“I thought we agreed to cut back on-”

“Oh, fuck that. This is the real world here. Isn’t that what you called it? The real world? Between now and the last time we talked, I’ve killed someone, Doc. And you want to talk about cutting back on booze. Like it means anything anymore.”

Bosch took out his cigarettes and lit one. He kept the pack and the Bic on the arm of the chair. Carmen Hinojos watched him for a long time before speaking again.

“You’re right. I’m sorry. Let’s go to what I think is the heart of the problem. You said you didn’t solve the murder you set out to solve. That, of course, is your mother’s death. I am only going by what I read, but today’s Times attributes her killing to Gordon Mittel. Are you telling me that you now know that to be incontrovertibly wrong?”

“Yes. I now know that to be incontrovertibly wrong.”

“How?”

“Simple. Fingerprints. I went down to the morgue, got Mittel’s prints and had them compared to those on the murder weapon, the belt. No match. He didn’t do it. Wasn’t there. Now, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. I’m not sitting here with a guilty conscience over Mittel. He was a man who decided to kill people and then had them killed. Just like that. At least two times I’m sure of, then he was going to have me killed, too. So I say fuck him. He got what he had coming. But I’ll carry Pounds and Conklin around with me for a long time. Maybe forever. And one way or another, I’ll pay for it. It’s just that it would make that weight easier to carry if there had been a reason. Any good reason. Know what I mean? But there isn’t a reason. Not anymore.”

“I understand. I don’t-I’m not sure how to proceed with this. Do you want to talk some about your feelings in regard to Pounds and Conklin?”

“Not really. I’ve thought about it enough already. Neither man was innocent. They did things. But they didn’t have to die like they did. Especially Pounds. Jesus. I can’t talk about it. I can’t even think about it.”

“Then how will you go on?”

“I don’t know. Like I said, I have to pay.”

“What is the department going to do, any idea?”

“I don’t know. I don’t care. It’s bigger than the department to decide. I have to decide my penance.”

“Harry, what does that mean? That concerns me.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to the closet. I’m not that type.”

“The closet?”

“I’m not going to stick a gun in my mouth.”

“Through what you’ve said here today, it is already clear you have accepted responsibility for what happened to these two men. You’re facing it. In effect, you are denying denial. That is a foundation you can build on. I am concerned about this talk about penance. You have to go on, Harry. No matter what you do to yourself, it doesn’t bring them back. So the best you can do is go on.”

He didn’t say anything. He suddenly grew tired of all the advice, of her intervention in his life. He was feeling resentful and frustrated.

“Do you mind if we cut the session short today?” he asked. “I’m not feeling so hot.”

“I understand. It’s no problem. But I want you to promise me something. Promise me we will talk again before you make any decisions.”

“You mean about my penance?”

“Yes, Harry.”

“Okay, we’ll talk.”

He stood up and attempted a smile but it came out more like a frown. Then he remembered something.

“By the way, I apologize for not getting back to you the other night when you called. I was waiting on a call and couldn’t talk and then I just kind of forgot. I hope you were just checking on me and it wasn’t too important.”

“Don’t worry about it. I forgot myself. I was just calling to see how you made it through the rest of the afternoon with Chief Irving. I also wanted to see if you wanted to talk about the photos. It doesn’t matter now.”

“You looked at them?”

“Yes. I had a couple of comments but-”

“Let’s hear them.”

Bosch sat back down. She looked at him, weighing his suggestion, and decided to go ahead.

“I have them here.”

She bent down to get the envelope out of one of the lower drawers of the desk. She almost disappeared from Bosch’s view. Then she was up and placed the envelope on the desk.

“I guess you should take these back.”

“ Irving took the murder book and the evidence box. He’s got it all now except for those.”

“You sound like you’re unhappy about that, or that you don’t trust him with it. That’s a change.”

“Aren’t you the one who said I don’t trust anyone?”

“Why don’t you trust him?”

“I don’t know. I just lost my suspect. Gordon Mittel’s clear and I’m starting from ground zero. I was just thinking about the percentages…”

“And?”

“Well, I don’t know the numbers but a significant number of homicides are reported by the actual doer. You know, the husband who calls up crying, saying his wife is missing. More often than not, he’s just a bad actor. He killed her and thinks calling the cops helps convince everybody he’s clean. Look at the Menendez brothers. One of ’em calls up boohooing about mom and dad being dead. Turns out he and the brother were the ones who shotgunned them. There was a case up in the hills a few years back. This little girl was missing. It was Laurel Canyon. It made the papers, TV. So the people up there organized search parties and all of that and a few days later one of the searchers, a teen-aged boy who was one of the girl’s neighbors, found her body under a log near Lookout Mountain. It turned out he was the killer. I got him to confess in fifteen minutes. The whole time of the search I was just waiting for the one who would find the body. It was percentages. He was a suspect before I even knew who it was.”

“ Irving found your mother’s body.”

“Yes. And he knew her before that. He told me once.”

“It seems like a stretch to me.”

“Yeah. Most people probably thought that about Mittel, too. Right up until they fished him out of the hot tub.”

“Isn’t there an alternative scenario? Isn’t it possible that maybe the original detectives were correct in their assumption back then that there was a sex killer out there and that tracking him was hopeless?”

“There’s always alternative scenarios.”

“But you always seem drawn toward finding someone of power, a person of the establishment, to blame. Maybe that’s not the case here. Maybe it’s a symptom of your larger desire to blame society for what happened to your mother…and to you.”

Bosch shook his head. He didn’t want to hear this.

“You know, all this psychobabble…I don’t…Can we just talk about the photos?”

“I’m sorry.”

She looked down at the envelope as if she was seeing right through it to the photos inside it.

“Well, it was very difficult for me to look at them. As far as their forensic value goes, there wasn’t a lot there. The photos show what I would call a statement homicide. The fact that the ligature, the belt, was still wrapped around her neck seems to indicate that the killer wanted police to know exactly what he did, that he had been deliberate, that he had had control over this victim. I also think the choice of placement is significant as well. The trash bin had no top. It was open. That suggests that placing the body there may not have been an effort to hide it. It was also a-”

“He was saying she was trash.”

“Right. Again, a statement. If he was just getting rid of a body, he could’ve put it anywhere in that alley, but he chose the open dumpster. Subconsciously or not, he was making a statement about her. So to make a statement such as that about a person, he would have to have known her to some degree. Known about her. Known she was a prostitute. Known enough to judge her.”

Irving came to Bosch’s mind again but he said nothing.

“Well,” he said instead, “couldn’t it have been a statement about all women? Could it be some sick fuck who-excuse me-some nut who hated all women and thought all women were trash? That way he wouldn’t have to have known her. Maybe somebody who simply wanted to kill a prostitute, any prostitute, to make a statement about them.”