“I was here a few years and then Emmy just applied. It’s no big deal. We’ve worked together a lot. It’s just a blind draw on who gets the photo assignments. Today we work together. Tomorrow maybe not.”
“Do you mind if we take some photos first?” Emmy asked. “I have another assignment I need to get to right after this.”
“Of course,” Garcia said, ever accommodating. “Where do you want me?”
Emmy Ward set up a shot with Garcia seated at the meeting table with the murder book open in front of him. Bosch had brought it with him to use as a prop. As the photo session proceeded, Bosch and McKenzie Ward stood off to the side and talked casually. Earlier, they had spoken at length on the phone. She had agreed to the deal. If she got the story into the paper the following day, she would be first in line for the exclusive when they took down the killer. She had not agreed easily. Garcia had initially been clumsy in his approach to her before turning the negotiation over to Bosch. Bosch was wise enough to know that no reporter would allow the police department to dictate when a story would be published and how it would be written. So Bosch concentrated on the when, not the how. He went with the assumption that McKenzie Ward would and could write a story that would serve his purposes. He just needed it in the paper sooner rather than later. Kiz Rider had an appointment with a judge that afternoon. If the wiretap application was approved, they would be in business by the next morning.
“Did you talk to Muriel Verloren?” the reporter asked Bosch.
“Yeah, she’s there all afternoon and she’s ready to talk.”
“I pulled the clips and read everything from back then-like I was eight years old at the time-and there were several mentions of the father and his restaurant. Will he be there, too?”
“I don’t think so. He’s gone. It’s more of a mother’s story, anyway. She’s the one who has kept her daughter’s bedroom untouched for seventeen years. She said you could photograph in there, too, if you want.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
Bosch watched her looking at the shot being set up with Garcia. He knew what she was thinking. The mother in the bedroom frozen in time would be a lot better shot than an old cop at a table with a binder. She looked at Bosch while she started digging in her purse.
“Then I have to make a call to see if I can keep Emmy.”
“Go ahead.”
She left the office, probably because she didn’t want Garcia to overhear her telling an editor that she needed Emmy to stay on the assignment because she had a better shot with the mother.
She was back in three minutes and nodded to Bosch, which he took to mean that Emmy was going to stay with her on the story.
“So this thing is a go for tomorrow?” he asked, just to make sure once again.
“It’s slotted for the window-depending on the art. My editor wanted to hold it for Sunday, make a nice long feature, but I told him we were competitive on it. Anytime we can beat the
“Yeah, but what will he say when the
“No, he’ll think that the
Bosch nodded thoughtfully, then asked, “What did you mean about it being slotted for the window?”
“We run a news feature every day with a photo on the front page. We call it the window because it’s in the center of the page. Also because you can see the art in the window of the newspaper boxes on the street. It’s a prime spot.”
“Good.”
Bosch was excited by the play the story was going to get.
“If you guys screw me on this, I won’t forget it,” McKenzie said quietly.
There was a threat in her tone, the tough reporter coming to the surface. Bosch held his hands wide, as if he had nothing to hide.
“That’s not going to happen. You’ve got the exclusive. As soon as we wrap somebody up, I’m calling you and you only.”
“Thank you. Now, just to go over the rules again, I can quote you by name in the story but you don’t want to be in any photos, right?”
“Right. I may have to do some undercover work on this. I don’t want my face in the paper.”
“Got it. What undercover?”
“You never know. I just want to keep the option open. Besides, the commander is better for the photo. He’s lived with the case longer than I have.”
“Well, I think I already have most of what I need from the clips and our call earlier but I still want to sit down with you two for a few minutes.”
“Whatever you need.”
“Done,” Emmy said, a few minutes later. She started breaking down her equipment.
“Call the photo desk,” her sister said. “I think there’s been a change and you are staying with me.”
“Oh,” Emmy said, not seeming to mind.
“Why don’t you make the call outside while we get going with the interview?” McKenzie said. “I want to get back to writing this as soon as we can.”
The reporter and Bosch took seats at the table with Garcia while the photographer went out to check on her new assignment. McKenzie started by asking Garcia what stuck with him about the case for so long and what made him push it forward through the Open-Unsolved Unit. While Garcia gave a rambling response about the ones that haunt you, Bosch felt the waters of contempt rise in him. He knew what the reporter didn’t know, that Garcia had knowingly or unknowingly allowed the investigation to be shunted aside seventeen years earlier. The fact that it appeared Garcia did not know that his investigation had been tampered with somehow seemed like the lesser sin to Bosch. Still, if it didn’t show personal corruption or a giving way to pressure from the upper reaches of the department, at the very least it showed incompetence.
After a few more questions of Garcia the reporter turned her attention to Bosch and asked what was new in the case seventeen years later.
“The main thing is we have the DNA of the shooter,” he said. “Tissue and blood from the murder weapon was preserved by our Scientific Investigation Division. We are hoping that analysis of it will allow us either to match it to a suspect whose DNA is already in the Department of Justice data bank, or to use it in comparisons to eliminate or identify suspects. We are in the process of going back to everybody in the case. Anybody who looks like a suspect will have their DNA checked against what we’ve got. That is something Commander Garcia couldn’t do in ’eighty- eight. We’re hoping it will change things this time.”
Bosch further explained how the weapon extracted a DNA sample from the person who shot it. The reporter seemed very interested in the happenstance of this and took detailed notes.
Bosch was pleased. The gun and DNA story was what he wanted to get into the paper. He wanted Mackey to read the story and know that his DNA was in the pipeline. It was being analyzed and compared. He would know that a sample from him was already in the DOJ database. The hope was that this would make him panic. Maybe he would try to run, maybe he would make a mistake and make a call in which he discussed the crime. One mistake would be all it would take.
“How long before you get results from the DOJ?” McKenzie asked.
Bosch fidgeted. He was trying not to lie directly to the reporter.
“Uh, that’s hard to say,” he answered. “The DOJ prioritizes comparison requests and there is always a backup. We should have something any day now.”
Bosch was pleased with his response but then the reporter threw another grenade into his foxhole.
“What about race?” she said. “I read all the clips and it seemed like nothing was ever brought up one way or the other about this girl being biracial. Do you think that played at all into the motivation of this murder?”
Bosch flicked a look at Garcia and hoped he would answer first.
“The case was fully explored in that regard in nineteen eighty-eight,” Garcia said. “We found nothing to support the racial angle. That’s probably why it wasn’t in the clips.”
The reporter turned her focus to Bosch, wanting the present take on the question as well.
