you around back in a minute. I just need to ask you a few questions first. Is that okay?”
“Fine. Go ahead.”
“First of all, my name is Harry Bosch. I’m the lead detective on this investigation. I’m going to find whoever killed your father. I promise you that.”
“Don’t make promises you don’t intend to keep. You didn’t even know him. You don’t care. He’s just another-never mind.”
“Another what?”
“I said, never mind.”
Bosch stared at him for a moment before responding.
“How old are you, Robert?”
“I’m twenty-six and I would like to see my mother now.”
He made a move to turn and head toward the back of the store but Bosch grabbed him on the arm. The younger man was strong but Bosch had a strength in his grip that was surprising. The young man stopped and looked down at the hand on his arm.
“Let me show you something and then I’ll take you to your mother.”
He let go of Li’s arm and then pulled the matchbook from his pocket. He handed it over. Li looked at it with no surprise.
“What about it? We used to give these away until the economy went bad and we couldn’t afford the extras.”
Bosch took the matchbook back and nodded.
“I got it in your father’s store twelve years ago,” he said. “I guess you were about fourteen years old then. We almost had a riot in this city. Happened right here. This intersection.”
“I remember. They looted the store and beat up my father. He should have never reopened here. My mother and me, we told him to open the store up in the Valley but he wouldn’t listen to us. He wasn’t going to let anybody drive him out and now look what happened.”
He gestured helplessly toward the front of the store.
“Yeah, well, I was here that night, too,” Bosch said. “Twelve years ago. A riot started but it ended pretty quick. Right here. One casualty.”
“A cop. I know. They pulled him right out of his car.”
“I was in that car with him but they didn’t get to me. And when I got to this spot I was safe. I needed a smoke and I went into your father’s store. He was there behind the counter but the looters had taken every last pack of cigarettes in the place.”
Bosch held up the book of matches.
“I found plenty of matches but no cigarettes. And then your father reached into his pocket and pulled out his own. He had one last smoke left and he gave it to me.”
Bosch nodded. That was the story. That was it.
“I didn’t know your father, Robert. But I’m going to find the person who killed him. That’s a promise I’ll keep.”
Robert Li nodded and looked down at the ground.
“Okay,” Bosch said. “Let’s go see your mother now.”
4
The detectives didn’t clear the crime scene and get back to the squad room until almost midnight. By then Bosch had decided not to bring the victim’s family to PAB for formal interviews. After appointments were made for them to come in Wednesday morning, he let them go home to grieve. Shortly after getting back to the squad Bosch also sent Ferras home so he could attempt to repair damages with his own family. Harry stayed behind alone to organize the evidence inventory and to contemplate things about the case for the first time without interruption. He knew that Wednesday was shaping up as a busy day, with appointments with the family in the morning and results of some of the forensic and lab work coming in, as well as the possible scheduling of the autopsy.
While the canvass of the nearby businesses by Ferras had proved fruitless as expected, the evening’s work had produced one possible suspect. On Saturday afternoon, three days before his murder, Mr. Li had confronted a young man he believed had been routinely shoplifting from the store. According to Mrs. Li and as translated by Detective Chu, the teenager had angrily denied ever stealing anything and drew the race card, claiming Mr. Li had only accused him because he was black. This seemed laughable, since ninety-nine percent of the store’s business came from neighborhood residents who were black. But Li did not call the police. He simply banished the teenager from the store, telling him never to return. Mrs. Li told Chu that the teen’s parting shot at the door was to tell her husband that the next time he came back it would be to blow the shopkeeper’s head off. Li in turn