The Drop - Michael Connelly [2]
Based on Pell’s record, Bosch believed the 1989 case was likely a sex-related murder. He could feel his insides beginning to tighten. He was going to go out and grab Clayton Pell and bring him to justice.
“Do you see it?” Duvall asked.
“See what?” Bosch asked. “Was this a sex killing? This guy has the classic pred—”
“The birth date,” Duvall said.
Bosch looked back down at the hit sheet as Chu leaned over farther.
“Yeah, right here,” Bosch said. “November nine, nineteen eighty-one. What’s that got—”
“He’s too young,” Chu said.
Bosch glanced at him and then back at the sheet. He suddenly got it. Clayton Pell was born in 1981. He was only eight years old at the time of the murder on the hit sheet.
“Exactly,” Duvall said. “So I want you to get the book and box from Shuler and Dolan and very quietly figure out what we have here. I’m hoping to God they didn’t get two cases mixed up.”
Bosch knew that if Shuler and Dolan had somehow sent in genetic material from the old case labeled under a more recent case, then both cases would be tainted beyond any hope of eventual prosecution.
“Like you were about to say,” Duvall continued, “this guy on the hit sheet is no doubt a predator, but I don’t think he got away with a killing when he was only eight years old. So something doesn’t fit. Find it and come back to me before you do anything. If they screwed up and we can correct it, then we won’t need to worry about IAD or anybody else. We’ll just keep it right here.”
She may have appeared to be trying to protect Shuler and Dolan from Internal Affairs, but she was also protecting herself, and Bosch knew it. There would not be much vertical movement in the department for a lieutenant who had presided over an evidence-handling scandal in her own unit.
“What other years are assigned to Shuler and Dolan?” Bosch asked.
“On the recent side, they’ve got ’ninety-seven and two thousand,” Marcia said. “This could have come from a case they were working from one of those two years.”
Bosch nodded. He could see the scenario. The reckless handling of genetic evidence from one case cross-pollinates with another. The end result would be two tainted cases and scandal that would taint anybody near it.
“What do we say to Shuler and Dolan?” Chu asked. “What’s the reason we’re taking the case off them?”
Duvall looked up at Marcia for an answer.
“They’ve got a trial coming up,” he offered. “Jury selection starts Thursday.”
Duvall nodded.
“I’ll tell them I want them clear for that.”
“And what if they say they still want the case?” Chu asked. “What if they say they can handle it?”
“I’ll put them straight,” Duvall said. “Anything else, Detectives?”
Bosch looked up at her.
“We’ll work the case, Lieutenant, and see what’s what. But I don’t investigate other cops.”
“That’s fine. I’m not asking you to. Work the case and tell me how the DNA came back to an eight-year-old kid, okay?”
Bosch nodded and started to stand up.
“Just remember,” Duvall added, “you talk to me before you do anything with what you learn.”
“You got it,” Bosch said.
They were about to leave the room.
“Harry,” the lieutenant said. “Hang back a second.”
Bosch looked at Chu and raised his eyebrows. He didn’t know what this was about. The lieutenant came around from behind her desk and closed the door after Chu and Marcia had left. She stayed standing and businesslike.
“I just wanted you to know that your application for an extension on your DROP came through. They gave you four years retroactive.”
Bosch looked at her, doing the math. He nodded. He had asked for the maximum—five years nonretroactive—but he’d take what they gave. It wouldn’t keep him much past high school but it was better than nothing.
“Well, I’m glad,” Duvall said. “It gives you thirty-nine more months with us.”
Her tone indicated that she had read