The drive from Miami to Key West was four hours on the Overseas Highway. Along the way, it was mostly mom-and-pop motels, restaurants, sandal factories, and kitschy T-shirt and souvenir shops, all punctuated by long bridges across startling turquoise water on which the sun was reflected in diamonds. Bosch had arrived late to Miami the night before, picked up a rental car, and gotten to Key Largo before he pulled into the parking lot of a motel with a glowing neon VACANCY sign and shut things down for the night.
Now it was morning, and his plan was to hit Key West by noon and start looking for Finbar McShane. His starting point would be the Key West Police Department. He had made no advance call and had no appointment. He liked the idea of coming in blind.
Just past Marathon, a backup behind an accident on the Seven Mile Bridge added almost an hour to the drive. It was after 1 p.m. when he pulled into the KWPD parking lot. When Bosch got out of the rental, his injured knee was stiff and throbbing from the long drive. He had not taken any pain medication because he wanted to stay alert while driving, but now he popped the trunk, unzipped the duffel bag he had packed in L.A., and popped two tabs of Advil. He hoped the Advil would be strong enough to reduce the pain soon.
The police department was painted in orange and pink pastels. Its front desk was actually an exterior window behind which an officer sat at a counter. Bosch waited in the sun, second in line behind a man asking how to report the theft of a bicycle. Bosch could feel the humidity coating his skin. The air even felt heavy in his lungs.
Finally it was his turn and Bosch limped up to the window, holding his badge out. There was a speaker and microphone set in the glass.
“Hello,” he said. “I work with the Los Angeles Police Department cold case squad. I’m here on a case and wanted to see if I could speak to somebody in missing persons.”
The glass was tinted almost as dark as a limousine’s rear windows. Bosch could barely make out the outline of someone sitting on the other side but could not tell whether he was talking to a man or woman.
A male voice came through the speaker.
“A missing persons cold case?” he asked.
“Uh, no,” Bosch said. “But I think a missing persons detective will be able to help me locate the individual I tracked here.”
“And your name?”
“Harry Bosch.”
“Did that badge say retired?”
“It did. I work as a volunteer investigator. I previously worked cold cases when I was in the department. They asked me to come back after I retired.”
“Okay, let me call back there. If you wouldn’t mind, step back from the window so others can come forward.”
“No problem.”
Bosch stepped away from the window and posted up on its left side. He turned, looked around, and saw that there was nobody else waiting to come forward.
Five minutes went by slowly. He leaned against the wall next to the window to take weight off his knee. The pills he had ingested had yet to reduce the pain.
No one else approached the window, and the man behind it offered Bosch no information. Bosch could feel his shirt starting to stick with perspiration to his back. He took off his sport coat and held it over his arm.
Finally, there was the metal clack of a heavy door opening, and Bosch saw a man in a guayabera shirt step out but hold the door open. The shirt barely disguised that the man had a gun and badge on his belt.
“LAPD?” he said.
“That’s me,” Bosch said.
“Come on back.”
“Thank you.”
He held out his hand as Bosch approached the door.
“Kent Osborne.”
Bosch shook his hand.
“Harry Bosch,” he said. “Thanks for your time.”
“Gotta make time for the LAPD,” Osborne said. “That’s the big time.”
Bosch smiled uneasily. There had been a slightly sarcastic tone in Osborne’s voice.
Osborne led Bosch to a detective bureau, where he counted desks for sixteen detectives. There were no signs hanging from the ceiling denoting crime sections. Half the desks had men or women sitting behind them, and most of them had eyes on Bosch as he came in.
Osborne’s desk was the last in the first row. He pulled a chair from an empty desk and rolled it over in front of his.
“Have a seat. Are you hurt? You’re limping.”
“I was in an accident Sunday. Messed up my knee.”
“Looks like you messed up your ear, too.”
“Yeah.”
Both men sat down. Osborne checked something on the screen of his desktop computer and then looked at Bosch.
“So, what can I do for you, LAPD?” he asked.
“I don’t know if the guy behind the window explained anything, but I work cold case homicides,” Bosch said. “I’m working a quadruple case—four members of a family murdered with a nail gun and then buried in the desert.”
“That’s gotta hurt.”
Bosch did not acknowledge the poor attempt at gallows humor.
“The case is almost nine years old,” he said. “We recently reopened it and there’s a person of interest. We have a solid witness that puts him here, but that was at least six years ago.”
Osborne frowned.
“Six years in Key West is a long time,” he said. “This town turns over quick. People come and go. Why’d you ask for a missing persons dick?”
Bosch had not heard the term applied to a detective in a long time, and possibly never in the real world.
“Because of the crime in L.A.,” he said. “This guy played a long game. Took a job, worked his way up over the years until he was a valued employee, then killed the owner and his family and looted the business in a classic bust-out scheme. My guess is he came here to do it all again.”
“As far as I know, we got no families murdered here, LAPD.”
“My witness back in L.A. said he invested in a bar in Key West and then the bar went belly-up. I think if he’s here, he’s moved on to something else.”
“And the missing persons part?”
“Do you have a case involving a prominent person—like a business owner—who’s gone missing?”
Osborne leaned back in his chair and swiveled it back and forth as he considered the question.
“Nothing like that, that I know of. Our cases are mostly about bored teenagers going up to Miami, tourists getting so shit-faced at Sloppy Joe’s they can’t find their way back to the motel. Can’t think of a prominent citizen going missing.”
“What about a bar going under six or seven years ago?”
Osborne let out a laugh.
“There isn’t a shortage of those,” he said.
“Nothing comes to mind?” Bosch pressed. “I’m talking something substantial. My guy put four hundred thousand into it and lost it.”
“Tell you what, the guy you should talk to is Tommy over at the Chart Room.”
“The Chart Room. That’s a bar?”
“At the Pier House.”
“The Pier House?”
“You don’t know shit, do you, LAPD? It’s a hotel at the end of Duval. I think you gotta stay there to get into the Chart Room these days. Place was a dive back in the day. Now they keep the riffraff out.”
“And Tommy?”
“He’s been slinging booze there forty years plus. And he knows the local bar trade better than anybody in this building.”
Bosch nodded. He then raised his sport coat up with one hand, reached into a pocket, and pulled out a document he had copied from the Gallagher Family murder book. He handed it to Osborne, who unfolded it. It was a BOLO flyer. At the top it had a California driver’s license photo of Finbar McShane. Below it were four smaller copies of the photo that had been altered by a police artist to show four possible new looks that McShane could have adopted after fleeing. In the altered photos, McShane alternately had a full beard, a goatee, long hair, or a shaved head. Bosch had put out the BOLO on McShane shortly after originally being assigned the case. That made the photos almost eight years old and of questionable value. But it was all he had to offer.
“This your guy, huh?” Osborne said.
“Yeah,” Bosch said. “Recognize him? Seen him around?”
“Can’t say I have. How old is that BOLO?”
“About eight years. He’d be forty-four now.”
“That’s a long time ago. They couldn’t come up with new stuff?”
“They’re working on it. How would you feel about showing that at roll call? See if any of your street people have seen him.”
“I guess I could do that. It’s a long shot, though.”
“I would appreciate it anyway.”
Osborne grabbed a Post-it pad and put it down in front of Bosch.
“Write your cell number down, and I’ll call you if I come up with anything.”
“I don’t have a phone. I lost it and need to buy one today. I can also call you tomorrow from the hotel.”
Osborne made a face as if to ask, who doesn’t have a cell phone?
“What hotel?” he asked instead.
“I’m going to see if they have a room at the Pier House, I guess.”
“LAPD must have a nice hotel allowance. That place’ll run you at least five hundred a night this time of year.”
Bosch nodded.
“Thanks for your help,” he said. “And the roll call.”
“Not a problem,” Osborne said. “You sure you’re okay, LAPD?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“I don’t know. You seem kind of shaky there.”
“It’s the humidity. Not used to it.”
“Yeah, we get that a lot ’round here.”
Back in the parking lot, Bosch took a moment before getting back in the rental to look up at the sky. A row of cumulus clouds was moving over the island. Bosch felt that the light was different here, not as soft as in California. There was a bright harshness to it.
He got in the car and thought about Osborne, wondering if he could trust him. He wasn’t sure. He started the engine and pulled out.