The Closers

model manufactured by Colt in 1986, two years before the murder. It featured a long hammer spur, which was notable because the gun had a reputation for leaving a “tattoo” injury on the shooter if the weapon was not handled properly while firing. This usually occurred when a two-handed grip on the weapon pushed the primary shooting hand up high on the grip and too close to the hammer spur. The primary hand could then receive a painful stamp when the trigger was pulled, the weapon fired and the slide automatically came backward to eject the bullet casing. As the slide returned to firing position, it would pinch the skin of the shooter’s hand-usually the webbing between the thumb and forefinger, often taking a piece of skin back with it inside the gun. All of this occurred in a fraction of a second, the novice shooter often not even knowing what had “bitten” him.
    That was exactly what had happened with the gun used to kill Becky Verloren. When a firearms expert broke open the weapon he found a small piece of skin tissue and dried blood on the underside of the slide. It would not have been noticeable to someone examining the exterior of the gun or wiping it clean of blood and fingerprints.
    Green and Garcia added this to their investigative theory. In the second Investigator’s Summary report they wrote that evidence indicated that the killer wrapped Becky Verloren’s hand around the gun and then pressed the muzzle to her chest. The killer used one or both of his own hands to steady the weapon and push or pull her finger over the trigger. The gun fired and the slide “tattooed” the killer, taking a piece of his skin with it inside the gun.
    Bosch noted to himself that Green and Garcia made no mention of another possibility in their investigative theory. That being that the tissue and the blood found inside the weapon was already there on the night of the murder, that the weapon had tattooed someone other than the killer when it was fired at some point before the killing.
    Regardless of that potential oversight, the blood and tissue was collected from the weapon and, while it was already known from the autopsy that Becky Verloren had no wounds on her hands, a routine blood comparison test was conducted. The blood collected from the gun was type O. Becky Verloren’s blood was type AB positive. The investigators concluded they had the killer’s blood on the weapon. The killer was blood type O.
    But in 1988 the use of DNA comparison in criminal investigation was still years away from common and, more important, court-accepted practice in California. Databases containing the DNA profiles of criminal offenders were only on the verge of being funded and created. During the course of the 1988 investigation the detectives were left to compare blood type only to potential suspects as they arose. And no one emerged as a primary suspect in the Verloren killing. The case was worked hard and long but ultimately without an arrest ever being made. And it went cold.
    “Until now,” Bosch said out loud without realizing it.
    “What?” Rider asked.
    “Nothing. Just thinking out loud.”
    “You want to start talking about it?”
    “Not yet. I want to finish reading first. You’re done?”
    “Just about.”
    “You know who we have to thank for this, don’t you?” Bosch asked.
    She looked at him quizzically.
    “I give up.”
    “Mel Gibson.”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “When did
Lethal Weapon
come out? Right around this time, right?”
    “I guess. But what are you talking about? Those movies were so far-fetched.”
    “That’s my point. That’s the movie that started all of this holding the gun sideways and with two hands, one over the other. We got blood on this gun because the shooter was a
Lethal Weapon
fan.”
    Rider shook her head dismissively.
    “You watch,” Bosch said. “I’m going to ask the guy when we bring him in.”
    “Okay, Harry, you ask him.”
    “Mel Gibson saved a lot of lives. All those sideways shooters, they couldn’t hit shit. We ought to make him like an honorary cop or something.”
    “Okay, Harry, I’m going to go back to reading, okay? I want to get through this.”
    “Yeah, okay. Me too.”

5
    SHORTLY AFTER the LAPD’s Open-Unsolved Unit began operation the DNA evidence from the Verloren case was forwarded to the California Department of Justice. It was delivered to the DNA lab along with evidence from dozens of other cases drawn from the unit’s initial