The Fifth Witness Part 60

I composed myself and switched back over to my ex-wife.

"Sorry... it was a client. A former client."

"Everything all right?"

I leaned against the window. Rojas was just turning on Alvarado and heading to the 101.

"I'm good. So you want to go somewhere tonight and talk about the campaign?"

"You know, while I was on hold I was thinking, why don't you come to my place? We can eat with Hayley and then talk while she does her homework."

It was a rare invite to her home.

"So a guy has to run for DA to get invited over to your place?"

"Don't press your luck, Haller."

"I won't. What time?"

"Six."

"See you then."

I disconnected and stared out the window for a little while.

"Mr. Haller?" Rojas asked. "You're running for DA?"

"Yeah. You have a problem with that, Rojas?"

"No, Boss. But do you still need a driver?"

"Sure, Rojas, your job is safe."

I called the office and Lorna answered.

"Where is everybody?"

"They're here. Jennifer is using your office for a new client interview. A foreclosure. And Dennis is doing something on the computer. Where have you been?"

"Downtown. But I'm heading back. Make sure n.o.body leaves. I want to have a staff meeting."

"Okay, I'll tell them."

"Good. See you in about thirty."

I closed the phone. We were coming up the ramp onto the 101. All six lanes were clogged with metal, moving at a steady but slow pace. I wouldn't have had it any other way. This was my city and this was the way it was supposed to run. At Rojas's command, the black Lincoln cut through the lanes and around the traffic, carrying me toward a new destiny.

Acknowledgments.

The author wishes to thank several people for their help during the writing of this novel. They include Asya Muchnick, Bill Ma.s.sey, Terrill Lee Lankford, Jane Davis and Heather Rizzo. Special thanks also go to Susanna Brougham, Tracy Roe, Daniel Daly, Roger Mills, Jay Stein, Rick Jackson, Tim Marcia, Mike Roche, Greg Stout, John Houghton, Dennis Wojciechowski, Charles Hounch.e.l.l and last but not least, Linda Connelly.

This is a novel. Any errors of fact, geography or legal canon and procedure are purely the fault of the author.

And for more Michael Connelly...

Please turn this page for a preview of The Drop The Drop, available in October 2011.

One.

Christmas came once a month in the Open-Unsolved Unit. That was when, like Santa Claus, the lieutenant made her way around the squad room, parceling out yellow envelopes like presents to the squad's six detective teams. They contained cold hits, the lifeblood of the unit. The teams didn't wait for callouts and fresh kills in Open-Unsolved. They waited for cold hits.

The Open-Unsolved Unit investigated unsolved murders going back fifty years in Los Angeles. There were six thousand of them. The unit consisted of twelve detectives, a secretary, a squad room supervisor known as the whip, and the lieutenant. The first five teams of detectives had each been randomly a.s.signed ten of those fifty years. Their task was to pull from archives all the unsolved homicide cases, evaluate them and submit long-stored, long-forgotten evidence for rea.n.a.lysis using contemporary technology. All DNA submissions were handled by the new regional lab at Cal State. A match between DNA from an old case and that of an individual whose genetic profile was carried in any of the nation's DNA databases was called a cold hit. The lab put cold-hit notices into the mail at the end of every month. They would arrive a day or two later at the Police Administration Building in downtown Los Angeles. Usually by 8 A.M A.M. that day, the lieutenant would open the door of her private office and enter the squad room. She carried the envelopes in her hand. Each hit sheet was mailed individually in a yellow business envelope. Typically, an envelope was handed to the pair of detectives who had submitted the related DNA evidence to the lab. But sometimes there were too many cold hits for one team to handle at once. Sometimes detectives were in court or on vacation or leave. And sometimes the cold hits revealed circ.u.mstances that required the utmost finesse and experience. That was where the sixth team came in. Detectives Harry Bosch and David Chu were the sixth team. They were floaters. They handled overflow cases and special investigations.

On Monday morning, October 3, Lieutenant Gail Duvall stepped out of her office and into the squad room carrying only three yellow envelopes. Harry Bosch almost sighed when he saw this paltry return on the squad's DNA submissions. He knew that with so few envelopes he would not be getting a new case to work.

Bosch had been back in the unit for almost a year, following a two-year rea.s.signment to Homicide Special. Now on his second tour of duty in Open-Unsolved, he had quickly fallen back into the rhythm of the work. It wasn't a fly squad. There was no dashing out the door to get to a crime scene. In fact, there were no crime scenes. There were only files and archive boxes. It was primarily an eight-to-four gig but with an asterisk, which meant that his job involved more travel than that of the other detective teams. People who got away with murder, or at least thought they had, tended not to stick around. They moved elsewhere and often the OU detectives had to travel to find them.

A big part of the rhythm was the monthly arrival of the yellow envelopes. Sometimes Bosch found it hard to sleep on the night before Christmas. He never took time off during the first week of the month and never came to work late on a day when the yellow envelopes might come in. Even his teenage daughter noticed his monthly cycle of antic.i.p.ation and agitation and had likened it to a menstrual cycle. Bosch didn't see the humor in this and was embarra.s.sed when she brought it up.

Now his disappointment at the sight of so few envelopes in the lieutenant's hand felt palpable in his throat. He wanted a new case. He needed needed a new case. He had to see the look on the killer's face when Bosch knocked on the door and showed his badge, the embodiment of justice come calling unexpectedly after so many years. The experience was addictive and Bosch was craving it now. a new case. He had to see the look on the killer's face when Bosch knocked on the door and showed his badge, the embodiment of justice come calling unexpectedly after so many years. The experience was addictive and Bosch was craving it now.

The lieutenant handed the first envelope to Rick Jackson. He and his partner, Rich Bengtson, were solid investigators who had been with the unit since its inception. Bosch had no complaint there. The next envelope was placed on an empty desk belonging to Teddy Baker. She and her partner, Greg Kehoe, were on their way back from a pickup in Tampa, Florida-an airline pilot who had been connected through fingerprints to the 1991 strangulation of a flight attendant in Marina del Rey.

Bosch was about to suggest to the lieutenant that Baker and Kehoe might have their hands full with the marina case and that the envelope should be given to another team, namely his, when the lieutenant looked at him and used the last remaining envelope to beckon him to her office.

"Can you guys step in for a minute? You, too, Tim."

Tim Marcia was the squad whip, the detective-3 who handled mostly supervisory and fill-in duties. He mentored the young detectives and made sure the old ones like Jackson and Bosch didn't get lazy.

Bosch was out of his seat before the lieutenant had finished her question. He headed toward the lieutenant's office with Chu and Marcia trailing behind.

"Close the door," Duvall said. "Sit down."

Duvall had a corner office with windows that looked across Spring Street at the Los Angeles Times Building. Paranoid that reporters were watching from the newsroom across the way, Duvall kept her shades permanently lowered. It made the office dim and cavelike. Bosch and Chu took the two seats positioned in front of the lieutenant's desk. Marcia followed them in, moved to the side of Duvall's desk and leaned against an old evidence safe.

"I want you two to handle this. .h.i.t," she said, sitting down and proffering the yellow envelope to Bosch. "There's something wrong here and I want you to keep quiet about it until you find out what it is. Keep Tim in the loop but make sure it stays low-key."

The envelope had already been opened. Chu leaned over to look as Bosch opened the flap and pulled out the hit sheet. It listed the case number of the DNA evidence, plus the name, age, last known address and criminal history of the person whose genetic profile matched it. Bosch first noticed that the case number had the prefix 89, meaning it was a case from 1989. There were no details about the crime, just the year. But Bosch knew that cases from that year belonged to the team of Ross Shuler and Adriana Dolan. He knew this because 1989 had been a busy year for him, working murders for the Homicide Special Team, and he had recently checked on one of his own unsolved cases, which was how he learned that jurisdiction over that year's cases belonged to Shuler and Dolan. They were known in the unit as "the kids." They were young, pa.s.sionate and skillful investigators, but between them they had less than eight years' experience working homicides. If there was something unusual about this cold hit, it was not surprising that the lieutenant would want Bosch on it. Bosch had worked more killings than everybody else in the unit combined. That is, if you left out Jackson. He had been around forever.

Bosch next studied the name on the hit sheet: Clayton S. Pell. It meant nothing to him. But Pell's arrest record included numerous arrests and three separate convictions for indecent exposure, false imprisonment and forcible rape. He had spent six years in prison for the rape before being released eighteen months ago. He had a five-year probation tail and his last known address came from the state probation and parole board. He was a.s.signed to a halfway house for s.e.x offenders in Panorama City.

Based on Pell's record, Bosch believed the 1989 case was likely a s.e.x-related murder. He could feel his insides beginning to tighten. He was going to grab Clayton Pell and bring him to justice.

"Do you see it?" Duvall asked.

"See what?" Bosch asked. "Was this a s.e.x killing? It looks like this guy has the cla.s.sic pred-"

"The birth date," Duvall said.

Bosch looked back down at the hit sheet as Chu leaned closer.

"Yeah, right here," Bosch said. "November nine, nineteen eighty-one. What's that got-"

"He's too young," Chu said.

Bosch glanced at him and then back down at the sheet. He suddenly got it. Clayton Pell was born in 1981. He was only eight years old at the time of the murder.

"Exactly," Duvall said. "So I want you to get the book and box from Shuler and Dolan and very quietly figure out what we have here. I'm hoping to G.o.d they didn't get two cases mixed up and send genetic material from a more recent case labeled as if it came from this old one. Like you were about to say, this guy on the hit sheet is no doubt a predator, but I don't think he got away with a killing when he was only eight years old. So something doesn't fit. Find it and come back to me before you do anything. If they screwed up and we can correct it, then we won't need to worry about IAD or anybody else. We'll just keep it right here."

She may have appeared to be trying to protect Shuler and Dolan from Internal Affairs, but she was also shielding herself and Bosch knew it. There would not be much vertical movement in the department for a lieutenant who had presided over an evidence-handling scandal in her own unit.

"What other years are a.s.signed to Shuler and Dolan?" Bosch asked.

"On the recent side, they've got 'ninety-seven and two thousand," Marcia said. "This evidence could have come from a case they were working from one of those two years."

Bosch nodded. He could see the scenario. Due to reckless handling, genetic evidence from one case cross-pollinates with another. The end result would be two tainted cases and a scandal that would smear anybody near it.

"What do we say to Shuler and Dolan?" Chu asked. "What's the reason we're taking the case from them?"

Duvall looked up at Marcia.

"They've got a trial coming up," he offered in answer to her unspoken question. "Jury selection starts Thursday."

Duvall nodded.

"I'll tell them I want them clear for that."

"And what if they say they still want the case?" Chu asked. "What if they say they can handle it?"

"I'll put them straight," Duvall said. "Anything else, Detectives?"

Bosch looked up at her.

"We'll work the case, Lieutenant, and see what's what. But I don't investigate other cops."

"That's fine. I'm not asking you to. Work the case and tell me how the DNA came back to an eight-year-old kid, okay?"

Bosch nodded and started to stand up.

"Just remember," Duvall added, "you talk to me before you do anything with what you learn."

"You got it," Bosch said.

He, Chu and Marcia prepared to leave the room.

"Harry," the lieutenant said, "hang back a second."

Bosch looked at Chu and raised his eyebrows. He didn't know what this was about. The lieutenant came around from behind her desk and closed the door after Chu and Marcia had left. She remained standing, looking businesslike.

"I just wanted you to know that your application for an extension on your drop came through. They gave you four years retroactive."

Bosch looked at her, doing the math. He nodded. He had asked for the maximum-five years nonretroactive-but he'd take what they gave. It wouldn't keep him much past high school but it was better than nothing.

"Well, I'm glad," Duvall said. "It gives you thirty-nine more months with us."

Her tone indicated that she had read the disappointment on his face.

"No," he said quickly. "I'm glad. I was just thinking about where that would put me with my daughter. All the way through high school. So that's good."

"Good then."

That was her way of saying the meeting was over. Bosch thanked her and left the office. As he stepped back into the squad room he looked across the vast expanse of desks and dividers and file cabinets. He knew it was home and that he would get to stay-for now.

Two.

The Open-Unsolved Unit shared access to the two fifth-floor conference rooms with all other units in the Robbery-Homicide Division. Usually detectives had to reserve time in one of the rooms, signing up on the clipboard hooked on the door. But this early on a Monday, both were open, and Bosch, Chu, Shuler and Dolan commandeered the smaller of the two without making a reservation.

They brought with them the murder book and the small archival evidence box from the 1989 case.