Angels Flight by Michael Connelly Read Free Book Online Page B

Baker, to interview Eldrige Peete at Parker Center and then bring him back to the scene. Bosch wanted the train operator at the scene to go over what he had seen and to operate the train as he had before discovering the bodies.
    That left Bosch, Chastain and the last IAD man, Joe Dellacroce. Bosch dispatched Dellacroce to Parker Center as well, to draw up a search warrant for Elias’s office. He then told Chastain that the two of them would go to Elias’s home to make the death notification to his next of kin.
    After the group split up, Bosch walked to the crime scene van and asked Hoffman for the keys found on the body of Howard Elias. Hoffman looked through the crate he had placed his evidence bags in and came out with a bag containing a ring with more than a dozen keys on it.
    “From the front pants pocket, right side,” Hoffman said.
    Bosch studied the keys for a moment. There seemed to be more than enough keys for the lawyer’s home, office and cars. He noticed that there was a Porsche key on the ring as well as a Volvo key. He realized that when the investigators finished the current crop of tasks, one assignment he would have to make would be to put someone on locating Elias’s car.
    “Anything else in the pockets?”
    “Yeah. In the left front he had a quarter.”
    “A quarter.”
    “Costs a quarter to ride Angels Flight. That’s probably what that was for.”
    Bosch nodded.
    “And in the inside coat pocket was a letter.”
    Bosch had forgotten that Garwood had mentioned the letter.
    “Let’s see that.”
    Hoffman looked through his crate again and came up with a plastic evidence bag. Inside it was an envelope. Bosch took it from the crime scene tech and studied it without removing it. The envelope had been addressed to Elias’s office by hand. There was no return address. On the left lower corner the sender had written PERSONAL & CONFIDENTIAL . Bosch tried to read the postmark but the light was bad. He wished he still carried a lighter.
    “It’s your neck of the woods, Harry,” Hoffman said. “Hollywood. Mailed Wednesday. He probably got it Friday.”
    Bosch nodded. He turned the bag over and looked at the back of the envelope. It had been cleanly cut open along the top. Elias or his secretary had opened it, probably at his office, before he had put it into his pocket. There was no way of knowing if the contents had been examined since.
    “Anybody open it?”
    “We didn’t. I don’t know what happened before we got here. I understand that the first detectives saw the name on there and then recognized the body. But I don’t know if they actually looked at the letter.”
    Bosch was curious about the contents of the envelope but knew it wasn’t the right time or place to open it.
    “I’m going to take this, too.”
    “You got it, Harry. Let me just get you to sign it out. And the keys, too.”
    Bosch waited while Hoffman got a chain-of-evidence form out of his kit. He squatted down and put the envelope and keys into his briefcase. Chastain came over, ready to leave the scene.
    “You want to drive or you want me to?” Bosch said as he snapped his case closed. “I’ve got a slick. What have you got?”
    “I still have a plain jane. Runs like dogshit but at least I don’t stand out like dogshit on the street.”
    “That’s good. You got a bubble?”
    “Yes, Bosch, even IAD guys have to respond to calls now and then.”
    Hoffman held a clipboard and pen out to Bosch and he signed his initials next to the two pieces of crime scene evidence he was taking with him.
    “Then you drive.”
    They started walking across California Plaza to where the cars were parked. Bosch pulled his pager off his belt and made sure it was running properly. The battery light was still green. He hadn’t missed any pages. He looked up at the tall towers surrounding them, wondering if they could possibly interfere with a page from his wife, but then he remembered the page from Lieutenant Billets had come through