Michael Connelly: The Closers

But in 1988 the use of DNA comparison in criminal investigation was still years away from common and, more important, court-accepted practice in California. Databases containing the DNA profiles of criminal offenders were only on the verge of being funded and created. During the course of the 1988 investigation the detectives were left to compare blood type only to potential suspects as they arose. And no one emerged as a primary suspect in the Verloren killing. The case was worked hard and long but ultimately without an arrest ever being made. And it went cold.

“Until now,” Bosch said out loud without realizing it.

“What?” Rider asked.

“Nothing. Just thinking out loud.”

“You want to start talking about it?”

“Not yet. I want to finish reading first. You’re done?”

“Just about.”

“You know who we have to thank for this, don’t you?” Bosch asked.

She looked at him quizzically.

“I give up.”

“Mel Gibson.”

“What are you talking about?”

“When did Lethal Weapon come out? Right around this time, right?”

“I guess. But what are you talking about? Those movies were so far-fetched.”

“That’s my point. That’s the movie that started all of this holding the gun sideways and with two hands, one over the other. We got blood on this gun because the shooter was a Lethal Weapon fan.”

Rider shook her head dismissively.

“You watch,” Bosch said. “I’m going to ask the guy when we bring him in.”

“Okay, Harry, you ask him.”

“Mel Gibson saved a lot of lives. All those sideways shooters, they couldn’t hit shit. We ought to make him like an honorary cop or something.”

“Okay, Harry, I’m going to go back to reading, okay? I want to get through this.”

“Yeah, okay. Me too.”

SHORTLY AFTER the LAPD’s Open-Unsolved Unit began operation the DNA evidence from the Verloren case was forwarded to the California Department of Justice. It was delivered to the DNA lab along with evidence from dozens of other cases drawn from the unit’s initial survey of the department’s unsolved murders. The DOJ operated the state’s primary DNA database. The backlog of comparison requests to the underfunded and undermanned lab was running more than a year at the time. But thanks to the tide of requests from the new LAPD unit it took almost eighteen months before the Verloren evidence was re-typed by DOJ analysts and compared to thousands of DNA profiles in the state data bank. It produced a single match, a “cold hit” in the parlance of DNA work.

Bosch looked at the single-page DOJ report unfolded in front of him. It stated that twelve of a possible fourteen markers matched the DNA from the weapon used to murder Rebecca Verloren to a now thirty-five-year-old man named Roland Mackey. He was a native of Los Angeles whose last known address was in Panorama City. Bosch felt his blood start moving a little faster as he read the cold hit report. Panorama City was in the San Fernando Valley, not more than fifteen minutes from Chatsworth, even in bad traffic. It added a level of credibility to the match. It was not that Bosch didn’t believe the science. He did. But he also believed you needed more than the science to convince a jury beyond a doubt. You needed to bolster the scientific fact with connections of circumstantial evidence and common sense. This was one of those connections.

Bosch noticed the date on the cover letter of the DOJ report.

“You said we just got this?” he asked Rider.

“Yeah. I think it came in Friday. Why?”

“The date on it is from two Fridays ago. Ten days.”

Rider shrugged.

“Bureaucracy,” she said. “I guess it took its time getting down here from Sacramento.”

“I know the case is old but you’d think they’d move a little faster than that.”

Rider didn’t respond. Bosch dropped it and read on. Mackey’s DNA was in the DOJ computer base because all offenders convicted of any sex-related crime in California were forced under state law to submit blood and oral swabs for typing and inclusion in the DNA data bank. The offense that resulted in Mackey’s DNA going into the bank was on the far margin of the state mandate. Two years earlier Mackey was convicted of lewd behavior in Los Angeles. The DOJ report did not offer details of the crime but stated Mackey was placed on twelve months probation, an indication that his was a minor offense.

Bosch was about to write a note on his pad when he looked up and saw Rider closing the murder book on the second half of the documents.

“Done?”

“Done.”

“Now what?”

“I figured that while you were finishing the book I’d go over to the ESB and pick up the box.”

Bosch had no trouble remembering the meaning of what she said. He had slipped easily back into the world of acronyms and copspeak. The ESB was the Evidence Storage Building over at the Piper Tech compound. She would go there to pick up the physical evidence that would have been stored from the case. Items like the murder weapon, the victim’s clothing and anything else accumulated while the case was initially worked. It was usually stored in a taped cardboard box and put on a shelf. The exception to this was storage of perishable and biological evidence-such as the blood and tissue recovered from the Verloren murder weapon-which was stored in lab vaults in the Scientific Investigation Division.

“Sounds like a good idea,” Bosch said. “But first why don’t you run this guy through DMV and NCIC and see if we can get a location?”

“Already did that.”

She turned her laptop around on her desk so Bosch could see the screen. He recognized the National Crime Index Computer template on the screen. He reached across and started scrolling down the screen, his eyes scanning the information.

Rider had run Roland Mackey through NCIC and gotten his criminal record. His conviction two years earlier for lewd behavior was only the latest in a string of recorded arrests dating back to when he was eighteen-the same year as Rebecca Verloren’s murder. Anything prior would not be listed because juvenile protection laws shielded that part of his record. Most of the crimes listed were property and drug-related crimes, beginning with car theft and a burglary at eighteen and leading to two drug-possession raps, two driving under the influence arrests, another burglary charge and a receiving stolen property hit. There was also an early solicitation of prostitution arrest. Overall it was the pedigree of a small-time criminal and drug user. It appeared that Mackey never went to state prison for any of his crimes. He was often given second chances and then, through plea agreements, was sentenced to probation or to short stints in county jail. It appeared that the longest he ever stayed in stir was six months served after pleading guilty to receiving stolen property when he was twenty-eight years old. He served his time at the county-run Wayside Honor Rancho.

Bosch leaned back after he was finished scrolling through the computer records. He felt uneasy about what he had just read. Mackey had the kind of record that might be seen as a pathway to murder. But in this case the murder came first-when Mackey was only eighteen years old-and the petty crimes came after. It didn’t seem to quite fit.

“What?” Rider asked, sensing his mood.

“I don’t know. I thought there’d be more, I guess. It’s backwards. This guy goes from murder to petty crime? Doesn’t seem to hold.”

“Well, this is all he’s ever gotten popped for. Doesn’t mean it’s all he ever did.”

He nodded.

“Juvenile?” he asked.

“Maybe. Probably. But we’ll never get those records now. They’re probably long gone.”