The Closers - Michael Connelly Page 0,30

did the math. Devonshire would have had a light caseload. He figured that Garcia had worked no more than a couple dozen murders at the most. It wasn’t enough experience to do it well. He decided to move on.

“What about your former partner?” he asked. “Did he feel the same way about Robert Verloren?”

“He was willing to give the guy a little more slack than me.”

“Are you still in touch with him?”

“Who, the father?”

“No. Green.”

“No, he retired way back.”

“I know, but are you still in touch?”

Garcia shook his head.

“No, he’s dead. He retired up to Humboldt County. He should’ve left his gun down here. All that time and nothing to do up there.”

“He killed himself?”

Garcia nodded.

Bosch looked down at the floor. It wasn’t Ron Green’s death that struck him. He didn’t know Green. It was the loss of the connection to the case. He knew Garcia wasn’t going to be much help.

“What about race?” Bosch asked, again stepping on Rider’s lead.

“What about it?” Garcia asked. “In this case? I don’t see it.”

“Interracial couple, biracial kid, the gun came from a burglary where the victim was being harassed on religious lines.”

“That’s a stretch. You got something with this Mackey character?”

“There might be something.”

“Well, we didn’t have the luxury of a named suspect to work with. We didn’t see any aspect of that with what we had back then.”

Garcia said it forcefully and Bosch knew he had touched a nerve. He didn’t like to be second-guessed. No detective did. Even an inexperienced one.

“I know it’s Monday-morning quarterbacking to start with the guy and go backwards,” Rider quickly said. “It’s just something we’re looking at.”

Garcia seemed placated.

“I understand,” he said. “Leave no stone unturned.”

He stood up.

“Well, Detectives, I hate to rush this. I wish we could kick this around all day. I used to put people in jail. Now I go into meetings about budget and deployment.”

That’s what you deserve, Bosch thought. He glanced at Rider, wondering if she understood that he had saved her from a similar fate when he talked her into partnering with him in the Open-Unsolved Unit.

“Do me a favor,” Garcia said. “When you hook up this guy Mackey, let me know. Maybe I’ll come down and look through the window at him. I’ve been waiting for this one.”

“No problem, sir,” Rider said, breaking her stare away from Bosch. “We’ll do that. If you think of anything else that might help us with this, give me a call. All my numbers are on this.”

She stood up, placing a business card down on the table.

“I’ll do it.”

Garcia started to go around his desk to head to his meeting.

“There’s something we might need you to do,” Bosch said.

Garcia stopped in his tracks and looked at him.

“What is it, Detective? I need to get in that meeting.”

“We might try to flush the birds out of the bushes with a newspaper story. It might be good if it came from you. You know, former homicide guy, now a commander, haunted by the old case. He calls Open-Unsolved and gets them to run the DNA through the pipeline. What do you know, they get a cold hit.”

Garcia nodded. Bosch could tell it played to his ego perfectly.

“Yeah, it might work. Whatever you want to do. Just call me and we’ll set it up. The Daily News? I’ve got connections there. It’s the Valley paper.”

Bosch nodded.

“Yeah, that’s what we were thinking,” he said.

“Good. Let me know. I’ve got to go.”

He quickly left the office. Rider and Bosch looked at each other and then followed. Out in the hallway, waiting for the elevator, Rider asked Bosch what he was doing when he asked him about planting the news story.

“He’d be perfect for the story because he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

“So, we don’t want that. We want to be careful.”

“Don’t worry. It’ll work.”

The elevator opened and they got on. No one else was in it. As soon as the door closed Rider was on him.

“Harry, let’s get something straight right now. We’re either partners or we’re not. You should have told me you were going to hit him with that. We should’ve talked about it first.”

Bosch nodded.

“You’re right,” he said. “We’re partners. It won’t happen again.”

“Good.”

The elevator door opened and she stepped out, leaving Bosch behind.

10

HILLSIDE PREPARATORY SCHOOL was a structure of Spanish design nestled against the hills of Porter Ranch. Its campus was marked by magnificent green lawns and the daunting rise of mountains behind it. The mountains almost seemed to cradle the school

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