Edgar nodded as he understood.
“The Kincaids had their car washed at Hollywood Wax and Shine, where Harris worked. The receipt proves it.”
“Right. All Elias had to do was put the book in the car.”
Bosch turned to the boxes on Pelfry’s desk and ticked his finger on the cardboard marker.
“June twelve,” he said. “That’s right around the end of the school year. Kids clear out their lockers. They take all their books home. They’re not doing homework anymore so maybe the books lie around in the back of the Volvo.”
“The Volvo goes to the car wash,” Edgar said. “I’d bet the daily special includes a vacuum, maybe some Armorall on the inside.”
“The washer — the polish man — touches the book when he’s working inside the car,” Bosch added. “There are your prints.”
“The polish man was Harris,” Edgar said. He then looked at Pelfry and said, “The manager at the car wash said you came back to look at the time cards.”
Pelfry nodded.
“I did. I got a copy of a time card that proves Harris was working at the time that white Volvo came in and got the special. Eli asked me to go over to the car wash and try to finesse that without a su’peenie. I figure the time card was the linchpin and he didn’t want anybody to know about it.”
“Even the judge who signed the subpoenas on the case,” Bosch said. “He must not have trusted anybody.”
“Looks like with good reason,” Pelfry said.
While Edgar asked Pelfry to show him the time card, Bosch withdrew and tried to think about this latest information. He remembered what Sheehan had said the night before about the fingerprints being so good because the person who had left them had probably been sweating. He understood now that that was not because of nervousness over the crime being committed, but because he was working at the car wash, vacuuming a car when those prints were left on that book. Michael Harris. He was innocent. Truly innocent. Bosch had not been convinced until that moment. And it was astounding to him. He wasn’t a dreamer. He knew cops made mistakes and innocent people went to prison. But the mistake here was colossal. An innocent man tortured as cops tried to bully him into confessing to something he had clearly not done. Satisfied they had their man, the police had dropped their investigation and let the real killer slip away — until a civil rights lawyer’s investigation found him, a discovery that got the lawyer killed. The chain reaction went even further, pushing the city once more to the brink of self-destruction.
“So then, Mr. Pelfry,” Bosch said, “who killed Stacey Kincaid?”
“It’s Jenks. And I don’t know. I know it wasn’t Michael Harris — ain’t no doubt about that. But Eli didn’t tell me the other part — if he knew before they got him.”
“They?” Bosch asked.
“Whatever.”
“Tell us about Mistress Regina,” Edgar said.
“What’s to tell? Eli got a tip, he passed it to me. I checked the broad out and couldn’t see any connection. She’s just a freak — a dead end. If you guys were there, you know what I mean. I think Eli dropped it after I told him about her.”
Bosch thought a moment and shook his head.
“I don’t think so. There’s something there.”
“Well, if there is, he didn’t tell me about it.”
In the car Bosch called Rider to check in. She said she had completed a review of the files without anything that needed immediate follow-up catching her eye.
“We’re going to see the Kincaids,” Bosch said.
“How come so soon?”
“Turns out one of them was Harris’s alibi.”
“What?”
Bosch explained the license plate discovery Pelfry and Elias had made.
“One out of four,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“We now know what one out of four of the mystery notes means.”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“I was thinking about the first two. I think they’re connected and I’ve got an idea about ‘dot the i.’ I’m going to go online and check it out. You know what a hypertext link is?”
“I don’t speak that language, Kiz. I still type with two fingers.”
“I know. I’ll explain it when you get back here. Maybe I’ll know if I have something.”
“Okay. Good luck.”
He was about to hang up.
“Oh, Harry?”
“What?”
“You gotta call from Carla Entrenkin. She said she needed to talk to you. I was going to give her your pager but then I thought you might not want that. She might start paging you every time she gets a wild hair.”
“That’s fine. Did she leave a number?”
She gave it to him and they hung up.
“We’re going to the Kincaids’?” Edgar asked.
“Yeah, I just decided. Get on the radio and run the plate on that white Volvo. See what name’s on it. I’ve got to make a call.”
Bosch called the number Carla Entrenkin had left and she answered after two rings.
“It’s Bosch.”
“Detective . . .”
“You called?”
“Yes, uh, I just wanted to apologize about last night. I was upset at what I saw on the television and . . . and I think I spoke too soon. I’ve done some checking and I think I was wrong about what I said.”
“You were.”
“Well, I’m sorry.”
“Okay, Inspector, I appreciate you calling. I better — ”
“How is the investigation going?”
“It’s going. Have you talked to Chief Irving?”
“Yes, I have. He told me that they are questioning Detective Sheehan.”
“Don’t hold your breath on that.”
“I’m not. What about what you are pursuing? I was told you are reinvestigating the original case. The murder of Stacey Kincaid.”
“Well, we can now prove Harris didn’t do it. You were right about that. Elias was going to go into court and clear him. He didn’t do it. We now just have to prove somebody else did. And my money is still on that somebody being the one who also did Elias. I have to go now, Inspector.”
“Will you call me if you make significant progress?”
Bosch thought about this for a few moments. Dealing with Carla Entrenkin somehow gave him the feel of consorting with the enemy.
“Yes,” he finally said. “I’ll call if there is significant progress.”
“Thank you, Detective.”
“Don’t mention it.”
25
THE Los Angeles car czar and his wife now lived off Mulholland Drive
in an exclusive development called The Summit. It was a gated and guarded neighborhood of side-by-side millionaires with spectacular homes that looked down from the Santa Monica Mountains and north across the basin of the San Fernando Valley. The Kincaids had moved from Brentwood to these gated hills after their daughter’s murder. It was a move toward security that was too late for the little girl.
Bosch and Edgar had called ahead and were welcomed at the gatehouse. There they were given directions along a curving development road to a huge French Provincial mansion built on a piece of property that must have been the summit of The Summit. A Latina maid answered the door and led them to a living room that was bigger than Bosch’s entire house. It had two fireplaces and three distinct groupings of furniture. Bosch wasn’t sure what the purpose of this could be. The long northern wall of the room was almost entirely glass. It revealed an expansive view across the Valley. Bosch had a hill house but the difference in views was a couple of thousand feet in altitude and maybe ten million dollars in attitude. The maid told them that the Kincaids would be with them shortly.
Bosch and Edgar stepped to the window, which they were meant to do. The rich kept you waiting so you could feel free to admire all that they had.
“Jetliner views,” Edgar said.
“What’s that?”
“It’
s what they call it when you’re this high up. Jetliner views.”
Bosch nodded. Edgar had sold real estate as a side job with his wife a few years back, until it threatened to turn his police work into a side job.
Bosch could see across the Valley to the Santa Susana Mountains. He could pick out Oat Mountain above Chatsworth. He remembered going there years before on a field trip from the youth hall. The overall view, however, could not be called beautiful. A heavy layer of smog — especially for April — stretched across the Valley. They were high enough in the Kincaid house to be above it. Or so it seemed.
“I know what you’re thinking. It’s a million-dollar-view of the smog.”
Bosch turned around. A smiling man and a blank-faced woman had entered the living room. Behind them stood a second man in a dark suit. Bosch recognized the first man from TV. Sam Kincaid, the car czar. He was smaller than Bosch expected. More compact. His deep tan was real, not television makeup, and his jet-black hair seemed legitimate. On TV it always looked like a wig. He was wearing a golf shirt like the ones he always wore on his commercials. Like the ones his father had worn when he was the one on the commercials a decade earlier.
The woman was younger than Kincaid by a few years, about forty and well preserved by weekly massages and trips to the salons down on Rodeo Drive
. She looked past Bosch and Edgar to the view. She had a vague expression on her face and Bosch immediately realized that Katherine Kincaid had probably not come close to recovering from the loss of her daughter.
“But you know what?” Sam Kincaid continued, smiling. “I don’t mind seeing the smog. My family’s been selling cars in this city for three generations. Since nineteen hundred and twenty-eight. That’s a lot of years and a lot of cars. That smog out there reminds me of that.”
His statement sounded rehearsed, as if he used it as an opener with all of his guests. He stepped forward with his hand out.
“Sam Kincaid. And my wife, Kate.”
Bosch shook his hand and introduced himself and Edgar. The way Kincaid studied Edgar before shaking his hand made Bosch think that his partner might have been the first black man to set foot in his living room — not counting the ones who were there to serve canapés and take drink orders.
Bosch looked past Kincaid to the man still standing beneath the arch of the entryway. Kincaid noticed and made the last introduction.
“This is D.C. Richter, my chief of security,” Kincaid said. “I asked him to come up and join us, if you don’t mind.”
Bosch was puzzled by the addition of the security man but didn’t say anything. He nodded and Richter nodded back. He was about Bosch’s age, tall and gaunt and his short graying hair was spiked with gel. Richter also had a small earring, a thin gold hoop on his left ear.
“What can we do for you gentlemen?” Kincaid asked. “I have to say I’m surprised by this visit. I would have guessed that with everything going on, you two would be out on the street somewhere, trying to keep down the animals.”
There was an awkward silence. Kate Kincaid looked down at the rug.
“We’re investigating the death of Howard Elias,” Edgar said. “And your daughter’s.”
“My daughter’s? I don’t understand what you mean.”
“Why don’t we sit down, Mr. Kincaid?” Bosch said.
“Sure.”
Kincaid led them to one of the furniture groupings. Two couches faced each other across a glass coffee table. To one side was a fireplace Bosch could almost walk into, to the other was the view. The Kincaids sat on one couch while Bosch and Edgar took the other. Richter stood to the side and behind the couch where the Kincaids sat.
“Let me explain,” Bosch said. “We are here to inform you that we are reopening the investigation of Stacey’s death. We need to start again.”
Both Kincaids opened their mouths into small looks of puzzlement. Bosch continued.
“In the course of investigating the killing Friday night of Howard Elias we have uncovered information that we believe exonerates Michael Harris. We —”
“Impossible,” Sam Kincaid barked. “Harris was the killer. His fingerprints were found in the house, the old house. You’re going to tell me that the Los Angeles Police Department now believes its own people planted this evidence?”
“No, sir, I’m not. I’m telling you that we now have what we think is a reasonable explanation for that evidence.”
“Well, I’d love to hear it.”
Bosch took two folded pieces of paper from his jacket pocket and opened them. One was a photocopy of the car wash receipt Pelfry had found. The other was a photocopy of Harris’s time card, also from Pelfry.
“Mrs. Kincaid, you drive a white Volvo station wagon with license plate number one-bravo-henry-six-six-eight, correct?”
“No, that’s wrong,” Richter answered for her.
Bosch looked up at him for a moment and then back at the woman.
“Did you drive this car last summer?”
“I drove a white Volvo station wagon, yes,” she said. “I don’t remember the license number.”
“My family owns eleven dealerships and parts of six more in this county,” her husband said. “Chevy, Cadillac, Mazda, you name it. Even a Porsche store. But no Volvo franchise. And so what do you know, that’s the car she picks. She says it’s safer for Stacey and then she ends up . . . anyway.”
Sam Kincaid brought a hand up to cover his lip and held himself still. Bosch waited a moment before pressing on.
“Take my word for it about the plate number. The car was registered to you, Mrs. Kincaid. On June twelve last year that car, the Volvo, was washed at Hollywood Wax and Shine on Sunset Boulevard. The person who took the car there asked for the daily special, which included interior vacuuming and polish. Here’s the receipt.”
He leaned forward and put it on the coffee table in front of the couple. They both leaned down to look at it. Richter leaned over the back of the couch for a look.
“Does either of you remember doing that?”
“We don’t wash our cars,” Sam Kincaid said. “And we don’t go to public car washes. I need a car washed I have it taken to one of my stores. I don’t need to pay to — ”
“I remember,” his wife said, cutting him off. “I did it. I took Stacey to the movies at the El Capitan. Where we parked there was construction — a new roof being put on the building next to the garage. When we came out the car had something on it. Like little spots of tar that had blown onto it. It was a white car and it was very noticeable. When I paid the parking attendant I asked him where a car wash was. He told me.”
Kincaid was looking at his wife as if she had just belched at the charity ball.
“So you got the car washed there,” Bosch said.
“Yes. I remember now.”
She looked at her husband and then back at Bosch.
“The receipt says June twelve,” Bosch said. “How long after the end of school for your daughter was that?”
“It was the next day. It was our way of kicking off the summer. Lunch and the movies. It was a movie about these two guys who can’t find a mouse in their house. It was cute . . . The mouse got the better of them.”
Her eyes were on the memory, and on her daughter. They then focused on Bosch once more.
“No more school,” Bosch said. “Could she have left her books from the last day in the Volvo? Maybe in the back?”
Kate Kincaid slowly nodded.
“Yes. I remember having to tell her at one point during the summer to take the books out of the car. They kept sliding around when I drove. She didn’t do it. I finally took them out and put them in her room.”
Bosch leaned forward again and put the other photocopy down for them.
“Michael Harris worked at Hollywood Wax and Shine last summer. That’s his time card for the week including June twelve. He worked a full day on the day you brought the Volvo in.”
Sam Kincaid leaned forward again and studied the photocopy.
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“You mean all this time we’ve . . . ,” Kincaid began and then stopped. “You’re saying that he — Harris — vacuumed out the Volvo and in the process touched my stepdaughter’s book? Picked it up or whatever, then the book was eventually taken to her bedroom. And after she was taken . . .”
“The police found the prints on it,” Bosch finished. “Yes, that’s now what we think.”
“Why didn’t this come out at the trial? Why — ”