“About anything specific?”
“Not really. He just called and we sort of shot the shit for a few minutes about school and stuff but it was sort of bad timing. I had to go. So that was it.”
“Where did you have to go?”
“I had a study session set up and I had to go.”
“Did he say anything about his work or any sort of pressure he was under, anything that was bothering him?”
“No.”
“What do you think happened to your father, Chad?”
The boy was big and gangly, his face scattershot with acne. He shook his head violently at the question.
“How should I know? I had no idea what was going to happen.”
“Do you know why he would have gone to the Chateau Marmont and rented a room?”
“I don’t know.”
“Okay, Chad, that’s all. I’m sorry for the questions. But I am sure you want to know what happened.”
“Yes.”
Chad looked down at the ground.
“When do you go back to school?”
“I think I’ll stay with my mother for at least the weekend.”
“She’ll probably need that.”
Bosch pointed to the cemetery lane where the cars were waiting.
“I think she and your grandfather are waiting for you. Thanks for your time.”
“Okay.”
“Good luck, Chad.”
“Thanks.”
Bosch watched him walk back toward his family. He felt sorry for the kid. He seemed to be walking back to a life of demands and expectations that he had no part in conjuring. But Bosch couldn’t think about it too long. He had work to do. As he started walking toward his own car, he pulled his phone and called his partner. It took Chu six rings to answer his phone.
“Yeah, Harry.”
“What’ve they come up with?”
Bosch had gone through Lieutenant Duvall with a request to have the department’s top forensics team go back into the Chateau Marmont and make another sweep of room 79 using all means of evidence detection possible. Bosch wanted the place vacuumed, lasered, black-lighted and super glued. He wanted to try anything that might draw out evidence missed the first time, and possibly link McQuillen to the room.
“We got nothin’. So far, at least.”
“Okay. Were they out on the fire escape yet?”
“They started there. Nothing.”
Bosch couldn’t say he was disappointed because he knew it was a long shot in the first place, especially on the fire escape, which had been exposed to the elements for nearly four days.
“Do you need me there?”
“No, I think we’re going to wrap soon. How was the funeral?”
“It was a funeral. Not much else to say.”
In order to bring Chu in and oversee the second forensic examination of the crime scene, Bosch had told him in general terms where the investigation was moving.
“Then, what’s next?”
Bosch climbed into his car and started the engine.
“I think it’s time we spoke to Mark McQuillen.”
“All right, when?”
Bosch had been thinking about that but wanted to consider the how, when and where questions further.
“We’ll work it out when you get back to the PAB.”
Bosch disconnected and dropped the phone into his coat pocket. He loosened his tie slightly as he drove out of the cemetery. Almost immediately his phone buzzed and he assumed Chu was calling back with another question. But instead it was Hannah Stone’s name on the ID screen.
“Hannah.”
“Hello, Harry. How are you?”
“I just left a funeral.”
“What? Whose?”
“Somebody I never met. It was work. How are things at the center?”
“They’re fine. I’m on a break.”
“Good.”
He waited. He knew she wasn’t calling just to pass the time.
“I was wondering if you’ve been thinking about last night.”
The reality was that Bosch had been consumed by the Irving case since he had confronted Robert Mason the night before.
“Of course,” he said. “That was pretty wonderful for me.”
“It was wonderful for me, too, but I didn’t mean that. I meant about what I told you. Before.”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“About Shawn. My son.”
This felt jagged and awkward. He wasn’t sure what she wanted.
“Well . . . I don’t know, Hannah, what am I supposed to be thinking about?”
“Never mind, Harry. I need to go.”
“Wait, Hannah. Come on, you called me, remember? Don’t go and don’t get upset. Just tell me, what am I supposed to be thinking about with your son?”
Bosch felt something gripping his insides. He had to consider that for her the night before might have been some sort of means to a hopeful end that was about her son and not them. To Bosch, her son was lost. When Shawn was twenty years old he had drugged a girl and raped her—a sad and terrible story. He pleaded guilty and went to prison. That was five years ago and Hannah had dedicated her life since then to trying to understand where the impulse in him had come from. Was it genetic, was it nature, was it nurture? It was a form of prison in itself for Hannah, and Bosch had felt sympathy as she told him the ugly story.
But now he wasn’t sure what she wanted from him besides his sympathy. Was he supposed to say her son’s crime was not her fault? Or that her son wasn’t evil? Or was she hoping for some sort of concrete help in terms of her son’s incarceration? Bosch didn’t know because she hadn’t said.
“Nothing,” she said. “I’m sorry. I just don’t want it to ruin anything, that’s all.”
That eased things for him a small bit.
“Then don’t let it, Hannah. Just let things happen. We’ve only known each other a few days. We like to be with each other but maybe we moved too quickly. Let’s just let things happen and don’t bring this other stuff into it. Not yet.”
“But I have to. He’s my son. Do you have any idea what it’s like to live with what he did and to think about him up there?”
The grip inside tightened again and he understood that he had made a mistake with this woman. His loneliness and his own need for connection had led him down the wrong path. He had waited so long and now had chosen so wrong.
“Hannah,” he said. “I’m in the middle of stuff here. Can we talk about all of this later?”
“Whatever.”
It was said as an invective. She might as well have said
“Okay. I’ll call you as soon as I’m clear. Good-bye, Hannah.”
“Good-bye, Harry.”
Bosch disconnected and fought the urge to throw the phone out the car window. His thinking that Hannah
