Michael Connelly - Trunk Music

“If you are,” she said, perhaps sensing his indecision, “I’d like to be in on it. You know the bureau isn’t going to work it with any due diligence. They’re going to let it drop.”

“Count me in, too,” Edgar added.

Bosch hesitated again, looked from one to the other and then nodded.

“How ’bout we meet at Musso’s at twelve-thirty?” he said. “I’m buying.”

“We’ll be there,” Edgar said.

When he got back to the front of the bureau, he saw through the glass window of her office that Billets was off the phone and looking at some paperwork. Her door was open and Bosch stepped in, knocking on the doorjamb as he entered.

“Good morning, Harry.” There was a wistfulness to her voice and demeanor, as if maybe she was embarrassed that he was her front-desk man. “Anything happening I should know about right away?”

“I don’t think so. It looks pretty tame. Uh, there’s a hot prowler working the strip hotels again, though. At least it looks like one guy. Did one at the Chateau and another at the Hyatt last night. People never woke up. Looks like the same MO on both.”

“Were the vics anybody we should know and care about?”

“I don’t think so but I don’t read People magazine. I might not recognize a celebrity if they came up and bit me.”

She smiled.

“How much were the losses?”

“I don’t know. I’m not done with that pile yet. That’s not why I came in. I just wanted to say thanks again for sticking up for me like you did yesterday.”

“That was hardly sticking up for you.”

“Yes it was. In those kinds of circumstances what you said and did was sticking your neck way out. I appreciate it.”

“Well, like I said, I did it because I don’t believe it. And the sooner IAD and the bureau get on with it, the sooner they won’t believe it. When’s your appointment, by the way?”

“Two.”

“Who is your defense rep going to be?”

“Guy I know from RHD. Name’s Dennis Zane. He’s a good guy and he’ll know what to do for me. You know him?”

“No. But listen, let me know if there is anything else I can do.”

“Thanks, Lieutenant.”

“Grace.”

“Right. Grace.”

When Bosch went back to his desk he thought about his appointment with Chastain. In accordance with departmental procedures, Bosch would be represented by a union defense rep who was actually a fellow detective. He would act almost as an attorney would, counseling Bosch on what to say and how to say it. It was the first formal step of the internal investigation and disciplinary process.

When he looked up, he saw a woman standing at the counter with a young girl. The girl had red-rimmed eyes and a marble-sized swelling on her lower lip that looked like it might have been the result of a bite. She was disheveled and stared at the wall behind Bosch with a distance in her eyes that suggested that a window was there. But there wasn’t.

Bosch could have asked how he could help them without moving from his desk, but it didn’t take a detective to guess why they were there. He got up, came around the desk and approached the counter so they could speak confidentially. Rape victims were the people who evoked the most sadness in Bosch. He knew he wouldn’t be able to last a month on a rape squad. Every victim he had ever seen had that stare. It was a sign that all things in their lives were different now and forever. They would never get back to what they had had before.

After speaking briefly to the mother and daughter, Bosch asked if the girl needed immediate medical attention and the mother said she didn’t. He opened the half door in the counter and ushered them both back to one of the three interview rooms off the hallway to the rear of the bureau. He then went to the sex crimes table and approached Mary Cantu, a detective who had been handling for years what Bosch knew he couldn’t handle for a month.

“Mary, you’ve got a walk-in back in room three,” Bosch said. “She’s fifteen. Happened last night. She got too curious about the pusher who works the nearby corner. He grabbed her and sold her and a rock to his next customer. She’s with her mother.”

“Thanks, Bosch. Just what I needed on a Friday. I’ll go right back. You ask if she needed medical?”

“She said no, but I think the answer is yes.”

“Okay, I’ll handle it. Thanks.”

Back at the front desk, it took Bosch a few minutes to clear his thoughts about the girl from his mind and another forty-five to finish reading through the reports and deliver them to the appropriate detective squads.

When he was done, he checked on Billets through the window and saw she was on the phone with a pile of paperwork in front of her. Bosch got up and went to his file cabinet and took out the copy of the murder book he had put there earlier. He lugged the thick binder back to his desk at the front counter. He had decided that in his free time between his duties at the front desk he would begin reviewing the murder book. The case had taken off so quickly earlier in the week that he had not had the time he usually liked to spend reviewing the paperwork. He knew from experience that command of the details and the nuances of an investigation was often the key to closing it out. He had just started turning through the pages in a cursory review when a vaguely familiar voice addressed him from the counter.

“Is that what I think it is?”

Bosch looked up. It was O’Grady, the FBI agent. Bosch felt his face burn with embarrassment that he’d been caught red-handed with the file and with his growing dislike for the agent.

“Yeah, it’s what you think it is, O’Grady. You were supposed to be here a half hour ago to pick it up.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t run on your time. I had things to do.”

“Like what, get your buddy Roy a new ponytail?”

“Just give me the binder, Bosch. And all the rest.”

Bosch still had not gotten up and made no move to now.

“What do you want it for, O’Grady? We all know you’re going to let the thing drop. You people don’t care who killed Tony Aliso and you don’t want to know.”

“That’s bullshit. Give me the file.”

O’Grady reached over the counter and was reaching around blindly for the release button on the half door.

“Hold your fucking horses, man,” Bosch said as he stood up. “Just wait there. I’ll get it all.”

Carrying the binder, Bosch walked back to the homicide table and, using his back to shield O’Grady’s view, placed the binder on the table and picked up the box containing the original binder and the ancillary reports and evidence bags that Edgar and Rider had put in with it. He carried it back and dropped it on the counter in front of O’Grady.

“You gotta sign for it,” he said. “We’re extra careful about how we handle evidence and who gets to handle it.”

“Yeah, right. The whole world knows that from the O.J. case, don’t they?”

Bosch grabbed O’Grady’s tie and jerked his upper body down over the counter. The agent could not find a purchase with his hands that would give him the leverage to pull back. Bosch bent down so that he was talking directly into his ear.

“Excuse me?”

“Bosch, you-”

“Harry!”

Bosch looked up. Billets was standing in the door of her office. Bosch let go of the tie and O’Grady’s body sprang backward as he straightened up. His face was crimson with embarrassment and anger. As he jerked his tie loose from around his neck he yelled, “You’re certifiable, you know that? You’re a fucking asshole!”

“I didn’t know you agents used that kind of language,” Bosch said.

“Harry, just sit down,” Billets commanded. “I’ll take care of this.”