Michael Connelly - 9 Dragons

“I’ll let you know what I hear. Are you coming in?”

“Uh, not today. I need to take a couple days to get my daughter situated and in school and stuff. I want to get her some counseling.”

“Is this white time or vacay days? I need to put it down.”

Comp time was called “white time” in the LAPD, after the blank white form on which supervisors kept track of it.

“Doesn’t matter. I think I have the white time.”

“Then I’ll go with that. Are you okay, Harry?”

“I’m fine.”

“I guess Chu told you about Chang getting kicked.”

“Yeah, he told me.”

“His prick lawyer was already here this morning to pick up his suitcase. I’m sorry, Harry. There’s nothing we could do. The case isn’t there and those two wimps up in the Valley won’t help us hold him on the extortion.”

“I know.”

“Didn’t help that your partner stayed home all weekend. Claimed he was sick.”

“Yeah, well…”

Bosch had reached the end of his patience with Ferras but that was between him and his partner. He wouldn’t discuss it with Gandle yet.

The door to the release office opened and Bosch saw an Asian man in a suit step out, carrying a briefcase. It wasn’t Chang. The man held the door with his body and waved up the street to a waiting car. Bosch knew this was it. The man in the suit was a well-known defense attorney named Anthony Wing.

“Lieutenant, I gotta go. Can I call you back?”

“Just call me when you decide how many days you’re taking and when I can put you back on the schedule. Meantime, I’ll find something for Ferras to do. Something inside.”

“I’ll talk to you later.”

Bosch closed the phone just as a black Cadillac Escalade cruised up and Bo-Jing Chang stepped through the jail’s release door. Bosch moved into the path between him and the SUV. Wing then stepped between Bosch and Chang.

“Excuse me, Detective,” Wing said. “You are impeding my client’s path.”

“Is that what I’m doing?, ‘impeding’? What about him impeding John Li’s life?”

Bosch saw Chang smirk and shake his head behind Wing. He heard a car door slam behind him and Wing’s attention moved over Harry’s shoulder.

“Make sure you get this,” he commanded.

Bosch looked behind him and saw that a man with a video camera had gotten out of the big SUV. The lens of the camera was pointed at Bosch.

“What is this?”

“Detective, if you touch or harass Mr. Chang in any way, it will be documented and offered to the media.”

Bosch turned back to Wing and Chang. Chang’s smirk had turned into a satisfied smile.

“You think this is over, Chang? I don’t care where you go, this isn’t over. You and your people made it personal, asshole, and I don’t forget that.”

“Detective, move aside,” Wing said, clearly playing to the camera. “Mr. Chang is leaving because he is innocent of the charges you tried to concoct against him. He is returning to Hong Kong because of LAPD harassment. Because of you, he is unable to continue enjoying the life he has known here for several years.”

Bosch stepped out of their way and let them pass to the car.

“You are full of shit, Wing. Take your camera and shove it up your ass.”

Chang got into the backseat of the Escalade first, then Wing signaled the cameraman to get into the front seat.

“We have your threat on film now, Detective,” Wing said. “Remember that.”

Wing got in next to Chang and closed the door. Bosch stood there and watched the big SUV glide off, probably taking Chang directly to the airport to complete his legal escape.

When Bosch got back to the school, he went to the assistant principal’s office to check in. Sue Bambrough had agreed that morning to allow Madeline to audit eighth-grade classes and see if she liked the school. When he stepped in, Bambrough asked him to sit down and then proceeded to tell him that his daughter was still in class and assimilating quite well. Bosch was surprised. She had been in L.A. a little more than twelve hours after losing her mother and spending a harrowing weekend in captivity. Bosch had feared that the drop-off at the school might be disastrous.

Bosch already knew Bambrough. A couple of years earlier, a neighbor who had a child attending the school asked him to speak to the kid’s class about police work and crime. Bambrough was a bright, hands-on administrator who had interviewed Bosch at length before allowing him to address any students. Bosch had rarely been grilled so thoroughly by defense attorneys in court. She had taken a hard line on the quality of police work in the city but her arguments were well thought out and articulate. Bosch respected her.

“Class ends in ten minutes,” Bambrough said. “I’ll take you to her then. There is something I would like to talk to you about first, Detective Bosch.”

“I told you last time, call me Harry. What is it you want to talk about?”

“Well, your daughter’s quite a storyteller. She was overheard during the midmorning break telling other students that she just moved here from Hong Kong because her mother was murdered and she got kidnapped. My concern is that she’s self-aggrandizing in order to-”

“It’s true. All of it.”

“What do you mean?”

“She was abducted and her mother was killed trying to res-cue her.”

“Oh, dear God! When did this happen”

Bosch regretted not telling Bambrough the whole story when they had talked that morning. He had simply told her that his daughter was going to be living with him and wanted to check the school out.

“Over the weekend,” he answered. “We arrived from Hong Kong last night.”

Bambrough looked like she had taken a punch.

“Over the weekend? Are you telling me the truth?”

“Of course I am. She’s been through a lot. I know it might be too soon to put her in school, but this morning I had…an appointment I couldn’t avoid. I’ll take her home now and if she wants to come back in a few days, I’ll let you know.”

“Well, what about counseling? What about a physical examination”

“I’m working on all of that.”

“Don’t be afraid to get her help. Children like to talk about things. It’s just that sometimes it’s not to their parents. I have found that children have an innate ability to know what they need in order to heal themselves and survive. Without her mother and with you being new at full-time parenting, Madeline may need an outside party to talk to.”

Bosch nodded at the end of the lecture.

“She’ll get whatever she needs. What would I need to do if she wants to go to school here?”

“Just call me. You’re in the district and we have the space. There will be some minor paperwork for enrollment and we’ll have to get her transcript from Hong Kong. You’ll need her birth certificate and that’s about it.”

Bosch realized that his daughter’s birth certificate was probably back in the apartment in Hong Kong.

“I don’t have her birth certificate. I’ll have to apply for one. I think she was born in Las Vegas.”

“You think?”

“I, uh, didn’t meet her until she was already four. At the time, she lived with her mother in Las Vegas and I assume she was born there. I can ask her.”

Bambrough looked even more puzzled.

“I have her passport,” Bosch offered. “It’ll say where she was born. I just haven’t looked at it.”

“Well, we can make do with that until you get the birth certificate. I think the important thing now is to take care of your daughter psychologically. This is a terrible trauma for her. You need to get her talking to a counselor.”

“Don’t worry, I will.”

A chime sounded the change of classes and Bambrough stood up. They left the office and walked down a main hallway. The campus was long and narrow because it was built on the hillside. Bosch saw Bambrough still trying to absorb the idea of what Madeline had just been through and survived.