The Night Fire (Harry Bosch #22) - Michael Connelly Page 0,75
making millions? If that isn’t motive, I don’t know what is.”
Bosch heard Reyes laughing over the phone. Bosch had been trying to get a rise out of him with his provocative statements, but he wasn’t expecting laughter.
“You think it’s funny?” Bosch said. “You’re letting her get away with murder.”
“I guess this is what happens when you don’t have a badge no more,” Reyes said. “Check your computer, Bosch. Google it. Tampa PD cleared that murder a month ago and Maura Frederick had nothing to do with it. You owe me, man. I just saved you some big-time embarrassment.”
Bosch seethed with humiliation. He should have checked the Florida case for an update before throwing it in Reyes’s face. He managed to gather himself and throw back something else.
“No, Reyes, you still owe me,” Bosch said. “I saved you from convicting an innocent man.”
“Bullshit, Bosch,” Reyes said. “A killer walks free because of what you and that asshole lawyer Haller have done. But it doesn’t matter because we’re done here.”
Reyes disconnected and Bosch was left holding a dead phone to his ear.
32
Bosch got up from the table and went into the kitchen to make more coffee. He was still stinging from the rebuke Reyes had hit him with. He had no doubt about his actions regarding Jeffrey Herstadt, but it stung when a representative of the police department he had invested three decades of his life in dismissed him so harshly.
A killer walks free because of you.
Those words hurt enough for Bosch to want to take another look at his actions to see if he had taken a wrong turn somewhere.
He checked his watch. He had an hour before he needed to get on the road to meet with Ballard. She had sent a message setting a rendezvous point at a gas station before she would go into Dulan’s to spy on the meeting between Elvin Kidd and Marcel Dupree.
Bosch refilled his cup and went back to the dining room table. He decided he would do exactly what Reyes suggested: he would Google the Tampa case and get the latest update.
Before he got the chance, his cell phone buzzed. It was Mickey Haller.
“About that thing we talked about at lunch during the trial,” he said, “when do you want to do the video?”
Bosch’s mind was so deep into his review of the Montgomery investigation that he had no idea what Haller was talking about.
“What video?” he asked.
“Remember, CML?” Haller said. “Chronic myeloid leukemia? I want to take a video deposition with you and get rolling on that, send out a demand letter with the video.”
Now Bosch remembered.
“Uh, it’s gotta wait a bit,” he said.
“Why is that?” Haller said. “I mean, you came to me with it. You know, make sure Maddie is covered. Now it’s gotta wait?”
“Just a bit. I have two different cases I’m working. I don’t have time to sit for a video. Give me about a week.”
Bosch thought of something as he mentioned the cases.
“It’s your life,” Haller said. “I’m here when you’re ready.”
“Hey, listen,” Bosch said. “I don’t know if this will happen but I might end up going to see another lawyer. Not because I want to hire him but I want him to think I do. I might mention this case—the CML thing—and he might ask why I chose him. All right if I tell him you recommended him? Then if he checks with you, you cover for me and let me know.”
“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”
“It’s complicated. His name is Clayton Manley. All you need to do if he calls is say yes, you recommended him to me.”
“Clayton Manley—why is that name familiar?”
“He was an early-on suspect in the Montgomery killing.”
“Oh, yeah. I knew it. You’re working that case, aren’t you? You think Manley’s the killer?”
Bosch was now regretting having brought up the half-formed idea. “I’m reviewing the murder book—at least what you got in discovery,” he said. “I may want to size up Manley with a ruse. That’s where you would come in.”
“The case is over, Harry,” he said. “We won!”
“You won, but the case isn’t over. I have it directly from the LAPD that they aren’t doing anything with it because they still say it was Herstadt. It’s case closed over there and that means nobody’s doing a damn thing to find the real killer.”
“Except you now. You’re a dog with a bone, Bosch.”
“Whatever. Are we good on the Manley thing? In case it happens?”