Michael Connelly - City Of Bones

Bosch just looked at him. Edgewood became uncomfortable, nodded once and walked away. When he was gone Bosch found himself looking at a woman who had been standing right behind the cop. A Latina with silver hair. It took Bosch a moment to recognize her.

“Dr. Hinojos.”

“Detective Bosch, how are you?”

It was the hair. Almost seven years earlier, when Bosch had been a regular visitor to Hinojos’s office, her hair had been a deep brown without a hint of gray. She was still an attractive woman, gray or brown. But the change was startling.

“I’m doing okay. How’re things in the psych shop?”

She smiled.

“They’re fine.”

“I hear you run the whole show now.”

She nodded. Bosch felt himself getting nervous. When he had known her before, he had been on an involuntary stress leave. In twice-a-week sessions he had told her things he had never told anyone before or since. And once he was returned to duty he had never spoken to her again.

Until now.

“Did you know Julia Brasher?” he asked.

It wasn’t unusual for a department shrink to attend a line-of-duty funeral; to offer on-the-spot counseling to those close to the deceased.

“No, not really. Not personally. As head of the department I reviewed her academy application and screening interview. I signed off on it.”

She waited a moment, studying Bosch for a reaction.

“I understand you were close to her. And that you were there. You were the witness.”

Bosch nodded. People leaving the funeral were passing on both sides of them. Hinojos took a step closer to him so that she would not be overheard.

“This is not the time or place but, Harry, I want to talk to you about her.”

“What’s there to talk about?”

“I want to know what happened. And why.”

“It was an accident. Talk to Chief Irving.”

“I have and I’m not satisfied. I doubt you are, either.”

“Listen, Doctor, she’s dead, okay? I’m not going to-”

“I signed off on her. My signature put that badge on her. If we missed something-if I missed something-I want to know. If there were signs, we should have seen them.”

Bosch nodded and looked down at the grass between them.

“Don’t worry, there were signs I should’ve seen. But I didn’t put it together either.”

She took another step closer. Now Bosch could look nowhere but directly at her.

“Then I am right. There is something more to this.”

He nodded.

“Nothing overt. It’s just that she lived close to the edge. She took risks-she crossed the tube. She was trying to prove something. I don’t think she was even sure she wanted to be a cop.”

“Prove something to who?”

“I don’t know. Maybe herself, maybe somebody else.”

“Harry, I knew you as a man of great instincts. What else?”

Bosch shrugged.

“It’s just things she did or said… I have a scar on my shoulder from a bullet wound. She asked me about it. The other night. She asked how I got shot and I told her how I had been lucky that it hit me where it did because it was all bone. Then… where she shot herself, it’s the same spot. Only with her… it ricocheted. She didn’t expect that.”

Hinojos nodded and waited.

“What I’ve been thinking I can’t stand thinking, know what I mean?”

“Tell me, Harry.”

“I keep replaying it in my head. What I saw and what I know. She pointed her gun at him. And I think if I hadn’t been there and yelled that maybe she would have shot him. Once he was down she would have wrapped his hands around the gun and fired a shot into the ceiling or maybe a car. Or maybe into him. It wouldn’t matter as long as he ended up dead with paraffin on his hands and she could claim he went for her gun.”

“What are you suggesting, that she shot herself in order to kill him and make herself look like a hero?”

“I don’t know. She talked about the world needing heroes. Especially now. She said she hoped to get a chance to be a hero one day. But I think there was something else in all of this. It was like she wanted the scar, the experience of it.”

“And she was willing to kill for it?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know if I’m even right about any of this. All I know is that she might have been a rookie but she had already reached the point where there was a line between us and them, where everybody without a badge is a scumbag. She saw it happening to herself. She might have been just looking for a way out…”

Bosch shook his head and looked off to the side. The cemetery was almost deserted now.

“I don’t know. Saying it out loud makes it sound… I don’t know. It’s a crazy world.”

He took a step back from Hinojos.

“I guess you never really know anybody, do you?” he asked. “You might think you do. You might be close enough to sleep with somebody but you’ll never know what’s really going on inside.”

“No, you won’t. Everybody’s got secrets.”

Bosch nodded and was about to step away.

“Wait, Harry.”

She lifted her purse and opened it. She started digging through it.

“I still want to talk about this,” she said as she came out with a business card and handed it to him. “I want you to call me. Completely unofficial, confidential. For the good of the department.”

Bosch almost laughed.

“The department doesn’t care about it. The department cares about the image, not the truth. And when the truth endangers the image, then fuck the truth.”

“Well, I care, Harry. And so do you.”

Bosch looked down at the card and nodded and put it in his pocket.

“Okay, I’ll call you.”

“My cell phone’s on there. I carry it with me all the time.”

Bosch nodded. She stepped forward and reached out. She grasped his arm and squeezed it.

“What about you, Harry? Are you okay?”

“Well, other than losing her and being told by Irving to start thinking about retiring, I’m doing okay.”

Hinojos frowned.

“Hang in there, Harry.”

Bosch nodded, thinking about how he had used the same words with Julia at the end.

Hinojos went off and Bosch continued his trek to the grave. He thought he was alone now. He grabbed a handful of dirt from the fill mound and walked over and looked down. A whole bouquet and several single flowers had been dropped on top of the casket. Bosch thought about holding Julia in his bed just two nights before. He wished he had seen what was coming. He wished he had been able to take the hints and put them into a clear picture of what she was doing and where she was going.

Slowly, he raised his hand out and let the dirt slide through his fingers.

“City of bones,” he whispered.

He watched the dirt fall into the grave like dreams disappearing.

“I assume you knew her.”

Bosch quickly turned. It was her father. Smiling sadly. They were the only two left in the cemetery. Bosch nodded.

“Just recently. I got to know her. I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Frederick Brasher.”

He put out his hand. Bosch started to take it but then held up.

“My hand’s dirty.”

“Don’t worry. So is mine.”

They shook hands.

“Harry Bosch.”

Brasher’s hand stopped its shaking movement for a moment as the name registered.

“The detective,” he said. “You were there yesterday.”

“Yes. I tried… I did what I could to help her. I…”

He stopped. He didn’t know what to say.

“I’m sure you did. It must’ve been an awful thing to be there.”

Bosch nodded. A wave of guilt passed through him like an X-ray lighting his bones. He had left her there, thinking she would be all right. Somehow it hurt almost as bad as the fact she had died.