The Black Box

Rachel trying to call him back.
    Instead, it was Detective Mendenhall from the PSB.
    “Detective Bosch, we need to schedule an interview. What does your schedule look like?”
    Bosch started back over to the Open-Unsolved squad. Mendenhall’s voice did not sound threatening. She was even and matter-of-fact. Maybe she already knew the complaint from O’Toole was bullshit. Harry decided to confront the internal investigation head-on.
    “Mendenhall, this is a bullshit beef. I want it taken care of quickly. So how about tomorrow morning, first thing?”
    If she was surprised that Bosch wanted to come in sooner rather than later, she didn’t show it in her voice.
    “I have eight o’clock open. Will that work?”
    “Sure, your place or mine?”
    “I would prefer that you come here, unless that’s a problem.”
    She was talking about the Bradbury Building, where most of PSB was located.
    “No problem, Mendenhall. I’ll be there with a rep.”
    “Very good. We’ll see if we can get this handled. I ask one last thing, Detective.”
    “What’s that?”
    “That you refer to me as Detective or Detective Mendenhall.It is disrespectful to call me by just my last name. I would rather our relationship be professional and respectful from the start.”
    Bosch had just gotten to his cubicle and saw Chu at his station. He realized he never called Chu by his first name or his rank. Was he being disrespectful all this time?
    “You got it, Detective,” he said. “I’ll see you at eight.”
    He disconnected the call. Before sitting down, he leaned over the partition into Rick Jackson’s cubicle.
    “I have an interview over at the Bradbury tomorrow at eight. Shouldn’t take too long. The League hasn’t called me back yet. You want to come be my rep?”
    While the League provided defense reps for PSB interviews, any officer could act as a defense rep as long as he or she didn’t have a part in the investigation at hand.
    He chose Jackson because he had been around and he had a natural take-no-shit quality about his face. It was always an intimidating force during an interrogation of a suspect. On occasion Bosch had used him to sit in during an interview. Jackson’s silent stare often unnerved the suspect. Bosch thought Jackson might give him an advantage when he sat down across from Detective Mendenhall.
    “Sure, I’m in,” Jackson said. “What do you want me to do?”
    “Let’s meet at seven at the Dining Car. We’ll eat and I’ll go over everything.”
    “You got it.”
    Bosch sat down in his seat and realized he might have just insulted Chu by not asking him to stand as his rep. He turned in his seat to address his partner.
    “Hey, uh, Chu—uh, David.”
    Chu turned around.
    “I can’t use you as my rep because Mendenhall is probably going to have to talk to you about the case. You’ll be a witness.”
    Chu nodded.
    “You understand?”
    “Sure, Harry. I understand.”
    “And me calling you by your last name all the time, that was no disrespect. It’s just what I do with people.”
    Now Chu seemed confused by Bosch’s half-assed apology.
    “Sure, Harry,” he said again.
    “So, we’re good?”
    “Yeah, we’re good.”
    “Good.”

16
    B osch had begun making his way through the Art Pepper recordings his daughter had given him for his birthday. He was on volume three and listening to a stunning version of “Patricia” recorded three decades earlier at a club in Croydon, England. It was during Pepper’s comeback period after the years of drug addiction and incarceration. On this night in 1981 he had everything working. On this one song, Bosch believed he was proving that no one would ever play better. Harry wasn’t exactly sure what the word ethereal meant, but it was the word that came to mind. The song was perfect, the saxophone was perfect, the interplay and communication between Pepper and his three band mates was as perfect and orchestrated as the movement of four fingers on a hand. There were a lot of words used to describe jazz music. Bosch had read them over the years in the magazines and in the liner notes of records. He didn’t always understand them. He just knew what he liked, and this was it. Powerful and relentless, and sometimes sad.
    He found it hard to concentrate on the computer screen as the song played, the band going on almost twenty minuteswith it. He had “Patricia” on other records and CDs. It was one of Pepper’s signatures. But he had never heard it played