Michael Connelly - City Of Bones

Arthur Delacroix’s coffin looked like it had been made for an adult. It was polished gray with brushed chrome handles. As coffins went it was beautiful, like a newly waxed car. The rain beaded on its surface and then slid down into the hole beneath. But it was still too big for those bones and somehow that bothered Bosch. It was like seeing a child in ill-fitting clothes, obvious hand-me-downs. It always seemed to say something about the child. That they were wanting. That they were second.

When the rain started coming down harder the preacher raised an umbrella from his side and held his prayer book with one hand. A few of his lines managed to drift over to Bosch intact. He was talking about the greater kingdom that had welcomed Arthur. It made Bosch think of Golliher and his unfaltering faith in that kingdom despite the atrocities he studied and documented every day. For Bosch, though, the jury was still out on all of that. He was still a dweller in the lesser kingdom.

Bosch noticed that none of the three family members looked at one another. After the coffin was lowered and the preacher made the final sign of the cross, Sheila turned and started walking down the slope to the parking road. She had never once acknowledged her parents.

Samuel immediately followed and when Sheila looked back and saw him coming after her she picked up speed. Finally, she just dropped the umbrella and started running. She made it to her car and drove away before her father could catch up.

Samuel watched his daughter’s car cutting through the vast cemetery until it disappeared through the gate. He then went back and picked up the discarded umbrella. He took it to his own car and left as well.

Bosch looked back at the burial site. The preacher was gone. Bosch looked about and saw the top of a black umbrella disappearing over the crest of the hill. Bosch didn’t know where the man was going, unless he had another funeral to officiate on the other side of the hill.

That left Christine Waters at the grave. Bosch watched her say a silent prayer and then walk toward the two remaining cars on the road below. He chose an angle of intersection and headed that way. As he got close she calmly looked at him.

“Detective Bosch, I am surprised to see you here.”

“Why is that?”

“Aren’t detectives supposed to be aloof, not get emotionally involved? Showing up at a funeral shows emotional attachment, don’t you think? Especially rainy-day funerals.”

He fell into stride next to her and she gave him half of the umbrella’s protection.

“Why did you claim the remains?” he asked. “Why did you do this?”

He gestured back toward the grave on the hill.

“Because I didn’t think anybody else would.”

They got to the road. Bosch’s car was parked in front of hers.

“Good-bye, Detective,” she said as she broke from him, walked between the cars and went to the driver’s door of hers.

“I have something for you.”

She opened the car door and looked back at him.

“What?”

He opened his door and popped the trunk. He walked back between the cars. She closed her umbrella and threw it into her car and then came over.

“Somebody once told me that life was the pursuit of one thing. Redemption. The search for redemption.”

“For what?”

“For everything. Anything. We all want to be forgiven.”

He raised the trunk lid and took out a cardboard box. He held it out to her.

“Take care of these kids.”

She didn’t take the box. Instead she lifted the lid and looked inside. There were stacks of envelopes held together by rubber bands. There were loose photos. On top was the photo of the boy from Kosovo who had the thousand-yard stare. She reached into the box.

“Where are they from?” she asked, as she lifted an envelope from one of the charities.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “Somebody has to take care of them.”

She nodded and carefully put the lid back on. She took the box from Bosch and walked it back to her car. She put it on the backseat and then went to the open front door. She looked at Bosch before getting in. She looked like she was about to say something but then she stopped. She got in the car and drove away. Bosch closed the trunk of his car and watched her go.

THE edict of the chief of police was once again being ignored. Bosch turned on the squad room lights and went to his spot at the homicide table. He put down two empty cardboard boxes.

It was late Sunday, near midnight. He’d decided to come in and clear out his desk and files when no one else would be around to watch. He still had one more day in Hollywood Division but he didn’t want to spend it packing boxes and exchanging insincere good-byes with anyone. His plan was to have a clean desk at the start of the day and a three-hour lunch at Musso amp; Frank’s to end it. He’d say a few good-byes to those who mattered and then slip out the back door before anyone even knew he was gone. It was the only way to do it.

He started with his file cabinet, taking the murder books of the open cases that still kept him awake some nights. He wasn’t giving up on them just yet. His plan was to work the cases during the downtimes in RHD. Or to work them at home alone.

With one box full he turned to his desk and started emptying the file drawers. When he pulled out the mason jar full of bullet shells, he paused. He had not yet put the shell collected at Julia Brasher’s funeral into the jar. Instead he had put that one on a shelf in his home. Next to the picture of the shark he would always keep there as a reminder of the perils of leaving the safety cage. Her father had allowed him to take it.

He carefully put the jar into the corner of the second box and made sure it was held secure by the other contents. He then opened the middle drawer and started collecting all the pens and pads and other office supplies.

Old phone messages and business cards from people he had met on cases were scattered throughout the drawer. Bosch checked each one before deciding whether to keep it or drop it into the trash can. After he had a stack of keepers he put a rubber band around it and dropped it into the box.

When the drawer was almost clear, he pulled out a folded piece of paper and opened it. There was a message on it.

Where are you, tough guy?

Bosch studied it for a long time. Soon it made him think about all that had happened since he had pulled his car to a stop on Wonderland Avenue just thirteen days before. It made him think about what he was doing and where he was going. It made him think of Trent and Stokes and most of all Arthur Delacroix and Julia Brasher. It made him think about what Golliher had said while studying the bones of the murder victims from millenniums ago. And it made him know the answer to the question on the piece of paper.

“Nowhere,” he said out loud.

He folded the paper and put it in the box. He looked down at his hands, at the scars across the knuckles. He ran the fingers of one hand across the markings on the other. He thought about the interior scars left from punching all of the brick walls he couldn’t see.

He had always known that he would be lost without his job and his badge and his mission. In that moment he came to realize that he could be just as lost with it all. In fact, he could be lost because of it. The very thing he thought he needed the most was the thing that drew the shroud of futility around him.

He made a decision.

He reached into his back pocket and took out his badge wallet. He slid the ID card out from behind the plastic window and then unclipped the badge. He ran his thumb along the indentations where it said Detective. It felt like the scars on his knuckles.