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He looked back at the tow truck. Everything was still. There was no sign of Mackey.

Bosch raised the radio to his mouth and keyed the mike.

“Kiz?”

“Yeah, Harry?”

“You better get over here.”

Bosch started walking down the ramp. As he did so he drew his weapon and carried it down by his side. In thirty seconds lights flashed behind him and Rider pulled her car onto the shoulder. She got out with a flashlight and they continued down the ramp.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“I don’t know.”

There was still no sign of Mackey in or around the tow truck. Bosch felt his chest tighten. He instinctively knew something was wrong. The closer they got the more he knew it.

“What do we say if he’s here and everything’s okay?” Rider whispered.

“It isn’t,” Bosch said.

The light from the back of the truck was almost blinding and Bosch knew they were in a vulnerable position. He could not see anyone on the front side of the tow truck. He moved to his right so that he and Rider would be spread apart. Rider could not move to the left or she would be walking into the entrance lane.

A semi-truck roared by on the ramp, wafting petroleum-tinged wind and sound over them and making the ground shake like an earthquake. Bosch was now walking in the weeds that were on the upward slope off the shoulder. He still didn’t see anyone up ahead.

Bosch and Rider did not communicate. The noise from passing traffic on the freeway just below was echoing from beneath the overpass. They would have to shout now and that would detract from their concentration.

They came back together when they got to the tow truck. Bosch checked the cab and there was no sign of Mackey. The truck was still running. He stepped back to the rear and looked at the ground illuminated by the spreader lights. There were curving black tire marks leading right up to the truck’s rear gate. And on the gravel was one of the leather gloves, grease-stained in the palm, that he had seen Mackey wearing earlier in the day.

“Let me borrow this,” he said, taking the flashlight from Rider. He noticed that it was one of the short rubber models approved by the police chief after an officer was videotaped beating a suspect with one of the heavy steel lights.

Bosch pointed the beam at the truck’s rear gate, running it over the underside that had been cast in shadows by the bright glare from the spreader above.

Blood reflected brightly on the dark steel. It could not be mistaken for oil. It was as red and real as life. Bosch squatted down and pointed the light beneath the truck. It had been dark here, too, made all the more impervious to vision by the bright lights above.

He saw Mackey’s body crumpled against the rear axle differential. Fully one-half of his face was bathed in blood from a long and deep laceration that cut across the left side of his head. His blue uniform shirt was maroon down the front from blood from other unseen injuries. The crotch of his pants was stained with blood or urine or both. The one arm Bosch could see was bent oddly at the forearm and a jagged, ivory white bone protruded from the flesh. The arm was cradled against Mackey’s chest, which heaved with non-rhythmic gasps. He was still alive.

“Oh God!” Rider called out from behind Bosch.

“Get an ambulance!” Bosch ordered as he started to crawl under the truck.

Hearing Rider’s feet crunch on the gravel as she ran back to her car and the radio, Bosch moved as close to Mackey as he could get. He knew he might be destroying a crime scene but he had to get close.

“Ro, can you hear me? Ro, who did this? What happened?”

Mackey seemed to stir at the sound of his name. His mouth started moving and that was when Bosch could tell his jaw was broken or dislocated. Its movements were uncoordinated. It was like Mackey was trying it out for the first time.

“Take your time, Ro. Tell me who did this. Did you see him?”

Mackey whispered something but a car speeding by on the entrance ramp drowned it out.

“Tell me again, Ro. Say it again.”

Bosch pushed forward and leaned his head down by Mackey’s mouth. What he heard was half gasp, half whisper.

“… sworth…”

He pulled back and looked at Mackey. He put the light into his face, hoping it might rouse him. He saw that the bone structure around Mackey’s left eye was also crushed and hemorrhaging. He wasn’t going to make it.

“Ro, if you have something to say, say it now. Did you kill Rebecca Verloren? Were you there that night?”

Bosch leaned forward. If Mackey said anything it was drowned in the noise of another car going by. When Bosch pulled back to look at him again he appeared to be dead. Bosch pushed two fingers into the bloodied side of Mackey’s neck and could not find a pulse.

“Ro? Roland, are you still with me?”

The one undamaged eye was open but at half-mast. Bosch moved the light in close and saw no pupil movement. He was gone.

Bosch carefully crawled out from beneath the truck. Rider was standing there, her arms folded tightly in front of her.

“Ambulance on the way,” she said.

“Call ’em off.”

He handed her back her flashlight.

“Harry, if you think he’s dead, the paramedics should confirm it.”

“Don’t worry, he’s dead. They’ll just get under there and ruin our crime scene. Call them off.”

“Did he say anything?”

“It sounded like he said ‘Chatsworth.’ That was it. Anything else, I couldn’t hear.”

She seemed to be pacing now, in a small track, nervously moving back and forth.

“Oh God,” she said. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

“Then move back over there, away from the scene.”

She walked off behind her car. Bosch felt sick to his stomach as well, but he knew he could keep it in. It wasn’t seeing Mackey’s torn and broken body that was causing the bile to rise in his throat. Bosch, like Rider, had seen far worse. It was the circumstances that were sickening. Instinctively he knew that this was no accident. This had been an assassination. And it was he who had put it all into motion.

He was sick because he had just gotten Roland Mackey killed. And with the death he might have lost the last, best link to Rebecca Verloren’s killer.

Part Three. DARKNESS WAITS

32

THE TAMPA AVENUE entrance ramp to the Ronald Reagan Freeway was closed and traffic was routed down Rinaldi to the Porter Ranch Drive entrance. The entire freeway ramp was choked with official police vehicles. The LAPD’s Scientific Investigation Division, California Highway Patrol and the Medical Examiner’s Office were all represented, along with members of the Open-Unsolved Unit. Abel Pratt had made calls and had greased the takeover of the case by the unit. Because the murder of Roland Mackey had taken place on a state freeway entrance, the case technically belonged to the jurisdiction of the CHP. But the agency was more than happy to hand it off, especially since the death was seen as part of an ongoing LAPD investigation. In other words, the LAPD was going to be allowed to clean up its own mess.

The commander of the local CHP barracks did offer the use of his squad’s best accident expert, and Pratt took him up on that. Added to this, Pratt had assembled some of the best forensics people the department could muster, all in the middle of the night.

Bosch and Rider spent much of the time during the crime scene investigation sitting in the back of Pratt’s car, where they were interviewed at length by Pratt and then by Tim Marcia and Rick Jackson, who were called in from home to head up the investigation into Mackey’s death. Since Bosch and Rider were part of some events and witnesses to others, it was determined that they would not investigate the case as leads. This was a technical formality. It was clear that Bosch and Rider would be continuing to pursue the Verloren case, and in doing so they would obviously be pursuing Roland Mackey’s killer.