Michael Connelly - The Drop

Rider arrived a few minutes later and right on time.

“Okay, Harry, I’m here. As much as I hate daylong budget meetings, I really need to get back as soon as I can. What are we doing here?”

“We’re going to look at a training tape, Kiz.”

“And what does it have to do with Irving’s son?”

“Maybe everything.”

The custodian brought Bosch the tape. He and Rider went over to a viewing cubicle. Bosch put the video in the machine and started the playback.

“This is one of the old training tapes for the controlled bar hold,” he said. “More commonly known in the world as the LAPD choke hold.”

“The infamous choke hold,” she said. “It’s been banned since before I even got here.”

“Technically, the bar hold is banned. The controlled carotid hold is still approved in use of deadly force situations. But good luck with that.”

“So like I said, what are we doing here, Harry?”

Bosch gestured toward the screen.

“They used to use these tapes to teach what to do. Now they’re used to teach what not to do. This is the bar hold.”

At one time the controlled bar hold was standard in the LAPD’s use-of-force progression but it had been outlawed after so many deaths were attributed to it.

The video showed the hold being applied by an instructor on an academy recruit volunteer. From behind the recruit, the instructor brought his left arm across the front of his volunteer’s neck. He then cinched the vise closed by gripping the recruit’s shoulder. The recruit struggled but within seconds passed out. The instructor gently lowered him to the ground and started patting his cheeks. The volunteer woke immediately and seemed puzzled by what had just happened. He was ushered off camera and another volunteer took his place. This time the instructor moved more slowly and explained the steps of the hold. He then offered tips on how to deal with struggling subjects. The second tip was what Bosch was waiting for.

“There,” he said.

He backed the tape up and played the section again. The instructor called the move the hand creep. The left arm was locked across the volunteer’s neck, the hand up at his right shoulder. To guard against the arm being pulled away by the struggling volunteer, the instructor gripped his hands together like hooks at the top of the shoulder and extended his right forearm down the volunteer’s back. Then little by little he tightened the vise on the volunteer’s neck. The second volunteer passed out.

“I can’t believe they actually choked these guys out like that,” Rider said.

“They probably didn’t have a choice when it came to volunteering,” Bosch said. “It’s like the Tasers now.”

Every officer who carried a Taser had to be trained in the use of the device and this included being Tased himself.

“So what are you showing me here, Harry?”

“Back when they outlawed the hold, I was put on the task force investigating all the deaths. It was an assignment. I didn’t volunteer.”

“And what’s it got to do with George Irving?”

“It basically came down to the fact that people were using the hold too often and for too long. The carotid is supposed to open up immediately after you stop the pressure. But sometimes the pressure was held too long and people died. And sometimes the pressure cracked the hyoid bone, crushing the windpipe. Again people died. The bar hold was banned and the carotid hold was relegated to use in deadly force situations only. And deadly force is a whole separate set of criteria. The bottom line was, you could no longer choke somebody out in a basic street scuffle. Okay?”

“Got it.”

“My part was the autopsies. I was coordinator of that. Gathering all the cases going back twenty years and then looking for similarities. There was an anomaly in some of the cases. It didn’t really mean anything but it was there. We found a wound pattern on the shoulder. Showed up in maybe a third of the cases. A repeating crescent-moon pattern on the shoulder blade of the victim.”

“What was it?”

Bosch gestured to the video screen. The training tape was frozen on the hand creep move.

“It was the hand creep. A lot of cops wore military watches with the big chrono bezels. During the choke hold, if they made that move and walked the wrist lock up the shoulder, the watch bezel cut the skin or left a bruise. It didn’t really have to do with anything other than to help prove there had been a struggle. But I remembered it today.”

“At the autopsy?”

From his inside pocket he pulled out an autopsy photo of George Irving’s shoulder.

“That’s Irving’s shoulder.”

“Could this have happened in the fall?”

“He hit the ground face-first. There shouldn’t be an injury like that on his back. The ME confirmed it was antemortem.”

Rider’s eyes darkened as she studied the photo.

“So we have a homicide?”

“It’s looking that way. He was choked out and then dropped from the balcony.”

“You’re sure about this?”

“No, nothing’s for sure. But it’s the direction I’m now taking it.”

She nodded in acceptance.

“And you think a cop or a former cop did it?”

Bosch shook his head.

“No, I don’t think that. It’s true that cops of a certain age were trained to use the hold. But they’re not the only ones. Military, mixed martial-arts fighters. Any kid who watches YouTube can learn how it’s done. There’s one thing that’s sort of a coincidence, though.”

“Coincidence? You always said there was no such thing as coincidence.”

Bosch shrugged.

“What’s the coincidence, Harry?”

“The choke hold task force I was on back then? Deputy Chief Irvin Irving was in command. We worked it out of Central Division. It was the first time Irving and I directly crossed paths.”

“Well, as coincidences go, that’s kind of weak.”

“Probably so. But it means Irving will recognize the significance of the crescent marks on his son’s back if he is told about them or shown a photo. And I don’t want the councilman to know about this yet.”

Rider looked at him sharply.

“Harry, he’s all over the chief about this. He’s all over me. He’s already called three times today about the autopsy. And you want to withhold this from him?”

“I don’t want it out there in the open. I want whoever did this to think they’re in the clear. That way they won’t see me coming.”

“Harry, I don’t know about this.”

“Look, who knows what Irving will do with it if he knows? He might end up talking about it with the wrong person or having a press conference and then it gets out and we’ve lost our edge on it.”

“But you are going to have to go to him with it to conduct your homicide investigation. He’ll know then.”

“Eventually he’ll have to know. But for now we tell him the jury is still out. We’re waiting on the tox results from autopsy. Even with a high-jingo rush, that will take two weeks. Meantime, we are simply leaving no stone unturned, conducting a thorough investigation into all the possibilities. He doesn’t need to know about this, Kiz. Not right now.”

Bosch held up the photo. Rider rubbed her mouth as she considered his request.

“I don’t think you should even tell the chief,” Bosch added.

“I’m not going there,” she responded immediately. “The day I start withholding from him is the day I don’t deserve the job.”

Bosch shrugged.

“Suit yourself. Just keep it from leaving the building.”

She nodded, having come to a decision.

“I’ll give you forty-eight hours and then we reevaluate. Thursday morning I want to know where you are on this and we decide again then.”