The Closers

emotional responses to his daughter’s murder. He knew from working hundreds of murders that there was absolutely no way to judge such responses or to build suspicion on them. Bosch had seen every permutation of it and it all meant nothing. One of the biggest criers and screamers he had ever encountered on a case ended up being the killer.
    In dismissing Garcia’s instinct and suspicion Bosch was also dismissing Garcia. He and Green had made early mistakes but recovered to conduct a by-the-numbers investigation of the murder. The murder book bore this out. But Bosch now guessed that whatever was done well was probably done by Green. He knew he should have suspected as much when he heard that Garcia had given up homicide for management.
    “How long did you work homicide?” Bosch asked.
    “Three years.”
    “All in Devonshire Division?”
    “That’s right.”
    Bosch quickly did the math. Devonshire would have had a light caseload. He figured that Garcia had worked no more than a couple dozen murders at the most. It wasn’t enough experience to do it well. He decided to move on.
    “What about your former partner?” he asked. “Did he feel the same way about Robert Verloren?”
    “He was willing to give the guy a little more slack than me.”
    “Are you still in touch with him?”
    “Who, the father?”
    “No. Green.”
    “No, he retired way back.”
    “I know, but are you still in touch?”
    Garcia shook his head.
    “No, he’s dead. He retired up to Humboldt County. He should’ve left his gun down here. All that time and nothing to do up there.”
    “He killed himself?”
    Garcia nodded.
    Bosch looked down at the floor. It wasn’t Ron Green’s death that struck him. He didn’t know Green. It was the loss of the connection to the case. He knew Garcia wasn’t going to be much help.
    “What about race?” Bosch asked, again stepping on Rider’s lead.
    “What about it?” Garcia asked. “In this case? I don’t see it.”
    “Interracial couple, biracial kid, the gun came from a burglary where the victim was being harassed on religious lines.”
    “That’s a stretch. You got something with this Mackey character?”
    “There might be something.”
    “Well, we didn’t have the luxury of a named suspect to work with. We didn’t see any aspect of that with what we had back then.”
    Garcia said it forcefully and Bosch knew he had touched a nerve. He didn’t like to be second-guessed. No detective did. Even an inexperienced one.
    “I know it’s Monday-morning quarterbacking to start with the guy and go backwards,” Rider quickly said. “It’s just something we’re looking at.”
    Garcia seemed placated.
    “I understand,” he said. “Leave no stone unturned.”
    He stood up.
    “Well, Detectives, I hate to rush this. I wish we could kick this around all day. I used to put people in jail. Now I go into meetings about budget and deployment.”
    That’s what you deserve, Bosch thought. He glanced at Rider, wondering if she understood that he had saved her from a similar fate when he talked her into partnering with him in the Open-Unsolved Unit.
    “Do me a favor,” Garcia said. “When you hook up this guy Mackey, let me know. Maybe I’ll come down and look through the window at him. I’ve been waiting for this one.”
    “No problem, sir,” Rider said, breaking her stare away from Bosch. “We’ll do that. If you think of anything else that might help us with this, give me a call. All my numbers are on this.”
    She stood up, placing a business card down on the table.
    “I’ll do it.”
    Garcia started to go around his desk to head to his meeting.
    “There’s something we might need you to do,” Bosch said.
    Garcia stopped in his tracks and looked at him.
    “What is it, Detective? I need to get in that meeting.”
    “We might try to flush the birds out of the bushes with a newspaper story. It might be good if it came from you. You know, former homicide guy, now a commander, haunted by the old case. He calls Open-Unsolved and gets them to run the DNA through the pipeline. What do you know, they get a cold hit.”
    Garcia nodded. Bosch could tell it played to his ego perfectly.
    “Yeah, it might work. Whatever you want to do. Just call me and we’ll set it up. The
Daily News
? I’ve got connections there. It’s the Valley paper.”
    Bosch nodded.
    “Yeah, that’s what we were thinking,” he said.
    “Good. Let me know. I’ve got to go.”
    He quickly left the office.