A Darkness More Than Night

rights.”
    McCaleb could see the anger working its way into Bosch’s face, even six years after the fact.
    “You see, Gunn had come in as a witness and ostensibly as the victim of a crime. He said she came at him with the knife and he turned it on her. So we didn’t need to advise him. The plan was to go in there, shake his story down and get him to make a mistake. Once we had that, then we were going to advise him. But this dipshit lieutenant didn’t know any of this and he just went in and advised the guy. After that, we were dead. He knew we were coming after him. He asked for a lawyer as soon as we walked into the room.”
    Bosch shook his head and looked out onto the street. McCaleb followed his eyes. Across Victory Boulevard was a used-car lot with red, white and blue pennants flapping in the wind. To McCaleb, Van Nuys was always synonymous with car lots. They were all over, new and used.
    “So what did you say to the lieutenant?” he asked.
    “Say? I didn’t say anything. I just shoved him through the window of his office. I got a suspension out of it – involuntary stress leave. Jerry Edgar eventually took the case in to the DA and they sat on it a while and then finally kicked it.”
    Bosch nodded. His eyes rested on his empty paper plate.
    “I sort of blew it,” he said. “Yeah, I blew it.”
    McCaleb waited a moment before speaking. A gust of wind blew Bosch’s plate off the table and the detective watched it skitter across the picnic area. He made no move to chase it down.
    “You still working for that lieutenant?”
    “Nope. He’s no longer with us. Not too long after that he went out one night and didn’t come home. They found him in his car up in the tunnel in Griffith Park near the Observatory.”
    “What, he killed himself?”
    “No. Somebody did it for him. It’s still open. Technically.”
    Bosch looked back at him. McCaleb dropped his eyes and noticed that Bosch’s tie tack was a tiny pair of silver handcuffs.
    “What else can I tell you?” Bosch said. “None of this had anything to do with Gunn. He was just a fly in the ointment – the ointment being the bullshit they call the justice system.”
    “Doesn’t sound like you had time to do much background on him.”
    “None, actually. All that I told you took place in the span of eight or nine hours. Afterward, with what happened, I was off the case and the guy walked out the door.”
    “But you didn’t give up. Jaye told me you visited him in the drunk tank the night before he got himself killed.”
    “Yeah, he got popped on a duice while cruising whores on Sunset. He was in the tank and I got a call. I went in to take a look, maybe jerk his chain a little, see if he was ready to talk. But the guy was piss drunk, just lying there on the floor in the puke. So that was it. You could say that we didn’t communicate.”
    Bosch looked at McCaleb’s unfinished chili dog and then his watch.
    “Sorry, but that’s all I got. You going to eat that or can we go?”
    “Couple more bites, couple more questions. Don’t you want to have a smoke?”
    “I quit a couple years ago. I only smoke on special occasions.”
    “Don’t tell me, it was the Marlboro-man-gone-impotent sign on Sunset.”
    “No, my wife wanted us both to quit. We did.”
    “Your wife? Harry, you’re full of surprises.”
    “Don’t get excited. She’s come and gone. But at least I don’t smoke anymore. I don’t know about her.”
    McCaleb just nodded, feeling he had stepped too far into the other man’s personal world. He got back to the case.
    “So any theories on who killed him?”
    McCaleb took another bite while Bosch answered.
    “My guess is he probably met up with somebody just like himself. Somebody who crossed a line somewhere. Don’t get me wrong, I hope you and Jaye get the guy. But so far, whoever he or she is hasn’t done anything I’m too upset about. Know what I mean?”
    “It’s funny you mentioned a ‘she.’ You think it could have been a woman?”
    “I don’t know enough about it. But like I said, he preyed on women. Maybe one of them put a stop to it.”
    McCaleb just nodded. He couldn’t think of anything else to ask. Bosch had been a long shot anyway. Maybe he’d known it would come to this and he just wanted to reconnect with Bosch for other reasons. He spoke with his eyes down on his paper plate.
    “You still think about the girl on the hill, Harry?”
    He didn’t want to say out loud the name Bosch had given