Michael Connelly - The Drop

Bosch studied another inhaler. Then another. And then he checked every inhaler and bottle in the cabinet. There were many different generic drugs and some of the bottles were full while most of them were almost empty. But there wasn’t a prescription in the cabinet that was more recent than three years old.

Bosch closed the cabinet, coming to his own face in the mirror. He looked at his dark eyes for a long moment.

And suddenly he knew.

He left the bathroom and walked quickly back to Hardy’s bedroom. He closed the door so he would not be heard from the living room. Pulling his phone as he picked up one of the oxygen canisters, he called the number for ReadyAire and asked to speak to the delivery and pickup coordinator. He was connected to someone named Manuel.

“Manuel, my name is Detective Bosch. I work for the Los Angeles Police Department and I am conducting an investigation. I need to know very quickly when you last delivered prescription oxygen to one of your customers. Can you help me?”

Manuel at first thought the call was a joke, a prank perpetrated by a friend.

“Listen to me,” Bosch said sternly. “This is no joke. This is an urgent investigation and I need this information right now. I need you to help me or put me on with someone who can.”

There was a silence and Bosch heard Chu call his name out again. Bosch put down the canister and covered his phone with his hand. He opened the bedroom door.

“I’ll be right down,” he called out.

He then closed the door and went back to the phone.

“Manuel, are you there?”

“Yes. I can put the name into the computer and see what we have.”

“Okay, do it. The name is Chilton Aaron Hardy.”

Bosch waited and heard typing.

“Uh, he’s here,” Manuel said. “But he doesn’t get his oh-two from us anymore.”

“What do you mean?”

“It shows our last delivery to him was July of oh-eight. He either died or started getting it from somewhere else. Probably somewhere cheaper. We lose a lot of business that way.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m looking at it right here.”

“Thank you, Manuel.”

Bosch disconnected the call. He put his phone away and pulled his gun back out.

As Bosch descended the stairs his adrenaline level rose. He saw that Hardy had not moved from his chair but he was now smoking a cigarette. Chu was sitting on the arm of the couch, keeping watch.

“I made him turn off the tank,” he said. “So he wouldn’t blow us all up.”

“There’s nothing in the tank,” Bosch said.

“What?”

Bosch didn’t answer. He moved across the room until he was standing directly in front of Hardy.

“Stand up.”

Hardy looked up, confusion on his face.

“I said stand up.”

“What’s going on?”

Bosch reached down with both hands, grabbed him by the shirt and yanked him up out of the chair. He spun him around and pushed him face-first against the wall.

“Harry, what are you doing?” Chu asked. “He’s an old—”

“It’s him,” Bosch said.

“What?”

“It’s the son , not the father.”

Bosch pulled his handcuffs off his belt and bound Hardy’s arms behind his back.

“Chilton Hardy, you’re under arrest for the murder of Lily Price.”

Hardy said nothing as Bosch recited his Constitutional rights. He turned his cheek to the wall and even had a small smile on his face.

“Harry, is the father upstairs?” Chu asked from behind him.

“No.”

“Then, where is he?”

“I think he’s dead. Junior’s been living here as him, collecting his pension and social security and all that stuff. Open the file. Where’s the DL photo?”

Chu stepped forward with the blowup shot of Chilton Aaron Hardy Jr. Bosch turned Hardy around and then held him against the wall with one hand on his chest. He held the photo up next to his face. He then flicked the thick eyeglasses off him and they fell to the floor.

“It’s him. He shaved his head for the DL photo. Changed his appearance. We never pulled up his father’s photo. I guess we should have.”

Bosch handed the photo back to Chu. Hardy’s smile grew broader.

“You think this is funny?” Bosch asked.

Hardy nodded.

“I think it’s pretty fucking funny that you don’t have any evidence and you don’t have a case.”

His voice was different now. A deeper timbre. Not the fragile old man’s voice from before.

“And I think it’s pretty fucking funny that you searched this place illegally. No judge is going to believe I gave you permission. Too bad you didn’t find anything. I’d love watching the judge throw it all out.”

Bosch grabbed a handful of Hardy’s shirt and pulled him off the wall, then slammed him back against it. He felt his rage building.

“Hey, partner?” he said. “Go out to the car and get your computer. I want to write up a search warrant right now.”

“Harry, I already checked on my phone, there’s no Wi-Fi here. How’re we going to send it in?”

“ Partner , just go get the computer. We’ll worry about Wi-Fi after you write it up. And close the door when you leave.”

“Okay, partner. I’ll go get the laptop.”

Message received.

Bosch never took his eyes off Hardy’s. He saw them register the situation, that he was about to be left alone with Bosch, and the beginning of fear entered their shiny coldness. As soon as he heard the front door close, Bosch pulled his Glock and pushed the muzzle into the flesh under Hardy’s chin.

“Guess what, asshole, we’re going to end this right here. Because you’re right, we don’t have enough. And I’m not letting you run free another fucking day.”

He violently yanked Hardy off the wall and spun him to the floor. Hardy crashed into the side table, knocking the ashtray and water glass onto the rug, and landed on his back. Bosch dropped down on him, straddling his torso.

“The way this will work is, we didn’t know it was you, you see? We thought it was your father all along and when my partner went out to the car you jumped me. There was a struggle for the gun and — guess what? — you didn’t win.”

Bosch held the gun up sideways, displaying it in front of Hardy’s face.

“There will be two shots. The one I’m about to put through your black fucking heart, and then after I take off the cuffs, I’ll wrap your dead hands around my Glock and cap one into the wall. That way we both get gunshot residue and everybody’s cool with it.”

Bosch leaned down and positioned the gun with the barrel at an upward angle to Hardy’s chest.

“Yeah, I think like this,” he said.

“Wait!” Hardy yelled. “You can’t do this!”

In his eyes Bosch saw true terror.

“This is for Lily Price and Clayton Pell and everybody else you killed and hurt and destroyed.”

“Please.”

“Please? Is that what Lily said to you? Did she say please?”

Bosch changed the angle of the gun slightly and leaned farther down, his chest now only six inches from Hardy’s.

“Okay, I admit it. Venice Beach, nineteen eighty-nine. I’ll tell you everything. Just take me in and set it up. I’ll tell you about my father, too. I drowned him in the bathtub.”

Bosch shook his head.

“You’ll tell me what I want to hear just to get out of here alive. But it’s no good, Hardy. It’s too late. We’re past that. Even if you truly confessed, it wouldn’t hold up. Coerced confession. You know that.”

Bosch pulled back the slide on the Glock to chamber a round.

“I don’t want a bullshit confession. I want evidence. I want your stash.”

“What stash?”

“You keep stuff. All you guys keep stuff. Pictures, souvenirs. You want to save yourself, Hardy, tell me where the stash is.”