Bosch nodded.

“Okay. Do you remember anything else about this place? Was it steep or flat or muddy?”

Delacroix shook his head.

“I can’t remember.”

“Were there houses there?”

“There was some right nearby, yeah, but nobody saw me, if that’s what you mean.”

Bosch finally concluded that he was going too far down a path of legal peril. He had to stop and go back and clean up a few details.

“What about your son’s skateboard?”

“What about it?”

“What did you do with it?”

Delacroix leaned forward to consider this.

“You know, I don’t really remember.”

“Did you bury it with him?”

“I can’t… I don’t remember.”

Bosch waited a long moment to see if something would come out. Delacroix said nothing.

“Okay, Mr. Delacroix, we’re going to take a break here while I go talk to my partner. I want you to think about what we were just talking about. About the place where you took your son. I need you to remember more about it. And about the skateboard, too.”

“Okay, I’ll try.”

“I’ll bring you back some more coffee.”

“That would be good.”

Bosch got up and took the empties from the room. He immediately went to the viewing room and opened the door. Edgar and another man were in there. The man, whom Bosch didn’t know, was looking at Delacroix through the one-way glass. Edgar was reaching to the video to turn it off.

“Don’t turn it off,” Bosch said quickly.

Edgar held back.

“Let it run. If he starts remembering more stuff I don’t want anybody to try to say we gave it to him.”

Edgar nodded. The other man turned from the window and put out his hand. He looked like he was no more than thirty. He had dark hair that was slicked back and very white skin. He had a broad smile on his face.

“Hi, George Portugal, deputy district attorney.”

Bosch put the empty cups down on a table and shook his hand.

“Looks like you’ve got an interesting case here,” Portugal said.

“And getting more so all the time,” Bosch said.

“Well, from what I’ve seen in the last ten minutes, you don’t have a worry in the world. This is a slam dunk.”

Bosch nodded but didn’t return the smile. What he wanted to do was laugh at the inanity of Portugal’s statement. He knew better than to trust the instincts of young prosecutors. He thought of all that had happened before they had gotten Delacroix into the room on the other side of the glass. And he knew there was no such thing as a slam dunk.

Chapter 38

AT 7 P.M. Bosch and Edgar drove Samuel Delacroix downtown to be booked at Parker Center on charges of murdering his son. With Portugal in the interview room taking part in the questioning, they had interrogated Delacroix for almost another hour, gleaning only a few new details about the killing. The father’s memory of his son’s death and his part in it had been eroded by twenty years of guilt and whiskey.

Portugal left the room still believing the case was a slam dunk. Bosch, on the other hand, was not so sure. He was never as welcoming of voluntary confessions as other detectives and prosecutors were. He believed true remorse was rare in the world. He treated the unanticipated confession with extreme caution, always looking for the play behind the words. To him, every case was like a house under construction. When a confession came into play, it became the concrete slab the house was built upon. If it was mixed wrong or poured wrong, the house might not withstand the jolt of the first earthquake. As he drove Delacroix toward Parker Center, Bosch couldn’t help but think there were unseen cracks in this house’s foundation. And that the earthquake was coming.

Bosch’s thoughts were interrupted by his cell phone chirping. It was Lt. Billets.

“You guys slipped out of here before we had a chance to talk.”

“We’re taking him down to booking.”

“You sound happy about it.”

“Well… I can’t really talk.”

“You’re in the car with him?”

“Yeah.”

“Is it serious or are you just playing mother hen?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“I’ve got Irving and Media Relations calling me. I guess word is already out through the DA’s press office that charges are coming. How do you want me to handle it?”

Bosch looked at his watch. He figured that after booking Delacroix they could get to Sheila Delacroix’s house by eight. The trouble was that an announcement to the media might mean that reporters would get to her before that.

“Tell you what, we want to get to the daughter first. Can you get to the DA’s office and see if they can hold it till nine? Same with Media Relations.”

“No problem. And look, after you dump the guy, call me when you can talk. At home. If there’s a problem, I want to know about it.”

“You got it.”

He closed the phone and looked over at Edgar.

“First thing Portugal must’ve done was call his press office.”

“Figures. Probably his first big case. He’s going to milk it for all he can.”

“Yeah.”

They drove in silence for a few minutes. Bosch thought about what he had insinuated to Billets. He couldn’t quite place his reason for discomfort. The case was now moving from the realm of the police investigation to the realm of the court system. There was still a lot of investigative work to be done, but all cases changed once a suspect was charged and in custody and the prosecution began. Most times Bosch felt a sense of relief and fulfillment at the moment he was taking a killer to be booked. He felt as though he was a prince of the city, that he had made a difference in some way. But not this time and he wasn’t sure why.

He finally tied off his feelings on his own missteps and the uncontrollable movements of the case. He decided he could not celebrate or feel much like a prince of the city when the case had cost so much. Yes, they had the admitted killer of a child in the car with them and they were taking him to jail. But Nicholas Trent and Julia Brasher were dead. The house he had built of the case would always have rooms containing their ghosts. They would always haunt him.

“Was that my daughter you were talking about? You’re going to talk to her?”

Bosch looked up into the rearview mirror. Delacroix was hunched forward because his hands were cuffed behind his back. Bosch had to adjust the mirror and turn on the dome light to see his eyes.

“Yeah. We’re going to give her the news.”

“Do you have to? Do you have to bring her into this?”

Bosch watched him in the mirror for a moment. Delacroix’s eyes were shifting back and forth.

“We’ve got no choice,” Bosch said. “It’s her brother, her father.”

Bosch put the car onto the Los Angeles Street exit. They would be at the booking entrance at the back of Parker Center in five minutes.

“What are you going to tell her?”

“What you told us. That you killed Arthur. We want to tell her before the reporters get to her or she sees it on the news.”

He checked the mirror. He saw Delacroix nod his approval. Then the man’s eyes came up and looked at Bosch’s in the mirror.

“Will you tell her something for me?”

“Tell her what?”

Bosch reached inside his coat pocket for his recorder but then realized he didn’t have it with him. He silently cursed Bradley and his own decision to cooperate with IAD.

Delacroix was quiet for a moment. He moved his head as he looked from side to side as if searching for the thing he wanted to say to his daughter. Then he looked back up at the mirror and spoke.

“Just tell her that I’m sorry for everything. Just like that. Sorry for everything. Tell her that.”

“You’re sorry for everything. I got it. Anything else?”

“No, just that.”

Edgar shifted in his seat so he could look back at Delacroix.

“You’re sorry, huh?” he said. “Seems kind of late after twenty years, don’t you think?”