The concrete blonde - By Michael Connelly Page 0,48

this man's apartment without backup, placing himself in danger. It ended in the shooting.”

“It's called cowboying it, isn't it?”

“I've heard the phrase. I don't use it.”

“But does it fit?”

“I wouldn't know.”

“You wouldn't know. Chief, would you know if Mr. Church would be alive today if Detective Bosch had not created this situation by playing cow—”

“Objection!” Belk shrieked.

But before he could walk to the lectern to argue, Judge Keyes sustained the objection and told Chandler to avoid speculative questions.

“Yes, Your Honor,” she said pleasantly. “Chief, basically what you have testified to is that Detective Bosch set in motion a series of events that ultimately ended with an unarmed man being killed, am I right?”

“That is incorrect. The investigation found no substantive indication or evidence that Detective Bosch deliberately set this scenario in motion. It was spur of the moment. He was checking out a lead. When it looked good, he should have called for backup. But he didn't. He went in. He identified himself and Mr. Church made the furtive move. And here we are. That is not to say that the outcome would have been different had there been a backup. I mean, anybody who would disobey an order from a police officer holding a gun would probably do it with two officers holding guns.”

Chandler successfully had the last sentence of the answer struck from the record.

“To come to the conclusion that Detective Bosch did not intentionally set the situation into motion, did your investigators study all facets of the shooting?”

“Yes, indeed.”

“How about Detective Bosch, was he studied?”

“Unquestionably. He was rigorously questioned about his actions.”

“And about his motives?”

“His motives?”

“Chief, did you or any of your investigators know that Detective Bosch's mother was slain in Hollywood about thirty years ago by a killer who was never arrested? That prior to that, she had a record for multiple arrests for loitering?”

Bosch felt his skin go hot, as if klieg lights had been turned on him, and that everyone in the courtroom was staring at him. He was sure they were. But he looked only at Irving, who stared silently ahead, a palsied look on his face, the capillaries on either side of his nose flaring. When Irving didn't answer, Chandler prompted him.

“Did you know, Chief? It is referenced in Detective Bosch's personnel file. When he applied to the force, he had to say if he had ever been the victim of a crime. He lost his mother, he wrote.”

Finally, Irving said, “No, I did not know.”

“I believe that loitering was a euphemism for prostitution in the 1950s, when Los Angeles was engaged in a denial of crime problems such as rampant prostitution on Hollywood Boulevard, is that correct?”

“I don't recall that.”

Chandler asked to approach the witness and handed Irving a thin stack of papers. She gave him nearly a minute to read through them. He furrowed his brow as he read and Bosch could not see his eyes. The muscles of his cheeks bunched together below his temples.

“What is that, Chief Irving?” Chandler asked.

“It is what we call a due diligence report detailing the investigation of a homicide. It is dated November 3, 1962.”

“What is a due diligence report?”

“Every unsolved case is looked at annually—we call it due diligence—until such time that we feel the prognosis for bringing the case to a successful conclusion is hopeless.”

“What is the victim's name and circumstances of her death?”

“Marjorie Phillips Lowe. She was raped and strangled, October 31, 1961. Her body was found in an alley behind Hollywood Boulevard between Vista and Gower.”

“What is the investigator's conclusion, Chief Irving?”

“It says that at this time, which was a year after the crime, there are no workable leads and prognosis for successful conclusion of the case is deemed hopeless.”

“Thank you. Now, one more thing, is there a box on the cover form listing next of kin?”

“Yes, it identifies the next of kin as Hieronymus Bosch. Next to that in brackets it says ‘Harry.’ A box marked ‘son’ has been checked off.”

Chandler referred to her yellow pad for a few moments to let this information soak into the jury. It was so quiet Bosch could actually hear Chandler's pen scratching on the pad as she made a notation.

“Now,” she said, “Chief Irving, would knowing about Detective Bosch's mother have caused you to take a closer look at this shooting?”

After a long moment of silence, he said, “I can't say.”

“He shot a man suspected of doing almost the exact same thing that had happened to his mother—his mother's slaying being