Michael Connelly

My novel, The Black Box, is perhaps more special to me than other books have been, and I have high hopes that Harry Bosch readers will particularly embrace it. I guess it’s because the book has special meaning for me on multiple levels. First of all, it’s my twenty-fifth novel, and I don’t think any writer starting out can ever see the day when they will be publishing their twenty-fifth novel. I know I certainly didn’t. When I started out, my hope was to get one book published and maybe follow it up with another. There was no thought at all about quitting my day job. So twenty-five for me was a pie in the sky sort of thing. So was twenty years. Yes, this is my twenty-fifth novel in twenty years of publishing. Hard to believe. When that first novel came out in 1992, I didn’t even have an e-mail account or a cell phone, there were no book blogs or e-books, and the first George Bush was president. As Jerry Garcia (who was alive then) would say, “What a long, strange trip it’s been.”

But I think what makes this book so special to me is something much more than literary anniversaries and book numbers. It’s the subject matter. Harry Bosch reopens the unsolved case of a journalist murdered during the riots that took place in Los Angeles in 1992. This is a subject that has always been important to me, and it’s the twentieth anniversary of this event that really inspired the book and makes it so special to me.

In 1992, I had not yet quit my day job. The year opened with The Black Echo being published in January and my literary career kicking off with some pretty good reviews. I took a couple of weeks off to promote the book and then I was back to work as a reporter for the Los Angeles Times covering the crime beat. Cops and crime all came together horribly at the end of April, when riots broke out following not-guilty verdicts in the trial of four officers accused of police brutality in the beating of Rodney King. I lived in and loved Los Angeles. I was writing fiction by night about a detective who loved his city and worked to make it better. When those verdicts came down, the city completely lost it. From a few disparate flash points a mob mentality took over, and America’s postmodern city was torn apart. I saw the best and worst in people, images I can’t forget and that I still work out in my fiction all the time.

On the first night of the riots I was posted at the spot where Rodney King had been pulled over by police and beaten while more than a dozen officers surrounded him. There was now a crowd there gathered to hear the verdicts and to rejoice in justice prevailing. But they didn’t hear what they had expected to hear. Nobody did—even the seasoned journalists. And the crowd grew frustrated and angry. There were other reporters there and TV trucks with video screens showing violence breaking out in other parts of the city. Soon I was surrounded by angry people. They were pushing and yelling, angry with the messenger: the reporters bearing the bad news. In fourteen years as a journalist it was the only time I ever felt that I was truly in danger. But I was surrounded, and there was nowhere to go. I had put my notebook away and was simply holding my hands up, palms out in front of me, showing that I was not a threat, that I was not the bad guy here. Then suddenly the crowd was parted by one man. A black man, a total stranger to me, wearing a T-shirt that I will always remember said LOVE on it. He pushed through to me and raised his hand. I braced for what was coming, and what came was his hand on my arm. He said, “I’ve got to get you out of here.”

And he did. He pushed back through the crowd, pulling me with him. Something about him having hold of my arm made people step back and give me passage. Was it the T-shirt? Did his act of kindness and bravery make them realize what they were doing? I don’t know. All I know is that he got me to my car and stood by it while I got in and got away from there. I was safe and could finally breathe again. As I was driving away, I realized I would never know who that man was and that I had not even said thank you.

The rest of that night and the following night I moved around the city and called in reports on widespread looting and arson. I watched them pull a school bus up in front of the doors to the LAPD’s Foothill Station to help repel the angry crowd that descended on the place where the officers who beat Rodney King had been assigned. I walked down Hollywood Boulevard, watching groups of mindless looters descend en masse on Frederick’s of Hollywood, a lingerie store. Nothing made sense in what I was seeing. Los Angeles became a place I didn’t recognize.

It is no wonder to me that the riots have come up often in the fiction I have written since then. At least four of my books drew partial plot lines from them. And now with The Black Box I go back to 1992 and begin with Harry Bosch attempting to do his job in those harrowing circumstances. I think that with what I have written I have finally said what I needed to say about that time. I’ve gotten it out of my system. I can’t say for certain that 1992 won’t come up again in the next twenty-five novels I hope to write. But I think I’m finished with it. The Black Box is dedicated to all of the readers who have sustained Harry Bosch for all these years, and to the unknown man in the T-shirt who parted the crowd that day.

*May not be posted or reprinted without the permission of the publisher.

 

Part 1: Glory Days

Tuesday, November 13th

Chapter 1

I approached the witness stand with a warm and welcoming smile. This, of course, belied my true intent, which was to destroy the woman who sat there with her eyes fixed on me. Claire Welton had just identified my client as the man who had forced her out of her Mercedes E60 at gunpoint on Christmas Eve last year. She said he was the one who then shoved her to the ground before taking off with the car, her purse and all the shopping bags she had loaded into the back seat at the mall. As she had just told the prosecutor who questioned her, he had also made off with her sense of security and self-confidence, even though for these more personal thefts he had not been charged.

“Good morning, Mrs. Welton.”

“Good morning.”

She said the words like they were synonyms for please don’t hurt me. But everyone in the courtroom knew it was my job to hurt her today and thereby hurt the state’s case against my client, Leonard Watts. Welton was in her sixties and matronly. She didn’t look fragile but I had to hope she was.

Welton was a Beverly Hills housewife and one of three victims who were roughed up and robbed in a pre-Christmas crime spree resulting in the nine charges against Watts. The police had labeled him the “Bumper Car Bandit,” a strong-arm thief who followed targeted women from the malls, bumped into their cars at stop signs in residential neighborhoods and then took their vehicles and belongings at gunpoint when they stepped out of their cars to check for damage. He then pawned or resold all the goods, kept any cash, and dropped the cars off at chop shops in the Valley.

But all of that was alleged and hinged on someone identifying Leonard Watts as the culprit in front of the jury. That was what made Claire Welton so special and the key witness of the trial. She was the only one of the three victims who pointed Watts out to the jury and unequivocally claimed that he was the one, that he did it. She was the seventh witness presented by the prosecution in two days but as far as I was concerned she was the only witness. She was the number one pin. And if I knocked her down at just the right angle all the other pins would go down with her.

I needed to roll a strike here or the jurors who were watching would send Leonard Watts away for a very long time.

I carried a single sheet of paper with me to the witness stand. I identified it as the original crime report created by a patrol officer who was first to respond to the 911 call placed by Claire Welton from a borrowed cell phone after the carjacking occurred. It was already part of the state’s exhibits. After asking for and receiving approval from the judge, I placed the document down on the ledge at the front of the witness stand. Welton leaned away from me as I did this. I was sure most members of the jury saw this as well.

I started asking my first question as I walked back to the lectern between the prosecution and defense tables.

“Mrs. Welton, you have there the original crime report taken on the day of the unfortunate incident in which you were victimized. Do you remember talking with the officer who arrived to help you?”

“Yes, of course I do.”

“You told him what happened, correct?”

“Yes. I was still shaken up at the – ”

“But you did tell him what happened so he could put a report out about the man who robbed you and took your car, is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“That was Officer Corbin, correct?”

“I guess. I don’t remember his name but it says it on the report.”

“But you do remember telling the officer what happened, correct?”

“Yes.”

“And he wrote down a summary of what you said, correct?”

“Yes, he did.”

“And he even asked you to read the summary and initial it, didn’t he?”

“Yes, but I was very nervous.”

“Are those your initials at the bottom of the summary paragraph on the report?”

“Yes.”

“Mrs. Welton, will you now read out loud to the jury what Officer Corbin wrote down after talking with you?”

Welton hesitated as she studied the summary before reading it out loud.

Kristina Medina, the prosecutor, used the moment to stand and object.

“Your Honor, whether the witness initialed the officer’s summary or not, counsel is still trying to impeach her testimony with writing that is not hers. The people object.”

Judge Michael Siebecker squinted his eyes and turned to me.

“Judge, by initialing the officer’s report the witness adopted the statement. It is present recollection recorded and the jury should hear it.”

Siebecker overruled the objection and instructed Mrs. Welton to read the initialed statement from the report. She finally complied.

“‘Victim stated that she stopped at the intersection of Camden and Elevado and soon after was struck from behind by a car that pulled up. When she opened her door to get out and check for damage, she was met by a black male thirty to thirty-five YOA—’ I don’t know what that means.”

“Years of age,” I said. “Keep reading, please.”

“’He grabbed her by the hair and pulled her the rest of the way out of the car and to the ground in the middle of the street. He pointed a black, short barrel revolver at her face and told her he would shoot her if she moved or made any sound. The suspect then jumped into her car and drove off in a northerly direction, followed by the car that had rear-ended her vehicle. Victim could offer no . . .”

I waited but she didn’t finish.

“Your Honor, can you instruct the witness to read the entire statement as written on the day of the incident?”

“Mrs. Welton,” Judge Siebecker intoned. “Please continue to read the statement in its entirety.”

“But, Judge this isn’t everything I said.”

“Mrs. Welton,” the judge said forcefully. “Read the entire statement, as the defense counselor asked you to.”

Welton relented and read the last sentence of the summary.

“‘Victim could offer no further description of the suspect at this time.’”

“Thank you, Mrs. Welton,” I said. “Now while there wasn’t much in the way of a description of the suspect, you were from the start able to describe in detail the gun he used, isn’t that right?”

“I don’t know about how much detail. He pointed it at my face so I got a good look at it and was able to describe what I saw. The officer helped me by describing the difference between a revolver and the other kind of gun. I think an automatic, it’s called.”

“And you were able to describe the kind of gun it was, the color and even the length of the barrel.”

“Aren’t all guns black?”

“How about if I ask the questions right now, Mrs. Welton?”

“Well, the officer asked a lot of questions about the gun.”

“But you weren’t able to describe the man who pointed the gun at you, and yet two hours later you pick his face out of a bunch of mug shots. Do I have that right, Mrs. Welton?”

“You have to understand something. I saw the man who robbed me and pointed the gun. Being able to describe him and recognize him are two different things. When I saw that picture I knew it was him, just as sure as I know it’s him sitting at that table.”

I turned to the judge.

“Your Honor, I would like to strike that as non-responsive.”

Medina stood up.

“Judge, counsel is making broad statements in his so-called questions. He made a statement and the witness merely responded. The motion to strike has no foundation.”

“Motion to strike is denied,” the judge said quickly. “Ask your next question, Mr. Haller, and I do mean a question.”

I did and I tried. For the next twenty minutes I hammered away at Claire Welton and her identification of my client. I questioned how many black people she knew in her life as a Beverly Hills housewife and opened the door on interracial identification issues. All to no avail. At no point was I able to shake her resolve or belief that Leonard Watts was the man who robbed her. Along the way she seemed to recover one of things she said she had lost in the robbery. Her self-confidence. The more I worked her, the more she seemed to bear up under the verbal assault and send it right back at me. By the end she was a rock. Her identification of my client was still standing. And I had bowled a gutter ball.

I told the judge I had no further questions and headed back to the defense table. Medina told the judge she had a short redirect and I knew she would ask Welton a series of questions that would only reinforce her identification of Watts. As I slid into my seat next to Watts his eyes searched my face for any indication of hope.

“Well,” I whispered to him. “That’s it. We are done.”

He leaned back from me as if repelled by my breath or words or both.

“We?” he said.

He said it loud enough to interrupt Medina, who turned and looked at the defense table. I put my hands out palms down in a calming gesture and mouthed the words Cool it to him.

“Cool it?” he said aloud. “I’m not going to cool it. You told me you had this, that she was no problem.”

“Mr. Haller!” the judge barked. “Control your client, please, or I’ll have – ”

Watts didn’t wait for whatever it was the judge was about to threaten to do. He launched his body into me, hitting me like a cornerback breaking up a pass play. My chair tipped over with me in it and we spilled onto the floor at Medina’s feet. She jumped back to avoid getting hurt herself as Watts drew his right arm back. I was on my left side on the floor, my right arm pinned under Watts’s body. I manage to raise my left hand and caught his fist as it came at me. It merely softened the blow. His fist took my own hand into my jaw.

I was peripherally aware of screams and motion around me. Watts pulled his fist back as he prepared for punch number two. But the courtroom deputies were on him before he could throw it. They gang tackled him, their momentum taking him off me and onto the floor in the well in front of the counsel tables.

It all seemed to move in slow motion. The judge was barking commands no one was listening to. Medina and the court reporter were backing away from the melee. The court clerk had stood up behind her corral and was watching in horror. Watts was chest down on the floor, a deputy’s hand on the side of his head, pressing it to the tile, an odd smile on his face as his hands were cuffed behind his back.

And in a moment it was over.

“Deputies, remove him from the courtroom!” Siebecker commanded.

Watts was dragged through the steel door at the side of the courtroom and into the holding cell used to house incarcerated defendants. I was left sitting on the floor, surveying the damage. I had blood on my mouth and teeth and down the crisp white shirt I was wearing. My tie was strewn on the floor. It was the clip-on I wear on days I visit clients in holding cells and don’t want to get pulled through the bars.

I rubbed my jaw with my hand and ran my tongue along the rows of teeth. Everything seemed intact and in working order. I pulled a white handkerchief out of an inside jacket pocket and started wiping off my face as I used my free hand to grab the defense table and help myself up.

“Jeannie,” the judge said to his clerk. “Call paramedics for Mr. Haller.”

“No, Judge,” I said quickly. “I’m okay. Just need to clean up a little bit.”

I reached down to the floor for my tie and then made a pathetic attempt at decorum, reattaching it to my collar despite the deep red stain that had ruined the front of my shirt. As I worked the clip into my buttoned collar, several deputies reacting to the courtroom panic button undoubtedly pushed by the judge stormed in through the main doors at the back. Siebecker quickly told them to stand down and that the incident had passed. The deputies fanned out across the back wall of the courtroom, a show of force in case there was anyone else in the courtroom thinking about acting out.

I took one last swipe at my face with the handkerchief and then spoke up.

“Your Honor,” I said. “I am deeply sorry for my client’s – ”

“Not now, Mr. Haller. Take your seat and you do the same, Ms. Medina. Everybody calm down and sit down.”

I did as instructed, holding the folded handkerchief to my mouth and watching as the judge turned his seat fully toward the jury box. First he told Claire Welton that she was excused from the witness stand. She got up tentatively and walked toward the gate behind the counsel tables. She looked more shaken than anyone else in the courtroom. No doubt for good reason. She probably figured that Watts could have just as easily gone after her as me. And if he had been quick enough he would’ve gotten to her.

Welton sat down in the first row of the gallery, which was reserved for witnesses and staff, and the judge proceeded with the jury.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I am truly sorry that you had to see that display. The courtroom is never a place for violence. It is the place where civilized society takes its stand against the violence that is out on our streets. It truly pains me when something like this occurs.”

There was a metal snapping sound as the two courtroom deputies returned from the holding cell. I wondered how  badly they had roughed up Watts while securing him in the cell.

The judge paused and then returned his attention to the jury.

“Unfortunately, Mr. Watts’s decision to attack his attorney has prejudiced our ability to go forward. I believe – ”

“Your Honor?” Medina interrupted. “If the state could be heard.”

Medina knew exactly where the judge was headed and needed to do something.

“Not now, Ms. Medina, and do not interrupt the court.”

But Medina was persistent.

“Your Honor, could counsel approach at sidebar?”

The judge looked annoyed with her but relented. I let her lead the way and we walked up to the bench. The judge hit the switch on a noise-canceling fan so the jury would not overhear our whispers. Before Medina could state her case the judge asked me once more if I wanted medical attention.

“I’m fine, Judge, but I appreciate the offer. I think the only thing worse for wear is my shirt, actually.”

The judge nodded and turned his attention to Medina.

“I know your objection, Ms. Medina, but there is nothing I can do. The jury is prejudiced by what they just saw. I have no choice.”

“Your Honor, this case is about a very violent defendant who committed very violent acts. The jury knows this. They won’t be unduly prejudiced by what they saw. The jury is entitled to view and judge for themselves the demeanor of the defendant. Because he voluntarily engaged in violent acts, the prejudice to the defendant is neither undue nor unfair.”

“If I could be heard, Your Honor, I beg to differ with – ”

“Besides that,” Medina continued, running me over, “I fear the court is being manipulated by this defendant. He full well knew that he could get a new trial this way. He – ”

“Whoa, wait a minute here,” I protested. “Counsel’s objection is replete with unfounded innuendo and – ”

“Ms. Medina, the objection is overruled,” the judge said, cutting off all debate. “Even if the prejudice is neither undue nor unfair, Mr. Watts has effectively just fired his attorney. I can’t require Mr. Haller to go forward in these circumstances and I am not inclined to allow Mr. Watts back into this courtroom. Step back. Both of you.”

“Judge, I want the people’s objection on the record for appeal.”

“You shall have it. Now step back.”

We returned to our tables and the judge turned off the fan and then addressed the jury.

“Ladies and gentlemen, as I was saying, the event you just witnessed has created a situation prejudicial to the defendant. I believe that it will be too difficult for you to divorce yourself from what you just saw as you deliberate on his guilt or innocence of the charges. Therefore, I must declare a mistrial at this time and discharge you with the thanks of this court and the people of California. Deputy Carlyle will escort you back to the assembly room where you may gather your things and go home.”

The jurors seemed unsure what to do or whether everything was over. Finally, one brave man in the box stood up and soon the others followed. They filed out through a door at the back of the courtroom.

I looked over at Kristina Medina. She sat at the prosecution table with her chin down, defeated. The judge abruptly adjourned court for the day and left the bench. I folded my ruined handkerchief and put it away.

Chapter 2

My full day had been scheduled for trial. Suddenly released from it, I had no clients to see, no prosecutors to work and no place to be. I left the courthouse and walked down Temple to First. At the corner there was a trashcan. I took out my handkerchief, held it to my lips and spit all the debris from my mouth into it. I then tossed it away.

I took a right on First and saw the line of Town Cars running along the sidewalk. There were six of them in line like a funeral procession, their drivers gathered together on the sidewalk, shooting the shit and waiting. They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but ever since the movie a whole contingent of Lincoln lawyers had cropped up and routinely crowded the curbs outside the courthouses of L.A. I was both proud and annoyed. I heard more than a few times that there were other lawyers out there saying they were the inspiration for the film. On top of that, I had jumped into the wrong Lincoln at least three times in the last month.

This time there would be no mistake. As I headed down the hill I pulled my cell phone and called Earl Briggs, my driver. I could see him up ahead. He answered right away and I told him to pop the trunk, then I hung up.

I saw the trunk of the third Lincoln in line rise and I had my destination. When I got there I put my briefcase down and then took off my jacket, tie and shirt. I had a t-shirt on underneath so I wasn’t stopping traffic. I chose a pale blue oxford from the stack of backup shirts I keep in the trunk, unfolded it and started pulling it on. Earl came over from the klatch with the other drivers. He had been my driver on and off for nearly a decade. Whenever he ran into trouble he came to me and then worked off my fee by driving. This time it wasn’t his own trouble he was paying for. I handled his mother’s foreclosure defense and got her straightened out without her having to go homeless. That got me about six months’ worth of driving from Earl.

I had draped my ruined shirt over the fender. He picked it up and examined it.

“What, somebody spill a whole thing of Hawaiian Punch on you or something?”

“Something like that. Come on, let’s go.”

“I thought you had court all day.”

“I did too. But things change.”

“Where to then?”

“Let’s go by Philippe’s first.”

“You got it.”

He got in the front and I got in the back. After a quick stop at the sandwich shop on Alameda I had Earl point the car west. The next stop was a place called Menorah Manor near Park La Brea in the Fairfax District. I said I’d be about an hour and got out with my briefcase. I had tucked my fresh shirt in but didn’t bother clipping my tie back on. I wouldn’t need it.

Menorah Manor was a four-story nursing home on Willoughby east of Fairfax. I signed in at the front desk and took the elevator up to the third floor where I informed the woman at the nursing desk that I had a legal consultation with my client David Siegel and was not to be disturbed in his room. She was a pleasant woman who was used to my frequent visits. She nodded her approval and I went down the hallway to room 334.

I entered and closed the door after putting the do not disturb sign on the outside handle. David “Legal” Siegel was lying in bed, his eyes on the screen of a muted television bolted to the upper wall across from the bed. His thin white hands were on top of a blanket. There was a low hiss from the tube that brought oxygen to his nose. He smiled when he saw me.

“Mickey.”

“Legal, how are you doing today?”

“Same as yesterday. Did you bring anything?”

I pulled the visitor’s chair away from the wall and positioned it so I could sit in his line of vision. At eighty-one years old, he didn’t have a lot of mobility. I opened my briefcase on the bed and turned it so he could reach into it.

“French dip from Philippe the Original. How’s that?”

“Oh, boy,” he said.

Menorah Manor was a kosher joint and I used the legal consultation bit as a way around it. Legal Siegel missed the places he’d eaten at during a forty-year run as a lawyer in downtown. I was happy to bring him the culinary joy. He had been my father’s law partner. He was the strategist while my father had been the front man, the performer who enacted the strategies in court. A year ago I had come to him after losing the election for District Attorney in scandal and self-destruction. I was looking for life strategy and Legal Siegel was there for me. In that way, these meetings were legitimate consultations between lawyer and client, only the people at the desk didn’t understand that I was the client.

I helped him unwrap the sandwich and opened the plastic container holding the jus that made the sandwiches from Phillippe’s so good. There was also a sliced pickle wrapped in foil.

Legal smiled after his first bite and pumped his skinny arm like he had just won a great victory. I smiled. I was glad to bring him something. He had two sons and a bunch of grandchildren but they never came around except on the holidays. As Legal told me, “They need you until they don’t need you.”

When I was with Legal we talked mostly about cases and he would suggest strategies. He was absolute aces when it came to predicting prosecution plans and case roll outs. It didn’t matter that he had not been in a courtroom in this century or that penal codes had changed since his day. He had baseline experience and always had a play. He called them moves, actually – the doubleblind move, the judge’s robes move and so on. I had come to him during the dark time that followed the election. I wanted to learn about my father and how he had dealt with the adversities of his life. But I ended up learning more about the law and how it was like soft lead. How it could be bent and molded.

“The law is malleable,” Legal Siegel always told me. “It’s pliable.”

I considered him to be part of my team and that allowed me to discuss my cases with him. He’d throw out ideas and his so-called moves. Sometimes I used them and they worked, sometimes not.

He ate slowly. I had learned that if I gave him a sandwich, he could take an hour to eat it, steadily chewing small bites. Nothing went to waste. He ate everything I brought him.

“The girl in three-thirty died last night,” he said between bites. “A shame.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. How old was she?”

“She was young. Early seventies. Just died in her sleep and they carted her out this morning.”

I nodded. I didn’t know what to say. Legal took another bite and reached into my briefcase for a napkin.

“You’re not using the jus, Legal. That’s the good stuff.”

“I think I like it dry. Hey, you used the bloody flag move, didn’t you? How’d it go?”

When he grabbed the napkin he had spotted the extra blood capsule I kept in a Ziploc bag. I had it just in case I swallowed the first one by mistake.

“Like a charm,” I said.

“You get the mistrial?”

“Yep. In fact, mind if I use your bathroom?”

I reached into the briefcase and grabbed another Ziploc containing my toothbrush. I went into the room’s bathroom and brushed my teeth at the sink. The red dye turned the brush pink at first but soon it was all down the drain.

When I came back to the chair I noticed that Legal had only finished half his sandwich. I knew the rest must be cold and there was no way I could take it out to the dayroom to heat it in the microwave. But Legal still seemed happy.

“Details,” he demanded.

“Well, I tried to break the witness but she held up. She was a rock. When I got back to the table I gave him the signal and he did his thing. He hit me a little harder than I was expecting but I’m not complaining. The best part is I didn’t have to make the motion to declare a mistrial. The judge went right to it on his own.”

“Over prosecution’s objection?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Good. Fuck ’em.”

Legal Siegel was a defense attorney through and through. For him, any ethical question or gray area could be overcome by the knowledge that it is the sworn duty of the defense attorney to present the best defense of his client. If that meant tipping a mistrial when the chips were down, then so be it.

“Now, the question is, will he deal now?”

“It’s actually a she, and I think she’ll deal. You should’ve seen the witness after the scuffle. She was scared and I don’t think she’ll be wanting to come back for another trial. I’ll wait a week and have Jennifer call the prosecutor. I think she’ll be ready to deal.”

Jennifer was my associate Jennifer Aronson. She would need to take over representation of Leonard Watts because if I stayed on it would look like the setup it was and which Kristina Medina had alluded to in the courtroom.

Medina had refused to negotiate a plea agreement before the trial because Leonard Watts declined to give up his partner, the guy who drove the car that bumped into each of the victims. Watts wouldn’t snitch and so Medina wouldn’t deal. Things would be different in a week, I thought, for a variety of reasons. I had seen most of the prosecution’s case laid out in the first trial, Medina’s main witness was spooked by what had happened in front of her in court today, and mounting a second trial would be a costly use of taxpayers’ money. Added to that, I had given Medina a glimpse of what might come if the defense presented a case to a jury – namely my intention to explore through expert witnesses the pitfalls of interracial recognition and identification. That was something no prosecutor wanted to deal with in front of a jury.

“Hell,” I said. “She might call me before I even have to go to her.”

That part was wishful thinking but I wanted Legal to feel good about the move he had strategized for me.

While I was up I took the extra blood capsule out of the briefcase and dropped it into the room’s hazardous waste container. There was no need for it anymore.

My phone buzzed and I pulled it out of my pocket. It was my case manager Lorna Taylor calling but I decided to let it go to message. I’d call her back after my visit with Legal.

“What else you got going now?” Legal asked.

I spread my hands.

“Well, no trial now so I guess I have the rest of the week off. I may go down to arraignment court tomorrow and see if I can pick up a client or two. I could use the work.”

Not only could I use the income but the work would keep me busy and not thinking about the things in my life that were wrong. In that sense the law had become more than a craft and a calling. It kept me sane.

By checking in at Department 130, the arraignment court in the downtown criminal courts building, I had a shot at picking up clients the public defender was dropping because of conflict of interest. Every time the DA filed a multi-defendant case the PD could only take on one defendant, putting all others in conflict. If those other defendants did not have private counsel the judge would appoint counsel to them. If I happened to be there twiddling my thumbs, more often than not I’d pick up a case. It paid government scale but it was better than no work and no pay.

“And to think,” Legal said, “at one point last fall you were running five points up in the polls. And now here you are scrounging around first appearance court looking for handouts.”

As he had aged, Legal had lost most of the social filters normally employed in polite company.

“Thanks, Legal,” I said. “I can always count on you for a fair and accurate take on my lot in life. It’s refreshing.”

Legal Siegel raised his bony hands in what I guessed was an apologetic gesture.

“I’m just saying.”

“Sure.”

“So what about your daughter then?”

This was how Legal’s mind worked. Sometime he couldn’t remember what he had for breakfast, but he seemed to always remember that I had lost more than the election the year before. The scandal had cost me the love and companionship of my daughter and any shot I’d had at putting my broken family back together.

“Things are still the same there, but let’s not go down that road today,” I said.

I checked my phone again after feeling the vibration signaling I had received a text. It was from Lorna. She had surmised that I wasn’t taking calls or listening to voicemail. A text was different.

Call me ASAP – 187

Her mention of the California penal code number for murder got my attention. It was time to go.

“You know, Mickey, I only bring her up because you don’t.”

“I don’t want to bring her up. It’s too painful, Legal. I get drunk every Friday night so I can sleep through most of Saturday. You know why?”

“No, I don’t know why you would get drunk. You did nothing wrong. You did your job with that guy Galloway or whatever his name was.”

“I drink Friday nights so I am out of it Saturdays because Saturdays were when I used to see my daughter. His name was Gallagher, Sean Gallagher, and it doesn’t matter if I was doing my job. People died and it’s on me, Legal. You can’t hide behind just doing your job when two people get creamed in an intersection by the guy you set free. Anyway, I gotta go.”

I stood up and showed him the phone as if it were the reason I needed to go.

“What, I don’t see you for a month and now you already have to go? I’m not finished with my sandwich here.”

“I saw you last Tuesday, Legal. And I’ll see you sometime next week. If not then, then the week after. You hang in and hold fast.”

“Hold fast? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means hold on to what you got. My half brother the cop told me that one. Finish that sandwich before they come in here and take it from you.”

I moved toward the door.

“Hey, Mickey Mouse.”

I turned back to him. It was the name he bestowed on me when I was a baby, born at four and a half pounds. Normally I’d tell him not to call me that anymore. But I let him have it so I could go.

“What?”

“Your father always called the jurors the gods of guilt. You remember that?”

“Yep. Because they decide, guilty or not guilty. What’s your point, Legal?”

“The point is that there are plenty of people out there judging us every day of our lives and for every move we make. The gods of guilt are many. You don’t need to add to them.”

I nodded but couldn’t resist a reply.

“Sandy Patterson and her daughter Katie.”

Legal looked confused by my response. He didn’t recognize the names. I, of course, would never forget them.

“The mother and daughter Gallagher killed. They’re my gods of guilt.”

I closed the door behind me and left the do not disturb sign on the knob. Maybe he’d get the sandwich down before the nurses checked on him and discovered our crime.

– –

 

The Black Box audiobook by Hachette Audio is read by narrator Michael McConnohie. It is available in CD and in downloadable formats.

Listen to an excerpt of The Black Box audiobook.

https://soundcloud.com/janedavis/thebllackboxaudiobook

We have two videos for you.

First, watch the TV commercial for The Black Box.

Then, take a ride with Michael Connelly as he introduces this novel.

 

“Connelly draws on all his resources—his thorough knowledge of police work, his ability to fashion a complex tapestry of plot, and his ever deepening characterization of Bosch—to craft a mystery thriller sure to enthrall fans and newcomers alike.”
– Publishers Weekly * starred review
Named one of Publishers Weekly’s Best Books of 2012

“Harry is such a compelling character largely due to his fundamentally antiestablishment personality, which leads to chaos as often as to triumph, but also because his unswerving work ethic reflects not simply duty but also respect for the task before him. Harry does it right, even—or especially—when his bosses want something else entirely.”
– Booklist * starred review

“The Black Box is a standout”
– New York Times

“Oh well, just another superb, ambitious murder mystery from one of the best writers in the business, featuring perhaps the best fictional detective in crime fiction. It has been 20 years since Michael Connelly published his first novel, The Black Echo, and in all that time he hasn’t put a foot wrong. The Black Box keeps his streak alive.”
– The Globe and Mail

“The Black Box is the 18th novel by Michael Connelly featuring Harry Bosch, the brooding, jazz- and blues-loving detective with the Los Angeles Police Department. It’s one of the very best.”
– Chicago Tribune 

“I decided several years ago that this is the finest crime series written by an American, and nothing in the new book changes my mind.”
– Washington Post

“His character and code of honor make Bosch one of the top detectives in crime fiction. Connelly has a gift for taking what seem to be cliches and making them fresh and vibrant. Readers should find this “Black Box” because what it unveils is extraordinary.”
– Associated Press

“readers won’t be disappointed as Connelly proves again that neither he nor Bosch has lost his touch.”
– CNN.com

“This is a master-class in hard-boiled American crime writing, from an author whose talent knows no bounds.”
– Peterborough Telegraph (UK) 

““The Black Box” — Connelly’s 25th novel and the 19th in the Harry Bosch series — more than proves this. Connelly is one of the best and the most consistent living crime writers.”
– South Florida Sun Sentinel

“Harry methodically pieces together a solution that builds suspensefully and climaxes dramatically. Connelly strikes the perfect balance between showing us the tedium of police work and letting us in at the finish. Brilliant. Grade: A.”
– Cleveland Plain Dealer

“The Bosch books just keep getting better and better—they are cleverly plotted, swiftly paced and populated with characters both valiant and flawed. Not to be missed!”
– BookPage

“Suspenseful; compelling character development; headed for bestseller lists.”
– Barnes & Noble Editorial review

“Yet what lingers in the mind after reading “The Black Box” are the more complex moral dilemmas that arise for Bosch, which he has faced countless times throughout his career. How Harry Bosch resolves them, here as in last year’s “The Drop,” suggest a way of finding light in the darkness that will tantalize fans of the series as they realize that Bosch’s mission of fighting crime may be passed on, as advancing age and circumstances force Connelly’s iconic detective to yield the stage, to a younger generation of crimefighters waiting in the wings.”
– Los Angeles Times
Named one of Los Angeles Times’ Best Books of 2012

“The Black Box has everything Harry Bosch fans expect in a classic noir: addictive pacing, puzzle piece ferocity and a cool jazz soundtrack. In sticking with Bosch’s mantra — everybody counts or nobody counts — Harry will sacrifice his soul to see Anneke’s murderer brought to fiery justice.”
– Madison County Herald

“In his 20-year career as a novelist — which includes a second, legal-thriller series and several stand-alone works — Connelly still manages to keep his Bosch books inventive, fresh and often impressively relevant. These are among the reasons why any new work from him is reason to immediately readjust the order of your TBR pile.”
– Bookgasm.com

By the third night the death count was rising so high and so quickly that many of the divisional homicide teams were pulled off the front lines of riot control and put into emergency rotations in South-Central. Detective Harry Bosch and his partner Jerry Edgar were pulled from Hollywood Division and assigned to a roving B watch team that also included two shotgunners from patrol for protection. They were dispatched to any place they were needed—wherever a body turned up. The four-man team moved in a black and white patrol car, jumping from crime scene to crime scene and never staying still for long. It wasn’t the proper way to carry out homicide work, not even close, but it was the best that could be done under the surrealistic circumstances of a city that had come apart at the seams.

South-Central was a war zone. Fires burned everywhere. Looters moved in packs from storefront to storefront, all semblance of dignity and moral code gone in the smoke that rose over the city. The gangs of South L.A. stepped up to control the darkness, even calling for a truce to their internecine battles to create a united front against the police.

More than fifty people had died already. Storeowners had shot looters, National Guardsmen had shot looters, looters had shot looters and then there were the others—killers who used the camouflage of chaos and civil unrest to settle long-held scores that had nothing to do with the frustrations of the moment and the emotions displayed in the streets.

Two days before, the racial, social and economic fractures that ran under the city broke the surface with seismic intensity. The trial of four LAPD officers accused of excessively beating a black motorist at the end of a high-speed chase had resulted in the delivery of not guilty verdicts across the board. The reading of the all-white jury’s decision in a suburban courtroom forty-five miles away had an almost immediate impact on South Los Angeles. Small crowds of angry people gathered on street corners to decry the injustice. And soon things turned violent. The ever-vigilant media went high and live from the air, broadcasting the images into every home in the city, and then the world.

The department was caught flat-footed. The chief of police was out of Parker Center and making a political appearance when the verdict came in. Other members of the command staff were out of position as well. No one immediately took charge and, more importantly, no one went to the rescue. The whole department retreated and the images of unchecked violence spread like wildfire across every television screen in the city. Soon the city was out of control and in flames.

Two nights later the acrid smell of burning rubber and smoldering dreams was still everywhere. Flames from a thousand fires reflected like the devil dancing in the dark sky. Gunshots and shouts of anger echoed non-stop in the wake of the patrol car. But the four men in 6-king-16 did not stop for any of these. They stopped only for murder.

It was Friday, May 1st. B Watch was the emergency mobilization designation for night watch, a 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. shift. Bosch and Edgar had the backseat while Officers Robleto and Delwyn had the front. Delwyn, in the passenger seat, held his shotgun across his lap and angled up, its muzzle poking through the open window.

They were rolling to a dead body found in an alley off Crenshaw Boulevard. The call had been relayed to the emergency communications center by the California National Guard, which had been deployed in the city during the state of emergency. It was only ten-thirty and the calls were stacking up. King-16 had already handled a homicide call since coming on shift—a looter shot dead in the doorway of a discount shoe store. The shooter had been the store’s owner.

That crime scene was contained within the premises of the business, which allowed Bosch and Edgar to work with relative safety, Robleto and Delwyn posted with shotguns and full riot gear on the sidewalk out front. And that also gave them time to collect evidence, sketch the crime scene and take their own photos. They recorded the statement of the storeowner and watched the videotape from the business’s surveillance camera. It showed the looter using an aluminum softball bat to smash through the glass door of the store. The man then ducked in through the jagged opening he had created and was promptly shot twice by the storeowner, who was hiding behind the cash counter and waiting.

Because the coroner’s office was overrun with more death calls than the office could handle, the body was removed from the store by paramedics and transported to County-USC Medical Center. It would be held there until things calmed down—if they ever did—and the coroner caught up to the work.

As far as the shooter went, Bosch and Edgar made no arrest. Self-defense or murder while lying in wait, the D.A.’s office would make the call later.

It was not the right way to proceed but it would have to do. In the chaos of the moment the mission was simple: preserve the evidence, document the scene as best and as fast as possible, and collect the dead.

Get in and get out. And do it safely. The real investigation would come later. Maybe.

As they drove south on Crenshaw they passed occasional crowds of people, mostly young men, gathered on corners or roving in packs. At Crenshaw and Slauson a group flying Crips colors jeered as the patrol car moved by at high speed without siren or flashing lights. Bottles and rocks were thrown but the car moved too fast and the missiles fell harmlessly in its wake.

“We’ll be back, muthafuckers! Don’t you worry.”

It was Robleto who had called out and Bosch had to assume he was speaking metaphorically. The young patrolman’s threat was as hollow as the department’s response had been once the verdicts were read on live TV Wednesday afternoon.

Robleto, behind the wheel, only began to slow as they approached a blockade of National Guard vehicles and soldiers. The strategy drawn up the day before with the arrival of the Guard was to take back control of the major intersections in South L.A. and then move outward, eventually containing all trouble spots. They were less than a mile from one of those key intersections, Crenshaw and Florence, and the Guard troops and vehicles were already spread up and down Crenshaw for blocks. Only as he pulled up to the barricade at 62nd Street did Robleto lower his window.

A guardsman with sergeant stripes came to the door and leaned down to look at the car’s occupants.

“Sergeant Burstin, San Luis Obispo. What can I do for you fellows?”

“Homicide,” Robleto said. He hooked a thumb toward Bosch and Edgar in the back.

Burstin straightened up and made an arm motion so that a path could be cleared and they could be let through.

“Okay,” he said. “She’s in the alley on the east side between sixty-sixth place and sixty-seventh street. Go on through and my guys will show you. We’ll form a tight perimeter and watch the rooflines. We’ve had unconfirmed reports of sniper fire in the neighborhood.”

Robleto put his window back up as he drove through.

“’My guys,’” he said, mimicking Burstin’s voice. “That guy’s probably a school teacher or something back in the real world. I heard that none of these guys they brought in are even from L.A. From all around the state but not L.A. Probably couldn’t find Leimert Park with a map.”

“Two years ago, neither could you, dude,” Delwyn said.

“Whatever. The guy doesn’t know shit about this place and now he’s all like take charge? Fucking weekend warrior. All I’m saying is we didn’t need these guys. Makes us look bad. Like we couldn’t handle it and had to bring in the pros from San Luis O-fucking-Bispo.”

Edgar cleared his voice and spoke from the backseat.

“I got news for you,” he said. “We couldn’t handle it and we couldn’t look any worse than we already did Wednesday night. We sat back and let the city burn, man. You see all that shit on TV? The thing you didn’t see was any of us on the ground kicking ass. So don’t be blaming the school teachers from ’Bispo. It’s on us, man.”

“Whatever,” Robleto said.

“Says ‘Protect and Serve’ on the side a’ the car,” Edgar added. “We didn’t do much of either.”

Bosch remained silent. Not that he disagreed with his partner. The department had embarrassed itself with its feeble response to the initial breakout of violence. But Harry wasn’t thinking about that. He had been struck by what the sergeant had said about the victim being a she. It was the first mention of that and as far as Bosch knew, there hadn’t been any female murder victims so far. This wasn’t to say that women weren’t involved in the violence that had raked across the city. Looting and burning were equal opportunity endeavors. Bosch had seen women engaged in both. The night before he’d been on riot control on Hollywood Boulevard and had witnessed the looting of Frederick’s, the famous lingerie store. Half the looters had been women.

But the sergeant’s report had given him pause nonetheless. A woman had been out here in the chaos and it had cost her her life.

Robleto drove through the opening in the barricade and continued south. Four blocks ahead a soldier was waving a flashlight, swinging its beam toward an opening between two of the retail shops that lined the east side of the street.

Aside from soldiers posted every twenty-five yards, Crenshaw was abandoned. There was an eerie and dark stillness. All of the businesses on both sides of the streets were dark. Several had been hit by looters and arsonists. Others had miraculously been left untouched. On still others, boarded up fronts announced with spray paint that they were “Black Owned,” a meager defense against the mob.

The alley opening was between a looted wheel and tire shop called Dream Rims and a completely burned out appliance store called Used, Not Abused. The burned building was wrapped with yellow tape and had been red-tagged by city inspectors as uninhabitable. Bosch guessed that this area had been hit early in the riots. They were only twenty blocks or so from the spot where the violence had initially sparked at the intersection of Florence and Normandie, the place where people were pulled from cars and trucks and beaten while the world watched from above.

The guardsman with the flashlight started walking ahead of 6K16, leading the car into the alley. Thirty feet in, the guardsman stopped and held up his hand in a fist, as if they were on recon behind enemy lines. It was time to get out. Edgar hit Bosch on the arm with the back of his hand.

“Remember, Harry, keep your distance. A nice six-foot separation at all times.”

It was a joke meant to lighten the situation. Of the four men in the car, only Bosch was white. He’d be the likely first target of a sniper. Of any shooter for that matter.

“Got it,” Bosch said.

Edgar punched his shoulder again.

“And put your hat on.”

Bosch reached down to the floorboard and grabbed the white riot helmet he had been issued at roll call. The order was to wear it at all times while on duty. He thought the shiny white plastic, more than anything else, made them targets.

He and Edgar had to wait until Robleto and Delwyn got out and opened the rear doors of the cruiser for them. Bosch then finally stepped out into the night. He reluctantly put the helmet on but didn’t snap the chinstrap. He wanted to smoke a cigarette but time was of the essence, and he was down to a final smoke in the pack he carried in the left pocket of his uniform shirt. He had to conserve that one as he had no idea when or where he would get the chance to replenish.

Bosch looked around. He didn’t see a body. The alley was clotted with debris old and new. Old appliances, apparently not worthy of resale, had been stacked against the sidewall of Used, Not Abused. Trash was everywhere and part of the roof eave had collapsed to the ground during the fire.

“Where is she?” he asked.

“Over here,” the guardsman said. “Against the wall.”

The alley was lit only by the patrol car’s lights. The appliances and other debris threw shadows against the wall and the ground. Bosch put on his Maglite and aimed its beam in the direction the guardsman had pointed. The wall of the appliance shop was covered with gang graffiti. Names, RIPs, threats—the wall was a message board for the local Crips set, the Rolling 60s.

He walked three steps behind the guardsman and soon he saw her. A small woman lying on her side at the bottom of the wall. She had been obscured by the shadow cast by a rusting out washing machine.

Before approaching any further, Bosch played his light across the ground. At one point in time the alley was paved but now it was broken concrete, gravel and dirt. He saw no footprints or evidence of blood. He slowly moved forward and squatted down. He rested the heavy barrel of the six-cell flashlight on his shoulder as he moved its beam over the body. From his long experience looking at dead people, he guessed she had been deceased at least twelve to twenty-four hours. The legs were bent sharply at the knees and he knew this could be the result of rigor mortis or an indication she had been on her knees in the moments before her death. The skin that was visible on the arms and neck was ashen and dark where blood had coagulated. Her hands were almost black and the odor of putrefaction was beginning to permeate the air.

The woman’s face was largely obscured by the long blonde hair that had fallen across it. Dried blood was visible in the hair at the back of the head and was matted in the thick wave that obscured her face. Bosch moved the light up the wall above the body and saw a blood spatter and drip pattern that indicated that she had been killed here, not just dumped.

Bosch took a pen out of his pocket and reached forward, using it to lift the hair back from the victim’s face as he played the light on it. There was gunshot stippling around the right eye socket and a penetration wound that had exploded the eyeball. She had been shot from only inches away. Front to back, point blank range. He put the pen back in his pocket and leaned in further, pointing the light down behind her head. The exit wound, large and jagged, was visible. Death had no doubt been instantaneous.

“Holy shit, is she white?”

It was Edgar. He had come up behind and was looking over Bosch’s shoulder like an umpire hovering over a baseball catcher.

“Looks like it,” Bosch said.

He moved the light over the victim’s body now.

“What the hell’s a white girl doing down here?”

Bosch didn’t answer. He had noticed something hidden under the right arm. He put his light down so he could pull on a set of gloves.

“Put your light on her chest,” he instructed Edgar.

Gloves on, Bosch leaned back in toward the body. The victim was on her left side, her right arm extending across her chest and hiding something that was on a cord around her neck. Bosch gently pulled it free.

It was a bright orange LAPD press pass. Bosch had seen many of them over the years. This one looked new. Its lamination sleeve still clear and unscratched. It had a mug shot style photo of a woman with blonde hair on it. Beneath it was her name and the media entity she worked for.

Anneke Jespersen

Berlingske Tidende

“She’s foreign press,” Bosch said. “Anneke Jespersen.”

“From where?” Edgar asked.

“I don’t know. Germany, maybe. It says Berlin…Berlin-something. I can’t pronounce it.”

“Why would they send somebody all the way over from Germany for this? Can’t they mind their own business over there?”

“I don’t know for sure if she’s from Germany. I can’t tell.”

Bosch tuned out Edgar’s banter and studied the photograph on the press pass. The woman depicted was attractive even in a mug shot. No smile, no makeup, all business, her hair hooked behind her ears, her skin so pale as to be almost translucent. Her eyes had distance in them. Like the cops and soldiers Bosch had known that had seen too much too soon.

Bosch turned the press pass over. It looked legit to him. He knew press passes were updated yearly and a validation sticker was needed for any member of the media to enter department news briefings or pass through media checkpoints at crime scenes. This pass had a 1992 sticker on it. It meant that the victim received it sometime in the last 120 days, but noting the pristine condition of the pass, Bosch believed it had been recent.

Harry went back to studying the body. The victim was wearing blue jeans and a vest over a white shirt. It was an equipment vest with bulging pockets. This told Bosch that it was likely that the woman had been a photographer. But there were no cameras on her body or nearby. They had been taken, and possibly had even been the motive for the murder. Most news photographers he had seen carried multiple high quality cameras and related equipment.

Harry reached to the vest and opened one of the breast pockets. Normally this would be something he would ask a coroner’s investigator to do, as jurisdiction of the body belonged to the county Medical Examiner’s office. But Bosch had no idea if a coroner’s crew would even show at the crime scene and wasn’t going to wait to find out.

The pocket held four black film canisters. He didn’t know if this was film that had been shot or was unused. He re-buttoned the pocket and in doing so felt a hard surface beneath it. He knew rigor mortis comes and goes in a day, leaving the body soft and moveable. He pulled back the equipment vest and knocked a fist on the chest. It was a hard surface and the sound confirmed this. The victim was wearing a bulletproof vest.

“Hey, check out the hit list,” Edgar said.

Bosch looked up from the body. Edgar’s flashlight was now aimed at the wall above. The graffiti directly over the victim was a 187 count or hit list with the names of several bangers who had gone down in street battles. Ken Dog, G-Dog, OG Nasty, Neckbone and so on. The crime scene was in the Rolling 60s territory. The 60s were a subset of the massive Crips gang. They were at endless war with the nearby 7-Treys, another Crips subset.

The general public was largely under the impression that the gang wars that gripped most of South L.A. and claimed victims every night of the week came down to a Bloods versus Crips battle for supremacy and control of the streets. But the reality was that the rivalries between subsets of the same gang were some of the most violent in the city and largely responsible for the weekly body counts. The Rolling 60s and 7-Treys were at the top of that list. Both Crips sets operated under kill on sight protocols and the score was routinely noted in the neighborhood graffiti. A RIP list was used to memorialize homies lost in the endless battle while a lineup of names under a 187 heading was a hit list, a record of kills.

“Looks like what we’ve got here is Snow White and the Seven-Trey Crips,” Edgar added.

Bosch shook his head, annoyed. The city had come off its hinges and here in front of them was the result—a woman put up against a wall and executed—and his partner didn’t seem to be able to take it seriously.

Edgar must have read Bosch’s body language.

“It’s just a joke, Harry,” he said quickly. “Lighten up. We need some gallows humor around here.”

“Okay,” Bosch said. “I’ll lighten up while you go get on the radio. Tell them what we’ve got here, make sure they know it’s a member of the out of town media and see if they’ll give us a full team. If not that, at least a photographer and some lights. Tell them we really could use some time and some help on this one.”

“Why? ’Cause she’s white?”

Bosch took a moment before responding. It was a careless thing for Edgar to have said. He was hitting back because Bosch had not responded well to the Snow White quip.

“No, not because she’s white,” Bosch said evenly. “Because she’s not a looter and she’s not a gangbanger and because they better believe that the media is going to jump all over a case involving one of their own. Okay? Is that good enough?”

“Got it.”

“Good.”

Edgar went back to the car to use the radio and Bosch went back to working the crime scene. The first thing he did was delineate the perimeter. He backed several of the guardsmen down the alley so he could create a zone that extended twenty-feet on either side of the body. The third and fourth sides of the box were the wall of the appliance shop on one side and the wall of the rim store on the other.

As he marked it off Bosch noted that the alley cut through a residential block that was directly behind the row of retail businesses that fronted Crenshaw. There was no uniformity in the containment of the backyards that lined the alley. Some of the homes had concrete walls while others had wood slat or chain-link fences.

Bosch knew that in a perfect world he would search all those yards and knock on all those doors, but that would have to come later, if at all. His attention at the moment had to be focused on the immediate crime scene. If he got the chance to canvas the neighborhood he would consider himself lucky.

Bosch noticed that Robleto and Delwyn had taken positions with their shotguns at the mouth of the alley. They were standing next to each other and talking, probably sharing a complaint about something. Back in Bosch’s Vietnam days that would have been called a sniper’s two for one sale.

There were eight guardsmen posted inside the alley on the interior perimeter. Bosch noticed that a group of people were beginning to congregate and watch from the far end. He waved over the guardsman who had led them into the alley.

“What’s your name, soldier?”

“Drummond, but everyone calls me Drummer.”

“Okay, Drummer, I’m Detective Bosch. Tell me who found her.”

“The body? That was Dowler. He came back here to take a leak and he found her. He said he could smell her first. He knew the smell.”

“Where’s Dowler now?”

“I think he’s on post at the southern barricade.”

“I need to talk to him. Will you get him for me?”

“Yes, sir.”

Drummond started to move toward the entrance of the alley.

“Hold on, Drummer, I’m not done.”

Drummond turned around.

“When did you deploy to this location?”

“We’ve been here since eighteen hundred yesterday, sir.”

“So you’ve had control of this area since then? This alley?”

“Not exactly, sir. We started at Crenshaw and Florence last night and we’ve worked east on Florence and north on Crenshaw. It’s been block by block.”

“So when did you get to this alley?”

“I’m not sure. I think we had it covered by dawn today.”

“And all the looting and burning in this immediate area, that was already over?”

“Yes, sir, happened first night from what I’ve been told.”

“Okay, Drummer, one last thing. We need more light back here. Can you bring one of those trucks you have with all the lights on top back here?”

“It’s called a Humvee, Sir.”

“Yeah, well, bring one back here from that end of the alley. Come in past those people and point the lights right at my crime scene. You got it?”

“Got it, sir.”

Bosch pointed to the end opposite the patrol car.

“Good. I want to create a cross hatching of light here, okay? It’s probably going to be the best we can do.”

“Yes, sir.”

He started to trot away.

“Hey, Drummer.”

Drummond turned around once more and came back.

“Yes, sir.”

Bosch whispered now.

“All your guys are watching me. Shouldn’t they be turned around, eyes out?”

Drummond stepped back and twirled his finger over his head.

“Hey! Turn it around, eyes out. We’ve got a job here. Keep the watch.”

He pointed down the alley toward the gathering of onlookers.

“And make sure we keep those people back.”

The guardsmen did as they were told and Drummond headed out of the alley to radio Dowler and get the light truck.

Bosch’s pager buzzed on his hip. He reached to his belt and snapped the device out of its holder. The number on the screen was the command post and he knew he and Edgar were about to be given another call. They hadn’t even started here and they were going to be yanked. He didn’t want that. He put the pager back on his belt.

Bosch walked over to the first fence that started off the back corner of the appliance shop. It was a wood-slat barrier that was too tall for him to look over. But he noticed it had been freshly painted. There was no graffiti, even on the alley side of it. He noted it because it indicated that there was a homeowner on the other side who cared enough to whitewash the graffiti. Maybe it was the kind of person who kept their own watch and might have heard or even seen something.

From there he crossed the alley and dropped to a squatting position at the far corner of the crime scene. Like a fighter in his corner, waiting to come out. He started playing the beam of his flashlight across the broken concrete and dirt surface of the alley. At the oblique angle, the light refracted off the myriad surface planes, giving him a unique look. Soon enough he saw the glint of something shiny and held the beam on it. He moved in on the spot and found a brass bullet casing lying in the gravel.

He got down on his hands and knees so he could look closely at the casing without moving it. He moved the light in close and saw that it was a 9mm brass casing with the familiar Remington brand mark stamped on the flat base. There was an indentation from the firing pin on the primer. Bosch also noted that the casing was lying on top of the gravel bed. It had not been stepped on or run over in what he assumed was a busy alleyway. That told him that the casing had not been there long.

Bosch was looking around for something to mark the casing’s location with when Edgar stepped back into the crime scene. He was carrying a toolbox and that told Bosch that they weren’t going to get any help.

“Harry, what’d you find?”

“Nine millimeter Remington. Looks fresh.”

“Well, at least we found something useful.”

“Maybe. You get the CP?”

Edgar put down the toolbox. It was heavy. It contained the equipment they had quickly gathered in the kit room at Hollywood Station once they heard they could not count on any forensic back up in the field.

“Yeah, I got through but it’s no can do from the command post. Everybody’s otherwise engaged. We’re on our own out here, brother.”

“No coroner, either?”

“No coroner. The National Guard’s coming with a truck for her. A troop transporter.”

“You gotta be kidding me. They’re going to move her in a fucking flatbed?”

“Not only that, we got our next call already. A crispy critter. Fire Department found him in a burned out taco shop on MLK.”

“Goddamnit, we just got here.”

“Yeah, well, we’re up again and we’re closest to MLK. So they want us to clear and steer.”

“Yeah, well, we’re not done here. Not by a long shot.”

“Nothing we can do about it, Harry.”

Bosch was obstinate.

“I’m not leaving yet. There’s too much to do here and if we leave it till next week or whenever, then we’ve lost the crime scene. We can’t do that.”

“We don’t have a choice, partner. We don’t make the rules.”

“Bullshit.”

“Okay, tell you what. We give it fifteen minutes. We take a few pictures, bag the casing, put the body on the truck and then we shuffle on down the road. Come Monday, or whenever this is over, it isn’t even going to be our case anymore. We go back to Hollywood after everything calms down and this thing stays right here. Somebody else’s case then. This is Seventy-seventh’s turf. It’ll be their problem then.”

It didn’t matter to Bosch what came later, whether the case went to detectives at 77th Street Division or not. What mattered was what was in front of him. A woman named Anneke from someplace far away lay dead in front of him and he wanted to know who did it and why.

“Doesn’t matter that it’s not going to be our case,” he said. “That’s not the point.”

“Harry, there is no point,” Edgar said. “Not now, not with complete chaos all around us. Nothing matters right now, man. The city is out of control. You can’t expect—”

The sudden rip of automatic gunfire split the air. Edgar dove to the ground and Bosch instinctively threw himself toward the wall of the appliance shop. His helmet went flying off. Bursts of gunfire from several of the guardsmen followed until finally it was quelled by shouting.

“Hold your fire! Hold your fire! Hold your fire!”

The gunshots ended and Burstin, the sergeant from the barricade, came running up the alley. Bosch saw Edgar slowly getting up. His partner looked like he was unharmed but he was looking at Bosch with an odd expression.

“Who opened first?” the sergeant yelled. “Who fired?”

“Me,” said one of the men in the alley. “I thought I saw a weapon on the roofline.”

“Where, soldier? What roofline? Where was the sniper?”

“Over there.”

The shooter pointed to the roofline of the rim store.

“Goddamnit!” the sergeant yelled. “Hold your fucking fire. We cleared that roof. There’s nobody up there but us! Our people!”

“Sorry, sir. I saw the—”

“Son, I don’t give a flying fuck what you saw. You get any of my people killed and I will personally frag your ass myself.”

“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”

Bosch stood up. His ears were ringing and his nerves jangling. The sudden spit of automatic fire wasn’t new to him. But it had been almost twenty-five years since it was a routine part of his life. He walked over and picked up his helmet and put it back on.

Sergeant Burstin walked up to him.

“Continue your work, Detectives. If you need me I’ll be on the north perimeter. We have a truck coming in for the remains. I understand that we are to provide a team to escort your car to another location and another body.”

He then charged out of the alley.

“Jesus Christ, you believe that?” Edgar asked. “Like Desert Storm or something. Vietnam. What the hell are we doing here, man?”

“Let’s just go to work,” Bosch said. “You draw the crime scene, I’ll work the body, take pictures. Let’s move.”

Bosch squatted down and opened up the toolbox. He wanted to get a photograph of the bullet casing in place before he bagged it as evidence. Edgar kept talking. The adrenaline rush from the shooting was not dissipating. He talked a lot when he was hyper. Sometimes, too much.

“Harry, did you see what you did when that yahoo opened up with the gun?”

“Yeah, I ducked like everybody else.”

“No, Harry, you covered the body. I saw it. You shielded Snow White over there like she was still alive or something.”

Bosch didn’t respond. He lifted the top tray out of the toolbox and reached in for the Polaroid camera. He noted that they only had two more packs of film left. Sixteen shots plus whatever was left in the camera. Maybe twenty shots total, and they had this scene and the one waiting on MLK. It was not enough. His frustration was peaking.

“What was that about, Harry?” Edgar persisted.

Bosch finally lost it and barked at his partner.

“I don’t know! Okay? I don’t know. So let’s just go to work now and try to do something for her so maybe, just maybe, somebody sometime will be able to make a case.”

His outburst had drawn the attention of most the guardsmen in the alley. The soldier who had started the shooting earlier stared hard at him, happy to pass the mantle of unwanted attention.

“Okay, Harry,” Edgar said quietly. “Let’s go to work. We do what we can. Fifteen minutes and then we’re on to the next one.”

Bosch nodded as he looked down at the dead woman. Fifteen minutes, he thought. He was resigned. He knew the case was lost before it had even started.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

–