Free The Closers by Michael Connelly Page A

words.
    “You know, I don’t know if I ever told you this, but after I quit I really sort of liked it at first. You know, being out of the squad and just sort of doing what I wanted. Then I started to miss it and then I started working cases again. On my own. Anyway, one thing that happened was I started walking with sort of a limp.”
    “A limp?”
    “Just a little thing. Like one of my heels was lower than the other. Like I was uneven.”
    “Well, did you check your shoes?”
    “I didn’t need to check my shoes. It wasn’t my shoes. It was my gun.”
    He looked over at her. She was staring straight ahead, her eyebrows set in that deep V she used so much with him. He looked back at the road ahead.
    “I carried a gun for so long that when I no longer had it on me it threw off my balance. I was uneven.”
    “Harry, that’s a strange story.”
    They were going through the Cahuenga Pass. Bosch looked out his window and up the hillside, searching for his house nestled in among the others in the folds of the mountain. He thought he saw a glimpse of the back deck sticking out over the brown brush.
    “You want to call Garcia and see if we can drop in and see him after we go by probation?” he asked.
    “Yeah, I will-as soon as you get to the point of that story.”
    He thought for a long moment before answering.
    “The point is, I need the gun. I need the badge. Otherwise I’m out of balance. I need all of this. Okay?”
    He looked over at Rider. She looked back at him but didn’t answer.
    “I know what I got with this chance. So fuck Irving and his calling me a retread. I won’t fuck up.”

8
    TWENTY MINUTES LATER they stepped into one of Bosch’s least favorite places in the city: the probation and parole office of the state’s Department of Corrections in Van Nuys. It was a single-story brick building crowded with people waiting to see probation and parole agents, to give urine samples, to make their court-ordered check-ins, to turn themselves in for incarceration or to plead for one more chance of freedom. It was a place where desperation, humiliation and rage were palpable in the air. It was a place where Bosch tried not to make eye contact with anyone.
    Bosch and Rider had something none of the others had: badges. It helped them cut through the lines and get an immediate audience with the agent Roland Mackey had been assigned to after his arrest two years earlier for lewd and lascivious behavior. Thelma Kibble was recessed in a standard government-issue cubicle in a room crowded with many identical cubicles. Her desk and the one government-issue shelf that came with the cubicle were crowded with the files of the convicts she was charged with shepherding through probation or parole. She was of medium size and build. Her eyes were brightly set off against her dark brown skin. Bosch and Rider introduced themselves as detectives from RHD. There was only one chair in front of Kibble’s desk so they remained standing.
    “Is it robbery or homicide we are talking about here?” Kibble asked.
    “Homicide,” Rider said.
    “Then why doesn’t one of you grab the extra chair from that cubicle over there. She’s still at lunch.”
    Bosch took the chair she pointed at and brought it back. Rider and Bosch sat down and told Kibble they wanted a look at the file belonging to Roland Mackey. Bosch could tell that Kibble recognized the name but not the case.
    “It was a lewd and lash probation you caught two years ago,” he said. “He cleared after twelve months.”
    “Oh, he’s not current, then. Well, I need to go grab that one in archives. I don’t remem-oh, yes I do, yes I do. Roland Mackey, yeah. I rather enjoyed that one.”
    “How so?” Rider asked.
    Kibble smiled.
    “Let’s just say he had some difficulty reporting to a woman of color. Tell you what, though, let me go grab the file so we get the details right.”
    She double-checked the spelling of Mackey’s name with them and left the