“I’ve never seen you jump on a book like that before,” he said. “You going to finish it tonight?”
“We’re not supposed to read the last chapter tonight but there’s no way I can stop. It’s sad.”
“You mean the guy dies?”
“No—I mean, I don’t know yet. I don’t think so. But I’m sad because it will be over.”
Bosch nodded. He wasn’t much of a reader but he knew what she meant. He remembered feeling that way when he got to the end of Straight Life, which might have been the last book he actually read cover to cover.
She put the book down so she could work on finishing her meal. Harry could now see that there would be no leftover mac and cheese for him.
“You know, you sort of remind me of him,” she said.
“Really? The kid in the book?”
“Mr. Moll said it’s about innocence. He wants to catch little children before they fall off the cliff. That’s the metaphor for the loss of innocence. He knows the realities of the real world and wants to stop the innocent children from having to face it.”
Mr. Moll was her teacher. Maddie had told Bosch that when they took tests in class, he climbed up and stood on his desk so he could watch the students from above and guard against cheating. The kids called him the “Catcher on the Desk.”
Bosch didn’t know how to respond to her, because he had never read the book. He had grown up in youth halls and occasional foster homes. Somehow, the assignment had never come to him. Even if it had, he probably wouldn’t have read it. He was not a good student.
“Well,” he said, “I think I sort of come in after they’ve gone over the cliff, don’t you think? I investigate murders.”
“No, but it’s what makes you want to do that,” she said. “You were robbed of things early. I think that made you want to be a policeman.”
Bosch fell silent. His daughter was very perceptive, and whenever she hit the target with him, he was half embarrassed and half in awe. He also knew that in terms of being robbed early, she was in the same boat. And she had said she, too, wanted to do what her father did. Bosch was both honored and scared by it. He secretly hoped that something else would come along—horses, boys, music, anything—and grab her intensity and interest and change her course.
So far nothing had. So he did all he could to help prepare her for the mission ahead.
Maddie cleared her tri-sectioned container and only chicken bones were left. She was a high-energy kid, and gone were the days when Bosch could expect to finish her plate. He gathered up all the trash and took it to the kitchen to dispose of. He then opened the refrigerator and grabbed a bottle of Fat Tire left over from his birthday.
When he came back out, Maddie was on the couch with her book.
“Hey, I have to leave super-early tomorrow,” he said. “Can you get up in the morning and make your lunch and everything?”
“Of course.”
“What will you have?”
“The usual. Ramen. And I’ll get a yogurt out of the machines.”
Noodles and bacteria-fermented milk. It wasn’t what Bosch would ever be able to consider lunch.
“How are you doing for money for the machines?”
“Good for the rest of this week.”
“What about that boy who was bothering you about not wearing makeup yet?”
“I avoid him. It’s no big deal, Dad, and it’s not ‘yet.’ I’m never wearing makeup.”
“Sorry, that’s what I meant.”
He waited, but that was the end of the discussion. He wondered if her saying the bullying was no big deal was actually her way of saying it was. He wished she would look up from the book when they talked, but she was on the last chapter. He let it go.
He took his beer out to the back deck so he could look out at the city. The air was cold and crisp. It made the lights in the canyon and down on the freeway sharper and clearer. Cold nights always made Bosch feel lonely. The chill worked its way into his backbone and held there, made him think about things he had lost over time.
He turned and looked in through the glass at his daughter on the couch. He watched her finish the book she was reading. He watched her cry when she got to the last page.
13
Bosch was in the parking lot in front of the Regional Crime Lab by six o’clock Thursday. Dawn’s light was just bleeding into the sky over East L.A. The Cal State campus surrounding the building was quiet this early. Bosch took a parking space that allowed him to view all the lab workers as they parked and headed toward the building. He sipped a coffee and waited.
At 6:25 he saw the person he wanted. He left his coffee behind, got out with the gun package under his arm, and moved between cars and across lanes to head off his quarry. He got to him before the man got to the entrance of the stone-and-glass building.
“Pistol Pete, just the guy I was hoping to run into. I’m even going to the third floor.”
Bosch reached the door and held it open for Peter Sargent. He was a veteran examiner in the lab’s Firearm Analysis Unit. They had worked several cases together in the past.
Sargent used a key card to get through the electronic gate. Bosch held his badge up to the security officer behind the desk and followed Sargent through. He then followed him into the elevator.
“What’s up, Harry? It kind of looked like you were waiting for me out there.”
Bosch gave an aw-shucks-you-got-me smile and nodded.
“Yeah, I guess I was. Because you’re the guy I need on this. I need Pistol Pete.”
The L.A. Times had given him the sobriquet several years earlier in the headline of a story that reported his tireless work in matching a Kahr P9 to bullets from four seemingly unrelated homicides. He gave the key testimony in the successful prosecution of a mob hit man.
“What’s the case?” Sargent asked.
“A twenty-year-old murder. Yesterday we finally recovered what we’re pretty sure is the murder weapon. I need the bullet match done but I also need to see if we can raise the serial number. That’s the key thing. We get that number, and I think it leads us to the suspect. We solve the case.”
“That simple, huh?”
He reached for the package as the elevator doors opened on three.
“Well, we both know nothing is that simple. But the case has got some mojo going and I don’t want to slow it down.”
“Was the number filed or acid burned?”
They were walking down the hall toward the double-door entrance to the Firearms Unit.
“Looks to me like it was filed down. But you can raise it, right?”
“Some of the time we can—at least partially. But you know the process takes four hours, right? A half day. And you know that we’re supposed to take these in line. The wait’s running five weeks, no cutting in line.”
Bosch was ready for that.
“I’m not asking to cut in line. I’m just wondering if maybe you could look at it on your lunch break, and if it looks good, then you put your magic mix on it and check it at the end of the day to see what you’ve got. Four hours but no time taken off the clock from your regular work.”
Bosch spread his arms like he was explaining something that was so simple it was beautiful.
“The line stays intact and nobody gets upset.”
Sargent smiled as he raised his hand to punch in the combo on the unit’s door lock. He typed 1-8-5-2 on the keypad, the year Smith & Wesson was founded.
He pushed the door open.
“I don’t know, Harry. We only get fifty minutes for lunch and I need to go out. I don’t bring my lunch like some of the other guys.”
“That’s why you need to tell me what you want for lunch so I can be back here with it at eleven-fifteen.”
“For real?”
“For real.”
Sargent led him to a workstation that was mainly a padded stool and a high table that was littered with gun parts and barrels and several evidence bags containing bullets or handguns. Taped
to the wall over the table was the Times headline:
“PISTOL PETE” MAKES STATE’S CASE
AGAINST ALLEGED MOB HIT MAN
Sargent put Bosch’s package down front and center on the table, which Harry took as a good sign. Bosch looked around to make sure nobody else could see him trying to work Sargent. They were the only ones in the unit so far.
“So what do you think?” Bosch said. “I bet after you guys moved down here you haven’t had a pepper steak from Giamela’s since forever.”
Sargent nodded thoughtfully. The regional lab was only a few years old and it consolidated the crime labs of both the LAPD and the L.A. County Sheriff’s Office. The LAPD’s gun unit had previously been located at the Northeast Station up near Atwater. The go-to place up there was a sub shop called Giamela’s. Bosch and whoever his partner of the moment was would always stop there, even scheduling “gun runs” around lunchtime, and often taking their take-out subs into the nearby Forest Lawn Memorial Park to eat. Bosch once had a partner who was a baseball fanatic and always insisted that they make a stop on gun runs to check Casey Stengel’s grave. If it was not properly trimmed and weeded, he would personally alert the caretakers to the problem.
“You know what I miss?” Sargent said. “I miss their meatball sub. That sauce was kick-ass.”
“One meatball sub coming up,” Bosch said. “You want cheese on that?”
“No, no cheese. But can you get the sauce on the side in a cup or something? That way it won’t get soggy.”
“Good thinking. I’ll see you at eleven-fifteen.”
Deal done, he turned to leave the unit before anything changed Sargent’s mind.
“Whoa, wait, Harry,” Sargent quickly said. “What about the ballistics matching? You need that, too, don’t you?”
Bosch couldn’t tell whether Sargent was angling for a second sandwich.
“I do, but I want the serial number first because I can go to work with that while the ballistics stuff gets done. Besides, I’m pretty sure we’ve got the match there. I have a witness who’s IDed the gun.”
Sargent nodded and Bosch started again for the door.
“See you later, Pistol Pete.”
Bosch went to his computer as soon as he got to his desk. He had set an alarm at home for 4 A.M. to check for email from Denmark, but there had been none. Now, as he opened his email, he saw a message from Mikkel Bonn, the journalist he had talked to.
Detective Bosch, I have spoken with Jannik Frej now and I have these answers in bold to your questions. Do you know if Anneke Jespersen flew to the United States to pursue a story? If yes, what was the story about? What was she doing here? Frej said she was on a story involving Desert Storm war crimes but it was her practice not to reveal fully her stories until she was sure. Frej does not know exactly who she was seeing or where she was going in the US. His last message from her was that she was going to LA for the story and she would report on riots if the BT would pay her separately. I asked many questions on this point and Frej insisted that she told him she was already going to LA on the war story but would report on the riots if the newspaper would pay. Does this help you?
What can you tell me about her destinations in the United States? She went to Atlanta and San Francisco before coming to L.A. Why? Do you know if she went to any other cities in the USA? Frej does not have answers here.
Before her U.S. trip she went to Stuttgart, Germany, and stayed in a hotel near the U.S. military base. Do you know why? This was the start of the story but Frej does not know who Anneke went to see. He believes there may have been a war crimes investigation unit at the military base there.
The email seemed to be of little help. Bosch leaned back restlessly in his seat and stared at the computer screen. The barriers of distance and language were frustrating. Frej’s answers were tantalizing but incomplete. Bosch had to compose a response that led to more information. He leaned forward and started typing.
Mr. Bonn, thank you for this. Is it possible for me to speak directly to Jannik Frej? Can he speak English at all? The investigation is gathering speed and this particular process is moving too slowly, taking a whole day to receive answers to my questions. If I cannot speak directly to him, can we set up a conference call so that you can translate? Please respond as soon as
The phone on Bosch’s desk rang and he grabbed it without taking his eyes off his computer screen.
“Bosch.”
“This is Lieutenant O’Toole.”
Bosch turned and glanced toward the corner office. He could see through the open blinds that O’Toole was at his desk, looking directly back at him.
“What’s up, L-T?”
“Did you not see my note telling you I needed to see you immediately?”
“Yes, I got it last night but you were already gone. Today I didn’t realize you were here yet. I had to send an important email to Denmark. Things are—”
“I want you in my office. Now.”
“On my way.”
Bosch quickly finished typing the email and sent it. He then got up and went to the lieutenant’s office, surveying the squad room as he went. No one else was in yet, just O’Toole and him. Whatever was about to happen, there would be no independent witnesses.
As Bosch entered the office, O’Toole told him to sit down. Bosch did so.
“Is this about the Death Squad case? Because I—”
“Who is Shawn Stone?”
“What?”
“I said who is Shawn Stone?”
Bosch hesitated, trying to figure out what O’Toole was trying to do. He instinctively knew that the best move was to play it wide open and honest.
“He’s a convicted rapist serving a sentence at San Quentin.”
“And what is your business with him?”
“I don’t have any business with him.”
“Did you speak to him Monday when you were up there?”
O’Toole was looking at a single-page document that he held in both hands, elbows on his desk.
“Yes, I did.”
“Did you deposit one hundred dollars in his prison canteen account?”
“Yes, I did that, too. What’s—”
“Since you say you have no business with him, what is your relationship with him?”
“He’s the son of a friend of mine. I had some extra time up there, so I asked to see him. Previously, I had never met him before.”
O’Toole frowned, his eyes still on the paper he held between his two hands.
“So at taxpayers’ expense, you paid a visit to your friend’s son and dropped a hundred into his canteen account. Do I have that right?”
Bosch paused as he sized up the situation. He knew what O’Toole was doing.
“No, you don’t have anything right, Lieutenant. I went up there—at taxpayers’ expense—to interview a convict with vital information in the Anneke Jespersen case. I got that information and with time left before I had to return to the airport, I checked on Shawn Stone. I also made the deposit in his account. The whole thing took less than a half hour and it caused me no delay in my return to Los Angeles. If you are going to take a run at me, Lieutenant, you are going to need something more than that.”
O’Toole nodded thoughtfully.
“Well, we’ll let the PSB decide that.”
Bosch wanted to reach over and yank O’Toole across the desk by his tie. The PSB was the Professional Standards Bureau, the new name for Internal Affairs. A black rose by any other name smelled just as rotten to Bosch. He stood up.
“You are filing a one-twenty-eight on me?”
“I am.”
Bosch shook his head. He could not believe the shortsightedness of the move.
“Do you realize you are going to lose the entire room if you go ahead with this?”
He was talking about the squad room. As soon as the rest of the detectives learned that O’Toole was making a move on Bosch for something as trivial as a fifteen-minute conversation at San Quentin, the meager lev
el of respect O’Toole enjoyed would collapse like a bridge made of toothpicks. Oddly, Bosch was more worried about O’Toole and his standing in the unit than about the PSB investigation that would follow his ill-advised move.
“That’s not my concern,” O’Toole said. “My concern is the integrity of the unit.”
“You are making a mistake, Lieutenant, and for what? For this? Because I wouldn’t let you kill my investigation?”
“I can assure you, one has nothing to do with the other.”
Bosch shook his head again.
“I can assure you that I will walk away from this, but you won’t.”
“Is that some kind of a threat?”
Bosch didn’t dignify that with a response. He turned and headed out of the office.
“Where are you going, Bosch?”
“I have a case to work.”
“Not for long.”
Bosch went back to his desk. O’Toole didn’t have the authority to suspend him. Police Protective League regulations were clear. A PSB investigation must lead to a formal finding and complaint before that could happen. But what O’Toole was doing would wind the clock tighter. He had a greater need than ever to keep his momentum.
When he got back to the cubicle, Chu was there at his desk with his coffee.
“How’s it going, Harry?”
“It’s going.”
Bosch sat down heavily in his desk chair. He hit the spacebar on his keyboard and the computer screen came back to life. He saw that he already had a reply from Bonn. He opened the email.
Detective Bosch, I will make contact with Frej and set up the phone call. I will get back to you with the details as soon as possible. I think at this point we should make our intentions clear. I am promising you confidentiality on this matter as long as you can assure me that I will have the exclusive first story when you make an arrest or wish to seek the public’s help, whichever comes first.
Are we agreed?
Bosch had known that his interaction with the Danish journalist would eventually come to this. He hit the return button and told Bonn that he agreed to provide him with an exclusive once there was something in the case worth reporting.
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