The Last Coyote Part 18

"A little. From time to time somebody will bring me something, or maybe ask me to do a little profiling of a suspect. But mostly the department uses outside contractors. Forensic psychiatrists who have experience with this."

"But you've been to crime scenes?"

"Actually, no. I've only looked at photos brought to me and worked from them."

"Perfect."

Bosch pulled his briefcase onto his lap and opened it. He took out the envelope of crime scene and autopsy photos that had been in the murder book and gently placed them on her desk.

"Those are from this case. I don't want to look at them. I can't look at them. But I need someone to do it and tell me what's there. There's probably nothing but I'd like another opinion. The investigation these two guys did on this case was...well, it was almost like there was no investigation."

"Oh, Harry." She shook her head. "I'm not sure this is wise. Why me?"

"Because you know what I'm doing. And because I trust you. I don't think I can trust anybody else."

"Would you trust me if there was no ethical constraint on me telling others about what we've talked about here?"

Bosch studied her face.

"I don't know," he finally said.

"I thought so."

She slid the envelope to the side of the desk.

"Let's put these aside for now and go on with the session. I really have to think about this."

"Okay, you can take them. But let me know, okay? I just want your feel for them. As a psychiatrist and as a woman."

"We'll see."

"What do you want to talk about?"

"What is happening with the investigation?"

"Is that a professional question, Dr. Hinojos? Or are you just curious about the case?"

"No, I'm curious about you. And I'm worried about you. I'm still not convinced that what you are doing is safe-either psychologically or physically. You're mucking around in the lives of powerful people. And I'm caught in the middle. I know what you're doing but am almost powerless to make you stop. I'm afraid you tricked me."

"Tricked you?"

"You pulled me into this. I bet you've wanted to show me these pictures since you told me what you're doing."

"You're right, I have. But there was no trick. I thought this was a place where I could talk about anything. Isn't that what you said?"

"Okay, I wasn't tricked, just led down the path. I should've seen it coming. Let's move on. I want to talk more about the emotional aspect of what you are doing. I want to know more about why finding this killer is so important to you after so many years?"

"It should be obvious."

"Make it more obvious for me."

"I can't. I can't put it into words. All I know is that everything changed for me after she was gone. I don't know how things would have been if she hadn't been taken away but...everything changed."

"Do you understand what you're saying and what it means? You're looking at your life in two parts. The first part is with her, which you seem to have imbued with a happiness I'm sure was not always there. The second part is your life after, which you acknowledge has not met expectations or is in some way unsatisfactory. I think you've been unhappy for a long time, possibly all of that time. This recent relations.h.i.+p you had may have been a highlight but you were still and, I think, have always been, an unhappy man."

She rested a moment but Bosch didn't speak. He knew she wasn't done.

"Now, maybe the traumas of the last few years-both personally for you and for your community at large-have made you take stock of yourself. And I fear that you believe, whether subconsciously or not, that by going back and bringing some form of justice to what happened to your mother, you will be righting your life. And there's the problem. Whatever happens with this private investigation of yours, it's not going to change things. It just can't be done."

"You're saying that I can't blame what happened then for what I am now?"

"No, listen to me, Harry. All I'm saying is you are the sum of many parts, not the sum of one. It's like dominoes. Several different blocks must click together for you to arrive at the end, at the point you are at now. You don't jump from the first domino to the last."

"So I should just give it up? Just let it go?"

"I'm not saying that. But I am finding it hard to see the emotional benefit or healing you will get from this. In fact, I think there is the possibility that you may do yourself more damage than repair. Does that make any sense?"

Bosch stood up and went to the window. He stared out but didn't compute what he saw. He felt the warmth of the sun on him. He didn't look at her as he spoke.

"I don't know what makes sense. All I know is that on every level it seems to make sense that I do this. In fact, I feel...I don't know what the word is, maybe ashamed. I feel ashamed that I haven't done this long before now. A lot of years have gone by and I just let them go. I feel like I let her down somehow...that I let myself down."

"That's understa-"

"Remember what I told you the first day? Everybody counts or n.o.body counts. Well, for a long time she didn't count. Not with this department, this society, not even with me. I have to admit that, not even with me. Then I opened that file this week and I could see that her death was just put away. It was buried, just like I had buried it. Somebody put the fix in because she didn't count. They did it because they could. And then when I think about how long I've let it go...it makes me want to...I don't know, just hide my face or something."

He stopped, unable to put into words what he wanted to say. He looked down and noticed there were no ducks in the butcher shop window.

"You know," he said, "she might've been what she was but sometimes I feel like I didn't even deserve that...I guess I got what I deserved in life."

He stayed at the window, not looking at her. It was several moments before Hinojos spoke.

"I guess this is the point where I should tell you that you're being too hard on yourself, but I don't think that would help much."

"No, it wouldn't."

"Could you come back here and sit down? Please?"

Bosch did as he was asked. Finally, after he was seated, his eyes met hers. She spoke first.

"What I want to say is that you are mixing things up. Putting the cart before the horse. You can't take the blame because this case may have been covered up. First of all, you had nothing to do with that, and secondly, you didn't even realize that until you read through the file this week."

"But don't you see? Why didn't I look at it before? I'm not new here. I've been a cop twenty years. I should've been there before this. I mean, so what that I didn't know the details. I knew she was killed and nothing was ever done about it. That was enough."

"Look, Harry, think about this, okay? On the plane over tonight, just give it some thought. You've engaged yourself in a n.o.ble pursuit but you have to safeguard against damaging yourself further. The bottom line is that it is not worth that. It's not worth the toll you may have to pay."

"Not worth it? There's a killer out there. He thinks he made it away free. For years, he has thought that. Decades. And I'm going to change that."

"You're not understanding what I'm saying. I don't want any guilty person to get away, especially with murder. But what I am talking about here is you. You are my only concern here. There is a basic rule of nature. No living thing sacrifices itself or hurts itself needlessly. It's the will of survival and I fear the circ.u.mstances of your life may have blunted your own survival skills. You may be throwing it to the wind, not caring what happens to you emotionally, physically, in every way, in this pursuit. I don't want to see you hurt."

She took a breather. He said nothing.

"I have to say," she continued quietly, "I'm very nervous about this. I've never had this situation come up before and I've counseled a lot of cops in nine years here."

"Well, I got bad news for you." He smiled. "I went and crashed a party last night at Mittel's. I think I may have spooked him. At least, I spooked myself."

"s.h.i.+t!"

"Is that some new psychiatric term? I'm not familiar with it."

"This isn't funny. Why'd you do that?"

Bosch thought a moment.

"I don't know. It was kind of a whim type of thing. I was just driving by his house and there was a party. It kind of...it just made me angry for some reason. Him having a party and my mother..."

"Did you speak to him about the case?"

"No. I didn't even tell him my name. We just kind've sparred around for a few minutes but then I left him something. Remember that newspaper clip I showed you Wednesday? I left that for him. I saw him read it. I think it struck a nerve."

She exhaled loudly.

"Now, step outside yourself and look as an uninvolved observer at what you did. If you can. Was that a smart thing to do, going there like that?"

"I already have thought about it. No, it wasn't smart. It was a mistake. He'll probably warn Conklin. They'll both know somebody's out there, coming for them. They'll close ranks."

"You see, you are proving my point for me. I want you to promise me you won't do anything foolish like that again."

"I can't."

"Well, then I have to tell you that a patient-doctor relations.h.i.+p can be broken if the therapist believes the patient is endangering himself or others. I told you I was almost powerless to stop you. Not completely."

"You'd go to Irving?"

"I will if I believe you are being reckless."

Bosch felt anger as he realized she had ultimate control over him and what he was doing. He swallowed the anger and held up his hands, surrendering.

"All right. I won't go cras.h.i.+ng any parties again."

"No. I want more than that. I want you to stay away from these men that you think may have been involved."

"What I'll promise you is that I won't go to them until I have the whole thing in the bag."

"I mean it."

"So do I."

"I hope so."

They were silent for nearly a minute after that. It was a cooling-off period. She turned slightly in her chair, not looking at him, probably thinking what to say next.

"Let's move on," she finally said. "You understand that this whole thing, this pursuit of yours, has eclipsed what we're supposed to be doing here?"

"I know."

"So we're prolonging my evaluation."

"Well, that doesn't bother me as much anymore. I need the time off the job for this other thing."

"Well, as long as you are happy," she said sarcastically. "Okay, then I want to go back to the incident that brought you to me. The other day you were very general and very short in your description of what happened. I understand why. I think we were both feeling each other out at that point. But we are far past that now. I'd like a fuller story. You said the other day that Lieutenant Pounds set things into motion?"

"That's right."

"How?"

"First of all, he's a commander of detectives who has never been a detective himself. Oh, technically, he probably spent a few months on a table somewhere along the line so he'd have it on his resume, but basically he's an administrator. He's what we call a Robocrat. A bureaucrat with a badge. He doesn't know the first thing about clearing cases. The only thing he knows about it is how to draw a line through the case on this little chart he keeps in his office. He doesn't know the first thing about the differences between an interview and an interrogation. And that's fine, the department is full of people like him. I say let them do their job and let me do mine. The problem is Pounds doesn't realize where he's good and where he's bad. It's led to problems before. Confrontations. It finally led to the incident, as you keep calling it."

"What did he do?"

"He touched my suspect."

"Explain what that means."

"When you've got a case and you bring someone in, he's all yours. n.o.body goes near him, understand? The wrong word, the wrong question and it could spoil a case. That's a cardinal rule; don't touch somebody else's suspect. It doesn't matter if you're a lieutenant or the d.a.m.n chief, you stay clear until you check first with the guys with the collar."

"So what happened?"

"Like I told you the other day, my partner Edgar and I brought in this suspect. A woman had been killed. One of these ones who puts ads in the s.e.x tabs you can buy on the Boulevard. She gets called to one of those s.h.i.+thole motel rooms on Sunset, has s.e.x with the guy and ends up stabbed to death. That's the short story. The stab wound's to the upper right chest. The john, he plays it cool, though. He calls the cops and says it was her knife and she tried to rob him with it. He says he turned her arm and put it into her. Self-defense. Okay, so that's when me and Edgar show up and right away we see some things don't fit with that story."

"Like what?"

"First of all, she's a lot smaller than he is. I don't see her coming at him with a knife. Then there's the knife itself. It's a serrated steak knife, 'bout eight inches long, and she had one of those little purses without a strap."

"A clutch."

"Yeah, I guess. Anyway, that knife wouldn't've fit in it, so how'd she bring it in? As they say on the street, her clothes fit tighter than the rubbers in her purse, so she wasn't hiding it on her, either. And there was more. If her purpose was to rip the guy off, why have s.e.x first? Why not pull the knife, take his s.h.i.+t and go? But that didn't happen. His story was that they did it first, then she came at him, which explained why she was still naked.

Which, of course, raised another question. Why rob the guy when you're naked? Where you going to run like that?"

"The guy was lying."

"Seemed obvious. Then we got something else. In her purse-the clutch-was a piece of paper on which she had written down the motel's name and the room number. It was consistent with a right-handed person. Like I said, the stab was to the upper right chest of the victim. So it doesn't add up. If she came at him, the chances are the knife would be in her right hand. If the john then turns it into her, it's likely the wound would be on the left side of the chest, not the right."

Bosch made a motion of pulling his right hand toward his chest, showing how awkward it would be for it to stab his right side.

"There was all kinds of stuff that wasn't right. It was a downward-grade wound, also inconsistent with it being in her hand. That would have been upward-grade."

Hinojos nodded that she understood.