Michael Connelly - The Closers

“Then there you go,” Marcia said. “Getting from the one eighteen in Porter Ranch all the way to Mariano Street in Woodland Hills in ten minutes max? And without being seen by our guys? No way. It wasn’t him. Kehoe and Bradshaw are his alibi.”

“And no cell phone in the house…”

They all already knew that the landline in the house was not used to make a call because it would have registered on the monitoring equipment at ListenTech.

“Nope,” Marcia said. “No cell phone and no call on the landline. I don’t think this is our guy.”

Bosch wasn’t ready to agree yet. He thanked him and hung up, then gave the bad news to Rider.

“So what do we do with him?” she asked.

“Well, he might not be our guy on Mackey, but Mackey called him after the story was read to him. I still like him for Verloren.”

“But that doesn’t make sense. Whoever hit Mackey had to have been his partner on Verloren-unless you’re saying what happened on the on-ramp is just coincidental to all of this.”

Bosch shook his head.

“No, I’m not saying that. We’re just missing something. Burkhart had to have gotten a message out of that house.”

“You mean like dial-a-hitman or something? It’s not working for me, Harry.”

Now Bosch nodded. He knew she was right. It wasn’t coming together.

“All right, then let’s just go in there and see what he has to say for himself.”

Rider agreed and they spent a few minutes working out an interview strategy before going back into the hallway behind the squad room and entering the interview room where Burkhart waited.

The room was stuffy with Burkhart’s body odor and Bosch left the door open. Burkhart had his head down on his folded arms. When he didn’t rouse from his feigned sleep Bosch kicked the leg of his chair and that brought his head up.

“Rise and shine, Billy Blitzkrieg,” Bosch said.

Burkhart had scraggly dark hair that flopped around a face of pasty white skin. He looked like he didn’t go out much except at night.

“I want a lawyer,” Burkhart said.

“We all do. But let’s start with first things first. My name is Bosch and this is Rider. You are William Burkhart and you are under arrest for suspicion of murder.”

Rider started to read him his rights but he cut her off.

“Are you crazy? I never left my house. My girlfriend was there the whole time.”

Bosch held a finger to his lips.

“Let her finish, Billy, and then you can lie to us as much as you like.”

Rider finished reading the rights off the back of one of her business cards. Then Bosch took back over.

“Now, you were saying?”

“I’m saying you are fucked. I was home the whole time and I have a witness who can prove it. Besides, Ro was my friend. Why would I kill him? This is just a fucking joke, so why don’t you go ahead and get me my lawyer now so he can laugh your asses out of here.”

“You finished, Bill? ’Cause I have some news for you. We’re not talking about Roland Mackey. We’re taking you back seventeen years to Rebecca Verloren. You remember her? You and Mackey? The girl you took up into the hills? That’s who we’re talking about here.”

Burkhart showed nothing. Bosch had been hoping for a tell, some sort of sign that he was on the right track.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Burkhart said, his face a stone.

“We’ve got you on tape. Mackey called last night. It’s over, Burkhart. Seventeen years is a long run, but it’s over.”

“You got shit. If there is a tape then all you’ll hear is me tellin’ him to shut up. I don’t have a cell phone and I don’t trust ’em. That’s standing operating procedure. If he was going to start telling me his problems I didn’t want to do it on a goddamn cell phone. As far as Rebecca whatever-her-name-is, I don’t know nothing about that. I guess you should’ve asked Ro while you had the chance.”

He looked at Bosch and winked and Bosch felt like coming across the table at him. But he didn’t.

They verbally sparred for another twenty minutes but neither Bosch nor Rider put a ding in Burkhart’s armor. Eventually Burkhart stopped taking part in the back-and-forth, saying once more that he wanted an attorney and not responding in any form to any question that followed.

Rider and Bosch left the room to discuss their options, which they agreed were minimal. They had thrown a bluff at Burkhart. He had called them on it and they either had to book him and get him his lawyer or kick him loose.

“We don’t have it, Harry,” Rider said. “We shouldn’t kid ourselves. I say we kick him.”

Bosch nodded. He knew it was true. They didn’t have a case now, and for that matter they might never have one. Mackey, the one direct connection to Verloren they had, was gone. Bosch’s own doing had lost him. Now they would have to go back in time and run a full field on Burkhart and search for something that was missed or hidden or ignored seventeen years before. The full depression of their case situation was descending on him like a lead blanket.

He opened his phone and called Marcia once more.

“Anything?”

“Nothing, Harry. No phone, no evidence, nothing.”

“Okay. Just so you know, we’re going to kick him. He might show up there in a little while.”

“Great. He won’t like what he finds here.”

“Good.”

Bosch closed the phone and looked at Rider. Her eyes told the story. Disaster. He knew he had let her down. For the first time he thought maybe Irving had been right-maybe he shouldn’t have come back.

“I’ll go tell him he’s a free man,” he said.

After he walked away Rider called after him.

“Harry, I don’t blame you.”

He looked back at her.

“I went along every step of the way. It was a good plan.”

He nodded.

“Thanks, Kiz.”

BOSCH WENT HOME to take a shower, get fresh clothes and maybe close his eyes for a while before heading back downtown for the unit meeting. Once again he drove through a city that was just waking for the day. And once more it came up ugly in his eyes, all sharp edges and harsh glare. Everything seemed ugly to him now.

Bosch didn’t look forward to the unit meeting. He knew all eyes would be on him. Everybody in Open-Unsolved understood that their actions would now be analyzed and second-guessed following Mackey’s death. They also understood that if they were looking for a reason for the potential threat to their careers, they didn’t have to look far.

Bosch threw his keys on the kitchen counter and checked the phone. No messages. He looked at his watch and determined that he had at least a couple hours before he needed to head toward the Pacific Dining Car. Checking the time reminded him of the ultimatum he had given Irving during their confrontation in the hallway outside RHD. But Bosch doubted he would hear from Irving or McClellan now. It seemed as though everybody was calling his bluffs.

He knew sleeping for a couple hours wasn’t really an option, not with everything that weighed on him. He had carried the murder book and the accumulated files into the house. He decided he would work on them. He knew that when all else went wrong there was always the murder book. He had to keep his eyes on the prize. The case.

He started the coffee brewer, took a five-minute shower and then went to work rereading the murder book while a remastered release of Kind of Blue sounded from the CD player.

The feeling that he was missing something right in front of him was grinding on him. He felt that he would be haunted by the case, that he would carry it around with him forever, unless he cracked through and found that missing thing. And he knew that if it was to be found anywhere, it would be in the book.