Michael Connelly - The Drop

“What are you going to do?” Chu called after him.

Bosch turned and looked back at him.

“Start over.”

He resumed his movement toward the squad room exit. He stopped at the lieutenant’s status board and put his magnet in the out slot. When he turned to the door, Chu was standing there.

“You’re not going to do this to me,” he said.

“You did it to yourself. You made a choice. I don’t want anything to do with you.”

“I made a mistake. And I told you — no, I promised you — that I would make up for it.”

Bosch reached out and gently moved him by the arm to the side so he could open the door. He went out into the hallway without another word to Chu.

On his way home Bosch drove into East Hollywood and stopped behind the El Matador truck on Western. He remembered Chu’s comment about the incongruity of Western Avenue being in East Hollywood. Only in L.A., he thought as he got out.

There was no one in line at the truck because it was still early. The taquero was just setting up for the night. Bosch had him put enough carne asada for four tacos into a to-go cup and asked him to roll the flour tortillas up in foil. He added sides of guacamole, rice and salsa and the man put it all in a bag for transport. While Bosch was waiting he sent a text to his daughter telling her he was coming home with dinner because he would be too busy working to cook something. She answered that that was okay because she was starved.

Twenty minutes later he walked through the front door of his home to find his daughter reading a book and playing music in the living room. He stood there frozen in the entranceway, taco bag in one hand, briefcase in the other, murder book under his arm.

“What?” she said.

“You’re listening to Art Pepper?”

“Yeah. I think it’s good music to read by.”

He smiled and went into the kitchen.

“What do you want to drink?”

“I have water already.”

Bosch made a plate of tacos for her with all the sides and took it out to her. He came back into the kitchen and ate his tacos, fully loaded, while leaning over the sink. When he was finished, he bent down to the faucet and chased it with water right out of the pipe. Wiping his face with a paper towel, he went out to work at the dining room table.

“How was school?” he asked while opening his briefcase. “Did you skip lunch again?”

“School was a drag like always. I skipped lunch to study for the algebra quiz.”

“How’d you do?”

“I probably flunked.”

He knew she was exaggerating. She was a good student. She hated algebra because she could not perceive a life where it would become useful. Especially when at the moment she wanted to be a cop — or so she said.

“I’m sure you did fine. Are you reading that for IR? What is it?”

She held the book up so he could see it. It was The Stand by Stephen King.

“It’s my optional choice.”

“Pretty thick for a school read.”

“It’s really good. Are you trying to avoid the subject of the two wineglasses by not eating with me and then asking all of these questions?”

She had nailed him.

“I’m not avoiding anything. I do have work to do and I already explained the wineglasses in the dishwasher.”

“But you didn’t explain about how one still had lipstick on it.”

Bosch looked at her. He had missed the lipstick.

“So who’s the detective in the house now?” he asked.

“Don’t try to deflect,” she said. “The point is, you don’t have to lie about your girlfriend with me, Dad.”

“Look, she’s not my girlfriend and she is never going to be my girlfriend. It didn’t work out. I am sorry I didn’t tell you the truth but we can drop it now. When and if I do ever have a girlfriend, I will let you know. Just like I hope you will tell me when you have a boyfriend.”

“Fine.”

“You don’t have a boyfriend, do you?”

“No, Dad.”

“Good. I mean, it’s good that you aren’t keeping a secret. Not good that you don’t have a boyfriend. I don’t want to be a father who’s like that.”

“I get it.”

“Good.”

“Then why are you so mad?”

“I’m—”

He stopped as he realized that her perception was right on the money. He was mad about one thing and it was showing in something else.

“You know what I said a minute ago about look who the detective in the house is?”

“Yes, I was sitting right here.”

“Well, on Monday night you looked at that video I had of the guy checking in and you called it right there. You said he jumped. Based on what you saw in thirty seconds of video you said he jumped.”

“So?”

“Well, I’ve been chasing my tail all week, seeing a murder where there wasn’t a murder, and you know what? I think you were right. You called it right at the start and I didn’t. I must be getting old.”

A look of true sympathy came over her face.

“Dad, you’ll get over it and you’ll get ’em next time. You’re the one who told me you can’t solve every case. Well, at least you got this one right in the long run.”

“Thanks, Mads.”

“And I don’t want to pile on but. .”

Bosch looked at her. She was proud of something.

“All right, give it to me. But what?”

“There was no lipstick on the glass. I bluffed you.”

Bosch shook his head.

“You know something, kid? Someday you’re going to be the one they’ll want in the interview room. Your looks, your skills, they’ll be confessing to you right and left and lined up in the hall.”

She smiled and went back to her book. Bosch noticed she had left one taco uneaten on her plate and he was tempted to go for it, but instead set to work on the case, opening the murder book and spreading the loose files and reports out on the table.

“You know how a battering ram works?” he asked.

“What?” his daughter replied.

“You know what a battering ram is?”

“Of course. What are you talking about?”

“When I get stuck on a case like this, I go back to the book and all the files.”

He gestured to the murder book on the table.

“I look at it like a battering ram. You pull back and swing it forward. You hit the locked door and you smash through. That’s what going through everything again is like. You swing back and then you swing forward with all that momentum.”

She looked puzzled by his decision to share this piece of advice with her.

“Okay, Dad.”

“Sorry. Go back to your book.”

“I thought you just said he jumped. So why are you stuck?”

“Because what I think and what I can prove are two separate things. A case like this, I have to have it all nailed down. Anyway, it’s my problem. Go back to your book.”

She did. And he went back to his. He began by carefully rereading all the reports and summaries he had clipped into the binder. He let the information flow over him and he looked for new angles and colors. If George Irving jumped, then Bosch had to more than simply believe it. He had to be able to prove it not only to the powers that be but, most important, to himself. And he wasn’t quite there yet. A suicide was a premeditated killing. Bosch needed to find motive and opportunity and means. He had some of each but not enough.

The CD changer moved to the next disc and Bosch soon recognized Chet Baker’s trumpet. The song was “Night Bird” from a German import. Bosch had seen Baker perform the song in a club on O’Farrell in San Francisco in 1982, the only time he ever saw him play live. By then Baker’s cover-boy looks and West Coast cool had been sucked out of him by drugs and life, but he could still make the trumpet sound like a human voice on a dark night. In another six years he would be dead from a fall from a hotel window in Amsterdam.