The Closers

laughed. He had left that part out.
    “Yeah, his new car. A silver Lexus.”
    Bosch started to get up. Rider put a hand on his shoulder to hold him down.
    “Just wait a minute. Are you sure you’re all right? Does anything hurt?”
    “Just my head.”
    It was coming back to him now.
    “I banged it when I landed,” he said. “I jumped out of the way. I saw his eyes, you know? The rage, I mean.”
    “Let me see your eyes.”
    He looked up at her and she held his chin while she checked his pupils.
    “You look all right,” she said.
    “Okay, then, I’ll sit here for a second while you go back in and get Stoddard’s home address from Mrs. Atkins.”
    Rider nodded.
    “All right. You wait here.”
    “Hurry. We have to find him.”
    She ran back into the school. Bosch reached up and felt the bump on the back of his head. He replayed the clearing memory. He had seen Stoddard’s face behind the windshield. It was angry, contorted.
    But then he had yanked the wheel to the left as Bosch jumped the other way.
    Bosch reached for his phone so he could call in a wanted bulletin for Stoddard. It wasn’t on his belt. He looked around and saw the phone on the asphalt near the rear tire of a BMW. He crawled over and grabbed it, then stood up.
    Bosch was hit with mild vertigo and had to lean on the car. Suddenly an electronic voice said, “Please step away from the car!”
    Bosch pulled his hand away and started walking toward the part of the lot where he had parked his own car. On the way he called central dispatch and put out the wanted bulletin for Stoddard and his silver Lexus.
    Bosch closed the phone and hooked it on his belt. He got to his car, started it and pulled up to the entrance so they would be ready to go as soon as Rider came out with the address.
    After what seemed like an interminable wait Rider finally emerged and trotted to the car. But she came to his side, opened his door and waved him out.
    “It’s not far,” she announced. “It’s a house on Chase off of Winnetka. But you’re not driving. I am.”
    Bosch knew that arguing would waste time. He got out and moved as quickly as his balance allowed around the front of the car and got in on the passenger side. Rider hit the gas and they moved out of the parking lot.
    As Rider made her way on surface streets toward Stoddard’s home Bosch called for backup from Devonshire Division patrol and then called Abel Pratt to quickly fill him in on the morning’s revelations.
    “Where do you think he’s going?” Pratt asked.
    “No idea. We’re on the way to his house.”
    “Is he suicidal?”
    “No idea.”
    Pratt was silent for a moment as he digested this. He then asked a few more questions about minor details and hung up.
    “He sounded happy,” Bosch told Rider. “Says if we get this guy it’ll help turn a lemon into lemonade.”
    “Good,” Rider replied. “We can pull prints from Stoddard’s office or home and match them to the print from underneath the bed. Then it’s a done deal whether he’s in the wind or not.”
    “Don’t worry, we’ll get him.”
    “Harry, what are you thinking, Stoddard and Mackey did this together?”
    “I don’t know. But I remember that photo of Stoddard from the yearbook. He looked pretty lean. He might have been able to carry her up the hill by himself. We’ll never know unless we find him and ask him.”
    Rider nodded.
    “The key question,” she then said, “is how Stoddard connected with Mackey.”
    “The gun.”
    “I know that. That’s obvious. I mean, how did he know Mackey back then? Where is the intersection and how did he know him well enough to get the gun from him?”
    “I think it was right there in front of us all along,” Bosch said. “And Mackey told me with his last word.”
    “Chatsworth?”
    “Chatsworth High.”
    “How do you mean?”
    “That summer he was getting his GED at Chatsworth High. On the night of the murder Mackey’s alibi was his tutor. Maybe it was the other way around. Maybe Mackey was the tutor’s alibi.”
    “Stoddard?”
    “He told us that first day that all of the teachers at Hillside had outside jobs. Maybe Stoddard was working as a tutor. Maybe he was Mackey’s tutor.”
    “That’s a lot of maybes, Harry.”
    “That’s why we’ve got to find Stoddard before he does anything to himself.”
    “You think he’s suicidal? You told Abel you didn’t know.”
    “I don’t know anything for sure. But back in that parking lot he turned away from