Bosch had rented a car on Tuesday, picking it up at Midway after meeting his daughter for lunch at a vegetarian restaurant on Sunset. He had earlier made an inquiry about his own car at the police garage but was told detectives from the Force Investigation Division had not released it yet. The helpful garage attendant also told him that the car was inoperable because the frame had been bent during the accident that preceded the shooting with Rawls. Despite his claim to Ballard that the old Cherokee was invincible, Bosch now knew that he had most likely driven it for the last time.
He pulled up in the rental in front of Sheila Walsh’s house. If she was on the watch for him, she wouldn’t recognize the car. He sat for a minute collecting his thoughts and deciding how he was going to play this. It had been almost a week since Walsh had called him and angrily told him to stay away from her and her son. Bosch needed to put her in a mindset that told her he would not be going away until she broke and revealed whatever secret she knew about Finbar McShane.
He got out and walked up the stone path to the front door. He knocked sharply, the kind of rap that would hopefully startle anyone inside. Nothing happened. He reached into the pocket of his jacket and brought out the paper-clipped packet of documents to have them ready.
Raising his fist to hammer on the door again, he heard Sheila Walsh’s voice from the other side.
“Go away. You’re not coming in.”
“Mrs. Walsh…Sheila, open the door. I have a search warrant here.”
“I don’t care. Go somewhere else with your damn search warrant.”
“Doesn’t work that way. If you don’t open the door, I’m going to kick it in.”
“Sure, an old man like you. Go ahead and try. I’ve got the dead bolt on.”
“I’ve been kicking in doors for forty years, Sheila. It’s not about strength. It’s about the placement of the pressure. One of the first things they teach you. You hit the right spot and the lock itself breaks the jamb. It will then cost you three or four hundred dollars to fix it—and you have to figure out a way to secure your house till you get somebody out to do it. Nobody ever thinks about that. They don’t show that part on the TV shows.”
A long moment of silence went by.
Bosch stepped back as he would have if he were going to kick the door in. There was a peephole and he believed she was watching him.
“Stand back,” he said. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
At the moment he would have raised his leg and reared back to kick, Walsh’s voice came through again.
“Okay, okay! Don’t kick my door in.”
He waited and heard the locks turn. The door finally opened and Sheila Walsh stood there, pure hatred in her eyes.
“Smart decision,” Bosch said.
“What do you want?” Walsh asked.
“To be honest, I would rather just talk to you than have to search your house. That would take the rest of the day, when we probably could clear this up with a simple conversation.”
She didn’t move.
“A conversation about what?” she asked.
“Do you want to do this out here in front of your neighbors?” Bosch asked. “Or can we sit down inside?”
She stepped back and let him in. Bosch had not lied to her. He did, in fact, have a search warrant, but it was a copy of a warrant from another case and signed years earlier by a judge who was long retired now.
“In here,” Walsh said.
She led him to the dining area instead of the kitchen this time. An open laptop and paperwork were spread on the table. On the wall to the left of it, several unfolded pamphlets and flyers were taped to the sky-blue paint. Bosch saw maps of what looked like the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico as well as photos of cruise ships, floor plans of state rooms, and schematics for entire decks. The dining room was the headquarters of her online travel agency.
“Before I say another word, I want to hear you say you will leave my son alone,” she said. “He’s been through enough and he has nothing to do with this.”
“I can’t make that promise,” Bosch said. “Four people are dead, Sheila. A whole family. And I’m going to find the man who did it. If I have to use your son to get there, I will. It’s as simple as that. But it’s you who controls this. You cooperate, and there will be no need for me to put pressure on your son or tell his employers about his involvement in this.”
“That isn’t right. He isn’t involved!”
“You think it was right that the whole Gallagher family was buried in a hole out in the desert?”
“Of course not. But I had nothing to do with it! You don’t think I feel the horror of that? I do. I think about it every single day.”
“What did Finbar want?”
Her head rocked back in surprise at Bosch’s directness.
“What are you talking about?” she asked.
“Come on, Sheila,” Bosch said. “You know what I’m talking about. Your son was the one who broke in and stole from you. You got lucky when they found McShane’s print and you could lay it on him. But it was your son, not him. McShane was here at some point before the break-in and I want to know why.”
“You’re crazy. You won’t let this go, and this is harassment. I could file a complaint against you.”
“You could. But if you think this is harassment, you haven’t seen anything yet. I’m never going to stop coming here. Not until you tell me what you know.”
She shook her head and then put her elbows on the table and her face in her hands.
“Oh my god, what am I going to do?” she said. “You won’t fucking stop.”
Bosch pulled the paper clip off the documents he had brought. They were folded lengthwise. He thumbed off the last page and slid it across the table to her.
“Open your eyes, Sheila, and take a look at that,” Bosch said. “I think it will help you do the right thing here.”
She dropped her hands to the table.
“The right thing?” she protested. “What are you talking about?”
“Just look at it,” Bosch said.
She pinned the paper to the table with her thumbs and leaned over it to read. Soon she started shaking her head.
“Help me,” she said. “What is this?”
“It’s a copy of a page from the California penal code,” Bosch said. “P-C thirty-two—it deals with the crime of aiding and abetting murder.”
“What?”
It was a shriek more than a question.
“Oh my god,” she followed. “What are you—”
“Look at the last line,” Bosch said. “Read it.”
“I read it. I don’t know what it means. I don’t know what you want.”
“It’s the statute of limitations. Three years for aiding and abetting a homicide. What that tells you is that you’re in the clear, Sheila. No matter what you did, you can’t be touched now.”
“You think I had something to do with killing them? Those beautiful children? Are you out of your fucking mind? Get out! Get out of my house!”
She pointed toward the door as she rose from her seat.
“Sit back down, Sheila,” Bosch said calmly. “I’m not going anywhere.”
She didn’t move. She held her arm out raised, her finger pointing toward the door.
“I said sit down!” Bosch yelled.
His voice scared her. She dropped back into her seat, her eyes wide with panic.
“Listen to me,” Bosch said, his voice returning to an even tone. “I checked you out eight years ago. Once I figured out the date the Gallaghers disappeared, I confirmed you were on a boat in Cozumel. I got photos, verified witness accounts, credit-card statements, everything. I know that McShane waited until you were gone to do it so there would be no chance of a witness, nobody to call the police. But you know something, Sheila. You know something and now is the time to tell it. You’re in the clear legally. So it’s time to clear your conscience as well. Talk to me, Sheila. You do that, and I leave you—and your son—alone. I’ll be out of your life forever.”
She put her elbows back on the table, gripped her hands in front of her face, and looked down at the photocopy. Soon Bosch saw tears drip onto the paper.
“Time to do the right thing,” Bosch said. “Think about those beautiful children and tell me. What was McShane doing here?”
She worked her fingers against themselves and then looked up over her knuckles at Bosch. For the first time, he saw that they were haunted by something. Something she had been carrying inside.
“He was here,” she said. “He came to see me.”
Bosch nodded. It was a thank-you. It was now time to draw out the whole story.
“When?” he asked.
“Promise me,” Walsh said. “You will leave my son alone.”
“I already told you. You tell me about McShane, and I will leave you and your son alone. That is a promise.”
Walsh nodded but took a long moment to settle herself and compose the story.
“He came because he wanted money,” she finally said. “He said he had lost all of his in a bad investment. He threatened me. I gave him what he wanted, and he went away.”
“Threatened you how?”
“I promise you I didn’t know about Stephen and his family. What happened to them, I mean. But in that year that they were gone—before anyone knew—I figured out what Fin was doing to the business.”
“The bust-out?”
“What’s that?”
“Selling equipment and ordering more to be sold as well. Eventually the business collapses. But before that happened, McShane took off.”
“Whatever it’s called, I knew what he was doing. I worked at Shamrock from the beginning and knew how to read the books. At that time, we didn’t know what had happened to Stephen, but I could see the business wasn’t going to make it. I had my son to think about. So…I told Fin I wanted my cut.”
“And what was your cut?”
“I knew what he was bringing in, because I had seen the purchase orders and I made some calls to our customers to find out what he was selling things for. I told him I knew what he was up to and that I had added it all up and wanted half. Four hundred thousand or he’d go to jail. He gave it to me.”
Bosch said nothing, hoping his silence would keep her talking.
“But then…they were found,” she said. “Up there in the Mojave. And Fin had disappeared. I knew how it would look. Like I had been part of it. I couldn’t tell you what I knew. I couldn’t tell anybody, because I looked guilty.”
Bosch nodded as part of the story fell together after so many years. He thought about Sheila mentioning the arc of the moral universe when he’d been here last. He wondered if she knew then that the arc was bending toward her.
“You said he came back here for money,” Bosch said. “How much did you give him?”
“All four hundred thousand,” Sheila said. “Every cent. I never touched it. I couldn’t after I knew what he did.”
“When exactly did this visit occur? How long before the burglary you reported?”
“A few weeks. Maybe a month.”
“You said a few minutes ago that he threatened you. Exactly how did he threaten you?”
“He said to give him the money, or my son would get a hot shot, and the next time I’d see him, he’d be on a slab at the coroner’s office. He said he’d then tip the police about the money and I would be arrested. I didn’t know about any statute of limits or whatever it’s called. But my son—back then, he needed me. I couldn’t let that happen.”
Bosch nodded and stayed silent.
“But he didn’t have to threaten me,” Walsh said. “Or my son. I didn’t want the money. Not after Mojave.”
Bosch nodded again but this time he spoke.
“Why did you call the police after the burglary?” he asked. “You knew your son did it.”
“I didn’t!” she said. “I had no idea. You think I would call the police on my own son? I didn’t know until Jonathan told me. When he found out I had called the police, he told me and said I had to protect him. When they called and asked about McShane and his prints, I knew how to do it. Just say it was McShane.”
“Where is he, Sheila?”
“My son? You know where—”
“No, McShane. Where is he?”
“I don’t know. How would I know?”
“Are you saying you had four hundred thousand dollars in cash under your mattress and you just gave it to him and he left? There had to have been some kind of transfer.”
“It was in Bitcoin. That was how he gave it to me, and that was how I kept it. I transferred it back to him on my laptop right here. And that was when he picked up my paperweight. While he was watching me and showing me how to do it.”
Bosch knew that tracing such a transfer would be almost impossible and would never lead to a physical location.
“What business did he invest in that he lost his half?” he asked. “He had to have told you something.”
“He said, ‘Never invest in a bar,’” Sheila said. “I remember that. That was all.”
“What was the name of the bar?”
“He didn’t say.”
“Where was it?”
“Again, he didn’t say. And I wasn’t really interested in asking. I just wanted him to leave.”
Bosch knew that tracing a bankrupt bar with no name and no location six years or more after the fact would be like trying to trace Bitcoin. Impossible. He now had the fuller story but was no closer to Finbar McShane. He looked down at the old search warrant on the table and started to paper-clip it back together.
“He did say one thing that might help you,” Sheila said.
Bosch’s eyes came up to hers.
“But I want assurances that none of this can ever come back on me or my son,” she said. “And Jonathan can never know what I did.”
She was crying again, this time not trying to hide it with her hands. Bosch nodded.
“The arc of the moral universe bends toward justice, Sheila,” he said. “What did McShane say that can help me?”
She nodded and used her hands to dry the tears on her cheeks.
“He looked at my pamphlets up on the wall there and said, ‘There’s only one place in the world where you can see the sunset at dawn.’”
Bosch looked up at the wall but couldn’t make the connection.
“I don’t get it,” he said. “What does it mean?”
“There’s a ship called the Dawn,” she said. “Part of the Norwegian line. It moors in Tampa, Florida, and every week it sails down to Key West, stops for a day, and then navigates out to the Bahamas before turning around and coming back. It’s a popular itinerary. I’ve sold many trips on that boat and made a lot of commissions. I knew exactly what he meant when he said it, because I’d heard that line before. It’s part of the sales pitch. They get great sunsets in Key West. Especially from the deck of the Dawn.”
Bosch looked up at the pamphlets taped to the wall and saw the Norwegian Dawn.
Sheila reached over to one of the stacks of folded pamphlets she had at the side of the table, chose one, and handed it to Bosch.
“Here,” she said. “Take it.”
“Thank you,” Bosch said.
Bosch looked at the pamphlet and opened it. It showed happy people in bathing suits frolicking in the ship’s pool or in colorful boat clothes strolling on the deck. There was even a photo of people lined up at the deck rail and watching a sunset. Key West, Bosch thought. He knew now where he was going to look for Finbar McShane.