Acknowledgments
In no particular order, the author wishes to thank the following individuals for contributions to the research and writing of this story that ranged from small to incredibly selfless and gigantic:
Daniel Daly, Roger Mills, Dennis Wojciechowski, Asya Muchnick, Bill Massey, S. John Drexel, Dennis McMillan, Pamela Marshall, Linda Connelly, Jane Davis, Shannon Byrne, Michael Pietsch, John Wilkinson, David Ogden, John Houghton, Michael Krikorian, Michael Roche, Greg Stout, Judith Champagne, Rick Jackson, David Lambkin, Tim Marcia, Juan Rodriguez, and Philip Spitzer.
This is a work of fiction. Any errors in the law, evidence, and courtroom tactics are wholly those of the author.
About the Author
Michael Connelly is the author of the bestselling Harry Bosch series of novels as well as the #1 New York Times bestseller The Lincoln Lawyer, featuring Mickey Haller. He is a former newspaper reporter who has won numerous awards for his journalism and his novels. He spends his time in California and Florida.
Look for Michael Connelly’s explosive new thriller in which Detective Harry Bosch must face the unknown…
Nine Dragons
Please turn this page for a preview.
• • •
And don’t miss his other novels featuring Harry Bosch, available now.
The Black Echo
The Black Ice
The Concrete Blonde
The Last Coyote
Trunk Music
Angels Flight
A Darkness More than Night
City of Bones
Lost Light
The Narrows
The Closers
Echo Park
The Overlook
PART ONE
Homicide Special
One
From across the aisle Harry Bosch looked into his partner’s cubicle and watched him conduct his daily ritual of straightening the corners on his stacks of files, clearing the paperwork from the center of his desk, and finally placing his rinsed-out coffee cup in a desk drawer. Bosch checked his watch and saw it was only three-forty. It seemed that each day Ignacio Ferras began the ritual a minute or two earlier than the day before. It was only Tuesday, the second day of the week, and already he was edging toward the early exit. This routine was always prompted by a phone call from home. There was a wife waiting there with a brand-new set of twins. She watched the clock like the owner of a candy store watches the fat kids. She needed the break and she needed her husband home to deliver it. Even across the aisle from his partner, and with the four-foot sound walls separating work spaces in the new squad room, Bosch could usually hear both sides of the call. It always began with, “When are you coming home?”
Everything in final order at his work station, Ferras looked over at Bosch.
“Harry, I’m going to take off,” he said. “Beat some of the traffic. I have a lot of calls out but they all have my cell. No need waiting around for that.”
Ferras rubbed his shoulder as he spoke. This was also part of the routine. It was his unspoken way of reminding Bosch that he had taken a bullet a couple of years before and had earned the early exit.
Bosch just nodded. He didn’t really care if his partner left early, just as long as he’d be there when they finally got a call out. It had been four weeks since they’d drawn a fresh kill and they were well into the August heat. Bosch could feel the call coming. As certain as the Santa Ana winds each August, Bosch knew a call was coming.
Ferras stood up and locked his desk. He was taking his jacket off the back of the chair when Bosch saw Larry Gandle step out of his office on the far side of the squad room and head toward them. As the senior man in the partnership, Bosch had been given the first choice of cubicles a month earlier when Robbery-Homicide Division moved over from the decrepit Parker Center to the new Police Administration Building. Most detective threes took the pods facing the windows that looked out on City Hall. Bosch had chosen the opposite. He had given his partner the view and took the pod that let him watch what was happening in the squad room. Now he saw the approaching lieutenant and he instinctively knew that his partner wasn’t going home early.
Gandle was holding a piece of paper torn from a notepad and had an extra hop in his step. That told Bosch the wait was over. The call out was here. Bosch started to rise.
“Bosch and Ferras, you’re up,” Gandle said when he got to them. “Need you to take a case for South Bureau.”
Bosch saw his partner’s shoulders slump. He ignored it and reached out for the paper Gandle was holding. He looked at the address written on it. South Normandie. He’d been there before.
“It’s a liquor store,” Gandle said. “One man down behind the counter, patrol is holding a witness. You two good to go?”
“We’re good,” Bosch said before his partner could complain.
But that didn’t work.
“Lieutenant, this is Homicide Special,” Ferras said, turning and pointing to the boar’s head mounted over the squad room door. “Why are we taking a rob job at a liquor store? You know it was a banger and the South guys could wrap it up—or at least put a name on the shooter—before midnight.”
Ferras had a point. Homicide Special was for the difficult and complex cases. It was an elite squad that went after the tough cases with the relentless skill of a boar rooting in the mud for a truffle. A liquor store holdup in gang territory hardly qualified.
Gandle, whose balding pate and dour expression made him a perfect administrator, spread his hands in a gesture offering a complete lack of sympathy.
“I told everybody in the staff meeting last week. We’ve got South’s back this week. They’ve got a skeleton crew while everybody else is in homicide school this week. They caught three cases over the weekend and one this morning. So there goes the skeleton crew. You guys are up and the rob job is yours. That’s it. Any other questions? Patrol is waiting down there with a witness.”
“We’re good, Loo,” Bosch said, ending the discussion.
“I’ll wait to hear from you then.”
Gandle headed back to his office. Bosch pulled his coat off the back of his chair, put it on, and opened the middle drawer of his desk. He took out a fresh notebook and pen and stuck them in his side pocket. The truth was he didn’t care what kind of case it was. He wanted a fresh kill.
Ferras stood with his hands on his hips, looking up at the clock on the wall over the bulletin boards.
“Shit,” Ferras said. “Every time.”
“What do you mean, ‘every time’?” Bosch said. “We haven’t caught a case in a month.”
“Yeah, well, I was getting used to that.”
“Well, if you don’t want to work murders, there’s always a nine-to-five table like auto theft.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Then let’s go.”
Bosch stepped out of the cubicle into the aisle and headed toward the door. Ferras followed, pulling his phone out so he could call his wife and give her the bad news. On the way out of the squad room, both men reached up and patted the boar on the nose for good luck.
Two
Bosch didn’t need to lecture Ferras on the way to South L.A. His silence was his lecture. His young partner seemed to wither under the pressure of what was not said and finally opened up.
“This is driving me crazy,” he said.
“What is?” Bosch asked.
“The twins. There’s so much work, so much crying. It’s a domino effect. One wakes up and that starts the other one up. Neither of us is getting any sleep and my wife is…”
“What?”
“I don’t know, going crazy. Calling me all the time, asking when I’m coming home. So I come home and then it’s my turn and I get the boys and I get no break. It’s work, kids, work, kids, work, kids every day.”
“What about a nanny?”
“We can’t afford a nanny. Not with the way things are, and we don’t even get overtime anymore.”
Bosch didn’t know w
hat to say. His daughter was a month away from her thirteenth birthday and almost ten thousand miles away from him. He had never been directly involved in raising her. He basically saw her for four weeks a year—two one-week visits in Hong Kong and then a two-week span in the summer when she came to L.A. and stayed with him. It was only when she came to California that she was under his full-time supervision and control, and he knew that wasn’t good enough for him to consider himself a valid parent.
“Look, I don’t know what to tell you,” he said. “You know I’ve got your back. I’ll do what I can when I can.”
“I know, Harry. I appreciate that. It’s just the first year with twins, you know? ’Sposed to get a lot easier.”
“Just maintain your focus when we have something to focus on. Like right now. That’s all I want.”
“You got it. You always have.”
Bosch nodded and that was enough said.
The address Gandle gave them was in the seventieth block of South Normandie Avenue. This was just a few blocks from the infamous corner of Florence and Normandie where some of the most horrible images of the 1992 riots had been captured by news helicopters and broadcast to the world. It seemed to be the lasting image of Los Angeles to many.
But Bosch quickly realized he knew the area and the liquor store that was their destination for a different riot and a different reason.
Fortune Liquors was already cordoned off by yellow crime scene tape. A small number of onlookers was gathered, but murder in this neighborhood was not that much of a curiosity. The people here had seen it before—many times. Bosch pulled their sedan into the middle of a grouping of three patrol cars and parked. After going to the truck to retrieve his briefcase he locked the car up and headed to the tape.
Bosch and Ferras gave their names and badge numbers to a patrol officer with the crime scene attendance log and then ducked under the tape. As they approached the front door of the store, Bosch put his hand into his right jacket pocket and pulled out a book of matches. It was old and worn. On the front cover it said Fortune Liquors and carried the address of the small yellow building in front of them. He thumbed the book open. There was only one match missing, and on the inside cover was the fortune that came with every matchbook:
Happy Is the Man Who
Finds Refuge in Himself
Bosch had carried the matchbook with him for almost twelve years. Not so much for the fortune, though he did believe in what it said. It was because of the missing match and what it reminded him of.
“Harry, what’s up?” Ferras asked.
Bosch realized he had paused in his approach to the store.
“Nothing, I’ve just been here before.”
“When? On a case?”
“Sort of. But it was a long time ago. Let’s go in.”
Bosch walked past his partner and entered the open front door of the liquor store.
Several patrol officers and a sergeant were standing inside. The store was long and narrow. It was a shotgun design and essentially three aisles wide. Bosch could see down the center aisle to a rear hallway and an open back door leading to a parking area out back. The cold beverage cases ran along the wall on the left aisle and then across the back of the store. The liquor was on the right aisle, while the middle aisle was reserved for wine, with red on the right and white on the left.
Bosch saw two more patrol officers in the rear hallway and he guessed they were holding the witness in what was probably a rear storage room or office. He put his briefcase down on the floor by the door. He unsnapped the locks and pulled out two pairs of latex gloves. He gave a set to Ferras and they put them on.
The sergeant noticed the arrival of the two detectives and broke away from his men.
“Ray Lucas,” he said by way of greeting. “We have one vic down behind the counter here. His name is John Li, spelled L-I. Happened, we think, about an hour ago. Looks like a robbery where the guy just didn’t want to leave a witness. A lot of us down here in 77th knew Mr. Li. He was a good old guy.”
Lucas signaled Bosch and Ferras over to the counter. Bosch held his coat so it wouldn’t touch anything when he went around and squeezed into the small space behind the counter. He squatted down like a baseball catcher to look closer at the dead man on the floor. Ferras leaned in over him like an umpire.
The man on the floor was Asian and looked to be almost seventy. He was on his back, eyes staring blankly at the ceiling. His lips were pulled back from clenched teeth, almost in a sneer. There was blood on his lips, cheek, and chin. It had been coughed up as he had died. The front of his shirt was soaked with his blood and Bosch could see at least three bullet entry points in his chest. His right leg was bent at the knee and folded awkwardly under his other leg. He had obviously been shot and collapsed on the spot where he had been standing.
“No casings that we can see,” Lucas said. “The shooter cleaned those up and then he was smart enough to pull the disc out of the recorder in the back.”
Bosch nodded. The patrol guys always wanted to be helpful but it was information Bosch didn’t need yet. There was much to do first.
Bosch studied the body silently. He was pretty sure it was the same man he had encountered in here so many years before. He was even in the same spot on the floor behind the counter. And Bosch could see a soft pack of cigarettes in the shirt pocket.
He noticed that the victim’s right hand had blood smeared on it. This was not unusual. From earliest childhood you touch your hand to an injury to try to protect it and make it better. It’s a natural instinct. This victim had done the same here, most likely grabbing at his chest after the first shot hit him.
There was a substantial spatial separation between the bullet wounds. At least four inches separated the shots as they formed the points of a triangle. Bosch knew that three quick shots from close range would usually have made a tighter cluster. This led him to believe that the victim had likely been shot once and then fell to the floor. The killer had then probably leaned over the counter and shot him twice more, creating the spread.
The slugs tore through the victim’s chest, causing massive damage to the heart and lungs. The blood expectorated through the mouth showed that death was not immediate. The victim had tried to breathe. After all his years working cases Bosch was sure of one thing. There was no easy way to die.
“No headshot,” Bosch said.
“Right,” Ferras said. “What’s it mean?”
Bosch realized he had been musing out loud.
“Maybe nothing. Just seems like three in the chest, the shooter wanted no doubt. But then no headshot to be sure.”
“Like a contradiction.”
“Maybe.”
Bosch took his eyes off the body for the first time and looked around from his low angle. His eyes immediately held on a gun that was in a holster attached to the underside of the counter. It was located for easy access in case of a robbery or worse, but it had not even been pulled from its holster.
“We’ve got a gun under here,” Bosch said. “Looks like a forty-five in a holster, but the old man never got the chance to pull it.”
“The shooter came in quick and shot the old guy before he could reach for his piece,” Ferras said. “Maybe he knew he was strapped.”
“The gun’s gotta be new,” Lucas said. “The guy’s been robbed at least six times in the last three years since I’ve been here. As far as I know, he never pulled a gun.”
Bosch nodded and turned his head to speak over his shoulder to the sergeant.
“Tell me about the witness,” he said.
“Uh, she’s not really a witness,” Lucas said. “It’s Mrs. Li, the wife. She came in and found her husband when she brought the dinner in. We’ve got her in the back room but you’ll need a translator. We called the ACU, asked for Chinese to go.”
Bosch took another look at the dead man’s face then stood up, and both his knees cracked loudly. Lucas had jumped the gun by calling the Asian Crime Unit. That was supposed to be
Bosch’s call, but the department had so many specialty units that a patrol sergeant like Lucas was probably always quick to make use of whatever seemed necessary.
“You speak Chinese, Sarge?”
“No, that’s why I called ACU.”
“Then how did you know to ask for Chinese and not Korean or maybe even Vietnamese?”
“I’ve been on the job twenty-six years, Detective. And—”
“And you know Chinese when you see it?”
“No, what I’m saying is I have a hard time making it through a shift these days without a little jolt. Once a day I stop by here to pick up one of those energy drinks, you know? Five-hour boost, it gives you. Anyway, I got to know Mr. Li a little bit from coming in. He told me he and his wife came from China and that’s how I knew.”
Bosch nodded and was embarrassed.
“I guess I’ll have to try one of those,” he said. “Did Mrs. Li call nine-one-one?”
“No, like I said, she’d doesn’t have much English. From what I got from dispatch, Mrs. Li called her son and he’s the one who called nine-one-one.”
Bosch stepped out and around the counter. Ferras lingered behind it, squatting to get the same view of the body and the gun that Bosch had just had.
“Where is the son?” Bosch asked.
“He’s coming but he works up in the Valley,” Lucas said. “Should be here any time now.”
Bosch pointed to the counter.
“When he gets here you and your people keep him away from this.”
“Got it.”
“And we’re going to have to try to keep this place as clear as possible now.”
Lucas got the message and took his officers out of the store. Finished behind the counter, Ferras joined Bosch near the front door, where he was looking up at the camera mounted on the ceiling at the center of the store.
“Why don’t you check out the back?” Bosch said. “See if the guy really pulled the disc and look in on our witness.”
The Brass Verdict Page 39