The Drop (41 page)
Those five words . . . “the good of the department.” They never added up to anything but high jingo. Bosch nodded and then turned and looked off at the view. He didn’t want to look at Kiz Rider anymore.
“Come on, Harry,” Rider said. “We have Irving on the ground. Don’t give him what he needs to get back up and hurt us, to continue to damage the department.”
He leaned over the wood railing and looked directly down into the brush below the deck.
“It’s funny,” he said. “I think in all of this, Irvin Irving turns out to be the one who had things right, who was probably even telling the truth.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“It didn’t make sense to me: why would he press the case if he knew it could come back to his own complicity in a pay-for-play scam?”
“Harry, there’s no need to go there. The case is closed.”
“The answer was that he pressed the case because he wasn’t complicit. He was clean.”
He reached into his soiled suit coat and pulled out the folded photocopy of the phone message Irving had given him. He had been carrying it with him since then. Without looking at Rider, he handed it to her and waited as she unfolded the page and scanned it.
“What’s this?” she said.
“It’s Irving’s proof of innocence.”
“It’s a piece of paper, Harry. This could have been slapped together at any time. It’s not proof of anything.”
“Except you and I and the chief, we all know it’s real. It’s true.”
“Speak for yourself. This is worthless.”
She refolded it and handed it back. Bosch put it back in his pocket.
“You used me, Kiz. To get to Irving. You used his son’s death. You used the things I found out. All to get a bullshit story in the newspaper you hoped would knock him to the mat.”
She didn’t respond for a long time and when she did, it was just the company line. Not an acknowledgment of anything.
“Thirty days, Harry. Irving is a thorn in the department’s side. If we can get rid of him, we can build a bigger and better department. And that makes it a safer and better city.”
Bosch stood up straight and cast his eyes back out at the view. The reds were turning purple. It was getting dark.
“Sure, why not?” he said. “But if you have to become him to get rid of him, what’s the difference?”
Rider banged her palms lightly on the railing, a signal that she had said enough and was finished with this conversation.
“I’m going to go, Harry. I have to get back.”
“Sure.”
“Thanks for the water.”
“Yeah.”
He heard her steps on the wood planking as she moved toward the sliding door.
“So was what you said to me the other day bullshit, Kiz?” he asked, his back still turned to her. “Was that just part of the play?”
The steps stopped, but she didn’t say anything.
“When I called you and told you about Hardy. You talked about the noble work we do. You said, ‘This is why we do this.’ Was that just a line, Kiz?”
It was a while before she spoke. Bosch knew she was looking at him and waiting for him to turn and look at her. But he couldn’t do it.
“No,” she finally said. “It wasn’t just a line. It was the truth. And someday you may appreciate that I do what I need to do so that you can do what you need to do.”
She waited for his response but he said nothing.
He heard the door slide open and then close. She was gone. Bosch looked out at the fading light and waited a moment before speaking.
“I don’t think so,” he said.
This story was in part suggested by Robert McDonald. For that the author is very grateful.
Many others contributed to this work and they are also gratefully acknowledged. They include Asya Muchnick, Bill Massey, Michael Pietsch, Pamela Marshall, Dennis Wojciechowski, Jay Stein, Rick Jackson, Tim Marcia, John Houghton, Terrill Lee Lankford, Jane Davis, Heather Rizzo and Linda Connelly. Many thanks to all.
Fiction
The Black Echo
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The Last Coyote
The Poet
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A Darkness More Than Night
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Chasing the Dime
Lost Light
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The Fifth Witness
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AN ORION EBOOK
First published in Great Britain in 2011 by Orion Books.
This eBook first published in 2011 by Orion Books.
Copyright © 2011 by Hieronymus, Inc.
The moral right of Michael Connelly to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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ISBN: 978 1 4091 3430 5
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