The Black Echo

started making a list of the names, DOBs and addresses of the Vietnamese boxholders. He put the four who reported no loss and the name from the dead-end list at the top of his own list. He had just finished the list and closed the notebook when Rourke walked into the squad room, his hair still wet from his morning shower. He was carrying a coffee mug that said Boss on the side of it. He saw Bosch and Wish and then looked at his watch.
    “Getting an early start?”
    “Our witness, he turned up dead,” Wish said, no expression on her face.
    “Jesus. Where? They get somebody?”
    Wish shook her head and looked at Bosch with a face that warned him not to start anything. Rourke looked at him also.
    “Does it relate to this?” he said. “Any evidence of that?”
    “We think so,” Bosch said.
    “Jesus!”
    “You said that,” Bosch said.
    “Should we take the case from LAPD, add it to the Meadows investigation?” He said this looking directly at Wish. Bosch was not part of the decision-making team here. She didn’t answer, so Rourke added, “Should we have offered him protection?”
    Bosch couldn’t resist. “From who?”
    A strand of wet hair dropped out of place and across Rourke’s forehead. His face flushed deeply red.
    “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
    “How’d you know LAPD had the case?”
    “What?”
    “You just asked if we should take the case from LAPD. How’d you know they had it? We didn’t say.”
    “I just assumed. Bosch, I resent what that implies and I resent the hell out of you. Are you implying that I or someone-If you are saying there is a law enforcement leak on this case, then I will request an internal review today. But I’ll tell you right now that if there was a leak it wasn’t from the bureau.”
    “Then where the hell else could it have been? What happened to the reports we filed with you? Who saw them?”
    Rourke shook his head.
    “Harry, don’t be ridiculous. I understand your feelings, but let’s calm down and think for a minute. The witness was snatched off the street and interviewed at Hollywood Station, then dropped off at a public youth shelter.
    “And, lastly, you’re being followed around by your own department, Detective. I’m sorry, but even your own people apparently don’t trust you.”
    Bosch’s face grew dark. He felt betrayed in a sense. Rourke could only have known about the tail through Wish. She had made Lewis and Clarke. Why hadn’t she said anything to him instead of Rourke? Bosch looked over at her but she was looking down at her desk. He looked back at Rourke, who was nodding his head as if it were on a spring.
    “Yes, she made the tail on you the first day.” Rourke looked around the empty squad room, obviously wishing he had a larger audience. He was moving his weight from one foot to the other now, like a boxer in his corner impatiently waiting for the next round to begin so he could deliver the knockout punch on a fading opponent. Wish continued to sit silently at her desk. And in that moment it seemed to Bosch to be a million years ago that they had held each other in her bed. Rourke said, “Maybe you should look at yourself and your own department before running around making reckless accusations.”
    Bosch said nothing. He just stood up and headed to the door.
    “Harry, where are you going?” Eleanor called from her desk.
    He turned around and looked at her a moment, then he kept walking.

    ***

    Lewis and Clarke picked up Bosch’s Caprice as soon as it came out of the federal garage. Clarke was driving. Lewis dutifully noted the time on the surveillance log.
    He said, “He’s got a bug up his ass, better move up on him some.”
    Bosch had turned west on Wilshire and was heading for the 405. Clarke increased his speed to stay with him in the morning rush hour traffic.
    “I’d have a bug somewhere if I’d just lost my only witness,” Clarke said. “If I’d gotten him killed.”
    “How you figure?”
    “You saw it. He stuffed the kid in that shelter and went his merry way. I don’t know what that kid saw or what he told them, but it was important enough for him to have to be eliminated. Bosch shoulda taken better care. Kept him under lock and key.”
    They went south on the 405. Bosch was ten cars ahead, now staying in the slow lane. The freeway was thick with a stinking, polluting mass of moving steel.
    “I think he’s going for the 10,” Clarke said. “He’s going into Santa Monica. Maybe back to