Michael Connelly - Lost Light

When they reached this dead end it was time to evaluate the case at the six-month mark. This is the point where hard choices are made. The probability of clearing the case is weighed against the need for the pair of investigators to work other cases and help shoulder the caseload of the division. Their supervisor took the case off full-time status and Dorsey and Cross went back into rotation at RHD. They were free to work the Benton case as often and as much as possible, but they also drew new investigations. As could be expected, the Benton case suffered for it. Cross had readily admitted this to me. He said it became a part-time investigation, with Dorsey doing most of the follow-up while Cross concentrated on the new cases they were assigned.

Then it all became academic when the pair got shot up in Nat’s bar in Hollywood. The Benton case went into the OU files. Open-Unsolved. And it was orphaned. No detective likes a hand-me-down file, which the Benton case was. No one likes the idea of going into a file and proving his colleagues were wrong or misguided or possibly even incompetent or lazy. Added to this deterrent was the fact that the Benton case was now haunted. Cops are a superstitious species. The fate of the two original investigators-one dead, the other in a chair for life-was somehow inextricably bound to the cases they had worked, whether directly related or not. Nobody, and I mean nobody, was going to take on the Benton case now.

Except me. Now that I was out of the official game.

And four years later, I had to trust that Cross and Dorsey had done their job well in the investigation of Angella Benton’s death and its connection to the robbery. I had no choice really. Covering the ground they had already trod to a dead end didn’t seem to be the way to go. That was why I went to see Taylor. My plan was to accept their investigation as thorough if not flawless and approach it from a different direction. I was operating on the belief that Cross and Dorsey found nothing linking Benton to the robbery because there was nothing to find. Her death had been part of a plan, a carefully planned misdirection within a misdirection. I now had a list with nine names on it that had come out of my three-mile ride with Taylor. All the people involved in the planning of the money shoot. Everyone-as far as he knew-with knowledge that the cash was coming, when it was coming and who would bring it. I would go from there.

But now I had been thrown a curveball of sorts; what Cross had told me about the serial numbers and how at least one of them had been wrong. He said he had left it to Dorsey to pursue and didn’t know what had happened. Shortly thereafter Dorsey was dead and the case died with him. But now I was interested. It was an anomaly and it had to be dealt with. Coupled with Kiz Rider’s warning and oblique reference to “these people,” I felt something stirring inside that had been absent for a long time. A small tug toward the darkness I one time knew so well.

I drove back into Hollywood and ate a late lunch at Musso’s. A Ketel One martini for openers, followed by chicken pot pie, creamed spinach on the side. A good combination, but not good enough to make me forget about Lawton Cross and his situation. I asked for a second martini to help with that and tried to concentrate on other things.

I hadn’t been back to Musso’s since my retirement party and I missed the place. I had my head down and was reading and writing some notes when I heard a voice in the restaurant that I recognized. I looked up and saw Captain LeValley being led to a table with a man I didn’t recognize. She was commander of the Hollywood Division, which was only a few blocks away. Three days after I’d left my badge in a desk drawer and walked out she called to ask me to reconsider. She almost convinced me but I said no. I told her to send in my papers and she did. She didn’t come to my retirement party and we hadn’t spoken since.

She didn’t see me and sat with her back to me in a booth far enough away that I could not hear her conversation. I left by the back way without finishing the second martini. In the lot I paid the attendant and got in my car, a Mercedes Benz ML55 that I’d bought used from a guy moving to Florida. It had been the one big extravagance I allowed myself after retiring. In my mind the ML55 stood for Money Lost: $55,000, because that was what I paid for it. It was one of the fastest sport utility vehicles on the road. But that wasn’t really why I bought it. The low mileage on it wasn’t the reason either. I bought it because it was black and it blended in. Every fifth car in L.A. was a Mercedes, or so it seemed. And every fifth one of them was a black M-class SUV. I think maybe I knew where I was going long before I started the journey. Eight months before I would need it I’d bought an automobile that would serve me well as a private investigator. It had speed and comfort, it had dark smoked windows, and if you looked in your mirror and saw one of these behind you in L.A. it wouldn’t cause a second thought.

The Mercedes took some getting used to. In terms of comfort as well as routine operation and maintenance. In fact, I had already run out of gas on the road twice. It was one of those little things that came with giving up the badge. For several years before my retirement I had been a detective third grade, a supervisory-level position that came with a take-home car. That car was a Ford Crown Victoria, the Police Interceptor model that rode like a tank, had vinyl wash-off seats, heavy-duty suspension and the expanded gas tank. I never needed gas when on the job. And the car was routinely refueled at the station by the guys from the motor pool. As a citizen I had to re-learn to watch the needle. Or else I found myself sitting on the side of the road.

From the center console I retrieved my cell phone and turned it on. I’d had little need for a cell phone but had kept the one I carried on the job. I don’t know, maybe I thought somebody from the division would call and ask my advice on a case or something. For four months I kept it charged and turned it on every day. Nobody ever called. After the second time I ran out of gas I plugged it into the charger in the center console and left it there for the next time I would need roadside assistance.

Now I needed assistance but not of the roadside variety. I called information and got the number for the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Los Angeles. I called the number and asked for the supervisory agent in the bank squad. I figured the agent that had contacted Dorsey might have worked in the unit that handled bank robberies. It was the unit that most often dealt with currency numbers.

My call was transferred and picked up by someone who simply said, “Nunez.”

“Agent Nunez?”

“Yes, what can I help you with?”

I knew that handling a supervising FBI agent would not be the same as handling the secretary of a movie mogul. I had to be as up-front as I could with Nunez.

“Yes, my name is Harry Bosch. I just retired from the LAPD after about thirty years and I -”

“Good for you,” he said curtly. “What can I do for you?”

“Well, that’s what I’m trying to tell you. About four years ago I was working a homicide case that was connected to a large cash robbery involving currency that had been recorded.”

“What case?”

“Well, you probably won’t recognize it by case name but it was the murder of Angella Benton. The murder preceded the robbery, which took place on a movie set in Hollywood. It made a big splash. The bad guys got away with two million dollars. Eight hundred of the hundred-dollar bills had been recorded.”

“I remember it. But we did not work it. We had noth-”

“I know that. Like I told you, I worked the case.”