The Concrete Blonde Part 42

"Why do you do this, Harry? You deal with so much-the most awful people and the things they do. Why do you keep going?"

He thought about that but knew there was no real answer and that she wasn't expecting one.

"I don't want to stay here," he said after a while.

"We can go back to my house at four."

"No, let's just get out of here."

The two-room suite at the Loews Hotel in Santa Monica gave them a sweeping view of the ocean across a wide beach. It was the kind of room that came with two full-length terrycloth robes and gold foilwrapped chocolates left on the pillow. The suite's front door was off the fourth landing of a five-story atrium with a wall of gla.s.s that faced the ocean and would capture the entire arc of the sunset.

There was a porch with two chaise lounges and a table and they had lunch delivered by room service there. Bosch had brought the rover in with him but it was turned off. He would keep in touch as the search for Locke went on, but he was out of it for the day.

He had called in and talked to Edgar and then Irving. He told them he would stay with Sylvia, though it seemed unlikely that the Follower would make a move now. He was not needed anyway because the task force was in a holding pattern, waiting for Locke to turn up or something else to break.

Irving had said the presidents had contacted the dean of the psychology department at USC who, in turn, contacted one of Locke's graduate a.s.sistants. She reported that Locke had mentioned on Friday that he would be in Las Vegas for the weekend, staying at the Stardust. He taught no cla.s.ses on Mondays, so he would not be back at the school until Tuesday.

"But we checked the Stardust," Irving said. "Locke had a reservation but never checked in."

"What about the warrant?"

"We've had three turn-downs from three judges. You know it's pretty weak when a judge won't rubber-stamp a search warrant for us. We're going to have to let that jell for a while. In the meantime, we'll be watching his house and his office. I'd like to leave it that way until he surfaces and we can talk to him."

Bosch heard the doubt in Irving's voice. He wondered how Rollenberger had explained the leap in the investigation from Mora to Locke as the suspect.

"You think we're wrong?"

He realized there was a quiver of doubt in his own voice.

"I don't know. We traced the note. Partially. It was left at the front desk sometime Sat.u.r.day night. The deskman went back for coffee about nine, got sidetracked by the watch commander and when he came back out it was there on the counter. He had an Explorer put it in your slot. The only thing it means for sure is that we were wrong about Mora. Anyway, the point is, we could be wrong again. Right now all we have are hunches. Good hunches, mind you, but that's all. I want to proceed a little more carefully this time."

The translation was, you screwed us up with your hunch on Mora. We are going to be more skeptical this time. Bosch understood this.

"What if the Vegas trip was a cover? The note says something about moving on. Maybe Locke's running."

"Maybe."

"Should we put out a BOLO, get an arrest warrant?"

"I think we're going to wait until at least Tuesday, Detective. Give him a chance to come back. Just two more days."

It was clear Irving wanted to sit tight. He was going to wait for events to control what he would do next.

"Okay, I'll check in later."

They napped in the king-size bed until it was dark and then Bosch turned on the news to see if any of what had happened in the last twenty-four hours had leaked.

It hadn't, but midway through the newscast on 2, Bosch stopped flipping through the channels with the selector. The story that stopped him was an update on the Beatrice Fontenot killing. A photo of the girl, her hair in cornrows, appeared on the right side of the screen.

The blonde anchor said, "Police announced today that they have identified a suspected gunman in the death of sixteen-year-old Beatrice Fontenot. The man they are looking for is an alleged drug dealer who was a rival of Beatrice's older brothers, Detective Stanley Hanks said. He said the shots fired at the Fontenot house were in all probability meant for the brothers. Instead, a bullet struck Beatrice, an honor student at Grant High in the Valley, in the head. Her funeral is scheduled for later this week."

Bosch turned off the television and looked back at Sylvia, who was propped up on two pillows against the wall. They didn't say anything.

After a room service dinner, which they ate with almost no conversation in the front room of the suite, they took turns in the shower. Bosch went second and as the coa.r.s.e water stung his scalp, he decided that it was time for him to lose all his baggage, to come clean. He trusted his faith in her, in her desire to know all of him. And he knew that if he did nothing, he was risking what they had each day he kept the secrets of his life inside. Somehow, he knew facing her was facing himself. He had to accept what he was, where he had come from and what he had become if he was to be accepted by her.

They were in their bleached white bathrobes, she in the chair by the sliding door, he standing near the bed. Beyond her through the door, he could see the full moon casting a s.h.i.+fting reflection on the Pacific. He didn't know how to start.

She had been leafing through a hotel magazine filled with suggestions for tourists on what to do in the city. None of them were things that people who lived here ever did. She closed it and put it on the table. She looked at him and then looked away. She started before he could say a word.

"Harry, I want you to go home."

He sat on the edge of the bed, put his elbows on his knees and ran his hands through his hair. He had no idea what was going on.

"What do you mean?"

"Too much death."

"Sylvia?"

"Harry, I've done so much thinking this weekend that I can't think anymore. But I know this, we have to be apart for a while. I have to sort things out. Your life, it's ..."

"Two days ago you said our problem was that I held things back from you. Now you're saying you don't want to know about me. Your-"

"I'm not talking about you. I'm talking about what you do."

He shook his head.

"Same thing, Sylvia. You should know that."

"Look, it's been a rough couple of days. I just need some time to decide if this is right for me. For us. Believe me, I'm thinking about you, too. I'm not sure I'm the right one for you."

"I am, Sylvia."

"Please don't say that. Don't make it any more difficult. I-"

"I don't want to go back to being without you, Sylvia. That's all I know right now. I don't want to be alone."

"Harry, I don't want to hurt you and I would never ever ask you to change for me. I know you and I don't think you could change even if you wanted to. So ... what I have to decide is whether I can live with that and live with you... . I do love you, Harry, but I need some time ..."

She was crying now. Bosch could see it in the mirror. He wanted to get up to hold her but he knew it was the wrong move. He was the cause of her tears. There was a long silence, both of them sitting in private pain. She was looking down into her lap where her hands held each other. He looked out at the ocean and saw a drift-fis.h.i.+ng boat cut across the reflected path of the moon on its way toward the Channel Islands.

"Say something to me," she finally said.

"I'll do whatever you want," he said. "You know that."

"I'll go into the bathroom until you get dressed and leave."

"Sylvia, I want to know that you are safe. I would like to ask you to let me sleep in the other room. In the morning, we'll figure something out. I'll leave then."

"No. We both know nothing will happen. That man, Locke, he's probably far away, running from you, Harry. I'll be safe. I'll take a taxi to school tomorrow and I'll be safe. Just give me some time."

"Time to decide."

"Yes. To decide."

She got up and walked quickly by him to the bathroom. He put his arm out but she brushed by it. After the door closed he could hear her pull tissues from the dispenser. Then he could hear her crying.

"Please leave, Harry," she said after a while. "Please."

He heard her turn the water on, so she wouldn't hear him if he said anything. Bosch felt like a fool to be sitting there in his luxury bathrobe. It ripped when he pulled it off.

That night he took a blanket from the trunk of the Caprice and made a bed on the sand about a hundred yards from the hotel. But he didn't sleep. He sat with his back to the ocean and his eyes on the curtained sliding door on the fourth-floor balcony next to the atrium. Through the gla.s.s wall of the atrium he could also see her front door and would know if anyone approached. It was cold on the beach but he didn't need the sea wind's chill to stay awake.

30.

Bosch was ten minutes late coming into the courtroom Monday morning. He had waited to make sure Sylvia got a cab and was safely off to school before going home and changing into the same suit he had worn Friday. But as he hurried in, he saw that Judge Keyes wasn't on the bench and Chandler wasn't at the plaintiff's table. Church's widow sat alone, looking straight forward in a prayerful pose.

Harry sat down next to Belk and said, "What's up?"

"We were waiting for you and Chandler. Now we're just waiting for her. The judge was not happy about it."

Bosch saw the judge's clerk get up from her desk and knock on the chambers door. She then poked her head in and he could hear her say, "Detective Bosch is here. Ms. Chandler's secretary still hasn't located her."

The constricting feeling in his chest began then. Bosch felt himself immediately begin to sweat. How could he have missed it? He leaned forward and put his face into his hands.

"I gotta make a call," he said and stood up.

Belk turned, probably to tell him not to go anywhere, but was silenced by the opening of the chambers door. Judge Keyes strode out and said, "Remain seated."

He took his place on the bench and told the clerk to buzz the jury in. Bosch sat down.

"We're going to go ahead and get them started again without Ms. Chandler being here. We'll deal with her tardiness at a later date."

The jury filed in and the judge asked them if anybody had anything they wanted to bring up, a scheduling problem or anything else. No one said a word.

"All right then, we're going to send you back in to continue deliberations. The marshal will come speak to you later about lunch. By the way, Ms. Chandler had a scheduling conflict this morning and that's why you don't see her there at the plaintiff's table. You are to pay no mind to that. Thank you very much."

They filed back out. The judge instructed the parties who were present to stay within fifteen minutes of the courtroom again, then told the clerk to keep trying to find Chandler. With that, he stood up and walked back to his chambers.

Bosch was up quickly and out the door of the courtroom. He went to the pay phones and dialed the communications center. After giving his name and badge number, he asked the phone clerk to run a code-three DMV search on the name Honey Chandler. He said he needed the address and would hold.

The rover would not work until he was out of the courthouse underground garage. Once he was out on Los Angeles Street he tried again and got hold of Edgar, who had his rover on. He gave him the Carmelina Street address in Brentwood he had gotten for Chandler.

"Meet me there."

"On my way."

He drove down to Third and took it up through the tunnel and onto the Harbor Freeway. He was just hitting the Santa Monica Freeway when his pager sounded. He looked at the number while driving and didn't recognize it. He exited the freeway and pulled over at a Korea Town grocery store with a phone on the wall out front.

"Courtroom four," said the woman who answered his call.

"It's Detective Bosch, did someone beep me?"

"Yes, we did. We have a verdict. You need to get back here right away."

"What do you mean? I was just there. How'd they-"

"It's not unusual, Detective Bosch. They probably came to an agreement Friday and decided to take the weekend to see if they wanted to change their minds. Look, it gets them out of another day of work."

Back in the car, he picked up the rover again.

"Edgar, you there?"

"Uh, not quite. You?"

"I gotta turn around. Got a verdict. Can you check this out?"

"No problem. What am I checking out?"

"It's Chandler's house. She's blonde. She didn't show up in court today."

"I get the picture."

Bosch had never thought he would hope to see Honey Chandler in court at the table opposite his but he did. She wasn't there, though. A man Harry didn't recognize was sitting with the plaintiff.

As he walked to the defense table, Bosch saw that a couple of reporters, including Bremmer, were already in the courtroom.

"Who's that?" he asked Belk about the man next to the widow.

"Dan Daly. Keyes grabbed him out of the hallway to sit with the woman during the verdict. Chandler is apparently incommunicado. They can't find her."

"Anybody go to her house?"

"I don't know. I a.s.sume they called. What do you care? You should be worried about this verdict."

Judge Keyes came out then and took his place. He nodded to the clerk, who buzzed the jury. As the twelve filed in, none of them looked at Bosch but almost all of them eyed the man sitting next to Deborah Church.

"Again, folks," the judge began, "a scheduling conflict has prevented Ms. Chandler from being here. Mr. Daly, a fine lawyer, has agreed to sit in her stead. I understand from the marshal that you have reached a verdict."

Several of the twelve heads nodded. Bosch finally saw one man look at him. But then he looked away. Bosch could feel his heart pounding and he was unsure if it was because of the impending verdict or the disappearance of Honey Chandler. Or both.

"Can I have the verdict forms, please?"