The Drop(79)

“Let’s go back,” he said. “Tell me how you knew George Irving was even in the hotel and where.”

McQuillen shrugged like the question was for a dummy.

“You know that,” he said. “Hooch Rollins told me. He dropped a fare there Sunday night and happened to see Irving going in. He told me because he’d heard me going on once in the break room about the Irvings. I held a staff meeting after the DUIs and told everybody, ‘This is what they’re doing and this is the guy behind it.’ Got his photo off Google, the little shit.”

“So Rollins told you he was going into the hotel. How’d you know he had a room and how’d you know which room it was?”

“I called the hotel. I knew they wouldn’t tell me his room for security reasons and I couldn’t ask to be transferred to the room. What was I going to say, ‘Dude, do you mind giving me your room number?’ No, so I called up and asked for the garage. Hooch had told me he saw him valeting his car, so I called the garage and said I was Irving and wanted them to check and see if I left my phone in the car. I said, You know my room number? Can you bring it up if you find it? And the guy said yes, you’re in seventy-nine and if I find the phone I’ll send it up. So there, I had his room.”

Bosch nodded. It was a clever plan. But it also showed some of the elements of premeditation. McQuillen was talking himself into a first-degree murder charge. All Bosch seemingly had to do was direct him with general questions and McQuillen provided the rest. It was a downhill path.

“I waited until the end of shift at midnight and went over there,” McQuillen said. “I didn’t want to be seen by anybody or any cameras. So I went around the hotel and found a fire escape ladder that was on the side. It went all the way up to the roof. But on each landing there was a balcony and I could climb off and take a break if I needed it.”

“Were you wearing gloves?”

“Yeah, gloves and coveralls I keep in the trunk. In my business you never know whether you’ll be crawling under a car or something. I thought if somebody saw me, I’d look like a maintenance guy.”

“You keep that stuff in the trunk? You’re a dispatcher.”

“I’m a partner, man. My name isn’t on the franchise with the city because I didn’t think we’d get the franchise way back when if they knew I was part of it. But I’ve got a third of the company.”

Which helped explain why McQuillen would go to such lengths with Irving. Another potential pothole in the case filled in by the suspect himself.

“So you took the fire escape to the seventh floor. What time was this?”

“I went off shift at midnight. So it was like twelve thirty or thereabouts.”

“What happened when you got to the seventh floor?”

“I got lucky. On the seventh floor, there wasn’t an exit. No door to the hallway. Just two glass doors on the balcony to two different rooms. One to the left and one to the right. I looked in the one on the right and there he was. Irving was sitting right there on the couch.”

McQuillen stopped. It looked as if he was staring at the memory of that night, at what he had seen through the balcony door. Bosch was mindful of needing to keep the story going but with as little from himself as possible.

“So you found him.”

“Yeah, he was just sitting there, drinking Jack Black straight outta the bottle and looking like he was just waiting for something.”

“Then what happened?”

“He took the last pull out of that bottle and all of a sudden he got up and he started coming right at me. Like he knew I was on the balcony watching him.”

“What did you do?”

“I backed up against the wall next to the door. I figured he couldn’t have seen me with the reflection inside on the glass. He was just coming out on the balcony. So I backed up next to the door and he opened it and stepped out. He walked right to the wall and he threw the empty bottle out there as far as he could. Then he leaned over the wall and started looking down, like he was going to puke or something. And I knew when he finished his business and turned around I was going to be standing right in front of him. There was no place to go.”

“Did he vomit?”

“No, he never did. He just—”

A loud and unexpected knock on the door nearly made Bosch jump off his seat.

“Just hold the story right there,” he said.

He got up and used his body to shield the knob from McQuillen. He punched in the combination on the lock and opened the door. Chu was standing there and Bosch almost reached out to strangle him. But he calmly stepped out and closed the door.