me that if I wanted the money, the pension, I should let it go. Not get any ideas. As if I did. As if I cared anymore. I don't. I knew that Cal went wrong. I don't know what he did, I just knew he did it. A wife knows without being told. And that as much as anything else ended it between us. But I didn't send any letter like that. I was a cop's wife to the end. I told Irving and the guy who came before him that they had it wrong. But they didn't care. They just wanted Cal."
"You told me before it was Chastain who came?"
"It was him."
"What exactly did he want? You said something about he wanted to look inside the house."
"He held up the letter and said he knew I wrote it. He said I might as well tell him everything. Well, I told him I didn't write it and I told him to get out. But at first he wouldn't leave."
"What did he say he wanted, specifically?"
"He—I don't really remember it all. He wanted bank account statements and he wanted to know what properties we had. He thought I was sitting there waiting for him to come so I could give him my husband. He said he wanted the typewriter and I told him we didn't even have one. I pushed him out and closed the door."
He nodded and tried to compute these facts into those he already had. It was too much of a whirlwind.
"You don't remember anything about what the letter said?"
"I didn't really get the chance to read it. He didn't show it to me to read because he thought—and he and the others still believe—that it came from me. So I only read a little before he put it back in his briefcase. It said something about Cal being a front for a Mexican. It said he was giving protection. It said something along the lines that he had made a Faustian pact. You know what that is, right? A deal with the devil."
Bosch nodded. He was reminded that she was a teacher. He also realized that they had been standing in the living room for at least ten minutes. But he made no move to sit down. He feared that any sudden movement would break the spell, send her out the door and away from him.
"Well," she said, "I don't know if I would have gotten so allegorical if I had written it, but essentially that letter was correct. I mean, I didn't know what he had done but I knew something happened. I could see it was killing him inside.
"Once—this was before he left—I finally asked him what was happening and he just said he had made a mistake and he would try to correct it himself. He wouldn't talk about it with me. He shut me out."
She sat down on the edge of an upholstered chair, holding the dress blues on her lap. The chair was an awful green color and there were cigarette burns on its right arm. Bosch sat down on the couch next to the bag of photos.
She said, "Irving and Chastain. They don't believe me. They just nod their heads when I tell them. They say the letter had too many intimate details. It had to be me. Meanwhile, I guess somebody is happy out there. Their little letter brought him down."
Bosch thought of Kapps and wondered if he could have known enough details about Moore to have written the letter. He had set up Dance. Maybe he had tried to set up Moore first. It seemed unlikely. Maybe the letter had come from Dance because he wanted to move up the ladder and Moore was in the way.
Harry thought of the coffee can he had seen in the kitchen cabinet and wondered if he should ask her if she wanted some. He didn't want the time with her to end. He wanted to smoke but didn't want to risk having her ask him not to.
"Do you want any coffee? There is some in the kitchen I could make."
She looked toward the kitchen as if its location or cleanliness had a role in her answer. Then she said no, she wasn't planning to stay that long.
"I am going to Mexico tomorrow," Bosch said.
"Mexicali?"
"Yes."
"It's the other cases?"
"Yes."
Then he told her about them. About black ice and Jimmy Kapps and Juan Doe #67. And he told her of the ties to both her