The Night Fire (Harry Bosch #22) - Michael Connelly Page 0,5
her computer to the side, and a faded blue binder—a murder book—had been left front and center on the desk. She flipped it open and there was a Post-it on the table of contents.
Don’t say I never gave you anything.
B
PS: Jazz is better for you than news.
Ballard took the Post-it off because it was covering the name of the victim.
John Hilton—DOB 1/17/66–DOD 8/3/90
She didn’t need the table of contents to find the photo section of the book. She flipped several sections of reports over on the three steel loops and found the photos secured in plastic sleeves. The photos showed the body of the young man slumped across the front seat of a car, a bullet hole behind his right ear.
She studied the photos for a moment and then closed the binder. She pulled her phone, looked up a number, and called it, checking her watch as she waited. A man answered quickly and did not sound to Ballard as if he had been pulled from the depths of sleep.
“It’s Ballard,” she said. “You were in here at the station tonight?”
“Uh, yeah, I dropped by about an hour ago,” Bosch said. “You weren’t there.”
“I was on a call. So where’d this murder book come from?”
“I guess you could say it’s been missing in action. I went to a funeral yesterday—my first partner in homicide way back when. The guy who mentored me. He passed on and I went to the funeral, and then afterward at his house, his wife—his widow—gave me the book. She wanted me to return it. So that’s what I did. I returned it to you.”
Ballard flipped the binder open again and read the basic case information above the table of contents.
“George Hunter was your partner?” she asked.
“No,” Bosch said. “My partner was John Jack Thompson. This wasn’t his case originally.”
“It wasn’t his case, but when he retired he stole the murder book.”
“Well, I don’t know if I’d say he stole it.”
“Then what would you say?”
“I’d say he took over the investigation of a case nobody was working. Read the chrono, you’ll see it was gathering dust. The original case detective probably retired and nobody was doing anything with it.”
“When did Thompson retire?”
“January 2000.”
“Shit, and he had it all this time? Almost twenty years.”
“That’s the way it looks.”
“That’s really bullshit.”
“Look, I’m not trying to defend John Jack, but the case probably got more attention from him than it ever would’ve in the Open-Unsolved Unit. They mainly just work DNA cases over there and there’s no DNA in this one. It would have been passed over and left to gather dust if John Jack hadn’t taken it with him.”
“So you know there’s no DNA? And you checked the chrono?”
“Yeah. I read through it. I started when I got home from the funeral, then took it to you as soon as I finished.”
“And why did you bring it here?”
“Because we had a deal, remember? We’d work cases together.”
“So you want to work this together?”
“Well, sort of.”
“What’s that mean?”
“I’ve got some stuff going on. Medical stuff. And I don’t know how much—”
“What medical stuff?”
“I just got a new knee and, you know, I have rehab and there might be a complication. So I’m not sure how much I can be involved.”
“You’re dumping this case on me. You changed my radio station and dumped the case on me.”
“No, I want to help and I will help. John Jack mentored me. He taught me the rule, you know?”
“What rule?”
“To take every case personally.”
“What?”
“Take every case personally and you get angry. It builds a fire. It gives you the edge you need to go the distance every time out.”
Ballard thought about that. She understood what he was saying but knew it was a dangerous way to live and work.
“He said ‘every case’?” she asked.
“‘Every case,’” Bosch said.
“So you just read this cover to cover?”
“Yes. Took me about six hours. I had a few interruptions. I need to walk and work my knee.”
“What’s the part in it that made it personal for John Jack?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t see it. But I know he found a way to make every case personal. If you find that, you might be able to close it out.”
“If I find it?”
“Okay, if we find it. But like I said, I already looked.”
Ballard flipped the sections over until she once again came to the photos held in plastic sleeves.
“I don’t know,” she said. “This feels like a long shot. If George Hunter couldn’t clear it and then John Jack