Free City Of Bones by Michael Connelly

feeling at ease with her. They had spent lunch together at the crime scene picnic tables the last two days and she had never been far from his sight during the hillside searches. They had ridden over to Musso’s together in his car and it seemed like a third or fourth date already. They small-talked about the division and the details Bosch was willing to part with about his case. By the time the bartender put down their martini glasses along with the sidecar carafes, he was ready to forget about bones and blood and baseball bats for a while.
    They clinked glasses and Brasher said, “To life.”
    “Yeah,” Bosch said. “Getting through another day.”
    “Just barely.”
    Bosch knew that now was the time to talk to her about what was troubling her. If she didn’t want to talk, he wouldn’t press it.
    “That guy you called Kiko in the back lot, why’d he tell you to cheer up?”
    She slumped a little and didn’t answer at first.
    “If you don’t want to talk about-”
    “No, it’s not that. It’s more like I don’t want to think about it.”
    “I know the feeling. Forget I asked.”
    “No, it’s okay. My partner’s going to write me up and since I’m on probation, it could cost me.”
    “Write you up for what?”
    “Crossing the tube.”
    It was a tactical expression, meaning to walk in front of the barrel of a shotgun or other weapon held by a fellow officer.
    “What happened? I mean, if you want to talk about it.”
    She shrugged and they both took long drinks from their glasses.
    “Oh, it was a domestic-I hate domestics-and the guy locked himself in the bedroom with a gun. We didn’t know if he was going to use it on himself, his wife or us. We waited for backup and then we were going to go in.”
    She took another drink. Bosch watched her. Her inner turmoil showed clearly in her eyes.
    “Edgewood had shotgun. Kiko had the kick. Fennel, Kiko’s partner, and I had the door. So we did the deed. Kiko’s big. He opened the door with one kick. Fennel and I went in. The guy was passed out on the bed. Seemed like no problem but Edgewood had a big problem with me. He said I crossed the tube.”
    “Did you?”
    “I don’t think so. But if I did, then so did Fennel, and he didn’t say jack to him.”
    “You’re the rookie. You’re the one on probation.”
    “Yeah, and I’m getting tired of it, that’s for sure. I mean, how did you make it through, Harry? Right now you’ve got a job that makes a difference. What I do, just chasing the radio all day and night, going from dirtbag to dirtbag, it’s like spitting on a house fire. We’re not making any headway out there and on top of that I’ve got this uptight male asshole telling me every two minutes how I fucked up.”
    Bosch knew what she was feeling. Every cop in a uniform went through it. You wade through the cesspool every day and soon it seems that that is all there is. An abyss. It was why he could never go back to working patrol. Patrol was a Band-Aid on a bullet hole.
    “Did you think it would be different? When you were in the academy, I mean.”
    “I don’t know what I thought. I just don’t know if I can make it through to a point where I think I’m making any difference.”
    “I think you can. The first couple years are tough. But you dig in and you start seeing the long view. You pick your battles and you pick your path. You’ll do all right.”
    He didn’t feel confident giving her the rah-rah speech. He had gone through long stretches of indecision about himself and his choices. Telling her to stick it out made him feel a little false.
    “Let’s talk about something else,” she said.
    “Fine with me,” he said.
    He took a long drink from his glass, trying to think of how to turn the conversation in another direction. He put his glass down, turned and smiled at her.
    “So there you were, hiking in the Andes and you said to yourself, ‘Gee, I wanna be a cop.’ ”
    She laughed, seemingly shaking off the blues of her