Michael Connelly - The Drop

“That’s why I need to talk to him.”

She paused as she considered something Bosch apparently hadn’t thought of. He thought she would be as excited about the lead as he was.

“What?”

“Harry, I have to consider what this will do to him, dredging all of this up. I’m sorry but I have to consider his well-being before the well-being of your investigation.”

Bosch wished she hadn’t said that.

“Wait a minute,” he said. “What do you mean ‘dredging it up’? It’s in all three of his psych reports here. He has to have talked to you about this guy. I’m not asking you to break that confidence. I want to talk directly to him.”

“I know and I can’t stop you from talking to him. It’s really his option. He’ll talk to you or he won’t. But my only worry is that he’s quite fragile as you can—”

“You can get him to talk to me, Hannah. You can tell him it will help him.”

“You mean lie to him? I won’t do that.”

Bosch stood up, since she had not returned to her seat.

“I don’t mean lie. I mean tell the truth. This will help him get this guy out of the shadows of the past. Like an exorcism. Maybe he even knows that this guy was killing girls.”

“You mean there’s more than one?”

“I don’t know but you saw the photos. It doesn’t look like a onetime thing, like, oh, I got that out of my system and it’s back to being a good citizen again. This was a predator’s crime and predators don’t stop. You know that as well as I do. It doesn’t matter if this happened twenty-two years ago. If this guy Johnny is still out there, I have to find him. And Clayton Pell is the key.”

Clayton Pell agreed to talk to Bosch but only if Dr. Stone remained present. Harry had no problem with that and thought that having Stone on hand might be helpful during the interview. He only advised her that Pell might become a witness in an eventual trial and as such Bosch would conduct the interview in a methodical and linear fashion.

An orderly walked Pell into the interview room, where three chairs had been set up, one facing the other two. Bosch introduced himself and shook Pell’s hand without hesitation. Pell was a small man no more than five foot two and a hundred ten pounds, and Bosch knew that victims of sexual abuse during childhood often suffered from stunted growth. Disrupted psychological growth affected physical growth.

Bosch pointed Pell to his seat and cordially asked if he needed anything.

“I could use a smoke,” Pell said.

When he sat, he brought his legs up and crossed them on the seat. It seemed like a childlike thing to do.

“I could use one, too, but we’re not going to break the rules today,” Bosch said.

“That’s too bad, then.”

Stone had suggested that they set the three seats up around a table to make it less formal but Bosch had said no. He also choreographed the seating arrangement so that both he and Stone would be left and right of Pell’s center view line, which meant he would have to constantly look back and forth between them. Observing eye movement would be a good way for Bosch to measure sincerity and veracity. Pell had become a tragic figure in Stone’s estimation but Bosch held no such sympathy. Pell’s traumatic history and childlike dimensions didn’t matter. He was now a predator. Just ask the nine-year-old boy he had pulled into his van. Bosch planned to constantly remind himself that predators hid themselves and that they lied and waited for their opponents to reveal weaknesses. He wouldn’t make a mistake with Pell.

“Why don’t we get started here,” Bosch said. “If you don’t mind I will take written notes as we talk.”

“A’right by me,” Pell said.

Bosch pulled out his notebook. It had an LAPD detective’s badge embossed on its leather cover. It had been a gift from his daughter, who had had it custom-made through a friend in Hong Kong whose father was in the leather business. The embossing was complete with his badge number—2997. She’d given it to him at Christmas. It was one of his most treasured possessions because it had come from her, but also because he knew it served a valuable purpose. Every time he flipped it open to jot down a note, he was showing the badge to his interview subjects and reminding them that the power and might of the state was before them.

“So what’s this about?” Pell asked in a high, nasal voice. “Doc didn’t tell me nothin’ about nothin’.”

Stone did not tell him not to call her Doc.

“It’s about a murder, Clayton,” Bosch said. “From way back when you were just a boy of eight years old.”

“I don’t know nothin’ about no murder, sir.”

The voice was grating and Bosch wondered if it had always been that way or if it was the by-product of the prison attack.

“I know that. And you should know that you are not suspected in this crime in any way.”

“Then why come to me?”

“Good question, and I’m going to just answer it straight, Clayton. You are in this room because your blood and your DNA were found on the victim’s body.”

Pell shot straight up out of his chair.

“Okay, I’m out of here.”

He turned to head toward the door.

“Clay!” Stone called out. “Hear him out! You are not a suspect! You were eight years old. He just wants to know what you know. Please!”

He looked down at her but pointed at Bosch.

“You can trust this guy but I don’t. The cops don’t do anybody any favors. Only themselves.”

Stone stood up to make her pitch.

“Clayton, please. Give it a chance.”

Pell reluctantly sat back down. Stone followed and he stared at her while refusing to look at Bosch.

“We think the killer had your blood on him,” Bosch said. “And it somehow got transferred to the victim. We don’t think you had anything to do with the crime.”

“Why don’t you just get it over with,” he replied, holding his wrists out together for cuffing.

“Clay, please,” Stone said.

He waved both hands in an enough already gesture. He was small enough that he could completely turn his body in his seat and put both legs over the chair’s left arm, giving Bosch the cold shoulder like a child ignoring his parent. He folded his arms across his chest and Bosch could see the top edge of a tattoo peeking out of his collar on the back of his neck.

“Clayton,” Stone said sternly. “Don’t you remember where you were when you were eight? Don’t you remember what you’ve told me over and over?”

Pell tucked his chin down toward his chest and then relented.

“Of course I do.”

“Then answer Detective Bosch’s questions.”

He milked it for ten seconds and then nodded.

“Okay. What?”

Just as Bosch was about to ask a question, his phone buzzed in his pocket. Pell heard it.

“If you answer that, I am fucking walking out of here.”

“Don’t worry, I hate cell phones.”

Bosch waited for the buzzing to stop and then proceeded.

“Tell me about where you were and how you were living when you were eight years old, Clayton.”

Pell turned back straight in his chair to face Bosch.

“I was living with a monster. A guy who liked to beat the shit out of me whenever my mother wasn’t around.”

He paused. Bosch waited and then prompted.

“What else, Clayton?”

“He decided that just beatin’ me up wasn’t good enough. He decided he liked for me to suck him off, too. A couple times a week. So that’s how I was living, Detective.”

“And this man was named Johnny?”

“Where did you get that?”

Pell looked at Stone, assuming she had betrayed his confidence.

“The name’s in your PSI reports,” Bosch said quickly. “I read them. You mention a guy named Johnny in them. Is that who we’re talking about here?”