Free The Drop by Michael Connelly Page A

vandalism?”
    “My car. Someone spray-painted ‘I love baby rapers’ on the side. They’d like to get us out of the neighborhood, if they could. You see the man opposite Clayton in the circle? The one with the patch over his eye?”
    Bosch looked and nodded.
    “He was caught walking from the bus stop back to the center after coming from his job. Caught by the local gang—the T-Dub Boyz. They put his eye out with a broken bottle.”
    Bosch turned back to her. He knew she was referring to a Latino gang from up around the Tujunga Wash. Latin gangbangers were notorious for their intolerance and violence toward sexual deviants.
    “Anyone get arrested for it?”
    She laughed derisively.
    “To make an arrest, there would have to be an investigation. But you see, none of the vandalism or violence around here ever gets investigated by your department or anyone else.”
    Bosch nodded without looking at her. He knew the score.
    “Now, if there are no other questions, I need to get back to work.”
    “No, no more questions,” Bosch said. “Go back to your good work, Doctor, and we’ll go back to ours.”

9

    B osch had just gotten back to the PAB from the Hall of Records with a stack of files under his arm. It was after five, so the squad room was almost deserted. Chu had gone home, which was fine with Bosch. He planned to leave himself and to start reviewing files and the disc from the Chateau Marmont at home. He was loading the files into a briefcase when he saw Kiz Rider enter the squad room and make a beeline in his direction. He quickly snapped the briefcase closed. He didn’t want Rider asking about the files and learning that they were not from the Irving case.
    “Harry, I thought we were going to keep in touch,” she said by way of greeting.
    “We are going to, when I have something to keep in touch about. Hello to you, too, Kiz.”
    “Look, Harry, I don’t really have time for niceties. I’m under pressure from the chief, who is under pressure from Irving and the rest of the city council members he has managed to get behind this.”
    “Get behind what?”
    “Wanting to know what happened to his son.”
    “Well, I’m glad you’re there to shoulder that burden and keep it off the investigators so we can do our work.”
    She let out a deep breath in frustration. Bosch could see the jagged edge of a scar on her neck just under the collar of her blouse. It reminded him of the day she got shot. Her last day as his partner.
    He stood up and lifted the briefcase off the desk.
    “You’re leaving already?” she exclaimed.
    Bosch pointed to the clock on the far wall.
    “Almost five thirty and I punched in at seven thirty. I ate lunch for ten minutes on the hood of my car. No matter how you cut it, I got in about two hours of overtime that the city doesn’t pay anymore. So, yeah, I’m going home to where I have a sick kid waiting for me to bring her some soup. That is, unless you want to call up the city council and see if they’ll authorize.”
    “Harry, it’s me, Kiz. Why are you acting like this?”
    “Like what? Like I’m fed up with the political intrusion on my case? Tell you what, I’ve got another one working—a nineteen-year-old girl raped and left dead on the rocks at the Marina. The crabs got to her body. It’s funny but nobody on the city council has called me up about that one.”
    Kiz nodded to his point.
    “I know, Harry, it’s not fair. With you everybody counts or nobody counts. That doesn’t work with politics.”
    Bosch stared at her for a long moment. She quickly grew uncomfortable.
    “What?”
    “It was you, wasn’t it?”
    “It was me what?”
    “‘Everybody counts or nobody counts.’ You turned it into a slogan and you told it to Irving. Then he tried to act like he’d known it all along.”
    Rider shook her head in frustration.
    “Jesus Christ, Harry, what’s the big deal? His front man called up and said, Who is the best investigator in RHD? I said you but then he