Michael Connelly - The Closers

“Where’s Kiz?” Pratt asked.

“She’s working on the warrant at home. She can think better there.”

“I can’t think when I get home. I can only react. I have twin boys.”

“Good luck.”

“Yeah, I need it. I’m going that way now. I’ll see you tomorrow, Harry.”

“Okay.”

But Pratt didn’t walk away. Bosch looked up from the typewriter at him. He thought maybe something was wrong. Maybe it was the typewriter.

“I found this on a desk on the other side,” Bosch said. “It didn’t look like it was being used by anybody.”

“It wasn’t. Most people use their computers now. You are definitely an old-school kind of guy, Harry.”

“I guess. Kiz usually does the reports, but I have some time to kill.”

“Working late?”

“I’ve got to go over to the Nickel.”

“ Fifth Street? What do you want over there?”

“Looking for our victim’s father.”

Pratt shook his head somberly.

“Another one of those. We’ve seen it before.”

Bosch nodded.

“Ripples,” he said.

“Yeah, ripples,” Pratt agreed.

Bosch was thinking about offering to walk out with Pratt, maybe have a conversation and get to know him better, but his cell phone started to chirp. He pulled it off his belt and saw the name Sam Weiss in the caller ID screen.

“I better take this.”

“All right, Harry. Be careful over there.”

“Thanks, Boss.”

He flipped open the phone.

“Detective Bosch,” he said.

“Detective?”

Bosch remembered he had left no information on his message to Weiss.

“Mr. Weiss, my name is Harry Bosch. I am a detective with the LAPD. I’d like to ask you a few questions about an investigation I am conducting.”

“I have all the time you need, Detective. Is this about my gun?”

The question caught Bosch off guard.

“Why would you ask that, sir?”

“Well, because I know it was used in a murder that was never solved. And that’s the only thing I can think of that the LAPD would want to ask me about.”

“Well, yes, sir, it’s about the gun. Can I talk to you about it?”

“If it means you are trying to find who killed that girl, then you can ask me anything you want.”

“Thank you. I guess the first thing I’d like is for you to tell me how and when you knew or were told that the weapon stolen from you was used in a homicide.”

“It was in the papers-the murder was-and I put two and two together. I called the detective assigned to my burglary and asked and got the answer I wish I hadn’t.”

“Why is that, Mr. Weiss?”

“Because I’ve had to live with it.”

“But you didn’t do anything wrong, sir.”

“I know that, but it doesn’t make a person feel any better. I bought that gun because I was having trouble with a bunch of punks. I wanted protection. Then the gun I bought ended up being the instrument of death for that young girl. Don’t think I haven’t thought about changing history. I mean, what if I wasn’t so stubborn? What if I just pulled up stakes and moved instead of going and buying that damn thing? You see what I mean?”

“Yes, I see.”

“Now, that said, what else can I tell you, Detective?”

“I have just a few questions. Calling you was sort of a shot in the dark. I thought it might be easier than trying to find my way back through seventeen years of paperwork and department history. I have the initial report on the burglary and the investigator is listed as John McClellan. Do you remember him?”

“Sure, I remember him.”

“Did he ever clear the case?”

“Not as far as I know. At first John thought it might have been connected to the punks who had threatened me.”

“And was it?”

“John told me no. But I was never sure. The burglars really tore the place apart. It wasn’t like they were really looking for stuff to steal. They were just destroying things-my belongings. I walked in this place and, man, I could feel a lot of anger.”

“Why do you say burglars? Did the police think it was more than one?”

“John figured it had to be at least two or three. I was only gone an hour-went to the store. One guy couldn’t have done all that damage in that time.”

“The report lists the gun, a coin collection and some cash that was taken. Anything else come up missing after?”

“No, that was it. That was enough. At least I got the coins back, and that was the most valuable thing. It was my father’s collection from when he was a boy.”

“How did you get it back?”

“John McClellan. He brought them back to me a couple weeks later.”

“Did he say where he recovered them from?”

“He said a pawnshop in West Hollywood. And then, of course, we know what became of the gun. But that was not given back to me. I wouldn’t have taken it anyway.”

“I understand, sir. Did Detective McClellan ever tell you who he thought burglarized your home? Did he have any theories?”

“He thought it was just another set of punks, you know. Not the Chatsworth Eights.”

The mention of the Chatsworth Eights stirred something in Bosch, but he couldn’t place it.

“Mr. Weiss, act like I don’t know anything. Who were the Chatsworth Eights?”

“It was a gang out here in the Valley. They were all white kids. Skinheads. And back in nineteen eighty-eight they committed a number of crimes out here. They were hate crimes. That’s what they called them in the papers. Back then it was the new term for crimes motivated by race or religion.”

“And you were the target of this gang?”

“Yeah, I started getting calls. The typical kill-the-Jew stuff.”

“But then the police told you the Eights did not commit the burglary.”

“That’s right.”

“Strange, isn’t it? They didn’t see any connection.”

“That’s what I thought at the time but he was the detective, not me.”

“What made the Eights target you, Mr. Weiss? I know you are Jewish but what made them pick you out?”

“Simple. One of the little shits was a kid who lived in my neighborhood. Billy Burkhart was four houses away. I put a menorah in my window during Chanukah and that’s when it all started.”

“What happened to Burkhart?”

“He went to jail. Not for what he did to me, but to others. They got him and the others on other crimes. They burned a cross a few blocks from me. In the front lawn of a black family. And they did other things. Mean things, vandalism. They tried to burn a temple, too.”

“But not the burglary at your house.”

“That’s right. That’s what the police told me. You see, there was no graffiti or indication of religious motivation. The place was just torn apart. So they didn’t classify the burglary as a hate crime.”

Bosch hesitated, wondering if there was anything else to ask. He decided he didn’t know enough to ask smart questions.

“Okay, Mr. Weiss, I appreciate your time. And I am sorry to reawaken bad memories.”

“Don’t worry about it, Detective. Believe me, they weren’t asleep.”

Bosch closed the phone. He tried to think of whom he could call about all of this. He didn’t know John McClellan and the chances of his still being in Devonshire Division seventeen years later were slim. Then it hit him: Jerry Edgar. His old partner at Hollywood Division had previously been assigned to Devonshire detectives. He would have been there in 1988.

Bosch called the Hollywood homicide table but got the machine. Everybody had cut out early. He called the main detective bureau number and asked if Edgar was around. Bosch knew that there was a sign-out chart at the front counter. The clerk who answered the phone said Edgar had signed out for the day.