Bosch nodded. He had never been surprised by how accurate the street knowledge of ex-convicts was.

“Tell me about Arthur Delacroix.”

Confusion tightened Stokes’s eyes.

“What? Who?”

“Arthur Delacroix. Your skateboard buddy. From the Miracle Mile days. Remember?”

“Jesus, man, that was-”

“A long time ago. I know. That’s why I’m asking.”

“What about him? He’s long gone, man.”

“Tell me about him. Tell me about when he disappeared.”

Stokes looked down at his cuffed hands and slowly shook his head.

“That was a long time ago. I can’t remember that.”

“Try. Why did he disappear?”

“I don’t know. He just couldn’t take no more of the shit and ran away.”

“Did he tell you he was running away?”

“No, man, he just left. One day he was just gone. And I never saw him again.”

“What shit?”

“What do you mean?”

“You said he couldn’t take any more of the shit and ran away. That shit. What are you talking about?”

“Oh, you know, like all the shit in his life.”

“Did he have trouble at home?”

Stokes laughed. He mocked Bosch in an imitation.

“ ‘Did he have trouble at home?’ Like, who didn’t, man?”

“Was he abused-physically abused-at home? is what I mean.”

Again, laughter.

“Who wasn’t? My old man, he’d rather take a shot at me than talk to me about anything. When I was twelve he hit me from across the room with a full can of beer. Just because I ate a taco he wanted. They took me away from him for that.”

“You know, that’s a real shame, but we’re talking about Arthur Delacroix here. Did he ever tell you his father hit him?”

“He didn’t have to, man. I saw the bruises. The guy always had a black eye is what I remember.”

“That was from skateboarding. He fell a lot.”

Stokes shook his head.

“Fuck that, man. Artie was the best. That’s all he did. He was too good to get hurt.”

Bosch’s feet were flat on the floor. He could tell by the sudden vibrations through his soles that there were people in the squad room now. He reached over and pushed the button lock on the doorknob.

“You remember when he was in the hospital? He’d hurt his head. Did he tell you that it was from a skateboarding accident?”

Stokes knitted his brow and looked down. Bosch had jogged loose a direct memory. He could tell.

“I remember he had a shaved head and stitches like a fucking zipper. I can’t remember what he-”

Someone tried the door from the outside and then there was a harsh banging on the door. A muffled voice came through.

“Detective Bosch, this is Lieutenant Gilmore, OIS. Open the door.”

Stokes suddenly reared back, panic filling his eyes.

“No! Don’t let them-”

“Shut up!”

Bosch leaned across the table, grabbed Stokes by the collar and pulled him forward.

“Listen to me, this is important.”

There was another knock on the door.

“Are you saying that Arthur never told you his father hurt him?”

“Look, man, take care of me here and I’ll say whatever the fuck you want me to say. Okay? His father was an asshole. You want me to say Artie told me his father beat him with the goddamn broomstick, I’ll say it. You want it to be a baseball bat? Fine, I’ll say-”

“I don’t want you to say anything but the truth, goddammit. Did he ever tell you that or not?”

The door came open. They had gotten a key from the drawer at the front desk. Two men in suits came in. Gilmore, whom Bosch recognized, and another OIS detective Bosch didn’t recognize.

“All right, this is over,” Gilmore announced. “Bosch, what the fuck are you doing?”

“Did he?” Bosch said to Stokes.

The other OIS detective took keys from his pocket and started taking the cuffs off of Stokes’s wrists.

“I didn’t do anything,” Stokes started to protest. “I didn’t-”

“Did he ever tell you?” Bosch yelled.

“Get him out of here,” Gilmore barked to the other detective. “Put him in another room.”

The detective physically lifted Stokes from his seat and half carried, half pushed him out of the room. Bosch’s cuffs remained on the table. Bosch stared blankly at them, thinking of the answers Stokes had given him and feeling a terrible weight on his chest from the knowledge that the whole thing had been a dead end. Stokes added nothing to the case. Julia had been shot and it was for nothing.

He finally looked up at Gilmore, who closed the door and then turned to face Bosch.

“Now, like I said, what the fuck were you doing, Bosch?”

Chapter 33

GILMORE twiddled a pencil in his fingers, drumming the eraser on the table. Bosch never trusted an investigator who took notes in pencil. But that’s what the Officer Involved Shooting team was all about, making stories and facts fit the picture the department wanted to present to the public. It was a pencil squad. To get it right often meant using the pencil and eraser, never ink, never a tape recorder.

“So we’re going to go over this again,” he said. “Tell me once more, what did Officer Brasher do?”

Bosch looked past him. He had been moved to the suspect’s chair in the interview room. He was facing the mirror-the one-way glass behind which he was sure there were at least a half dozen people, probably including Deputy Chief Irving. He wondered if anybody had noticed that the video had been running. If they had, it would have immediately been shut off.

“Somehow she shot herself.”

“And you saw this.”

“Not exactly. I saw it from the rear. Her back was to me.”

“Then how do you know she shot herself?”

“Because there was no one else there but her, me and Stokes. I didn’t shoot her and Stokes didn’t shoot her. She shot herself.”

“During the struggle with Stokes.”

Bosch shook his head.

“No, there was no struggle at the moment of the shooting. I don’t know what happened before I got there, but at the moment of the shooting Stokes had both hands flat on the wall and his back to her when the gun went off. Officer Brasher had her hand on his back, holding him in place. I saw her step back from him and drop her hand. I didn’t see the gun but I then heard the shot and saw the flash originate in front of her. And she went down.”

Gilmore drummed his pencil loudly on the table.

“That’s probably messing up the recording,” Bosch said. “Oh, that’s right, you guys never put anything on tape.”

“Never mind that. Then what happened?”

“I started moving toward them at the wall. Stokes started to turn to see what had happened. From the ground Officer Brasher raised her right arm and took aim with her weapon at Stokes.”

“But she didn’t fire, did she?”

“No. I yelled ‘Freeze!’ to Stokes and she did not fire and he did not move. I then moved to the scene and put Stokes on the ground. I handcuffed him. I then used the radio to call for help and tried to tend to Officer Brasher’s wound as best I could.”

Gilmore was also chewing gum in a loud way that annoyed Bosch. He worked it for several chews before speaking.

“See, what I’m not getting here is why would she shoot herself?”

“You’ll have to ask her that. I’m only telling you what I saw.”

“Yeah, but I’m asking you. You were there. What do you think?”

Bosch waited a long moment. Things had happened so fast. He had put off thinking about the garage by concentrating on Stokes. Now the images of what he had seen kept replaying in his mind. He finally shrugged.

“I don’t know.”

“I’ll tell you what, let’s go your way with it for a minute. Let’s assume she was re-holstering her weapon-which would have been against procedures, but let’s assume it for the sake of argument. She’s reholstering so she can cuff the guy. Her holster is on her right hip and the entry wound is on the left shoulder. How does that happen?”