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?”
“Mackey? I don’t know where he was.”
“He wasn’t with you? He didn’t help you?”
“He gave me the gun. We made a deal. The gun for the grade. I was his teacher. And his tutor. It was my summer job.”
“But he wasn’t with you that night? You carried her up the hill by yourself?”
Stoddard’s eyes were open and staring into the distance even though their focus was only on the back of the front seat.
“I was strong back then,” he said in a whisper.
The patrol car pulled through the opening in the concrete block wall that surrounded the back of Devonshire Division. Stoddard looked out the window. Seeing all of the patrol cars and the back of the station must have brought an awakening to him. He realized his situation.
“I don’t want to talk anymore,” he said.
“That’s fine,” Bosch said. “We’ll put you in a holding room and get you a lawyer if you want.”
The car stopped in front of a set of double doors and Bosch got out. He came around and got Stoddard out and then walked him in through the doors. The detective bureau was on the second floor. They took an elevator and were met by the lieutenant in charge of Devonshire detectives. Bosch had called him from the Verloren house. An interview room was waiting for Stoddard. Bosch put him in a seat and cuffed one of his wrists to a metal ring bolted to the center of the table.
“Sit tight,” Bosch said. “I’ll be back.”
At the door, he looked back at Stoddard. He decided to make one last play.
“And for what it’s worth, I think your story is bullshit,” he said.
Stoddard looked at him, surprise on his face.
“What do you mean? I loved her. I didn’t want -”
“You stalked her with one purpose. To kill her. She rejected you and you couldn’t take it, so you wanted her dead. And now seventeen years later you’re going to try to tell it different, like it’s Romeo and Juliet or something. You’re a coward, Stoddard. You stalked her and killed her and you should own up to it.”
“No, you’re wrong. I had the gun for myself.”
Bosch came back into the room and leaned down on the table.
“Yeah? What about the stun gun, Stoddard? Was that for yourself, too? You left that out of your story, didn’t
