Free The Overlook by Michael Connelly Page A

fixed up and taken care of if you agree to cooperate with me.”
    Mitford leaned forward.
    “But like I told that Mexi-that Cuban detective, I didn’t see anything.”
    Bosch waited a long moment before responding.
    “I don’t care what you told him. You’re dealing with me now, son. And I think you’re holding back on me.”
    “No, I’m not. I swear to God.”
    He held his hands open and as wide as the cuffs allowed in a pleading gesture. But Bosch wasn’t buying it. The kid was too young to be a liar capable of convincing Bosch. He decided to go right at him.
    “Let me tell you something, Jesse. My partner is good and he’s going places in the department. No doubt about that. But right now he’s a baby. He’s been a detective for about as long as you’ve been growing that peach fuzz on your chin. Me, I’ve been around and that means I’ve been around a lot of liars. Sometimes I think all I know are liars. And, Jesse, I can tell. You’re lying to me and nobody lies to me.”
    “No! I-”
    “And so, what you’ve got here is about thirty seconds to start talking to me or I’m just going to take you down and book you into county lockup. I’m sure there’s going to be somebody waiting in there who will have a guy like you singing
O Canada
! into the mike before sunup. You see, that’s what I meant about there being stiff penalties for stalking.”
    Mitford stared down at his hands on the table. Bosch waited and twenty seconds slowly went by. Finally, Bosch stood up.
    “Okay, Jesse, stand up. We’re going.”
    “Wait, wait, wait!”
    “For what? I said stand up! Let’s go. This is a murder investigation and I’m not wasting time on-”
    “All right, all right, I’ll tell you. I saw the whole thing, okay? I saw everything.”
    Bosch studied him for a moment.
    “You’re talking about the overlook?” he asked. “You saw the shooting on the overlook?”
    “I saw everything, man.”
    Bosch pulled his chair out and sat back down.

EIGHT
    BOSCH STOPPED JESSE MITFORD FROM SPEAKING until he signed a rights waiver. It didn’t matter that he was now considered a witness to the murder that took place on the Mulholland overlook. Whatever it was that he witnessed he saw because he was in the act of committing his own crime-trespassing and stalking. Bosch had to make sure there were no mistakes on the case. No fruit-of-the-poison-tree appeal. No blowback. The stakes were high, the feds were classic second-guessers and he knew he had to do this right.
    “Okay, Jesse,” he said when the waiver form was signed. “You are going to tell me what you saw and heard up on the overlook. If you are truthful and helpful I am going to drop all charges and let you walk out of here a free man.”
    Technically, Bosch was overstating his hand. He had no authority to drop charges or make deals with criminal suspects. But he didn’t need it in this case because Mitford had not yet been formally charged with anything. Therein lay Bosch’s leverage. It came down to semantics. What Bosch was really offering was to not proceed with charging Mitford in exchange for the young Canadian’s honest cooperation.
    “I understand,” Mitford said.
    “Just remember, only the truth. Only what you saw and heard. Nothing else.”
    “I understand.”
    “Hold up your hands.”
    Mitford raised his wrists and Bosch used his own key to remove his partner’s handcuffs. Mitford immediately began to rub them to get circulation going again. It reminded Bosch of seeing Rachel rub Alicia Kent’s wrists earlier.
    “Feel better?” he asked.
    “Yeah, good,” Mitford replied.
    “Okay, then let’s start from the top. Tell me where you came from, where you were going and exactly what you saw up on the overlook.”
    Mitford nodded and then took Bosch through a twenty-minute story that began on Hollywood Boulevard with the purchase of the star map from a curbside vendor and his long trek on foot up into the hills. His journey took nearly three