“That’s a deal. I don’t want him cranky, either.”
Bosch didn’t have to worry about anyone else in the bureau telling Pounds he had been in. He gave Henry a friendly clasp on the shoulder as he walked behind him, sealing the agreement. He went back to the homicide table and as he approached, Burns began to rise from Bosch’s old spot.
“You need to get in here, Harry?” he asked.
Bosch thought he could detect nervous energy in the other man’s voice. He understood his predicament and wasn’t going to make it a difficult time for him.
“Yeah, if you don’t mind,” he said. “I figured I’d get my personal stuff out of there so you can move in the right way.”
Bosch came around and opened the drawer at the table. There were two boxes of Junior Mints on top of old paperwork that had been shoved in long ago.
“Oh, those are mine, sorry,” Burns said.
He reached in for the two boxes of candy and stood next to the table, holding them like a big kid in a suit while Bosch went through the paperwork.
It was all a show. Bosch took some of the paperwork and dumped it in a manila file and then pointed with his hand, signaling to Burns he could put his candy back.
“Be careful, Bob.”
“It’s Bill. Careful of what?”
“Ants.”
Bosch went to the bank of file cabinets that ran along the wall to the side of the table and opened one of the drawers with his business card taped to it. It was three up from the bottom, waist-high, and it was one he knew was almost empty. With his back to the table again, he pulled the badge wallet out of his pocket and put it in the drawer. Then, with his hands in the drawer and out of sight, he opened the wallet and took out the gold badge. He then put it in one pocket and the wallet back in the other. For good measure, he pulled a file out of the drawer and closed it.
He turned around and looked at Jerry Edgar.
“Okay, that’s it. Just some personal stuff I might need. Anything going on?”
“Nah, quiet.”
Back at the coatrack, Bosch turned his back on the bureau again and used one hand to reach for his coat while using the other to take the badge wallet from his pocket and slip it back into Pounds’s coat. He then put his coat on, said good-bye to Henry and went back to the homicide table.
“I’m outta here,” he said to Edgar and Burns while picking up the two files he had pulled. “I don’t want Ninety-eight to see me and throw a fit. Good luck, boys.”
On the way out, Bosch stopped and gave the hype another cigarette. The lockdown who had complained before was no longer on the bench or Bosch would have given him one, too.
Back in the Mustang, he dumped the files on the backseat and took his empty badge wallet out of his briefcase. He slipped Pounds’s badge into place next to his own ID card. It would work, he decided, as long as no one looked too closely at it. The badge said LIEUTENANT across it. Bosch’s ID card identified him as a detective. It was a minor discrepancy and Bosch was happy with it. Best of all, he thought, there was a good chance Pounds would not notice that the badge was missing for some time. He rarely left the station to go to crime scenes and so rarely had to open the wallet or show his badge. There was a good chance its disappearance would go unnoticed. All he had to do was get it back into place when he was done with it.
Chapter 21
Bosch ended up outside the door of Carmen Hinojos’s office early for his afternoon session. He waited until exactly three-thirty and knocked. She smiled as he entered her office and he noticed that the late-afternoon sun came through the window and splashed light directly across her desk. He moved toward the chair he usually took but then stopped himself and sat on the chair to the left of the desk. She noticed this and frowned at him as if he were a schoolboy.
“If you think I care which chair you sit in, you are wrong.”
“Am I? Okay.”
He got up and moved to the other chair. He liked being near the window.
“I might not be here for Monday’s session,” he said after settling in.
She frowned again, this time more seriously.
“Why not?”
“I’m going away. I’ll try to be back.”
“Away? What happened to your investigation?”
“It’s part of it. I’m going to Florida to track down one of the original investigators. One’s dead, the other one’s in Florida. So I’ve got to go to him.”
“Couldn’t you just call?”
“I don’t want to call. I don’t want to give him the chance to put me off.”
She nodded.
“When do you leave?”
“Tonight. I’m taking a red-eye to Tampa.”
“Harry, look at you. You practically look like the walking dead. Can’t you get some sleep and take a plane in the morning?”
“No, I’ve gotta get out there before the mail arrives.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Nothing. It’s a long story. Anyway, I wanted to ask you something. I need your help.”
She contemplated this for several seconds, apparently weighing how far she wanted to go into the pool without knowing how deep it was.
“What is it you want?”
“Do you ever do any forensic work for the department?”
She narrowed her eyes, not seeing where this was going.
“A little. From time to time somebody will bring me something, or maybe ask me to do a little profiling of a suspect. But mostly the department uses outside contractors. Forensic psychiatrists who have experience with this.”
“But you’ve been to crime scenes?”
“Actually, no. I’ve only looked at photos brought to me and worked from them.”
“Perfect.”
Bosch pulled his briefcase onto his lap and opened it. He took out the envelope of crime scene and autopsy photos that had been in the murder book and gently placed them on her desk.
“Those are from this case. I don’t want to look at them. I can’t look at them. But I need someone to do it and tell me what’s there. There’s probably nothing but I’d like another opinion. The investigation these two guys did on this case was . . . well, it was almost like there was no investigation.”
“Oh, Harry.” She shook her head. “I’m not sure this is wise. Why me?”
“Because you know what I’m doing. And because I trust you. I don’t think I can trust anybody else.”
“Would you trust me if there was no ethical constraint on me telling others about what we’ve talked about here?”
Bosch studied her face.
“I don’t know,” he finally said.
“I thought so.”
She slid the envelope to the side of the desk.
“Let’s put these aside for now and go on with the session. I really have to think about this.”
“Okay, you can take them. But let me know, okay? I just want your feel for them. As a psychiatrist and as a woman.”
“We’ll see.”
“What do you want to talk about?”
“What is happening with the investigation?”
“Is that a professional question, Dr. Hinojos? Or are you just curious about the case?”
“No, I’m curious about you. And I’m worried about you. I’m still not convinced that what you are doing is safe— either psychologically or physically. You’re mucking around in the lives of powerful people. And I’m caught in the middle. I know what you’re doing but am almost powerless to make you stop. I’m afraid you tricked me.”
“Tricked you?”
“You pulled me into this. I bet you’ve wanted to show me these pictures since you told me what you’re doing.”
“You’re right, I have. But there was no trick. I thought this was a place where I could talk about anything. Isn’t that what you said?”
“Okay, I wasn’t tricked, just led down the path. I should’ve seen it coming. Let’s move on. I want to talk more about the emotional aspect of what you ar
e doing. I want to know more about why finding this killer is so important to you after so many years?”
“It should be obvious.”
“Make it more obvious for me.”
“I can’t. I can’t put it into words. All I know is that everything changed for me after she was gone. I don’t know how things would have been if she hadn’t been taken away but . . . everything changed.”
“Do you understand what you’re saying and what it means? You’re looking at your life in two parts. The first part is with her, which you seem to have imbued with a happiness I’m sure was not always there. The second part is your life after, which you acknowledge has not met expectations or is in some way unsatisfactory. I think you’ve been unhappy for a long time, possibly all of that time. This recent relationship you had may have been a highlight but you were still and, I think, have always been, an unhappy man.”
She rested a moment but Bosch didn’t speak. He knew she wasn’t done.
“Now, maybe the traumas of the last few years— both personally for you and for your community at large— have made you take stock of yourself. And I fear that you believe, whether subconsciously or not, that by going back and bringing some form of justice to what happened to your mother, you will be righting your life. And there’s the problem. Whatever happens with this private investigation of yours, it’s not going to change things. It just can’t be done.”
“You’re saying that I can’t blame what happened then for what I am now?”
“No, listen to me, Harry. All I’m saying is you are the sum of many parts, not the sum of one. It’s like dominoes. Several different blocks must click together for you to arrive at the end, at the point you are at now. You don’t jump from the first domino to the last.”
“So I should just give it up? Just let it go?”
“I’m not saying that. But I am finding it hard to see the emotional benefit or healing you will get from this. In fact, I think there is the possibility that you may do yourself more damage than repair. Does that make any sense?”
Bosch stood up and went to the window. He stared out but didn’t compute what he saw. He felt the warmth of the sun on him. He didn’t look at her as he spoke.
“I don’t know what makes sense. All I know is that on every level it seems to make sense that I do this. In fact, I feel . . . I don’t know what the word is, maybe ashamed. I feel ashamed that I haven’t done this long before now. A lot of years have gone by and I just let them go. I feel like I let her down somehow . . . that I let myself down.”
“That’s understa—”
“Remember what I told you the first day? Everybody counts or nobody counts. Well, for a long time she didn’t count. Not with this department, this society, not even with me. I have to admit that, not even with me. Then I opened that file this week and I could see that her death was just put away. It was buried, just like I had buried it. Somebody put the fix in because she didn’t count. They did it because they could. And then when I think about how long I’ve let it go . . . it makes me want to . . . I don’t know, just hide my face or something.”
He stopped, unable to put into words what he wanted to say. He looked down and noticed there were no ducks in the butcher shop window.
“You know,” he said, “she might’ve been what she was but sometimes I feel like I didn’t even deserve that . . . I guess I got what I deserved in life.”
He stayed at the window, not looking at her. It was several moments before Hinojos spoke.
“I guess this is the point where I should tell you that you’re being too hard on yourself, but I don’t think that would help much.”
“No, it wouldn’t.”
“Could you come back here and sit down? Please?”
Bosch did as he was asked. Finally, after he was seated, his eyes met hers. She spoke first.
“What I want to say is that you are mixing things up. Putting the cart before the horse. You can’t take the blame because this case may have been covered up. First of all, you had nothing to do with that, and secondly, you didn’t even realize that until you read through the file this week.”
“But don’t you see? Why didn’t I look at it before? I’m not new here. I’ve been a cop twenty years. I should’ve been there before this. I mean, so what that I didn’t know the details. I knew she was killed and nothing was ever done about it. That was enough.”
“Look, Harry, think about this, okay? On the plane over tonight, just give it some thought. You’ve engaged yourself in a noble pursuit but you have to safeguard against damaging yourself further. The bottom line is that it is not worth that. It’s not worth the toll you may have to pay.”
“Not worth it? There’s a killer out there. He thinks he made it away free. For years, he has thought that. Decades. And I’m going to change that.”
“You’re not understanding what I’m saying. I don’t want any guilty person to get away, especially with murder. But what I am talking about here is you. You are my only concern here. There is a basic rule of nature. No living thing sacrifices itself or hurts itself needlessly. It’s the will of survival and I fear the circumstances of your life may have blunted your own survival skills. You may be throwing it to the wind, not caring what happens to you emotionally, physically, in every way, in this pursuit. I don’t want to see you hurt.”
She took a breather. He said nothing.
“I have to say,” she continued quietly, “I’m very nervous about this. I’ve never had this situation come up before and I’ve counseled a lot of cops in nine years here.”
“Well, I got bad news for you.” He smiled. “I went and crashed a party last night at Mittel’s. I think I may have spooked him. At least, I spooked myself.”
“Shit!”
“Is that some new psychiatric term? I’m not familiar with it.”
“This isn’t funny. Why’d you do that?”
Bosch thought a moment.
“I don’t know. It was kind of a whim type of thing. I was just driving by his house and there was a party. It kind of . . . it just made me angry for some reason. Him having a party and my mother . . .”
“Did you speak to him about the case?”
“No. I didn’t even tell him my name. We just kind of sparred around for a few minutes but then I left him something. Remember that newspaper clip I showed you Wednesday? I left that for him. I saw him read it. I think it struck a nerve.”
She exhaled loudly.
“Now, step outside yourself and look as an uninvolved observer at what you did. If you can. Was that a smart thing to do, going there like that?”
“I already have thought about it. No, it wasn’t smart. It was a mistake. He’ll probably warn Conklin. They’ll both know somebody’s out there, coming for them. They’ll close ranks.”
“You see, you are proving my point for me. I want you to promise me you won’t do anything foolish like that again.”
“I can’t.”
“Well, then I have to tell you that a patient-doctor relationship can be broken if the therapist believes the patient is endangering himself or others. I told you I was almost powerless to stop you. Not completely.”
“You’d go to Irving?”
“I will if I believe you are being reckless.”
Bosch felt anger as he realized she had ultimate control over him and what he was doing. He swallowed the anger and held up his hands, surrendering.
“All right. I won’t go crashing any parties again.”
“No. I want more than that. I want you to stay away from these men that you think may have been involved.”
“What I’ll promise you is that I won’t go to them until I have the whole thing in the bag.”
“I mean it.”
“So do I.”
“I hope so.”
They were silent for nearly a minute after that. It was a cooling-off period. She turned slightly in her chair, not looking at him, probably thinking what to say next.
“Let’s mo
ve on,” she finally said. “You understand that this whole thing, this pursuit of yours, has eclipsed what we’re supposed to be doing here?”
“I know.”
“So we’re prolonging my evaluation.”
“Well, that doesn’t bother me as much anymore. I need the time off the job for this other thing.”
“Well, as long as you are happy,” she said sarcastically. “Okay, then I want to go back to the incident that brought you to me. The other day you were very general and very short in your description of what happened. I understand why. I think we were both feeling each other out at that point. But we are far past that now. I’d like a fuller story. You said the other day that Lieutenant Pounds set things into motion?”
“That’s right.”
“How?”
“First of all, he’s a commander of detectives who has never been a detective himself. Oh, technically, he probably spent a few months on a table somewhere along the line so he’d have it on his résumé, but basically he’s an administrator. He’s what we call a Robocrat. A bureaucrat with a badge. He doesn’t know the first thing about clearing cases. The only thing he knows about it is how to draw a line through the case on this little chart he keeps in his office. He doesn’t know the first thing about the differences between an interview and an interrogation. And that’s fine, the department is full of people like him. I say let them do their job and let me do mine. The problem is Pounds doesn’t realize where he’s good and where he’s bad. It’s led to problems before. Confrontations. It finally led to the incident, as you keep calling it.”
“What did he do?”
“He touched my suspect.”
“Explain what that means.”
“When you’ve got a case and you bring someone in, he’s all yours. Nobody goes near him, understand? The wrong word, the wrong question and it could spoil a case. That’s a cardinal rule; don’t touch somebody else’s suspect. It doesn’t matter if you’re a lieutenant or the damn chief, you stay clear until you check first with the guys with the collar.”
“So what happened?”
“Like I told you the other day, my partner Edgar and I brought in this suspect. A woman had been killed. One of these ones who puts ads in the sex tabs you can buy on the Boulevard. She gets called to one of those shithole motel rooms on Sunset, has sex with the guy and ends up stabbed to death. That’s the short story. The stab wound’s to the upper right chest. The john, he plays it cool, though. He calls the cops and says it was her knife and she tried to rob him with it. He says he turned her arm and put it into her. Self-defense. Okay, so that’s when me and Edgar show up and right away we see some things don’t fit with that story.”