“Yes, Your Honor,” Mackey said.
The file came with copies of the court-requested completion reports from Chatsworth High. Mackey got his GED in August 1988, a little more than a month after Rebecca Verloren was taken from her bed and murdered.
Despite the judge’s admirable efforts to steer Mackey from a life of crime, Bosch had to wonder if those efforts had cost Rebecca Verloren her life. Whether Mackey was the actual triggerman or not, he’d had possession of the gun that killed her. Was it reasonable to think that the chain of events leading to the murder would have been broken if Mackey had been behind bars? Bosch wasn’t sure. It was possible that Mackey simply filled a role as weapon delivery man. If it wasn’t him it could have been someone else. Bosch knew there was no sense in breaking down the chain into what could or could not have happened.
“Anything?”
Bosch looked up from his thoughts. Rider was standing at her desk. He flipped the file closed.
“Nah, not really. I was reading the probation file. The early stuff. A judge took an interest at first but then sort of let him go. The best he could do was make him get the GED.”
“And that served him so well, didn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
Bosch said nothing else. He only had a GED himself. He’d also stood before a judge once as a car thief. The car he had gone joyriding in had also been a Corvette. Except it had not been a neighbor’s. It had been his foster father’s. Bosch had taken it as a way to say fuck you. But it was the foster father who sent the ultimate fuck you. Bosch was sent back to the youth hall to fend for himself.
“My mother died when I was eleven,” Bosch suddenly said.
Rider looked at him, doing her eyebrow thing.
“I know. Why’d you bring that up?”
“I don’t know. I spent a lot of time in the youth hall after that. I mean, I had some stays with foster families but it never lasted long. I always went back.”
Rider waited but Bosch didn’t continue.
“And?” she prompted.
“Well, we didn’t have gangs in the hall,” he said. “But there was sort of a natural segregation. You know, the whites stuck together. The blacks. The Hispanics. There weren’t any Asians back then.”
“What are you saying, that you feel sorry for this asshole Mackey?”
“No.”
“He killed a girl or at least helped kill her, Harry.”
“I know that, Kiz. That’s not my point.”
“What is your point?”
“I don’t know. I’m just sort of wondering, you know, what makes people go down different paths. How come this guy became a hater? How come I didn’t?”
“Harry, you’re overthinking. Go home tonight and get a good night’s sleep. You’ll need it because there won’t be any tomorrow night.”
Bosch nodded but didn’t move.
“You going to take off?” Rider asked.
“Yeah, in a few. You heading out?”
“Yeah, unless you want me to go with you over to Hollywood Vice.”
“Nah, I’ll be all right. Let’s talk in the morning after we get the paper.”
“Yeah, I’m not sure where I can get the Daily News in the south end. I might have to call you up and let you read it to me.”
The Daily News was circulated widely in the Valley but sometimes hard to locate elsewhere in the city. Rider lived down near Inglewood, in the same neighborhood where she had grown up.
“That’s cool. Give me a call and I’ll have it. There’s a box down at the bottom of the hill from my place.”
Rider opened one of her desk drawers and pulled out her purse. She looked at Bosch and did her eyebrow thing once again.
“You sure about doing this, marking yourself like that?”
She was talking about their plan for pushing Mackey the next day. Bosch nodded.
“I have to be able to sell it,” he said. “Besides, I can wear long sleeves for a while. It isn’t summer yet.”
“But what if it’s not necessary? What if he sees the story in the paper and gets on the phone and starts talking a blue streak?”
“Something tells me that isn’t going to happen. Anyway, it isn’t permanent. Vicki Landreth told me it lasts a couple weeks at the most, depending on how often you shower. It’s not like those henna tattoos kids get on the Santa Monica pier. They last longer.”
She nodded her agreement.
“Okay, Harry. I’ll catch you in the a.m., then.”
“See ya, Kiz. Have a good one.”
She started walking out of the alcove.
“Hey, Kiz?” Bosch called after her.
“What?” she said, stopping and looking back at him.
“What do you think? You happy to be back on it?”
She knew what he was talking about. Being back in homicide.
“Oh yeah, Harry, I’m happy. I’ll be downright giddy once we take this pale rider down and solve the mystery.”
“Yeah,” Bosch said.
After she left, Bosch thought for a few moments about what she meant by calling Mackey a pale rider. He thought it might be some sort of biblical reference but he couldn’t place it. Maybe in the south end it was what some people called racists. He decided to ask her about it the next day. He started to look through the probation file again but soon gave up. He knew it was time to focus on the here and now. Not the past. Not the choices made and the paths not taken. He got up and stacked the file and the murder book under his arm. If things were slow on the surveillance the next day, they might make for good reading. He stuck his head in Abel Pratt’s office to say good-bye.
“Good luck, Harry,” Pratt said. “Close it out.”
“We’re going to.”
26
BOSCH PARKED in the rear lot and walked in through the back doors of Hollywood Division. It had been a long time since he had been in the place and he immediately found it different. The earthquake renovation that Edgar had spoken of had seemingly touched every space in the building. He found the watch office in the place where a holding tank had been located. He found a report writing room for patrol officers, whereas before they’d had to steal space in the detective bureau.
Before going upstairs to the vice unit he had to go by the detective bureau to see if he could pull a file. He went down the rear hallway, passing a patrol sergeant named McDonald whose first name he couldn’t remember.
“Hey, Harry, you back? Long time no see, man.”
“I’m back, Six.”
“Good deal.”
Six was the radio designation for Hollywood Division. Calling the patrol sergeant Six was like calling a homicide detective Roy. It worked and it got Bosch past his awkward memory loss. By the time he got to the end of the hallway he remembered that the sergeant’s name was Bob.
The homicide unit was at the back end of the vast detective squad room. Edgar had been right. It didn’t look like any detective bureau Bosch had ever seen. It was gray and sterile. It looked like a warehouse where yaks made cold calls and ripped off businesses and old ladies for overpriced pens or time-share units. He recognized the top of Edgar’s head just cresting above one of the sound partitions between the cubicles. It looked like he was the only one left in the whole bureau. It was late in the day but not that late.
He walked over and looked over the partition and down on Edgar. He had his head down and was working on the Times crossword puzzle. It had always been a ritual with Edgar. He’d work the puzzle throughout each day, taking it with him to the restroom and to lunch and out on surveillances. He never liked to go home without finishing it.
Edgar hadn’t noticed Bosch’s presence. Bosch quietly stepped back and ducked into the cubicle next to Edgar’s. He carefully lifted the steel trash can out of the desk’s foot well and duck-walked out of the cubicle to a position right behind Edgar. He stood up and let the trash can fall to the new gray linoleum from about four feet. The resulting sound was loud and sharp, almost like a shot. Edgar leaped out of his seat, his crossword pencil flying toward the ceiling. He was about to yell something when he saw it was Bosch.