The Night Fire (Harry Bosch #22) - Michael Connelly Page 0,122

from the structure they dropped from. There were always the “step-offs,” but that method was not as precise or as final as the jump-off. Buildings often had architectural parapets, window-washing scaffolds, awnings, and other features that could interfere with a straight drop. The last thing a suicidal individual wanted was to have a fall broken and to bounce down the side of a building, possibly being left at the bottom alive.

Bosch deviated from the path the others were taking and headed toward the building’s entrance. As he went, he surveyed California Plaza. It was surrounded on three sides by office towers. The one he was heading toward was the tallest but Bosch assumed that cameras somewhere in the plaza would have captured Manley’s fall. From them it might be possible to determine whether he had been conscious when he fell.

He reached into his pocket as he approached the revolving glass doors at the lobby entrance, pulled out his old ID, and clipped it to the breast pocket of his jacket. He knew that the plan now was to keep moving and not stop long enough for anyone to read the date on it.

Once he passed through the door, he saw the round security desk with a sign saying that visitors must show ID before being allowed to go up. Bosch strode toward it confidently. A man and a woman sat behind the counter, both wearing blue blazers with name tags.

“Detective Bosch, LAPD,” he said. “Have any of my colleagues asked about visitors today to Michaelson & Mitchell on the sixteenth floor?”

“Not yet,” the woman said. Her name tag said RACHEL.

Bosch leaned over the counter as if to look down at the screen in front of Rachel. He put his elbow on the marble top and drew his hand up to his chin as if contemplating her answer. This allowed him to block her view of his ID tag with his forearm.

“Can we take a look, then?” he said. “All visitors to the firm.”

Rachel started typing. The angle Bosch had on her screen was too sharp and he could not see what she was doing.

“I can only tell you who was put on the visitor list this morning,” Rachel said.

“That’s fine,” Bosch said. “Would it say which lawyer in the firm they were visiting?”

“Yes, I can provide that if needed.”

“Thank you.”

“This is about the suicide?”

“We’re not calling it a suicide yet. We need to investigate it and that’s why we want to see who came up to the firm today.”

Bosch turned and looked through the glass walls of the lobby. He did not have a view of the death scene but felt he was only a few moves ahead of Gustafson and Reyes. One of them would be going up to the firm soon.

“Okay, I have it here,” Rachel said.

“Is that something you can print out for me?” Bosch asked.

“Not a problem.”

“Thanks.”

Rachel moved down the counter to a printer and took two pages out of the tray. She handed them to Bosch, who took them as he walked around the counter toward the elevators.

“I’m going up to sixteen,” he said.

“Wait,” Rachel said.

Bosch froze.

“What?” he asked.

“You need a visitor card to get to the elevators,” Rachel said.

Bosch had forgotten that the elevator lobby was protected by electronic turnstiles. Rachel programmed a card and handed it to him.

“Here you go, Detective. Just put it into the slot at the turnstile.”

“Thank you. How do I get access to the roof?”

“You can get to thirty-two, but from there you have to take the maintenance stairwell up. It’s supposed to be locked but I guess today it wasn’t.”

“How do employees get up to their offices?”

“They enter the underground parking on Hill Street, take an elevator to this level, then everybody goes through the turnstiles. Employees get permanent cards.”

“Okay, thanks.”

“Be careful up there.”

Bosch decided to go to the roof first. As he rode the elevator up, he tried to think in terms of how the Black Widow did it. She had somehow lured Manley to the roof and then pushed him off, or incapacitated him and pushed him off. The question was how she got him up there. Forcing him at gunpoint to walk through the law firm and take an elevator up would have been too risky. Just the chance that someone could be on the elevator would seem to scratch that as a possibility. But somehow, she had gotten Manley up there.

As the elevator ascended, he looked for the first time at the printout he