Michael Connelly: Suicide Run: Three Harry Bosch Stories

“It’s a loose end. I don’t like loose ends.”

“It’s more than that, Detective. I know.”

I said nothing. I wanted to leave. The idea I had of getting him to tell me seemed absurd now.

“If a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it, does it make a sound?”

He smiled broadly.

“If a girl is murdered in the city and nobody cares, does it matter?”

“I care.”

“Exactly.”

He came back to the bars.

“And you need me to relieve you of that burden by giving you a name, a mommy and daddy who care.”

He was a foot away from me. I could reach through the bars and grab his throat if I wanted to. But that would’ve been what he wanted me to do.

“Well, I won’t release you, Detective. You put me in this cage. I put you in that one.”

He stepped back and pointed at me. I looked down and realized both my hands were tightly gripping the steel bars of the cage. My cage.

I looked back up at him and his smile was back, as guiltless as a baby’s.

“Funny, isn’t it? I remember that day-ten years ago today. Sitting in the back of the car while you cops played hero. So full of yourselves for saving the girl. Bet you never thought it would come to this, did you? You saved one but you lost the other.”

I lowered my head to the bars.

“Seguin, you’re going to burn. You are going to hell.”

“Yes, I suppose so. But I hear it’s a dry heat.”

He laughed loudly and I looked at him.

“Don’t you know, Detective? You have to believe in heaven to believe in hell.”

I abruptly turned from the bars and headed back toward the steel door. Above it I saw the mounted camera. I made an open-the-door gesture with my hand and picked up my speed as I got closer. I needed to get out of there.

I heard Seguin’s voice echoing off the walls behind me.

“I’ll keep her close, Bosch! I’ll keep her right here with me! Eternally together! Eternally mine!”

When I got to the steel door, I hit it with both fists until I heard the electronic lock snap and the guard began to slide it open.

“All right, man, all right. What’s the hurry?”

“Just get me out of here,” I said as I pushed past him.

I could still hear Seguin’s voice echoing from the death house as I crossed back across the open field.

The call came in after the usual killing hours. Bosch checked the clock as he rolled to the side of the bed and sat up. It was 5:45 A.M. and that was late for a murder call.

It was Lieutenant Larry Gandle with the news.

“Harry, you and Ignacio are up. Pacific is turning over a case to us. Female, thirty-eight years of age, name of Tracey Blitzstein. She got shot to death this morning in her car. One in the head. She was parked in her own driveway.”

The name sounded slightly familiar but Bosch couldn’t immediately place it.

“Who is she and why are we getting it?”

“She’s sort of a TV star. She plays poker. Uses the name Tracey Blitz. Her husband plays, too, I’m told. So if you watch that sort of thing on cable, then you’ve probably seen her a few times. She gets profiled. They use her on the commercials. She was good-looking and apparently the best thing the female species had to offer in the arena of professional poker.”

Bosch nodded. He only watched poker on TV when he had insomnia and the World Series of Poker reruns were on ESPN. He knew it was very popular. But all that wasn’t why he knew the name Tracey Blitz. Years earlier the name came up from time to time with his ex-wife, who also played poker for a living. Eleanor Wish, his ex, had always called the world of professional poker a men’s club and maintained that no woman would ever win the World Series. She said a woman named Tracey Blitz had the skills and reads to win poker’s greatest tournament but the men would simply never allow it. They would subconsciously pool their testosterone, if needed, and gang up and eliminate her if she ever got to the final table. It was about dominance of the species, Eleanor Wish said.

Now Tracey Blitz would never get the chance to win the big one. She had been eliminated from competition in a different and more permanent manner.

Bosch asked Gandle for the location of the crime scene and was given an address in Venice on the canals.

“What else, Lieutenant?” Bosch asked. “We got any witnesses?”

“Not yet-we’re not even an hour into this. I’m told the husband was home asleep. He woke up and came out and found her in the car. He saw no suspect or getaway vehicle.”

“Where is the husband?”

“I told them to take him downtown to Parker Center.”

“Who is he? You said he’s a player, too?”

“Yeah, just not at the same level as his wife. His name is David Blitzstein.”

Bosch thought about things, his mind becoming sharper as he left sleep behind and concentrated on what he was being told.

“Is it just going to be me and Ignacio?” he asked, referring to his partner.

“You guys are lead. I’ll bring in Reggie Sauer and he can coordinate from Parker Center and baby-sit the husband till you get in there. You also have the Pacific team for as long as you need them.”

Bosch nodded. That wouldn’t be much help. Usually when divisional detectives were replaced by Homicide Special, there was resentment. It was hard to get them to hang in and help.

“You got any names from Pacific?”

“Just one.”

Gandle gave him the name and cell number of the lead Pacific Division detective who had gotten the first callout at 5:01 that morning. Bosch was impressed that decisions were made quickly and he was now on the case less than an hour into it. That was a good sign. He told the lieutenant he would be in touch as the case progressed and then hung up. He immediately called Ignacio Ferras, woke him from a sound sleep and got him moving. Ferras lived more than an hour from Venice and Bosch told him to waste no time.

He then called the Pacific detective whose name Gandle had given him. Kimber Gunn picked up the call quickly and Bosch identified himself and explained he had just been tapped to take over her case. He apologized but said he was just following orders. The transfer of the case wasn’t news to Gunn but Bosch always liked to tread lightly in such situations. He had never worked with Gunn before and she surprised him. She offered her help and said she was awaiting his direction.

“I could use the help,” Bosch responded. “I’m probably a half hour from the crime scene and my partner lives out in Diamond Bar. He’ll be even longer.”

“Diamond Bar? You might want to redirect him. He’s closer to Commerce than to Venice.”

“Commerce? Why Commerce?”

“According to the vic’s husband, she spent the night playing poker at the card casino in Commerce. He said she called when she was leaving and told him she had won big.”

“Did he say how much?”

“He said she won more than six thousand dollars cash. My partner and I, well…”

“Well, what?”

“We don’t want to jump your case but we were thinking that it looks a lot like a follow home from the casino.”

Bosch thought about that for a few seconds before responding.

“Tell you what, let me call my partner and send him that way, then I’ll get right back to you.”

He closed the phone and called Ferras, who had not left his home yet. Bosch told him what he had just learned and instructed him to drive to the casino in Commerce and begin his part of the investigation there. He then called Gunn back.

“What else did the victim’s husband say, Detective Gunn?”

“He said he fell back asleep after she called. He then woke up when she pulled into the driveway-she’s got a tricked-out Mustang with glass pipes. It makes some noise. He was lying in bed and he heard her kill the engine but then she never came inside the house. He waited a few minutes and then went out to check. He found her in the car, dead. He didn’t see anybody and didn’t see any vehicles. That was it. You can call me Kim, by the way.”