Michael Connelly - EchoPark

“Don’t worry,” she said in slow, slurred words. “They’ve made my neck numb and it’s working on half of my face, too.”

He squeezed her hand.

“Okay,” he said. “Other than that how do you feel?”

“Not so good. It hurts, Harry. It really hurts.”

He nodded.

“Yeah.”

“I have surgery on my hand in the afternoon. That’s going to hurt, too.”

“But then you’ll be on the road to recovery. Rehab and all of that good stuff.”

“I hope so.”

She sounded depressed and Bosch didn’t know what to say. Fourteen years earlier, when he had been about her age, Bosch had woken up in the hospital after taking a bullet in his left shoulder. He still remembered the screaming pain that had set in every time the morphine started to wear off.

“I brought the papers,” he said. “You want me to read ’em to you?”

“Yeah. Nothing good, I suppose.”

“No, nothing good.”

He held the Times front page up so she could see the mug shot of Waits. He then read the lead story and then the sidebar. When he was finished he looked over at her. She looked distressed.

“You okay?”

“You should’ve left me, Harry, and gone after him.”

“What are you talking about?”

“In the woods. You could’ve gotten him. Instead you saved me. Now look at the shit you’re in.”

“It comes with the territory, Kiz. The only thing I could think about out there was getting you to the hospital. I feel really guilty about everything.”

“What exactly do you have to feel guilty about?”

“A lot. When I came out of retirement last year I made you leave the chief’s office and partner with me again. You wouldn’t have been there yesterday if I-”

“Oh, please! Would you shut your fucking mouth!”

He didn’t remember ever hearing her use such language. He did what she told him.

“Just shut up,” she said. “No more of that. What else did you bring me?”

Bosch held up the copy of the Gesto murder book.

“Oh, nothing. I brought this for me. To read if you were asleep or something. It’s the copy of the Gesto file I made back when I retired the first time.”

“So what are you going to do with that?”

“Like I said, I was just going to read it. I keep thinking there’s something we missed.”

“‘We’?”

“Me. Something I missed. I’ve been listening a lot lately to a recording of Coltrane and Monk playing together at Carnegie Hall. It was right there in the Carnegie archives for like fifty years until somebody found it. The thing is, the guy who found it had to know their sound to know what they had in that box in the archives.”

“And that relates to the file how?”

Bosch smiled. She was in a hospital bed with two bullet wounds and she was still giving him shit.

“I don’t know. I keep thinking there’s something in here and I’m the only one who can find it.”

“Good luck. Why don’t you sit on that chair and read your file. I think I’m going to go to sleep for a while.”

“Okay, Kiz. I’ll be quiet.”

He pulled the chair away from the wall and brought it closer to the bed. As he sat down she spoke again.

“I’m not coming back, Harry.”

He looked at her. It was not what he wanted to hear but he wouldn’t object. Not now, at least.

“Whatever you want, Kiz.”

“Sheila, my old girl, was just visiting. She saw the news and came in. She says she’ll take care of me until I get better. But she doesn’t want me going back to the cops.”

Which explained why she hadn’t wanted to talk to Bosch out in the hallway.

“That was always a point of contention with us, you know?”

“I remember you told me. Look, you don’t have to tell me any of this stuff now.”

“It’s not just Sheila, though. It’s me. I shouldn’t be a cop. I proved that yesterday.”

“What are you talking about? You are one of the best cops I know.”

He saw a tear roll down her cheek.

“I froze out there, Harry. I fucking froze and I let him… just shoot me.”

“Don’t do this to yourself, Kiz.”

“Those men are dead because of me. When he grabbed Olivas, I couldn’t move. I just watched. I should have put him down, but I just stood there. I just stood there and I let him shoot me next. Instead of raising my gun I raised my hand.”

“No, Kiz. You didn’t have an angle on him. If you had fired you might have hit Olivas. After that it was too late.”

He hoped she understood that he was telling her what to say when the OIS came around.

“No, I have to own up to it. I-”

“Kiz, you want to quit, that’s fine. I’ll back you one hundred percent. But I won’t back you on this other shit. You understand?”

She tried to turn her face away from him but the bandages on her neck prevented her from turning.

“Okay,” she said.

More tears came down and Bosch knew that she had wounds that were far deeper than those in her neck and hand.

“You know, you should have gone up top,” she said.

“What are you talking about?”

“Out there with the ladder. If you had been up top instead of me none of this would’ve happened. Because you wouldn’t have hesitated, Harry. You would’ve blown his shit away.”

Bosch shook his head.

“Nobody knows how they’re going to react in a situation until they’re in that situation.”

“I froze.”

“Look, go to sleep, Kiz. Get better and then make your decision. If you don’t come back I will understand. But I’m always going to be your backup, Kiz. No matter what happens and where you go.”

She used her left hand to wipe her face.

“Thanks, Harry.”

She closed her eyes and he watched as she finally gave it up. She mumbled something he couldn’t understand and then was asleep. Bosch watched her for a while and thought about not having her as a partner anymore. They had worked well together, like family. He would miss it.

He didn’t want to think about the future right now. He opened the murder book and decided to start reading about the past. He started from page one, the initial crime report.

A few minutes later he had it covered and was about to turn to the witness reports when his phone began vibrating in his pocket. He walked out of the room to answer the call in the hallway. It was Lieutenant Randolph from the Officer Involved Shooting Unit.

“Sorry we’re holding you off active while we take our time with this thing,” he said.

“It’s all right. I know why.”

“Yeah, a lot of pressure.”

“What can I do for you, Lieutenant?”

“I was hoping maybe you’d take a ride down here to Parker Center and look at this videotape we’ve got.”

“You have the tape from O’Shea’s cameraman?”

There was a pause before Randolph answered.

“We have a tape from him, yes. I’m not sure it’s a complete tape and that’s what I want you to look at. You know, tell us what might be missing. Can you come down?”

“I’ll be there in forty-five minutes.”

“Good. I’ll be waiting. How’s your partner?”

Bosch wondered if Randolph knew where he was.

“She’s still hanging in. I’m at the hospital now but she’s still out of it.”

He hoped to delay Rider’s OIS interview as long as possible. In a few days, once she was off the painkillers and clear of mind, maybe she’d think better of volunteering that she had frozen when Waits made his move.

“We’re waiting to hear when we can interview her,” Randolph said.

“Probably be a few days, I would think.”

“Probably. Anyway, see you soon. Thanks for coming down.”

Bosch closed the phone and went back into the room. He picked the murder book up off the chair where he had left it and checked on his partner. She was asleep. He quietly left the room.