A Darkness More Than Night

reports?”
    “Yeah, but I didn’t look at it. I mean, I pushed the guy through a window in front of the squad. I wasn’t going to deny it.”
    “And later – what, a month or so? – Pounds ends up dead in the tunnel up in the hills.”
    “Griffith Park, yeah.”
    “And it’s still open…”
    Bosch nodded.
    “Technically.”
    “You said that before. What does that mean?”
    “It means it’s open but nobody’s working it. The LAPD has a special classification for cases like it, cases they don’t want to touch. It’s what is called closed by circumstances other than arrest.”
    “And you know those circumstances?”
    Bosch finished his second bottle, slid it to the side and pulled a fresh bottle in front of him.
    “You’re not drinking,” he said.
    “You’re doing enough for both of us. Do you know those circumstances?”
    Bosch leaned forward.
    “Listen, I’m going to tell you something very few people know about, okay?”
    McCaleb nodded. He knew better than to ask a question now. He would just let Bosch tell it.
    “Because of that window thing I went on suspension. When I got tired of walking around my house staring at the walls, I started investigating an old case. A cold case. A murder case. I went freelancing on it and I ended up following a blind trail to some very powerful people. But at the time I had no badge, no real standing. So a few times, when I made some calls, I used Pounds’s name. You know, I was trying to hide what I was doing.”
    “If the department found out you were working a case while on suspension things would’ve gotten worse for you.”
    “Exactly. So I used his name when I made what I thought were some routine, innocuous calls. But then one night somebody called Pounds up and told him that they had something for him, some urgent information. He went to the meet. By himself. Then they found him later in that tunnel. He’d been beaten pretty bad. Like they had tortured him. Only he couldn’t answer their questions because he was the wrong guy. I was the one who had used his name. I was the one they wanted.”
    Bosch dropped his chin to his chest and was silent for a long moment.
    “I got him killed,” he said without looking up. “The guy was a pure-bred asshole but my actions got him killed.”
    Bosch suddenly jerked his head up and drank from his bottle. McCaleb saw his eyes were dark and shiny. They looked weary.
    “Is that what you wanted to know, Terry? Does that help you?”
    McCaleb nodded.
    “How much of this would Tafero have known?”
    “Nothing.”
    “Could he have thought you were the one who called Pounds out that night?”
    “Maybe. There were people who did and probably still do. But what does it mean? What’s it got to do with Gunn?”
    McCaleb took his first long drink of beer. It was cold and he felt the chill in his chest. He put the bottle down and decided it was time to give something back to Bosch.
    “I need to know about Tafero because I need to know about reasons, motives. I have no proof of anything – yet – but I think Tafero killed Gunn. He did it for Storey. He set you in the frame.”
    “Jesus…”
    “Nice perfect frame. The crime scene is connected to the painter Hieronymus Bosch, the painter is connected to you as his namesake and then you are connected to Gunn. And you know when Storey probably got the idea for it?”
    Bosch shook his head. He looked too stunned to talk.
    “The day you tried to interview him in his office. You played the tape in court last week. You identified yourself on it by your full first name.”
    “I always do. I…”
    “He then connects with Tafero and Tafero has the perfect victim to put in the frame. Gunn – a man he knew walked away from you and a murder charge six years ago.”
    Bosch lifted his bottle a couple of inches off the table and brought it back down hard.
    “I think the plan was twofold. If they got lucky the connection would be made quickly and you’d be fighting a murder charge before Storey’s trial even started. If that didn’t happen, then plan B. They would still have it to crush you with at trial. Destroy you, they destroy the case. Fowkkes already took out that woman today and pot-shotted a few of the other wits. What does the case rest on? You, Harry. They knew it would come down to you.”
    Bosch turned his head slightly and his eyes seemed to go blank as he stared at the scarred table top while considering what McCaleb had said.
    “I needed to know your