The Closers

the better off we’ll be. Success makes a lot of bad shit go away. So let’s close this fucker by breakfast.”
    “You got it, Boss,” Rider said.
    As Bosch and Rider headed up the slope they didn’t speak.

33
    PARKER CENTER WAS DESERTED when they arrived. Though several investigative units operated from the headquarters building, it was primarily filled each day with command staff and support services. It didn’t come alive until after sunup. In the elevator Bosch and Rider split up, Bosch going directly to the Robbery-Homicide Division on the third floor to relieve Kehoe and Bradshaw, while Rider made a stop by the Open-Unsolved office to pick up the file she had put together earlier on William Burkhart.
    “See you in a few,” she said to Bosch as he stepped off. “I hope Kehoe and Bradshaw made some coffee.”
    Bosch turned the corner out of the elevator alcove and headed down the hallway to the double doors of RHD. A voice from behind stopped him.
    “What did I tell you about retreads?”
    Bosch turned. It was Irving, coming from the opposite hallway. There was nothing down that way but computer services. Bosch guessed that he had been waiting in the hallway. He tried not to show surprise that Irving apparently already knew about what had happened on the freeway.
    “What are you doing here?”
    “Oh, I wanted to get an early start. It’s going to be a big day.”
    “Is that right?”
    “That’s right. And I’ll give you fair warning. In the morning the media will be alerted to this middle-of-the-night fuckup of yours. The reporters will be told how you used this man Mackey as bait, only to let him be killed in a most horrible way. They will ask questions about how a retired detective could have been allowed back into the department to do this. But don’t worry. These questions will most likely be addressed to the chief of police who set it all in motion.”
    Bosch laughed and shook his head, acting as though he didn’t feel the threat.
    “Is that all?” he asked.
    “I will also be urging the commander of the Internal Affairs Division to open an investigation into how you conducted this investigation, Detective Bosch. I wouldn’t get too used to being back.”
    Bosch took a step toward Irving, hoping to turn some of the threat back at him.
    “Good, Chief, you do that. I hope you also prepare the commander for what I will be telling his investigators as well as the reporters about your own culpability in all of this.”
    There was a long pause before Irving bit.
    “What nonsense are you talking about?”
    “This man you’re so worried about being used as bait was cut loose by you seventeen years ago, Chief. Cut loose so you could make your deal with Richard Ross. Mackey should’ve been in jail. Instead he used the gun from one of his little burglaries to kill an innocent sixteen-year-old girl.”
    Bosch waited but Irving didn’t say anything.
    “That’s right,” Bosch said. “I might have Roland Mackey’s blood on my hands but you’ve got Rebecca Verloren’s on yours. You want to go to the media and IAD with it? Fine, take your best shot and we’ll see how it all comes out.”
    A pinched look formed in Irving ’s eyes. He took a step toward Bosch until their faces were only inches apart.
    “You are wrong, Bosch. All of those kids back then, they were cleared of involvement in Verloren.”
    “Yeah, how? Who cleared them? Green and Garcia sure didn’t. They were pushed away from them by you. Just like the girl’s father. You and one of your dogs scared him away from it, too.”
    Bosch pointed a finger at his chest.
    “You let murderers walk so you could keep your little deal intact.”
    An urgency entered Irving ’s voice when he responded.
    “You are completely wrong on this,” he said. “Do you really think that we would let murderers walk?”
    Bosch shook his head, stepped back and almost laughed.
    “As a matter of fact, I do.”
    “Listen to me, Bosch. We checked alibis on every last one of those boys. They were all clean. For some of them,
we
were the alibi because we were still watching them. But we made sure every member of that group was clean on this,
then
we told Green and Garcia to back off. The father was told, too, but he wouldn’t stand down.”
    “So you pushed him down, right, Chief? Pushed him into a hole.”
    “Things had to be done. The city was very tense back then. We couldn’t have her father running around saying things that weren’t