see the muzzle flashes.
“What are you doing?”
“Making him
Bosch raised the gun and shot three more times into the air, keeping one bullet just in case. It worked. The helicopter changed directions, banking sharply away from Bosch’s position and flying behind the house as Drummond tried to use the structure as a shield.
Bosch held still and waited, and then he heard it. A loud metallic snap followed by the whirring sound of a broken rotor spinning wildly into the almond grove, slashing through branches like a scythe.
There was a millisecond of time suspension, when it seemed as though the turbine had gone silent and that there was no sound in the world at all. And then they heard the helicopter crash into the hillside behind the chateau. They saw a ball of flame rotate up over the roofline and disappear into the sky.
“What?” Mendenhall yelled. “What happened? You didn’t shoot anywhere near him!”
Bosch started running toward the sound of the crash.
“The wind turbine,” he yelled.
“What wind turbine?” she yelled back.
Bosch turned the corner of the house and saw smoke and scattered fires on the hillside. There was a strong smell of fuel in the air. Mendenhall caught up to him and with the beam of her flashlight led the way.
The helicopter had fallen no more than 150 feet but had completely broken apart on impact. There was a fire burning on the hillside to the right, where the fuel tank had apparently separated and exploded. They found Drummond beneath the shattered cockpit canopy, his limbs broken and at unnatural angles to his torso, his forehead gashed deeply by torn metal in the crash. When Mendenhall put the light on his face, he reacted, slowly opening his eyes.
“My God, he’s alive,” she said.
Drummond’s eyes followed her as she moved about, clearing debris off him, but his head did not turn. His lips moved but his breathing was too shallow for him to make a sound.
Bosch crouched down and put his hands into the left pocket of Drummond’s jacket. He retrieved his cell phone and badge wallet.
“What are you doing?” Mendenhall said. “We need to get him help and you can’t remove things from a crime scene.”
Bosch ignored her. It was his property and he was taking it back. Mendenhall pulled out her phone to call for paramedics and investigators. Meanwhile, Bosch patted the pocket on the other side of Drummond’s jacket and felt the form of a gun. His gun, he knew. He looked at Drummond’s face.
“I want you to keep that, Sheriff. Let them find it on you.”
He heard Mendenhall curse and he turned to look back at her.
“I can’t get a signal,” she said.
Bosch slid his thumb across his phone’s screen and it came to life. It appeared that it had survived the crash intact and in working order. It also had a three-bar signal.
“I’ve got nothing,” he said.
He put the phone in his pocket.
“Damn it!” Mendenhall said. “We have to do something.”
“Do we really?” Bosch said.
“Yes,” Mendenhall said pointedly. “We do.”
Bosch locked eyes with Drummond.
“Go back down to the house,” he called out. “I saw a phone in the kitchen.”
“All right. I’ll be back.”
Bosch turned and watched Mendenhall start down the hill. He then looked back at Drummond.
“Just you and me now, Sheriff,” he said softly.
Drummond had continually been trying to say something. Bosch finally dropped down to his hands and knees and leaned his ear toward Drummond’s mouth. Drummond spoke in a shallow, halting voice.
“I . . . can’t . . . feel anything.”
Bosch leaned back on his haunches and looked down as if appraising Drummond’s injuries. Drummond worked hard to crank up a smile. Bosch saw ruby-red blood on his teeth. He’d punctured a lung in the crash. He said something but Bosch didn’t hear it.
Harry leaned back over him again.
“What did you say?”
“I forgot to tell you . . . in the alley, I put her down on her knees . . . and then I made her beg . . .”
Bosch pulled back as the fury racked through his body. He stood up and turned away from Drummond and looked down toward the chateau. Mendenhall was nowhere in sight.
He turned back to Drummond. Bosch’s face was a mask of anger. Vengeance clawed at him from every nerve ending. He dropped to his knees and gathered the front of Drummond’s shirt in his fist. He leaned down and spoke through clenched teeth.
“I know what you want but I’m not going to give it to you, Drummond. I hope you live a long and painful life. In a prison. In a bed. In a place that stinks of shit and piss. Breathing through a tube. Eating through a tube. And I hope that every day, you want to die but can’t do a fucking thing about it.”
Bosch released his grip and pulled back. Drummond was no longer smiling. He was staring into his own bleak future.
Bosch stood up, brushed the dirt off his knees, and then turned and started down the hill. He saw Mendenhall walking back up, the flashlight in her hand.
“They’re coming,” she said. “Is he . . .?”
“Still breathing. How’s your eye?”
“I got whatever it was out. It stings.”
“Have them take a look at it when they get here.”
Bosch walked past her and on down the hill. On the way, he pulled out his phone so he could call home.
SNOW WHITE
2012
It was 7 P.M. in Copenhagen when Bosch made the call. It was picked up promptly by Henrik Jespersen at his home.
“Henrik, it’s Harry Bosch in L.A.”
“Detective Bosch, how are you? Do you have news on Anneke?”
Bosch paused. It seemed like an odd phrasing for the question. Henrik seemed breathless, as if he knew this was the call he had been waiting twenty years for. Bosch didn’t make him wait any longer.
“Henrik, there has been an arrest in your sister’s murder. We have the killer and I wanted—”
“
Bosch did not know what the Danish word meant but it sounded like an exclamation of both surprise and relief. There was then a long silence, and Bosch guessed that the man on the other end of the line half a world away had possibly started to cry. Bosch had seen the behavior before when he had delivered such news in person. In this case he had asked to go to Denmark to personally brief Henrik Jespersen, but the request was denied by Lieutenant O’Toole, who was still smarting from the denial of his 128 complaint against Bosch by Mendenhall and the PSB.
“I am sorry, Detective,” Henrik said. “I am very emotional, you see. Who is the killer of my sister?”
“A man named John James Drummond. She didn’t know him.”
There was no immediate response, so Bosch filled the space.
“Henrik, you may start hearing from some journalists about the arrest. I made a deal with a reporter at the
