Echo Park

guy kept killing? How many times we got calls and notes from these creeps but still couldn’t get to them before the next victim was dead?”
    “I know, I know.”
    “We all have ghosts. It’s part of the job. With some jobs it’s a bigger part than with others. I had a boss once, he used to say, if you can’t stand the ghosts, get out of the haunted house.”
    He nodded again, this time while looking directly at her. He meant it this time.
    “How many murders have you solved, Harry? How many killers have you put away?”
    “I don’t know. I don’t keep track.”
    “Maybe you should.”
    “What’s the point?”
    “The point is, how many of those killers would have done it again if you hadn’t taken them down? More than a few, I bet.”
    “Probably.”
    “There you go. You’re way ahead in the long run. Think about that.”
    “Okay.”
    His mind flashed on one of those killers. Bosch had arrested Roger Boylan many years before. He drove a pickup with a camper shell on the back. He had used marijuana to entice a couple young girls into the back while parked up at Hansen Dam. He raped and killed them, injecting them with an overdose of a horse tranquilizer. He then threw their bodies into the dry bed of the nearby slough. When Bosch put the cuffs on him Boylan had only one thing to say.
    “Too bad. I was just getting started.”
    Bosch wondered how many victims there would have been if he hadn’t stopped him. He wondered if he could trade Roger Boylan for Raynard Waits and call it even. On the one hand, he thought he could. On the other hand, he knew it wasn’t a zero-sum game. The true detective knew that coming out even in homicide work was not good enough. Not by a long shot.
    “I hope I’ve helped,” Rachel said.
    He looked up from the memory of Boylan to Rachel’s eyes.
    “I think you did. I think I’ll know better who and what I am dealing with when I go into the room with him tomorrow.”
    She stood up from the table.
    “I meant about the other thing.”
    Bosch stood.
    “That, too. You’ve helped a lot.”
    He came around the table so he could walk her to the door.
    “Be careful, Harry.”
    “I know. You said that. But you don’t have to worry. It will be a full-security situation.”
    “I don’t mean the physical danger as much as I mean the psychological. Guard yourself, Harry. Please.”
    “I will,” he said.
    It was time to go to the door but she was hesitating. She looked down at the contents of the file spread across the table and then at Bosch.
    “I was hoping you would call me sometime,” she said. “But not about a case.”
    Bosch had to take a few moments before coming back.
    “I thought because of what I said—what we said—that . . .”
    He wasn’t sure how to finish. He wasn’t sure what he was trying to say. She reached up and put her hand lightly on his chest. He took a step closer, coming into her space. He then put his arms around her and pulled her close.

9

    LATER , AFTER THEY HAD made love, Bosch and Rachel remained in bed, talking about anything they could think of except what they had just done. Eventually they came back around to the case and the next morning’s interview with Raynard Waits.
    “I can’t believe that after all this time I’m going to sit down face-to-face with her killer,” Bosch said. “It’s kind of like a dream. I actually have dreamed of catching the guy. I mean, it was never Waits in the dream but I dreamed about closing out the case.”
    “Who was it in the dream?” she asked.
    Her head was resting on his chest. He couldn’t see her face but he could smell her hair. Under the sheets she had one leg over one of his.
    “It was this guy I always thought could be good for it. But I never had anything on him. I guess because he was always an asshole, I wanted it to be him.”
    “Well, did he have any connection to Gesto?”
    Bosch tried to shrug but it was difficult with their bodies so entwined.
    “He knew about the garage where we found the car and had an ex-girlfriend who was a ringer for Gesto. And he had anger-management issues. No real evidence. I just thought it was him. I followed him once way back during the first year of the investigation. He was working as a security guard up in the oil fields behind Baldwin Hills. You know where that is?”
    “You mean where you see the oil pumps when you’re coming in on La Cienega from the airport?”
    “Yeah, right. That’s the place. Well, this kid’s family