The Closers

There will be a review but I don’t think you will have a problem.”
    Bosch nodded. He almost said thank you but decided against it. He just looked at the man.
    “Is there something else you wanted to ask me, Detective?”
    Bosch nodded again.
    “I was just sort of wondering,” he said.
    “About what?”
    “The case started with a letter from the DOJ and that letter was old by the time it got to me. I’m wondering why it was held for me. I guess what I’m saying is, I’m wondering about what you knew and when you knew it.”
    “Does any of that matter now?”
    Bosch poked his chin in the direction Irving had taken.
    “Maybe,” he said. “I don’t know. But he won’t just walk away. He’ll go to the media. Or to the lawyers.”
    “He knows that if he does it will be a mistake. That there will be consequences for him. He’s not a stupid man.”
    Bosch just nodded. The chief studied him a moment before speaking again.
    “You still seem troubled, Detective. Remember what I told you Monday? I told you I carefully reviewed your case and career before deciding whether to welcome you back.”
    Bosch just looked at him.
    “I meant that,” the chief said. “I studied you and I think I know something about you. You are on this earth for one thing, Detective Bosch. And you now have the opportunity to do that, to continue to carry out your mission. After that, does anything else matter?”
    Bosch held his eyes for a long time before answering.
    “I guess what I really wanted to ask is about what you said the other day. When you said all of that about the ripples and the voices, did you mean it? Or were you just winding me up to go after Irving for you?”
    Fire quickly spread across the police chief’s cheeks. His eyes dropped from Bosch’s as he composed his answer. Then he looked back up at Bosch and it was his eyes that held Bosch’s this time.
    “I meant every word of it. And don’t you forget it. You go back to room five oh three and you close cases, Detective. That’s what you are here for. Close them out or I’ll find reason to close you out. Do you understand?”
    Bosch didn’t feel threatened. He liked the chief’s answer. It made him feel better. He nodded.
    “I understand.”
    The chief raised his hand and took Bosch by the upper arm.
    “Good. Then let’s go over here and get a picture taken with some of these young people who have joined our family today. Maybe they can learn something from us. Maybe we can learn something from them.”
    As they moved into the crowd Bosch looked off in the direction Irving had taken. But he was long gone.

44
    BOSCH LOOKED for Robert Verloren for three of the next seven nights but didn’t find him until it was too late.
    One week after the academy graduation, Bosch and Rider were sitting across from each other at their desks while putting the finishing touches on the case against Gordon Stoddard. The accused murderer had been arraigned in San Fernando Municipal Court earlier in the week and had pleaded not guilty. Now the legal dance had begun. Bosch and Rider had to put together a comprehensive charging document that outlined the case against Stoddard. It would be given to the prosecutor and used in negotiations with Stoddard’s defense attorney. After meeting with Muriel Verloren as well as Bosch and Rider, the prosecutor set a case strategy. If Stoddard elected to go to trial the state would seek the death penalty under the lying-in-wait statute. The alternative was for Stoddard to avoid risking death and plead guilty to first-degree murder in a plea agreement that would send him to prison for life without the possibility of parole.
    Either way, the case summary Bosch and Rider were composing would be of key importance because it would show Stoddard and his lawyer just how strong the evidence was. It would force their hand, make Stoddard choose between the grim alternatives of life in a jail cell or gambling his life on the slim possibility of beating the case with a jury.
    It had been a good week until that point. Rider bounced back from her near miss from Stoddard’s bullet and showed full command of her skills in putting together the case summary. Bosch had spent all of Monday going over the investigation with an Internal Affairs investigator and was cleared the next day. The “no action taken” verdict from IAD meant he was clear within the department, even though the ongoing stories about the case in the media continued to call into