“So what happened?” he asked.
There was a long silence before Stoddard spoke.
“What happened was she wanted to keep the baby and she didn’t understand how that would ruin everything. We had to get rid of it, and then afterward she changed her mind.”
“About the baby?”
“About me. About all of it.”
Bosch didn’t respond. After a few moments Stoddard spoke again.
“I loved her.”
“But you killed her.”
“I made mistakes.”
“Like that night?”
“I don’t want to talk about that night. I want to remember all the times before that night.”
“I guess I don’t blame you.”
Bosch looked at Rider and held up three fingers. They were going to go on a three count. Rider nodded. She was ready.
Bosch dropped one finger.
“You know what I don’t get, Mr. Stoddard?”
He dropped the second finger.
“What?” Stoddard asked.
Bosch dropped the third finger, then raised his right leg and drove it into the door. It was a hollow-interior door. It gave way easily and swung open with a crash. Bosch’s momentum took him into the bedroom right behind it. He raised his gun and turned toward the bed.
Stoddard wasn’t there.
Bosch continued his turn, catching a glimpse of Stoddard in the mirror. He was standing in the corner to the other side of the door. He was raising the muzzle of a long-barreled revolver to his mouth.
Bosch heard Rider shout and her body came through the door at full speed as she threw herself into Stoddard.
The crack of a gunshot shook the room as Rider and Stoddard went down to the floor. The revolver fell from Stoddard’s hand and clattered onto the floor. Bosch moved quickly to them and dropped his weight onto Stoddard as Rider rolled off him.
“Kiz, you hit?”
There was no answer. Bosch tried to look at her while keeping Stoddard under control. Rider was holding one hand to the left side of her head.
“Kiz?”
“I’m not hit!” she yelled. “I think I’m just deaf in one ear.”
Stoddard tried to get up, even with Bosch’s weight on top of him.
“Please!” he said.
Bosch used his forearm to knock one of Stoddard’s arms out from supporting him. Stoddard’s chest hit the floor and Bosch quickly pulled the arm back and cuffed it. After a minor struggle he pulled the other arm back and completed the cuffing. He then leaned down and spoke to Stoddard.
“Please what?”
“Please let me die.”
Bosch got up and pulled Stoddard to his feet.
“That would be too easy for you, Stoddard. That would be like letting you get away all over again.”
Bosch looked over at Rider, who had gotten to her feet. He could see that some of her hair had been singed by the gun’s discharge. It had been that close.
“You going to be okay?”
“As soon as the ringing stops.”
Bosch looked up and saw the bullet hole in the ceiling. He could hear sirens coming. He grabbed Stoddard by the elbow and pulled him toward the bedroom’s door.
“I’m going to go down and put this guy in a car. We’ll book him at Devonshire, hold him there until the arraignment.”
Rider nodded but Bosch could tell she was still dealing with what had just happened. The ringing in her ear was a reminder of how close it had been.
Bosch held Stoddard by the arm as he walked him down the steps. When they got to the living room, Stoddard spoke with a desperation in his voice.
“You could do it now.”
“Do what?”
“Shoot me. Say I ran. Take one of the cuffs off and say I got loose. You want to kill me, don’t you?”
Bosch stopped and looked at him.
“Yes, I’d want to kill you. But that would be too good for you. You are going to have to pay for what you did to that girl and her family. And just putting you down right here wouldn’t even cover the interest on seventeen years.”
Bosch roughly pushed him toward the door. They stepped out onto the front lawn just as a patrol car pulled to a stop and cut its siren. Bosch could tell by the streamlined light bar across the roof that it was one of the new cars he had heard about, with state-of-the-art equipment. The department could afford only a few of them in each budget cycle.
The car gave Bosch an idea. He raised his hand and circled his finger in the air, giving the all-clear sign.
As he walked Stoddard toward the car he saw Muriel Verloren walking down the middle of the street to her house. She was staring at Stoddard. Her mouth was wide open as if in a silent scream of horror. She started running toward them.
41
BOSCH RODE in the backseat of the patrol car with Stoddard on the way to Devonshire Division. Rider was left behind at the Verloren house to calm Muriel and to be checked out herself by paramedics. When they gave her the okay she would drive Bosch’s car to the station.
The trip to the division would only take ten minutes. Bosch knew he had to quickly take a shot at getting Stoddard talking. The first thing he did was read the school principal his rights. Stoddard had made some admissions while holed up in Rebecca Verloren’s bedroom, but whether they could be used in court was open to question because they had not been recorded and he had not been forewarned about his rights, which included remaining silent.
After reading the Miranda warning off a business card he had borrowed earlier from Rider, Bosch simply asked, “Now, do you want to talk to me?”
Stoddard was leaning forward because his hands were still cuffed behind his back. His chin was almost down to his chest.
“What is there to say?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I mean, I don’t need you to talk. We’ve got you. Actions and evidence-we’ve got all we need. I just thought you might want to explain things, that’s all. At a point like this a lot of people just want to explain themselves.”
Stoddard didn’t respond at first. The car was heading east on Devonshire Boulevard. The station was a couple miles ahead. Earlier, when he had conferred with the two patrolmen outside of the car, Bosch had told the driver to take it slow.
“It’s funny,” Stoddard finally said.
“What is?”
“I’m a science teacher, you know? I mean, before I was principal I taught science. I was head of the science department.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And I taught my students about DNA. I always told them that it was the secret of life. Decode DNA and you decode life itself.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And now… now, well, it’s used to decode death. By you people. It’s the secret of life. It’s the secret of death. I don’t know. I guess it’s not really funny. It’s more ironic in my case.”
“If you say so.”
“A guy who taught DNA gets caught by DNA.”
Stoddard started to laugh.
“Hey, that’s a good headline,” he said. “Make sure you tell them that.”
Bosch reached over and used a key to unlock Stoddard’s cuffs. He then relocked his wrists in front of his body so that he could sit up.
“Back there at the house, you said you loved her,” Bosch said.
Stoddard nodded.
“I did. I still do.”
“Funny way of showing it, wasn’t it?”
“It wasn’t planned. Nothing was planned that night. I had been watching her, that’s all. Whenever I could, I watched her. I drove by all the time. I followed her when she got to take the car. I watched her at work, too.”
“And all the time you had a gun.”
“No, the gun was for me, not her. But…”
“You found out it was easier to kill her instead of yourself.”
“That night… I saw the garage door was open. I went in. I wasn’t sure why. I thought I was going to use the gun on myself. On her bed. It would be my way of showing her my devotion.”
“But you went under the bed instead of on top of it.”
“I had to think.”
“Where was Mackey?”