Michael Connelly - The Closers

Bosch sat down in a chair next to her.

“What?”

“I’ve got Burkhart’s probation jacket.”

She pulled a file from her bag, opened it and slid it in front of Bosch on the coffee table. She tapped a fingernail on a line on a release form. Bosch leaned down to read it.

“Released from Wayside July first, nineteen eighty-eight. Reported to probation and parole in Van Nuys on July fifth.”

He straightened up and looked at her.

“So he’s in play.”

“Absolutely. They took him in on the synagogue vandalism on January twenty-sixth. Never made bail and, with time served credits, got out of Wayside five months later. He’s totally in play on this, Harry.”

Bosch felt a charge of excitement as things seemed to fall closer together.

“Okay, good. Did you amend the warrant to include him?”

“I put him in but not in too big a way. Mackey’s still the direct link because of the gun.”

Bosch nodded and looked across the room at the empty desk where the judge’s clerk would normally sit. The name plate on the desk said KATHY CHRZANOWSKI and Bosch wondered how the name would be pronounced and where she was. He then decided to try not to think about what was happening inside the judge’s chambers.

“You want to hear the latest from Commander Garcia?” he asked.

Rider was putting the probation file back in her bag.

“Sure.”

Bosch spent the next ten minutes recounting his visit to Garcia’s office, the newspaper interview, and the commander’s revelations at the end.

“You think he told you everything?” she asked.

“You mean about how much he knew of what happened back then? No, but he told me as much as he was willing to.”

“I think he had to have been part of the deal. I can’t see one partner making a deal the other one doesn’t know about. Not a deal like that.”

“Then if he was in on it, why would he call up Pratt and tell him to send the DNA through the DOJ? Wouldn’t he have just sat on it like he had been doing for seventeen years?”

“Not necessarily. A guilty conscience works in strange ways, Harry. Maybe this has been working on Garcia all these years and he decided to call Pratt to make himself feel better about it. Plus, say he was in on the deal back then with Irving. He might have felt safe to make that call once Irving was pushed to the side by the new chief.”

Bosch thought about Garcia’s reaction to his saying Green might have been haunted by the ones he let get away. Maybe Garcia got heated because it was he who was haunted.

“I don’t know,” Bosch said. “Maybe -”

Bosch’s cell phone chirped. As he pulled it out of his pocket, Rider said, “You better turn that off before we go in. That’s one thing Judge Demchak doesn’t like going off in chambers. I heard about a DA whose phone she confiscated.”

Bosch nodded and opened his phone and said hello.

“Detective Bosch?”

“Yes.”

“It’s Tara Wood. I thought we had an appointment.”

It struck Bosch before she finished the sentence that he had forgotten the meeting at CBS and the bowl of gumbo he was planning for lunch beforehand. He hadn’t even had time for lunch.

“ Tara, I am really sorry. Something came up and we had to sort of run with it. I should have called you but it slipped my mind. I’m going to need to reschedule the interview, if you will still talk to me after this.”

“Um, sure, no problem. I just had a couple of the writers from the show hanging around. They were going to try to talk to you.”

“What show?”

“ Cold Case . Remember, I told you we have a -”

“Oh, right, the show. Well, I’m sorry about that.”

Now Bosch didn’t feel so bad. She had been trying to use his interview appointment to work up a publicity angle of some kind. He wondered if there was any feeling left in her for Rebecca Verloren. As if knowing his thoughts, she asked about the case.

“Is something happening on the case? Is that why you weren’t here?”

“Sort of. We’re making progress but there is nothing I can tell you right-actually, there is something. Did you think at all about that name I mentioned last night? Roland Mackey? Ringing any bells?”

“No, still no.”

“I’ve got another one. What about William Burkhart? Maybe Bill Burkhart?”

There was a long silence while Wood did a memory scan.

“No, I’m sorry. I don’t think I know him.”

“What about the name Billy Blitzkrieg?”

“Billy Blitzkrieg? You’re kidding, right?”

“No, why, you recognize it?”

“No, not at all. It sounds like a heavy metal rock star or something.”

“No, he’s not. But you’re sure none of the names do anything for you?”

“I’m sorry, Detective.”

Bosch looked up and saw a woman beckoning to them from the open door of the chambers. Rider looked at him and drew a finger across her throat.

“Look, Tara, I need to go now. I will call you to set up the interview as soon as I can. I apologize again and I will call you soon. Thank you.”

He closed the phone before she could respond and then he turned it off. He followed Rider through the door being held open by a woman Bosch assumed was Kathy Chrzanowski.

The shades were drawn over the floor-to-ceiling windows at the far end of the room. A single desk lamp lit the chambers. Behind the desk Bosch saw a woman who appeared to be in her late sixties. She looked small behind the large dark wood desk. She had a kind face, which gave Bosch hope that they would get out of the office with her approval for the phone taps.

“Detectives, come in and sit down,” she said. “I am sorry to have held you out there waiting.”

“No problem, Your Honor,” Rider said. “We appreciate your taking a thorough look at this.”

Bosch and Rider sat in chairs in front of the desk. The judge was not wearing her black robe. Bosch noticed it hanging on a hat rack in the corner. Next to it on the wall was a framed photograph of Demchak with a notoriously liberal state supreme court justice. Bosch felt his stomach tighten. Then on the desk he saw two framed photographs. One was of an older man and a young boy holding golf clubs. Her husband and a grandson maybe. The other photo showed a young girl of maybe nine or ten riding on a swing. But the colors were fading. It was an old photo. Maybe it was her daughter. Bosch started to think that the connection to children might make the difference.

“You seem to be in quite a hurry with this,” the judge said. “Is there a reason for that?”

Bosch looked at Rider and she leaned forward to answer. This was her show. He was just there as a backup and to send the message to the judge that this one was important. Cops had to be lobbyists on occasion.

“Yes, Your Honor, a couple reasons,” Rider began. “The main one is that we believe there is a newspaper article that will be in the Daily News tomorrow. It may cause our primary suspect, Roland Mackey, to contact other suspects-one of whom is listed in the warrant-and talk about the murder. As you can see from the warrant, we believe more than one individual was involved in this crime but we have only directly linked Mackey to it. If we are up and running our taps when the newspaper story hits, we might be able to identify the others involved through his calls and conversations.”

The judge nodded but she wasn’t looking at them. Her eyes were cast down on the application and authorization forms. She had a serious look on her face and Bosch began to get a bad feeling. After a few moments of silence, she said, “And the other reason for your hurry?”

“Oh, yes,” Rider said, having apparently forgotten. “The other reason is we believe Roland Mackey still may be engaged in criminal activities. We don’t know exactly what they are at this time, but we believe that the quicker we can start listening in on his conversations the sooner we will ascertain that and be able to stop someone from becoming a victim. As you can see from the application, we know he has been involved in at least one murder before. We didn’t think we should waste time.”