Michael Connelly: The Drop

Bosch and Chu stood under the canopy but stayed on the periphery. The scene belonged to the techs at the moment. Bosch could tell that the body had been turned over from the impact point and that they were far along. The body would soon be removed and transported to the medical examiner’s office. This bothered him but it was the cost of coming into a case so late.

The gruesome extent of the injuries from seven floors of gravity was on full display. Bosch could almost feel his partner’s revulsion at the sight. Harry decided to give him a break.

“Tell you what, I’ll handle this and meet you upstairs.”

“Really?”

“Really. But you’re not getting out of the autopsy.”

“That’s a deal, Harry.”

The conversation had drawn Van Atta’s attention.

“Harry B.,” he said. “I thought you were still working cold cases.”

“This one’s a special, Gabe. All right if I step in?”

Meaning the inner circle of the death scene. Van Atta waved him in. As Chu ducked out from under the canopy, Bosch grabbed a pair of paper booties from a dispenser and put them on over his shoes. He then put on rubber gloves and worked his way as best he could around the coagulated blood on the sidewalk and squatted down next to what was left of George Thomas Irving.

Death takes everything, including one’s dignity. George’s naked and battered body was surrounded on all sides by technicians who viewed it as a piece of work. His earthly vessel had been reduced to a ripped bag of skin containing shattered bones and organs and blood vessels. His body had bled out through every natural orifice and many new ones created by his impact on the sidewalk. His skull was shattered, leaving his head and face grossly misshapen like it would be in a fun house mirror. His left eye had broken free of its orbit and hung loosely on his cheek. His chest had been crushed by the impact and several sheared bones from the ribs and clavicle protruded through the skin.

Unblinking, Bosch studied the body carefully, looking for the unusual on a canvas that was anything but usual. He searched the inside of the arms for needle tracks, the fingernails for foreign debris.

“I got here late,” he said. “Anything I should know?”

“I’m thinking the guy hit face-first which is very unusual, even for a suicide,” Van Atta said. “And I want to draw your attention to something here.”

He pointed to the victim’s right arm and then the left, which were spread in the blood puddle.

“Every bone in both arms is broken, Harry. Shattered, actually. But we have no compound injuries, no breaking of the skin.”

“Which tells us what?”

“It means one of two extremes. One, he was really serious about taking a high dive and didn’t even put his hands out to break the fall. If he had, we would’ve had shearing and compound fractures. We don’t.”

“And the other extreme?”

“That the reason he didn’t put his arms out to break the fall was that he wasn’t conscious when he hit the ground.”

“Meaning he was thrown.”

“Yeah, or more likely dropped. We’ll have to do some distance modeling but this looks like he came straight down. If he was pushed or thrown, as you say, I think he would have been a couple feet farther out from the structure.”

“Got it. What about time of death?”

“We took the liver temperature and did the math. This isn’t official, as you know, but we think between four and five.”

“So he was here on the sidewalk for an hour or more before somebody saw him.”

“It could happen. We’ll try to narrow the TOD at autopsy. Can we get him rolling now?”

“If that’s all the wisdom you have for me today, yes, you can get him out of here.”

A few minutes later Bosch headed up the entrance drive to the hotel’s garage. A black Lincoln Town Car with city plates was idling on the cobblestones. Councilman Irving’s car. As he walked past, Bosch saw a young driver behind the wheel and an older man in a suit in the front passenger seat. The back seat appeared to be empty but it was hard to determine through the smoked glass.

Bosch took the stairs up to the next level, where the front desk and lobby were located.

Most people who stayed at the Chateau were night creatures. The lobby was deserted except for Irvin Irving, who was sitting by himself on a couch with a cell phone pressed to his ear. When he saw Bosch coming, he quickly ended the call and pointed toward a couch directly opposite his. Harry had hoped to stay standing and to keep momentum but it was one of those times when he took direction. As he sat down he pulled a notebook out of his back pocket.

“Detective Bosch,” Irving said. “Thank you for coming.”

“I didn’t have the choice, Councilman.”

“I guess not.”

“First, I’d like to express my sympathy for the loss of your son. Second, I’d like to know why you want me here.”

Irving nodded and glanced out one of the lobby’s tall windows. There was an outdoor restaurant beneath palm trees and umbrellas and space heaters. It was empty, too, except for the wait staff.

“I guess nobody gets up around here till noon,” he said.

Bosch didn’t reply. He waited for the answer to his question. Irving’s signature physical trait had always been the shaved and polished scalp. He had the look going long before it was fashionable. In the department, he had been known as Mr. Clean because he had the look and he was the guy brought in to clean up the political and social messes that routinely arose in a heavily armed and political bureaucracy.

But now Irving’s look was shopworn. His skin was gray and loose and he looked older than he actually was.

“I always heard that losing a child was the most difficult pain,” Irving said. “Now I know it’s true. It doesn’t matter what age or what circumstances. . it’s just not supposed to happen. It’s not the natural order of things.”

There was nothing Bosch could say to that. He had sat with enough parents of dead children to know there was no debating what the councilman had said. Irving had his head down, eyes on the ornate pattern of the rug in front of him.

“I’ve worked for this city in one capacity or another for over fifty years,” he continued. “And here I am and I can’t trust a soul in it. So I reach out to a man I’ve tried to destroy in the past. Why? I’m not even sure myself. I suppose it’s because there was an integrity to our skirmishes. An integrity to you. I didn’t like you or your methods but I respected you.”

He looked up at Bosch now.

“I want you to tell me what happened to my son, Detective Bosch. I want the truth and I think I can trust you to give it to me.”

“No matter how it falls?”

“No matter how it falls.”

Bosch nodded.

“I can do that.”

He started to get up but paused when Irving continued.

“You said once that everybody counts or nobody counts. I remember that. This would put that to the test. Does the son of your enemy count? Will you give your best effort for him? Will you be relentless for him?”

Bosch just stared at him. Everybody counts or nobody counts . It was his code as a man. But it was never spoken. It was only followed. He was sure he had never said it to Irving.

“When?”

“Excuse me?”

“When did I say that?”

Realizing he may have misspoken, Irving shrugged and adopted the pose of a confused old man even though his eyes were as sharp as black marbles in snow.

“I don’t remember, actually. It’s just something I know about you.”

Bosch stood up.

“I’ll find out what happened to your son. Is there anything you can tell me about what he was doing here?”