“We’ve thoroughly reviewed the murder book and there is nothing there that would support a racial motivation in the case,” Bosch said. “We obviously are in the process of reworking the case, front to back, and we’ll be looking for anything that might have played a part in the motivation behind the crime.”
He looked at her and braced himself for her not accepting his answer and pressing it further. He thought about floating the racial angle into the story. It might improve the chances of some kind of response from Mackey. But it might also tip Mackey to how close they were to him. He decided to leave his answer as is.
Instead of pursuing the question further, the reporter flipped her notebook closed.
“I think I have what I need for right now,” she said. “I am going to go talk to Mrs. Verloren and then I have to hurry back and write this up to get it in tomorrow. Is there a number I can reach you at, Detective Bosch? Quickly, if I need to.”
Bosch knew she had him. He reluctantly gave her his cell number, knowing it meant that in the future she would have a direct line to him and would use it in regard to any case or story. It was the last payment on the deal they had made.
Everyone got up from the table and Bosch noticed that Emmy Ward had quietly come back into the office and had been sitting by the door during the interview. He and Garcia thanked them both for coming in and said good- bye. Bosch remained in the office with Garcia.
“I think that went well,” Garcia said after the door had closed.
“I hope so,” Bosch said. “It cost me a cell phone number. I’ve had that number for three years. Now I’ll have to change it and notify everybody about the new number. A big pain in the ass is what it’s going to be.”
Garcia ignored the complaint.
“How sure are you that this guy Mackey will even see the story?”
“We’re not. In fact, we believe he’s dyslexic. He might not read at all.”
Garcia’s jaw dropped.
“Then what are we doing?”
“Well, we have a plan for making sure he’s aware of the story. Don’t worry about that. We’ve got it covered. There’s also another name that’s come up since yesterday. An associate of Mackey then and now. His name is William Burkhart. Back when you were on the case he was known as Billy Blitzkrieg. That ring a bell?”
Garcia put on his best deep thinking look, like the one he had used for the camera, and moved around behind his desk. He then shook his head.
“Don’t think it came up,” he said.
“Yeah, you probably would have remembered.”
Garcia remained standing but leaned over the desk to look at his schedule.
“Let’s see. What have I got next?”
“You’ve got me, Commander,” Bosch said.
Garcia looked at him.
“Excuse me?”
“I need a few more minutes to clear up some of this stuff that’s come up.”
“What stuff? You mean this new guy, Blitzkrieg?”
“Yes, and the stuff the reporter asked about and we lied about. The racial angle.”
Bosch watched Garcia’s face set sternly into stone.
“I didn’t lie to her and I didn’t lie to you yesterday. We didn’t find it. We didn’t see a racial angle to this.”
“We?”
“My partner and I.”
“Are you sure about that?”
The phone on his desk buzzed. Garcia grabbed it up angrily and said, “No calls, no intrusions,” into it before dropping it back into its cradle.
“Detective, I want to remind you whom you are talking to,” Garcia said evenly. “Now what the fuck do you mean, ‘Are you sure?’ What are you saying?”
“With all due respect to the rank, sir, the case was pushed away from the racial angle in ’eighty-eight. I believe you when you say you didn’t see it. Otherwise, I can’t see you calling Pratt down at Open-Unsolved and reminding him there was DNA in the case. But if you didn’t know what was happening, then your partner certainly did. Did he ever talk about the pressure brought to bear on him from the command side on this case?”
“Ron Green was the finest detective I ever knew or worked with. I’m not going to let you besmirch his reputation.”
They stood just a few feet apart, the desk between them, their eyes locked in battle.
“I’m not interested in reputations. I’m interested in the truth. You said yesterday he ate his own gun a few years after this case. Why? Was there a note?”
“The burden, Detective. He couldn’t carry it anymore. He was haunted by the ones who got away.”
“What about the ones he
Garcia pointed an angry finger at Bosch.
“How fucking dare you? You are on thin ice here, Bosch. I could make one call to the sixth floor and you’d be out on the street before sundown. You understand me? I know about you. You’re just back from retirement and that makes you expendable with one phone call. You understand me?”
“Sure. I understand you.”
Bosch sat down in one of the chairs in front of the desk, hoping it might defuse the tension in the room a little bit. Garcia hesitated and then he sat down as well.
“I find what you have just said to me completely insulting,” he said, his voice juiced with anger.
“I’m sorry, Commander. I was trying to see what you knew.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I am sorry, sir, but the case was definitely stonewalled by chain of command. I don’t want to get into names with you at this point. Some of them are still active. But I think this case revolved on race-the connection to Mackey and now Burkhart proves it. And you didn’t have Mackey or Burkhart back then, but you had the gun and there were other things. I needed to find out if you were part of it. I would say by your reaction that you weren’t.”
“But you are telling me my partner was, and that he kept it from me.”
Bosch nodded.
“Impossible,” Garcia protested. “Ron and I were close.”
“All partners are close, Commander. But not that close. From what I understand, you took care of the book and Green pressed the case forward. If he encountered resistance from within the department, he might have chosen to keep it from you. I think he did. Maybe he was protecting you, maybe he was humiliated about being vulnerable to the push. ”
Garcia dropped his eyes from Bosch and looked down at his desk. Bosch could tell he was looking at a memory. Something in the stone wall of his face broke and gave way.
“I think maybe I knew something was wrong,” he said quietly. “About halfway through.”
“How so?”
“Early on we decided to split up the parents. Ron took the father and I took the mother. You know, to establish relationships. Ron was having trouble with the father. He was volatile. He had been passive and then all of a sudden he’s on Ron’s ass wanting results. But there was something more there and Ron kept it from me.”
“Did you ask about it?”
“Yeah. I asked. He just told me the father was a handful. He said he was paranoid about race, that he thought his daughter was killed because of the race thing. And then he said something that I still remember. He said, ‘We can’t go there.’ That’s all he said, but it stuck with me because that didn’t sound like the Ron Green I knew. We can’t go there. The Ron Green I knew would go wherever it led. There were no can’t-go-theres with him. Not until that case.”
Garcia raised his eyes to Bosch and Bosch nodded, his way of thanking him for opening up.
“You think it had something to do with what happened later?” Bosch asked.
“You mean the suicide?”
“Yeah.”
“Maybe. I don’t know. Anything’s possible. After this case we sort of went in different directions. The thing about partners is that once the work stops, there isn’t a whole lot to talk about.”
