Suicide Run

nod over the phone.
    “I’ve got a number of the neighbors already standing in the street here watching,” Gunn said. “Shouldn’t be too hard to scare up some wits.”
    “Good,” Bosch said. “I’ll see you soon.”

    The crime scene was already a hive of activity by the time Bosch got there. He parked half a block down the street and as he approached on foot he got his bearings. He realized that the houses on the left side of the street backed up against one of the Venice canals, while those on the right, smaller and older, did not. This resulted in the houses on the left being quite a bit more valuable than those on the right. It created an economic division on the same street. The residents on the left had money, their houses newer, bigger and in better condition than those right across the street. The house where Tracey Blitzstein had lived was one of the canal houses. As he approached the glowing lights set up by forensics around a black hardtop Mustang, a woman stepped away from the gathering and approached him. She wore navy slacks and a black turtleneck sweater. She had a badge clipped to her belt and introduced herself as Kim Gunn. Bosch handed her the extra coffee he had brought and she was almost gleeful about receiving it. She seemed very young to be a homicide detective, even in a divisional squad. This told Bosch that she was good at it or politically connected—or both.
    “You’ve got to be a cop’s kid,” Bosch said.
    “Why’s that?”
    “I was told your full name is Kimber Gunn. Only a cop would name a kid that.”
    She smiled and nodded. Kimber was the name of a company that manufactured firearms, in particular the tactical pistols used by specialty squads in law enforcement.
    “You got me,” she said. “My father was in LAPD SWAT in the seventies. But I got it better than he did. His name is Tommy Gunn.”
    Bosch nodded. He remembered the name from when he first came on the department and was in patrol.
    “I heard of him back then. I didn’t know him, though.”
    “Well, I’ve heard of you. So I guess that makes us even.”
    “You’ve heard of me?”
    “From my friend Kiz Rider. We go to BPO meetings together.”
    Bosch nodded. Rider was his former partner, now working out of the office of the chief of police. She was also recently elected president of the Black Peace Officers Association, a group that monitored the racial equality of hiring and firing as well as promotions and demotions in the department.
    “I miss working with her and I don’t say that about too many people,” Bosch said.
    “Well, she says the same about you. You want to take a look at the crime scene now?”
    “Yes, I do.”
    They started walking toward the lights and the waiting Mustang.
    “Did you get anything from the neighbors yet?” Bosch asked.
    Gunn nodded.
    “No shortage of witnesses,” she said. “When David Blitzstein started yelling in the street, he woke up the neighborhood. I had the best of the lot taken to the station to give formal statements.”
    “Anybody hear the gun?”
    “Uh-uh.”
    Bosch stopped and looked at her.
    “Nobody?”
    “Nobody we’ve found—and that includes Blitzstein himself. I’ve been up and down the street and nobody heard a gunshot. Everybody heard the guy screaming and plenty of them looked out their windows and saw him standing in the street. Nobody heard or saw a gun. Nobody heard or saw the getaway vehicle, either.”
    “You mean if there was one.”
    “If there was one.”
    Bosch started back toward the Mustang but then stopped again.
    “What was your take on the husband?” he asked.
    “Like I said, he’s been nothing but cooperative so far. You thinking the husband?”
    “At the moment I’m thinking everybody. What was this guy wearing when he was in the middle of the street yelling for help?”
    “Blue jeans. No shirt, no shoes.”
    “Any blood on him?”
    “Not that I saw.”
    Bosch’s phone buzzed. It was his partner.
    “Harry, I’ve been talking to the manager of the card room. He said Tracey Blitz won a lot of money last night.”
    “How much is a lot?”
    “She cashed in sixty-four hundred in chips.”
    That jibed with what David Blitzstein had told Kimber Gunn.
    “Do they have cameras in the parking lot?” Bosch asked.
    “Hold on.”
    Ferras put his hand over the phone and Bosch heard a muffled back-and-forth conversation. Then Ferras came back on the line.
    “There are cameras,” Ferras reported. “He’s going