“To where?”
“I don’t know. Maybe the cafeteria. I told him you and the other detective were here talking to Kaitlyn.”
“And then he left?”
“Yes. Oh, I just realized-he might be in the parking lot. He said he got a new car today. Maybe he’s showing it to one of the teachers.”
“What kind of car? Did he say?”
“A Lexus. He said it had a model number but I forget which one.”
“Does he have an assigned parking space?”
“Uh, yes, it is in the first row on the right as you come out of the entrance hall.”
Bosch turned from her and went out the door to the hallway. It was crowded with students leaving the cafeteria to start afternoon classes. Bosch started moving through the crowd, dodging students and picking up speed. Soon he was free of them and running. He came into the parking lot and immediately trotted down the parking lane to the right. He found an empty space with Stoddard’s name painted on the curb.
He turned to go back in to get Rider. He was pulling his phone off his belt when he saw a silver blur to his right. It was a car coming right at him and it was too late to get out of the way.
39
BOSCH WAS HELPED UP into a sitting position on the asphalt.
“Harry, are you all right?”
He focused and saw that it was Rider. He nodded shakily. He tried to remember what had just happened.
“It was Stoddard,” he said. “He was coming right at me.”
“In his car?”
Bosch laughed. He had left that part out.
“Yeah, his new car. A silver Lexus.”
Bosch started to get up. Rider put a hand on his shoulder to hold him down.
“Just wait a minute. Are you sure you’re all right? Does anything hurt?”
“Just my head.”
It was coming back to him now.
“I banged it when I landed,” he said. “I jumped out of the way. I saw his eyes, you know? The rage, I mean.”
“Let me see your eyes.”
He looked up at her and she held his chin while she checked his pupils.
“You look all right,” she said.
“Okay, then, I’ll sit here for a second while you go back in and get Stoddard’s home address from Mrs. Atkins.”
Rider nodded.
“All right. You wait here.”
“Hurry. We have to find him.”
She ran back into the school. Bosch reached up and felt the bump on the back of his head. He replayed the clearing memory. He had seen Stoddard’s face behind the windshield. It was angry, contorted.
But then he had yanked the wheel to the left as Bosch jumped the other way.
Bosch reached for his phone so he could call in a wanted bulletin for Stoddard. It wasn’t on his belt. He looked around and saw the phone on the asphalt near the rear tire of a BMW. He crawled over and grabbed it, then stood up.
Bosch was hit with mild vertigo and had to lean on the car. Suddenly an electronic voice said, “Please step away from the car!”
Bosch pulled his hand away and started walking toward the part of the lot where he had parked his own car. On the way he called central dispatch and put out the wanted bulletin for Stoddard and his silver Lexus.
Bosch closed the phone and hooked it on his belt. He got to his car, started it and pulled up to the entrance so they would be ready to go as soon as Rider came out with the address.
After what seemed like an interminable wait Rider finally emerged and trotted to the car. But she came to his side, opened his door and waved him out.
“It’s not far,” she announced. “It’s a house on Chase off of Winnetka. But you’re not driving. I am.”
Bosch knew that arguing would waste time. He got out and moved as quickly as his balance allowed around the front of the car and got in on the passenger side. Rider hit the gas and they moved out of the parking lot.
As Rider made her way on surface streets toward Stoddard’s home Bosch called for backup from Devonshire Division patrol and then called Abel Pratt to quickly fill him in on the morning’s revelations.
“Where do you think he’s going?” Pratt asked.
“No idea. We’re on the way to his house.”
“Is he suicidal?”
“No idea.”
Pratt was silent for a moment as he digested this. He then asked a few more questions about minor details and hung up.
“He sounded happy,” Bosch told Rider. “Says if we get this guy it’ll help turn a lemon into lemonade.”
“Good,” Rider replied. “We can pull prints from Stoddard’s office or home and match them to the print from underneath the bed. Then it’s a done deal whether he’s in the wind or not.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll get him.”
“Harry, what are you thinking, Stoddard and Mackey did this together?”
“I don’t know. But I remember that photo of Stoddard from the yearbook. He looked pretty lean. He might have been able to carry her up the hill by himself. We’ll never know unless we find him and ask him.”
Rider nodded.
“The key question,” she then said, “is how Stoddard connected with Mackey.”
“The gun.”
“I know that. That’s obvious. I mean, how did he know Mackey back then? Where is the intersection and how did he know him well enough to get the gun from him?”
“I think it was right there in front of us all along,” Bosch said. “And Mackey told me with his last word.”
“Chatsworth?”
“Chatsworth High.”
“How do you mean?”
“That summer he was getting his GED at Chatsworth High. On the night of the murder Mackey’s alibi was his tutor. Maybe it was the other way around. Maybe Mackey was the tutor’s alibi.”
“Stoddard?”
“He told us that first day that all of the teachers at Hillside had outside jobs. Maybe Stoddard was working as a tutor. Maybe he was Mackey’s tutor.”
“That’s a lot of maybes, Harry.”
“That’s why we’ve got to find Stoddard before he does anything to himself.”
“You think he’s suicidal? You told Abel you didn’t know.”
“I don’t know anything for sure. But back in that parking lot he turned away from me at the last second. It makes me think that he only wants to hurt one person.”
“Himself? Maybe he just didn’t want to dent his new car.”
“Maybe.”
Rider turned onto Winnetka, a four-lane street, and started moving faster. They were almost to Stoddard’s home. Bosch rode silently, thinking about what might be waiting for them ahead. Rider finally turned west on Chase and there was a black-and-white patrol car with both of its front doors open in the street up ahead. Rider pulled to a quick stop behind it and they jumped out of the car. Bosch took his gun off his belt and carried it at his side. Rider had a point about Stoddard maybe only thinking about his car when he avoided hitting Bosch.
The front door of the small World War II-era house was open. There was no sign of the patrol officers from the car. Bosch looked at Rider and saw that she was unholstered as well. They were ready to go in. At the door, Bosch shouted, “Detectives coming in!”
He stepped into the threshold and got a response from inside.
“It’s clear! It’s clear!”
Bosch didn’t relax or lower his weapon as he entered the living room. He scanned the room and didn’t see anyone. He looked down at the coffee table and saw the Daily News from the previous day unfolded, the story on Rebecca Verloren on display.
“Patrol coming out!” a voice called from a hallway to the right.
Soon two patrol officers stepped out of the hallway into the living room. They carried their weapons at their sides. Now Bosch relaxed and lowered his own.
“All clear,” said the patrolman with the P2 stripes on his uniform. “We found the door open and came in. There’s something you ought to see back here in the bedroom.”
The patrolmen led the way and Bosch and Rider followed. They went down a short hallway that passed the open doors to a bathroom and a small bedroom that was used as a home office. They entered a bedroom and the P2 pointed to an oblong wooden box that was open on the bed. The box had a foam lining with a cutout in the shape of a long-barreled revolver. The cutout was empty and the gun was gone. There was a small rectangular cutout in the foam for a box of bullets. It was empty, too, but the box was nearby on the bed.