty C-L-K. That was the one he caught the ticket with. For parking at the post office when he sent the money order.”

“Okay, the guy had two cars. His secret car and his show car. What does it mean?”

“It means you knew something you shouldn’t have known.”

“What are you talking about? Knew what?”

“Last night I asked you why you came onto my boat. You said you saw Tafero’s Lincoln and knew there was something wrong. How did you know that Lincoln was his?”

Bosch was silent for a long moment. He looked out into the night and nodded.

“I saved your life,” he said.

“I saved yours.”

“So we’re even. Leave it at that, Terry.”

McCaleb shook his head. It felt like there was a fist in his stomach pushing up into his chest, trying to get to his new heart.

“I think you knew that Lincoln and knew it meant trouble for me because you had watched Tafero before. Maybe on a night he was using the Lincoln. Maybe on a night he was watching Gunn and setting up the hit. Maybe on the night he made the hit. You saved my life because you knew something, Harry.”

McCaleb was quiet for a moment, giving Bosch an opportunity to say something in his defense.

“That’s a lot of maybes, Terry.”

“Yeah. A lot of maybes and one guess. My guess is that somehow you knew or you figured out back when Tafero hooked up with Storey that they would have to come after you in court. So you watched Tafero and you saw him draw the bead on Gunn. You knew what was going to happen and you let it happen.”

McCaleb took another long drink of beer and put the bottle back down on the railing.

“A dangerous game, Harry. They almost pulled it off. But I guess if I hadn’t come along you would’ve figured out some way of pointing it back at them.”

Bosch continued to stare out into the darkness and say nothing.

“The one thing I hope is that you weren’t the one who tipped Tafero that Gunn was in the tank that night. Tell me you didn’t make that call, Harry. Tell me you didn’t help get him out so they could kill him like that.”

Again Bosch said nothing. McCaleb nodded.

“You want to shake somebody’s hand, Harry, shake your own.”

Bosch dropped his gaze and looked down into the darkness below the deck. McCaleb watch him closely and saw him slowly shake his head.

“We do what we have to do,” Bosch said quietly. “Sometimes you have choices. Sometimes there is no choice, only necessity. You see things happening and you know they’re wrong but somehow they’re also right.”

He was silent for a long moment and McCaleb waited.

“I didn’t make that call,” Bosch said.

He turned and looked at McCaleb. Again McCaleb could see the shining points of light in the blackness of his eyes.

“Three people – three monsters – are gone.”

“But not that way. We don’t do it that way.”

Bosch nodded.

“What about your play, Terry? Pushing past the little brother into the office. Like you didn’t think that would start some shit. You pushed the action with that little move and you know it.”

McCaleb felt his face growing hot under Bosch’s stare. He didn’t answer. He didn’t know what to say.

“You had your own plan, Terry. So what’s the difference?”

“The difference? If you don’t see it, then you have completely fallen. You are lost.”

“Yeah, well, maybe I’m lost and maybe I’ve been found. I’ll have to think about it. Meantime, why don’t you just go home now. Go back to your little island and your little girl. Hide behind what you think you see in her eyes. Pretend the world is not what you know it to be.”

McCaleb nodded. He’d said what he wanted to say. He stepped away from the railing, leaving his beer, and walked toward the door to the house. But Bosch hit him with more words as he entered the house.

“You think naming her after a girl nobody cared about or loved can make up for that lost girl? Well, you’re wrong, man. Just go home and keep dreaming.”

McCaleb hesitated in the doorway and looked back.

“Good-bye, Harry.”

“Yeah, good-bye.”

McCaleb walked through the house. When he passed the reading chair where the light was on he saw the printout of his profile of Bosch sitting on the arm of the chair. He kept going. When he got to the front door he pulled it closed behind him.