The Black Box

turned and watched Mendenhall start down the hill. He then looked back at Drummond.
    “Just you and me now, Sheriff,” he said softly.
    Drummond had continually been trying to say something. Bosch finally dropped down to his hands and knees and leaned his ear toward Drummond’s mouth. Drummond spoke in a shallow, halting voice.
    “I . . . can’t . . . feel anything.”
    Bosch leaned back on his haunches and looked down as if appraising Drummond’s injuries. Drummond worked hard to crank up a smile. Bosch saw ruby-red blood on his teeth. He’d punctured a lung in the crash. He said something but Bosch didn’t hear it.
    Harry leaned back over him again.
    “What did you say?”
    “I forgot to tell you . . . in the alley, I put her down on her knees . . . and then I made her beg . . .”
    Bosch pulled back as the fury racked through his body. He stood up and turned away from Drummond and looked down toward the château. Mendenhall was nowhere in sight.
    He turned back to Drummond. Bosch’s face was a mask ofanger. Vengeance clawed at him from every nerve ending. He dropped to his knees and gathered the front of Drummond’s shirt in his fist. He leaned down and spoke through clenched teeth.
    “I know what you want but I’m not going to give it to you, Drummond. I hope you live a long and painful life. In a prison. In a bed. In a place that stinks of shit and piss. Breathing through a tube. Eating through a tube. And I hope that every day, you want to die but can’t do a fucking thing about it.”
    Bosch released his grip and pulled back. Drummond was no longer smiling. He was staring into his own bleak future.
    Bosch stood up, brushed the dirt off his knees, and then turned and started down the hill. He saw Mendenhall walking back up, the flashlight in her hand.
    “They’re coming,” she said. “Is he . . .?”
    “Still breathing. How’s your eye?”
    “I got whatever it was out. It stings.”
    “Have them take a look at it when they get here.”
    Bosch walked past her and on down the hill. On the way, he pulled out his phone so he could callhome.

SNOW WHITE
    2012

I t was 7 P.M. in Copenhagen when Bosch made the call. It was picked up promptly by Henrik Jespersen at his home.
    “Henrik, it’s Harry Bosch in L.A.”
    “Detective Bosch, how are you? Do you have news on Anneke?”
    Bosch paused. It seemed like an odd phrasing for the question. Henrik seemed breathless, as if he knew this was the call he had been waiting twenty years for. Bosch didn’t make him wait any longer.
    “Henrik, there has been an arrest in your sister’s murder. We have the killer and I wanted—”
    “ Endelig !”
    Bosch did not know what the Danish word meant but it sounded like an exclamation of both surprise and relief. There was then a long silence, and Bosch guessed that the man on the other end of the line half a world away had possibly started to cry. Bosch had seen the behavior before when he had delivered such news in person. In this case he had asked to go to Denmark to personally brief Henrik Jespersen, but the request was denied by Lieutenant O’Toole, who was still smarting fromthe denial of his 128 complaint against Bosch by Mendenhall and the PSB.
    “I am sorry, Detective,” Henrik said. “I am very emotional, you see. Who is the killer of my sister?”
    “A man named John James Drummond. She didn’t know him.”
    There was no immediate response, so Bosch filled the space.
    “Henrik, you may start hearing from some journalists about the arrest. I made a deal with a reporter at the BT there in Copenhagen. He helped me with the investigation. I need to call him next.”
    Again there was no response.
    “Henrik, are you—”
    “This man Drummond, why did he kill her?”
    “Because he believed it would bring him favor with a very powerful man and family. It helped them cover up another crime against your sister.”
    “Is he in jail now?”
    “Not yet. He’s in a hospital, but they will be moving him soon to the jail ward.”
    “In hospital? Did you shoot him?”
    Bosch nodded. He understood the emotion behind the question. The hopefulness in it.
    “No, Henrik. He was trying to get away. In a helicopter. And he crashed. He’ll never walk again. His spine was crushed. They think he is paralyzed from the neck down.”
    “I think this is good. Do you?”
    Bosch didn’t hesitate.
    “Yes, Henrik, I do.”
    “You say killing Anneke brought him power. How?”
    Bosch spent the next fifteen