Michael Connelly - The Black Echo

She said, “It’s illegal to leave a juvenile in a closed room unattended.”

Bosch closed the door again.

“He isn’t complaining,” he said. “We’ve got to talk. What’s your feel for him? You want him, or you want me to take it?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

That settled it. That was a no. An initial interview with a witness, a reluctant witness at that, required a skillful blend of scamming, cajoling, demanding. If she didn’t know, she didn’t go.

“You’re supposed to be the expert interrogator,” she said in what seemed to Bosch to be a mocking voice. “According to your file. I don’t know if that’s using brains or brawn. But I’d like to see how it’s done.”

He nodded, ignoring the jab. He reached into his pocket for the boy’s cigarettes and matches.

“Go in and give him these. I want to go check my desk for messages and set up a tape.” When he saw the look on her face as she eyed the cigarettes, he added, “First rule of interrogation: make the subject think he is comfortable. Give ’im the cigarettes. Hold your breath if you don’t like it.”

He started to walk away but she said, “Bosch, what was he doing with those pictures?”

So that was what was bothering her, he thought. “Look. Five years ago a kid like him would have gone with that man and done who knows what. Nowadays, he sells him a picture instead. There are so many killers-diseases and otherwise-these kids are getting smart. It’s safer to sell your Polaroids than to sell your flesh.”

She opened the door to the interview room and went in. Bosch crossed the squad room and checked the chrome spike on his desk for messages. His lawyer had finally called back. So had Bremmer over at the Times, though he had left a pseudonym they had both agreed on earlier. Bosch didn’t want anybody snooping around his desk to know the press had called.

Bosch left the messages on the spike, took out his ID card and went to the supply closet and slipped the lock. He opened a new ninety-minute cassette and popped it into the recorder on the bottom shelf of the closet. He turned on the machine and made sure the backup cassette was turning. He set it on record and watched to make sure both tapes were rolling. Then he went back down the hallway to the front desk and told a fat Explorer Scout who was sitting there to order a pizza to be delivered to the station. He gave the kid a ten and told him to bring it to the interview room with three Cokes when it came.

“What do you want on it?” the kid asked.

“What do you like?”

“Sausage and pepperoni. Hate anchovies.”

“Make it anchovies.”

Bosch walked back to the detective bureau. Wish and Sharkey were silent when he walked back into the small interview room, and he had the feeling they had not been talking much. Wish had no feel for the boy. She sat to Sharkey’s right. Bosch took the seat on his left. The only window was a small square of mirrored glass in the door. People could look in but not out. Bosch decided to be up front with the boy from the start. He was a kid, but he was probably wiser than most of the men who had sat on the Slider before him. If he sensed deceit, he would start answering questions in one-syllable words.

“Sharkey, we are going to tape this because it might help us later to go over it,” Bosch said. “Like I said, you are not a suspect, so you don’t have to worry about what you say, unless of course you’re going to say you did it.”

“See what I mean?” the boy protested. “I knew you’d get around to saying that and putting on the tape. Shit, I been in one of these rooms before, you know.”

“That’s why we aren’t bullshitting you. So let’s say it once for the record. I’m Harry Bosch, LAPD, this is Eleanor Wish, FBI, and you are Edward Niese, AKA Sharkey. I want to start by-”

“What’s this shit? Was that the president what got dragged in that pipe? What’s the FBI doing here?”

“Sharkey!” Bosch said loudly. “Cool it. It’s just an exchange program. Like when you used to go to school and the kids would come from France or someplace. Think like she’s from France. She’s just kinda watching and learning from the pros.” He smiled and winked at Wish. Sharkey looked over at her and smiled a little, too. “First question, Sharkey, let’s get it out of the way so we can get to the good stuff. Did you do the guy up at the dam?”

“Fuck no. I see-”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Wish broke in. She looked at Bosch. “Can we go outside a moment?”

Bosch got up and walked out. She followed, and this time she closed the interview room door.

“What are you doing?” he said.

“What are you doing? Are you going to read that kid his rights, or do you want to taint this interview from the start?”

“What are you talking about? He didn’t do it. He isn’t a suspect. I’m just asking him questions because I’m trying to establish an interrogation pattern.”

“We don’t know he isn’t the killer. I think we should give him his rights.”

“We read him his rights and he is going to think we think he’s a suspect, not a witness. We do that and we might as well go in there and talk to the walls. He won’t remember a thing.”

She walked back into the interview room without another word. Bosch followed and picked up where he had left off, without saying anything about anybody’s rights.

“You do the guy in the pipe, Sharkey?”

“No way, man. I seen him, that’s all. He was already dead.”

The boy looked to his right at Wish as he said this. Then he pulled himself up in his chair.

“Okay, Sharkey,” Bosch said. “By the way, how old are you, where you from, tell me a couple of things like that.”

“Almost eighteen, man, then I’m free,” the boy said, looking at Bosch. “My mom lives up in Chatsworth, but I try not to live with-man, you already got all of this in one of your little notebooks.”

“You a faggot, Sharkey?”

“No way, man,” the boy said, staring hard at Bosch. “I sell them pictures, big fucking deal. I ain’t one of ’em.”

“You do more’n sell pictures to them? You roll a few when you get the chance? Bust ’em up, take their money. Who’s going to file a complaint? Right?”

Now Sharkey looked back over to Wish and raised an open hand. “I don’t do that shit. I thought we’re talking about the dead guy.”

“We are, Sharkey,” Bosch said. “I just want to figure out who we’re dealing with here, is all. Take it from the top. Tell us the story. I got pizza coming and there’s more cigarettes. We got the time.”

“It won’t take any time. I din’t see anything, except the body in there. I hope there’s no anchovies.”

He said this looking at Wish while pulling himself up in the chair. He had established a pattern in which he would look at Bosch when he was telling the truth, at Wish when he was shading it or outright lying. Scammers always play to the women, Bosch thought.

“Sharkey,” Bosch said, “if you want we can take you up to Sylmar and have ’em hold you overnight. We can start again in the morning, maybe when you’re memory’s a little-”

“I’m worried about my bike back there, might get stole.”

“Forget the bike,” Bosch said, leaning into the boy’s personal space. “We aren’t spoiling you, Sharkey, you haven’t told us anything yet. Start the story, then we’ll worry about the bike.”

“Okay, okay. I’ll tell you everything.”

The boy reached for his cigarettes on the table and Bosch pulled back and got out one of his own. The leaning in and out of his face was a technique Bosch had learned while spending what seemed like ten thousand hours in these little rooms. Lean in, invade that foot and a half that is all theirs, their own space. Lean back when you get what you want. It’s subliminal. Most of what goes on in a police interrogation has nothing to do with what is said. It is interpretation, nuance. And sometimes what isn’t said. He lit Sharkey’s cigarette first. Wish leaned back in her chair as they exhaled the blue smoke.