Michael Connelly - The Closers

“I still think the year ’eighty-eight might have something to do with this.”

“Maybe it does. You got anything in there about employment?”

“Looks like he drives a tow truck. He was driving a tow truck when he stopped to take the leak that got him the lewd and lash last time. This lists three different previous employers-all tow services.”

“That’s good. That’s a start.”

“We’ll find him.”

Bosch looked back down at the arrest report in front of him. It was a burglary from 1990. Mackey had been caught by a police dog in the concessions shop of the Pacific Drive-in Theater. He had broken in after hours, setting off a silent alarm. He had pilfered the cash drawer and filled a plastic bag with two hundred candy bars. His exit was slowed because he decided to turn on the cheese warmer and make himself some nachos. He was still inside the building when a responding officer with a dog sent the animal inside the shop. The report said Mackey was treated for dog bite injuries to the left arm and upper left thigh at County-USC Medical Center before being booked.

The record indicated that Mackey pleaded guilty to breaking and entering, a lesser charge, and was sentenced to time served-sixty-seven days in the Van Nuys jail-and two years probation.

The next report was a violation of that probation for an assault arrest. Bosch was about to read the report when Rider took the sheaf of photocopies out of his hands.

“It’s time to go see Garcia,” she said. “His sergeant said if we’re late we’ll miss him.”

She stood up and Bosch followed. They headed toward the Van Nuys Division. The Valley Bureau Command offices were on the third floor.

“In nineteen ninety Mackey was popped for a burglary at the old Pacific Drive-in,” Bosch said as they walked.

“Okay.”

“It was at Winnetka and Prairie. There’s a multiplex there now. That puts it about five or six blocks from where the Verloren weapon was stolen a couple years before. The burglary.”

“What do you think?”

“Two burglaries five blocks apart. I think maybe he liked working that area. I think he stole the gun. Or he was with the person who stole it.”

Rider nodded and they went up the stairs to the police station lobby and then took the elevator the rest of the way up to Valley Bureau Command. They were on time but still were made to wait. While sitting on a couch Bosch said, “I remember that drive-in. I went there a couple times when I was a kid. The one in Van Nuys, too.”

“We had our own on the south side,” Rider said.

“They turn it into a multiplex, too?”

“No. It’s just a parking lot. They don’t put multiplex money down there.”

“What about Magic Johnson?”

Bosch knew the former Laker basketball star had invested heavily in the community, including opening movie theaters.

“He’s only one man.”

“One man is a start, I guess.”

A woman with P2 stripes on her uniform’s sleeves came up to them.

“The commander will see you now.”

COMMANDER ARTURO GARCIA was standing behind his desk waiting as Bosch and Rider were led into his office by the uniformed assistant. Garcia was in uniform, too, and he wore it well and proudly. He had steel gray hair and a matching bottle-brush mustache. He exuded the confidence that the department used to carry and was fighting to recover.

“Detectives, come in, come in,” he said. “Sit down here and tell an old homicide dick how it’s hanging.”

They took the chairs in front of the desk.

“Thank you for seeing us so quickly,” Rider said.

Bosch and Rider had decided that she would take the lead with Garcia since she was more familiar with him through her liaison work in the chief’s office. Bosch also wasn’t sure he would be able to disguise his distaste for Garcia and the mistakes and missteps he and his partner had made on the Verloren investigation.

“Well, when Robbery-Homicide calls, you make the time, right?”

He smiled again.

“We actually work in the Open-Unsolved Unit,” Rider said.

Garcia lost his smile and for a moment Bosch thought he saw a flash of pain enter his eyes. Rider had made the appointment through an assistant in the commander’s office and had not revealed what case they were working.

“Becky Verloren,” the commander said.

Rider nodded.

“How did you know?”

“How did I know? I was the one who called that guy down there, the OIC, and I told him there was DNA on that case and they ought to send it through.”

“Detective Pratt?”

“Yeah, Pratt. As soon as that unit was up and operational I called him and said check out Becky Verloren, nineteen eighty-eight. What have you got? You got a match, right?”

Rider nodded.

“We got a very good match.”

“Who? I’ve been waiting seventeen years for this. Somebody from the restaurant, right?”

This gave Bosch pause. In the murder book there were interview summaries from people who worked in Robert Verloren’s restaurant but nothing that rose above the routine. Nothing that indicated suspicion or follow-up. Nothing in the investigative summaries that pointed the case toward the restaurant. To now hear one of the original investigators voice a long-held suspicion that the killer had come from that direction was incongruous with what they had spent the morning reading.

“Actually, no,” Rider said. “The DNA matches a man named Roland Mackey. He was eighteen at the time of the murder. He was in Chatsworth at the time. We don’t think he worked at the restaurant.”

Garcia frowned as though he was puzzled or maybe disappointed.

“Does that name mean anything to you?” Rider asked. “We didn’t come across it anywhere in the book.”

Garcia shook his head.

“I don’t place it, but it’s been a long time. Who is he?”

“We don’t know who he is yet. We’re circling him. We’re just starting.”

“I’m sure I would have remembered the name. His blood was on the gun, right?”

“That’s what we got. He’s got a history. Burglaries, receiving, drugs. We’re thinking he might be good for the burglary when the gun was taken.”

“Absolutely,” Garcia said, as if his excitement for the idea could make it so.

“We can connect him to the gun, no doubt,” Rider said. “But we’re looking for the connection to the girl. We thought maybe you’d remember something.”

“Have you talked to the mother and father yet?”

“Not yet. You’re our first stop.”

“That poor family. That was it for them.”

“You stayed in touch with the parents?”

“Initially, yeah. As long as I had the case. But once I made lieutenant and went back to patrol I had to give up the case. I kind of lost contact with them after that. It was Muriel mostly-the mother-who I had talked to. The father… there was something going on with him. He didn’t do well. He left home, they divorced, the whole thing. Lost the restaurant. Last I heard, he was living on the street. He would show up at the house from time to time and ask Muriel for money.”

“What made you guess it was somebody from the restaurant when we came in here?”

Garcia shook his head like he was frustrated by reaching for a memory he couldn’t quite grasp.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I can’t remember. It was more like a feeling. There was stuff wrong with the case. Something was hinky about it.”

“How so?”

“Well, you read the book, I’m sure. She wasn’t raped. She was carried up that hill and it was made to look like a suicide. It was done badly. It was really an execution. So we weren’t talking about the random intruder. Somebody she knew wanted her dead. And they either went in that house or sent somebody in that house.”