The Drop

Bosch put his hand up to stop her.

“Look, Doc, this isn’t about getting you to break a confidence. Let’s talk about something else.”

“Don’t call me Doc.”

“Sorry. Doctor.”

“No, I mean just call me Hannah.”

“Okay. Hannah. Hannah, let’s talk about something else.”

“Okay, what?”

Bosch was silent as he tried to think of something to go with. Soon they both started laughing.

But they didn’t mention Clayton Pell again.

11

It was nine o’clock when Bosch came through the front door. He hurried down the hall and looked in the open door of his daughter’s bedroom. She was in bed under the covers with her laptop open next to her.

“I’m so sorry, Maddie. I’ll heat this up and bring it in.”

Standing in the doorway, he held up the bag from Jerry’s.

“It’s all right, Dad. I already ate.”

“What did you eat?”

“PB and J.”

Bosch felt the crushing guilt of selfishness. He came into the room and sat on the edge of the bed. Before he could apologize further, she once again let him off the hook.

“It’s okay. You got two new cases and it was a busy day.”

He shook his head.

“No, for the last hour I was just with somebody. I met her today on the case but then she met me at Jerry’s for a sandwich and I stayed too long. Mads, I’m so—”

“God, that’s even better! You actually met someone. Who is she?”

“Just somebody—she’s a shrink who deals with criminals.”

“Cool. Is she pretty?”

He noticed that she had her Facebook page up on her computer screen.

“We’re just friends. Did you do any homework?”

“No, I didn’t feel good.”

“I thought you said you were better.”

“Relapse city.”

“Look, you gotta go to school tomorrow. You don’t want to fall behind.”

“I know!”

He didn’t want to get into an argument.

“Hey, if you’re not doing your homework, can I use your laptop for a little bit? I have to look at a disc.”

“Sure.”

She reached over and closed out the screen. He went around the bed to where there was more room. He pulled the disc from the Chateau Marmont’s front-desk security camera out of his pocket and handed it to her. He wasn’t sure how to get it to play.

Maddie put the disc into a side slot and went through the commands to make it play. There was a time stamp in the lower corner of the screen and Bosch told her to fast-forward until she got to the time George Irving checked in. The image was clear but was angled from an overhead camera, so Irving’s face was not fully visible. Bosch had only watched the check-in part once and wanted to see it again.

“So, what is this?” Maddie asked.

Bosch pointed at the screen.

“The Chateau Marmont. This guy checking in, he goes up to his room on the seventh floor last night and this morning he’s found on the sidewalk below. I have to figure out if he jumped or if he got dropped.”

She stopped the playback.

“If he was dropped, Dad. Please. You sound like a palooka when you talk like that.”

“Sorry. How do you know what a ‘palooka’ is, anyway?”

“Tennessee Williams. I read. A palooka is an old fighter who’s like a lout. You don’t want to be like that.”

“You’re right. But since you know so much about words, what do you call one of those names that is spelled the same going front and back?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know, like Otto. Or Hannah.”

“It’s a palindrome. Is that your girlfriend’s name?”

“She’s not my girlfriend. I had a turkey sandwich with her.”

“Yeah, while your sick daughter was starving at home.”

“Come on. You had peanut butter and jelly, the best sandwich ever invented.”

He gently elbowed her side.

“I just hope being with Otto was worth it.”

He burst out laughing and reached over and pulled her into a hug.

“Don’t worry about Otto. You’ll always be my girl.”

“Well, I do like the name Hannah,” she conceded.

“Good. Can we watch now?”

She hit the play button and they watched the computer screen silently as Irving began the check-in process with the night deskman named Alberto Galvin. Soon the second guest appeared behind him, waiting to check in.

Irving wore the same clothes Bosch had seen in the closet in the suite. He slid a credit card across the desk and Galvin printed out the room contract. Irving quickly initialed and signed the document and slid it back in exchange for a key. He then left the camera’s view in the direction of the elevators and Galvin began the process all over again with the next guest in line.

The video confirmed that Irving had checked in without luggage.

“He jumped.”

Bosch looked from the screen to his daughter.

“Why do you say that?”

Manipulating the controls, she backed the video up to the point where Galvin slid the contract across the desk to Irving. She then hit play.

“Watch,” she said. “He doesn’t even look at it. He just signs where the guy tells him to sign.”

“Yeah, so?”

“This is when people check to see if they’re getting ripped off. You know, they check what they are getting charged, but he doesn’t even look. He doesn’t care because he knows he’ll never pay that bill.”

Bosch watched the video. She was right about what she saw. But it wasn’t conclusive. Still, he was proud of her read. He had noticed that her powers of observation were increasingly impressive. He often quizzed her on what she could remember from different places they had been and scenes they had encountered. She always picked up and retained more than he expected.

She had told him a year earlier that she wanted to be a cop when she grew up. A detective like him. He didn’t know if it was just a passing idea, but he rolled with it and began passing on what he knew. One of their favorite things to do was to go to a restaurant like Du-par’s and watch the other patrons and pull reads off their faces and mannerisms. Bosch was teaching her to look for tells.

“That’s a good read,” he said. “Play it again.”

They watched the video for the third time and this time Bosch picked up something new.

“You see that. He looks at his watch real quick there after he signs.”

“So?”

“It just seems a little off to me. I mean, what’s time to a dead man? If he was going to jump, why would he