City Of Bones

Chapter 32

BOSCH and Edgar walked Stokes through the squad room and down the short hallway leading to the interview rooms. They took him into room 3 and cuffed him to the steel ring bolted to the middle of the table.

“We’ll be back,” Bosch said.

“Hey, man, don’t leave me in here,” Stokes began. “They’ll come in here, man.”

“Nobody’s coming in but me,” Bosch said. “Just sit tight.”

They left the room and locked it. Bosch went to the homicide table. The squad room was completely empty. When a cop went down in the division everybody responded. It was part of keeping the faith in the blue religion. If it was you who went down, you’d want everybody coming. So you responded in kind.

Bosch needed a smoke, he needed time to think and he needed some answers. His mind was crowded with thoughts about Julia and her condition. But he knew it was out of his hands and the best way to control his thoughts was to concentrate on something still in his hands.

He knew he had little time before the OIS detail would pick up the trail and come for him and Stokes. He picked up the phone and called the watch office. Mankiewicz answered. He was probably the last cop in the station.

“What’s the latest?” Bosch asked. “How is she?”

“I don’t know. I hear it’s bad. Where are you?”

“In the squad. I’ve got the guy here.”

“Harry, what are you doing? OIS is all over this. You should be at the scene. Both of you.”

“Let’s just say I was fearful of a deteriorating situation. Listen, let me know the minute you hear something about Julia, okay?”

“You got it.”

Bosch was about to hang up when he remembered something.

“And Mank, listen. Your guy Edgewood tried to kick the shit out of the suspect. He was cuffed and on the ground at the time. He’s probably got four or five broken ribs.”

Bosch waited. Mankiewicz didn’t say anything.

“Your choice. I can go formal with it or I can let you take care of it your way.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

“All right. Remember, let me know what you know.”

He hung up and looked at Edgar, who nodded his approval on the way Bosch was handling the Edgewood matter.

“What about Stokes?” Edgar said. “Harry, what the fuck happened in that garage?”

“I’m not sure. Listen, I’m going to go in there and talk to him about Arthur Delacroix, see what I can get before OIS storms the place and takes him away. When they get here, see if you can stall them.”

“Yeah, and this Saturday I’m planning to kick Tiger Woods’s ass on Riviera.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Bosch went into the rear hallway and was about to enter room 3 when he realized he had not gotten his recorder back from Detective Bradley of IAD. He wanted to record his interview with Stokes. He walked past the door to room 3 and stepped into the adjoining video room. He turned on the room 3 camera and auxiliary recorder and then went back to room 3.

Bosch sat across from Stokes. The life appeared drained from the younger man’s eyes. Less than an hour before he had been waxing a BMW, picking up a few bucks. Now he was looking at a return to prison-if he was lucky. He knew cop blood in the water brought out the blue sharks. Many were the suspects who were shot trying to escape or inexplicably hung themselves in rooms just like this. Or so it was explained to the reporters.

“Do yourself a big favor,” Bosch said. “Calm the fuck down and don’t do anything stupid. Don’t do anything with these people that gets you killed. You understand me?”

Stokes nodded.

Bosch saw the package of Marlboros in the breast pocket of Stokes’s jumpsuit. He reached across the table, causing Stokes to flinch.

“Relax.”

He took the pack of cigarettes and fired one up with a match from a book slipped behind the cellophane. From the corner of the room he pulled a small trash can next to his chair and dropped in the match.

“If I wanted to hurt you I would’ve done it in the garage. Thanks for the smoke.”

Bosch savored the smoke. It had been at least two months since he’d had a cigarette.

“Can I have one?” Stokes asked.

“No, you don’t deserve one. You don’t deserve shit. But I’m going to make a little deal with you here.”

Stokes raised his eyes to Bosch’s.

“You know that little kick in the ribs you got back there? I’ll trade you. You forget about it and take it like a man and I’ll forget about you spraying me in the face with that shit.”

“My ribs are broke, man.”

“My eyes still burn, man. That was a commercial cleaning chemical. The DA will be able to get assault on a police officer out of that faster than you can say five to ten in Corcoran. You remember being in the Cork, don’t you?”

Bosch let that sink in for a long moment.

“So do we have a deal?”

Stokes nodded but said, “What difference is it going to make? They’re going to say I shot her. I-”

“But I know you didn’t.”

Bosch saw a glimmer of hope returning to Stokes’s eyes.

“And I will tell them exactly what I saw.”

“Okay.”

Stokes’s voice was barely a whisper.

“So let’s start at the start. Why’d you run?”

Stokes shook his head.

“Because it’s what I do, man. I run. I’m a convict and you’re the Man. I run.”

Bosch realized that in all of the confusion and haste, nobody had searched Stokes. He told him to stand up, which could only be accomplished by Stokes leaning over the table because of his shackled wrists. Bosch moved around behind him and started checking his pockets.

“You got any needles?”

“No, man, no needles.”

“Good, I don’t want to get stuck. I get stuck and all deals are off.”

As he searched he held the cigarette in his lips. The smoke stung his already burning eyes. Bosch took out a wallet, a set of keys and roll of cash totaling $27 in ones. Stokes’s tips for the day. There was nothing else. If Stokes had been carrying drugs for sale or personal use, he had tossed them while trying to make his escape.

“They’ll be out there with dogs,” Bosch said. “If you tossed a stash, they’ll find it and there won’t be anything I can do about it.”

“I didn’t toss anything. If they find something, they planted it.”

“Yeah. Just like O.J.”

Bosch sat back down.

“What was the first thing I said to you? I said, ‘I just want to talk.’ It was the truth. All of this…”

Bosch made a sweeping gesture with his hands.

“It could have all been avoided if you had just listened.”

“Cops never want to talk. They always want something more.”

Bosch nodded. He had never been surprised by how accurate the street knowledge of ex-convicts was.

“Tell me about Arthur Delacroix.”

Confusion tightened Stokes’s eyes.

“What? Who?”

“Arthur Delacroix. Your skateboard buddy. From the Miracle Mile days. Remember?”

“Jesus, man, that was-”

“A long time ago. I know. That’s why I’m asking.”

“What about him? He’s long gone, man.”

“Tell me about him. Tell me about when he disappeared.”

Stokes looked down at his cuffed hands and slowly shook his head.

“That was a long time ago. I can’t remember that.”

“Try. Why did he disappear?”

“I don’t know. He just couldn’t take no more of the shit and ran away.”

“Did he tell you he was running away?”

“No, man, he just left. One day he was just gone. And I never saw him again.”

“What shit?”

“What do you mean?”

“You said he couldn’t take any more of the shit and ran away. That shit. What are you talking about?”

“Oh, you know, like all the shit in his life.”

“Did he have trouble at home?”

Stokes laughed. He mocked Bosch in an imitation.

“ ‘Did he have trouble at home?’ Like, who didn’t, man?”

“Was he abused-physically abused-at home? is what I mean.”

Again, laughter.

“Who wasn’t? My old man, he’d rather take a shot at me than talk to me about anything. When I was twelve he hit me from across the room with a full can of beer. Just because I ate a taco he wanted. They took me away from him for that.”

“You know, that’s a real shame, but we’re talking about Arthur Delacroix here. Did he ever tell you his father hit him?”

“He didn’t have to, man. I saw the bruises. The guy always had a black eye is what I remember.”

“That was from skateboarding. He fell a lot.”

Stokes shook his head.

“Fuck that, man. Artie was the best. That’s all he did. He was too good to get hurt.”

Bosch’s feet were flat on the floor. He could tell by the sudden vibrations through his soles that there were people in the squad room now. He reached over and pushed the button lock on the doorknob.

“You remember when he was in the hospital? He’d hurt his head. Did he tell you that it was from a skateboarding accident?”

Stokes knitted his brow and looked down. Bosch had jogged loose a direct memory. He could tell.

“I remember he had a shaved head and stitches like a fucking zipper. I can’t remember what he-”

Someone tried the door from the outside and then there was a harsh banging on the door. A muffled voice came through.

“Detective Bosch, this is Lieutenant Gilmore, OIS. Open the door.”

Stokes suddenly reared back, panic filling his eyes.

“No! Don’t let them-”

“Shut up!”

Bosch leaned across the table, grabbed Stokes by the collar and pulled him forward.

“Listen to me, this is important.”

There was another knock on the door.

“Are you saying that Arthur never told you his father hurt him?”

“Look, man, take care of me here and I’ll say whatever the fuck you want me to say. Okay? His father was an asshole. You want me to say Artie told me his father beat him with the goddamn broomstick, I’ll say it. You want it to be a baseball bat? Fine, I’ll say-”

“I don’t want you to say anything but the truth, goddammit. Did he ever tell you that or not?”

The door came open. They had gotten a key from the drawer at the front desk. Two men in suits came in. Gilmore, whom Bosch recognized, and another OIS detective Bosch didn’t recognize.

“All right, this is over,” Gilmore announced. “Bosch, what the fuck are you doing?”

“Did he?” Bosch said to Stokes.

The other OIS detective took keys from his pocket and started taking the cuffs off of Stokes’s wrists.

“I didn’t do anything,” Stokes started to protest. “I didn’t-”

“Did he ever tell you?” Bosch yelled.

“Get him out of here,” Gilmore barked to the other detective. “Put him in another room.”

The detective physically lifted Stokes from his seat and half carried, half pushed him out of the room. Bosch’s cuffs remained on the table. Bosch stared blankly at them, thinking of the answers Stokes had given him and feeling a terrible weight on his chest from the knowledge that the whole thing had been a dead end. Stokes added nothing to the case. Julia had been shot and it was for nothing.

He finally looked up at Gilmore, who closed the door and then turned to face Bosch.

“Now, like I said, what the fuck were you doing, Bosch?”