City Of Bones

let’s go your way with it for a minute. Let’s assume she was re-holstering her weapon-which would have been against procedures, but let’s assume it for the sake of argument. She’s reholstering so she can cuff the guy. Her holster is on her right hip and the entry wound is on the left shoulder. How does that happen?”
    Bosch thought about Brasher’s questioning him a few nights earlier about the scar on his left shoulder. About being shot and what it had felt like. He felt the room closing in, getting tight on him. He started sweating.
    “I don’t know,” he said.
    “You don’t know very much, do you, Bosch?”
    “I only know what I saw. I told you what I saw.”
    Bosch wished they hadn’t taken away Stokes’s pack of cigarettes.
    “What was your relationship with Officer Brasher?”
    Bosch looked down at the table.
    “What do you mean?”
    “From what I hear you were fucking her. That’s what I mean.”
    “What’s it have to do with anything?”
    “I don’t know. Maybe you tell me.”
    Bosch didn’t answer. He worked hard not to show the fury building inside.
    “Well, first off, this relationship of yours was a violation of department policy,” Gilmore said. “You know that, don’t you?”
    “She’s in patrol. I’m in detective services.”
    “You think that matters? That doesn’t matter. You’re a D-three. That’s supervisor level. She’s a grunt and a rookie no less. If this was the military you’d get a dishonorable just for starters. Maybe even some custody time.”
    “But this is the LAPD. So what’s it get me, a promotion?”
    That was the first offensive move Bosch had made. It was a warning to Gilmore to go another way. It was a veiled reference to several well-known and not so well-known dalliances between high-ranking officers and members of the rank and file. It was known that the police union, which represented the rank and file to the level of sergeant, was waiting with the goods ready to challenge any disciplinary action taken under the department’s so-called sexual harassment policy.
    “I don’t need any smart remarks from you,” Gilmore said. “I’m trying to conduct an investigation here.”
    He followed this with an extended drum roll while he looked at the few notes he had written on his pad. What he was doing, Bosch knew, was conducting a reverse investigation. Start with a conclusion and then gather only the facts that support it.
    “How are your eyes?” Gilmore finally asked without looking up.
    “One of them still stings like a son of a bitch. They feel like poached eggs.”
    “Now, you say that Stokes hit you in the face with a shot from his bottle of cleaner.”
    “Correct.”
    “And it momentarily blinded you.”
    “Correct.”
    Now Gilmore stood up and started pacing in the small space behind his chair.
    “How long between the moment you were blinded and when you were down in that dark garage and supposedly saw her shoot herself?”
    Bosch thought for a moment.
    “Well, I used a hose to wash my eyes, then I followed the pursuit. I would say not more than five minutes. But not too much less.”
    “So you went from blind man to eagle scout-able to see everything-inside of five minutes.”
    “I wouldn’t characterize it like that but you have the time right.”
    “Well, at least I got something right. Thank you.”
    “No problem, Lieutenant.”
    “So you’re saying you didn’t see the struggle for control of Officer Brasher’s gun before the shot occurred. Is that correct?”
    He had his hands clasped behind his back, the pencil between two fingers like a cigarette. Bosch leaned across the table. He understood the game of semantics Gilmore was playing.
    “Don’t play with the words, Lieutenant. There was no struggle. I saw no struggle because there was no struggle. If there had been a struggle I would have seen it. Is that clear enough for you?”
    Gilmore didn’t respond. He kept pacing.
    “Look,” Bosch said, “why don’t you just go do a GSR test on Stokes? His hands, his jumpsuit. You won’t find anything. That should end this pretty quick.”
    Gilmore came back to his chair and leaned down on it. He looked at Bosch and shook his head.
    “You know, Detective, I would love to do that. Normally in a situation like this, first thing we’d do is look for gunshot residue. The problem is, you broke the box. You took it upon yourself to take Stokes out of the crime scene and bring him back here. The chain of evidence was