Michael Connelly - The Drop

It was what Bosch was hoping to get. Just a head start.

“Fine. Thursday.”

“That doesn’t mean I don’t want to hear from you till Thursday. I want to be kept up-to-date. If something else breaks, you call me.”

“Got it.”

“Where do you go from here on it?”

“We’re working on a warrant for Irving’s office. He had an office manager who probably knew a lot of the secrets. And the enemies. We need to sit down with her but I want to do that in the office so she can show us through the files and whatever else is there.”

Rider nodded in approval.

“Good. Where’s your partner?”

“He’s writing up the warrant. We’re making sure we’re clean, every step of the way.”

“That’s smart. Does he know about the choke hold?”

“Not yet. I wanted to talk to you first. But he’ll know by the end of the day.”

“I appreciate that, Harry. I have to get back to my budget meeting and figuring out how to do more with less.”

“Yeah, good luck with that.”

“And you be careful. This could lead to some dark places.”

Bosch ejected the tape.

“Don’t I know it,” he said.

Because George Irving had maintained his legal practice and license with the California bar, getting a search warrant allowing the investigators access to his office and files took most of Tuesday afternoon and evening. The legal document was finally signed and issued by superior court judge Stephen Fluharty after a special master was appointed to review any documents that were viewed or seized by the police. The special master was an attorney himself and as such was not governed by the need for speed that homicide investigators working an active case were accustomed to. He set the time of the search for a leisurely 10 A.M. start on Wednesday.

Irving and Associates was housed in a two-room office on Spring Street across from the Los Angeles Times parking garage. That put George Irving just two blocks from City Hall. It also put his office even closer to the Police Administration Building. Bosch and Chu walked over Wednesday morning, arriving to find no police officer on the door and someone inside.

They entered and found a woman in her seventies in the front room, boxing files. She identified herself as Dana Rosen, George Irving’s office manager. Bosch had called her the evening before to make sure she would be on hand for the office search.

“Was there a police officer on the door when you arrived?” Bosch asked.

Rosen looked confused.

“No, there was no one.”

“Well, we weren’t supposed to start until the special master got here. Mr. Hadlow. He’s got to look at everything before we put it in boxes.”

“Oh, dear. These are my own files. Does that mean I can’t take them?”

“No, it means we just have to wait. Let’s put all of that down and step back outside. Mr. Hadlow should be here any minute.”

They moved out to the sidewalk and Bosch pulled the door closed. He asked Rosen to lock it with her key. He then pulled his phone and called Kiz Rider. He didn’t bother with a greeting.

“I thought you put a uniform on the door at Irving’s office.”

“I did.”

“Nobody’s here”

“I’ll call you back.”

Bosch closed his phone and appraised Dana Rosen. She was not what he had expected. She was a small and attractive woman but because of her age he dismissed her as a possible mistress of George Irving. Bosch had read that totally wrong with the widow. Dana Rosen could have been Irving’s mother.

“How long did you work for George Irving?” Bosch asked.

“Oh, a long time. I was with him at the City Attorney’s Office. Then when he left he offered me a job and I—”

She stopped when Bosch’s phone began to buzz. It was Rider.

“The watch commander at Central Division took it upon himself to redeploy the unit on the post at day watch roll call today. He thought that you had already been through the place.”

Bosch knew that meant the office was unguarded for nearly three hours, plenty of time for someone to get in ahead of them and remove files. His suspicions and anger rose in equal increments.

“Who is this guy?” he asked. “Is he connected to the councilman?”

Irvin Irving had been out of the department for years but still had connections to many officers he mentored or rewarded with promotions during his years in command staff.

“It’s a she,” Rider said. “Captain Grace Reddecker. As far as I can tell, it was a simple mistake. She’s not political — in that way.”

Meaning of course Reddecker was politically connected in the department — she would have to be to score a division command — but she didn’t play politics on a larger scale.

“She’s not one of Irving’s disciples?”

“No. Her rise came after he was gone.”

Bosch saw a man in a suit approaching them. He guessed it was the special master.

“I have to go,” he said to Rider. “I’ll deal with this later. I hope it’s like you said, just a mistake.”

“I think there’s nothing else to it, Harry.”

Bosch disconnected as the man on the sidewalk joined them. He was tall with reddish-brown hair and a golfer’s tan.

“Richard Hadlow?” Bosch asked.

“That would be me.”

Bosch made introductions and Rosen unlocked the office so they could enter. Hadlow was from one of the silk-stocking firms on Bunker Hill. The evening before, Judge Fluharty had enlisted him as a special master on a pro bono basis. No pay meant no delay. Hadlow had been leisurely about scheduling the search but now that they were there, he would be interested in getting it done quickly so he could get back to his paying clients. And that was fine with Bosch.

They moved into the offices and set a plan in motion. Hadlow would go to work on the office files, making sure there was no privileged content before turning them over to Chu for review. Meantime, Bosch would continue his discussion with Dana Rosen to determine what was important and timely in terms of Irving’s work.

Files and documentation were always valuable in an investigation but Bosch was smart enough to know that the most valuable thing in the office was Rosen. She could tell them the inside story.

While Hadlow and Chu went to work in the rear office, Bosch pulled the seat from the reception desk into position in front of a couch in the front room and asked Rosen to have a seat. He then locked the front door and the formal interview began.

“Is it Mrs . Rosen?” he asked.

“No, never been married. You can just call me Dana, anyway.”

“Well, Dana, why don’t we continue our conversation from the sidewalk. You were telling me that you had been with Mr. Irving since the City Attorney’s Office?”

“Yes, I was his secretary there before coming with him when he started Irving and Associates. So if you include that, it has been sixteen years.”

“And when he left the City Attorney’s Office you came with him right away?”

She nodded.

“We left the same day. It was a good deal. I was vested with the city so I got a pension when I retired, and then I came here. It was thirty hours a week. Nice and easy.”

“How involved were you in Mr. Irving’s work?”

“Not too much. He wasn’t here too much. I sort of just kept the files organized and everything neat and orderly. Answered the phone and took messages. He never took meetings here. Almost never.”

“Did he have a lot of clients?”

“He had a select few, actually. He charged a lot and people expected results. He worked hard for them.”

Bosch had his notebook out but so far had not jotted down a note.

“Who was he concentrating on lately?”