The Drop - Michael Connelly [41]
“Hyoid’s intact,” he said.
Bosch nodded. It didn’t prove anything one way or the other. An expert could have choked Irving out without cracking the bone or causing bleeding in the eyes. It didn’t prove anything at all.
But the marks on the back of the shoulder were something. Bosch felt things changing about the case. Changing rapidly. And it was bringing new meaning to high jingo.
15
Chu waited until they were halfway through the parking lot before erupting.
“Okay, Harry, what’s going on? What was that all about in there?”
Bosch pulled his phone. He had to make a call.
“I’ll tell you when I can tell you. I want you to go back to—”
“That’s not good enough, Harry! We’re partners, man, and you’re constantly doing the lone wolf number on me. You can’t do that anymore.”
Chu had stopped and turned to him, his arms spread. Bosch stopped as well.
“Look, I’m trying to protect you. I need to talk to somebody first. Let me do that and then we’ll talk.”
Unsatisfied, Chu shook his head.
“You’re killing me with this shit, man. What do you want me to do, go back to the office and just sit on my thumbs?”
“No, there’s a lot I want you to do. I want you to go to Property and pull out Irving’s shirt. Have somebody in SID check the inside shoulder for blood. It’s a dark shirt and nobody noticed anything on it yesterday.”
“So if there’s blood, we’ll know he got those marks while wearing the shirt.”
“That’s right.”
“And what will that tell us?”
Bosch didn’t answer. He was thinking about the shirt button found on the floor in the hotel suite. There could have been a struggle with Irving being choked out and the button being pulled loose.
“When you’re finished with the shirt, get the search warrant going.”
“The search warrant for what?”
“Irving’s office. I want to have a warrant before we go in and start looking at files.”
“They’re his files and he’s dead. What do we need a warrant for?”
“Because the guy was a lawyer and I don’t want to trip over any attorney-client privilege bullshit when we go in there. I want everything clean on this.”
“You know, it’s going to be hard for me to write up a warrant with you keeping me in the dark about shit.”
“No, it’s going to be easy. You say you are conducting an open-ended investigation into this man’s death. You say that there were signs of a possible struggle—the button torn from the shirt, the antemortem wound on the back—and you want access to his business papers and product so you can determine if there was any bad blood involving clients or adversaries. Simple. If you can’t do it, I’ll write it up when I get back.”
“No, I can do it. I’m the writer.”
It was true. In their usual division of labor and responsibilities, Chu always did the warrant work.
“Okay, then go do it and stop moping about it.”
“Hey, Harry, fuck you. I’m not moping. You wouldn’t like it if this was how I was treating you.”
“I’ll tell you what, Chu. If I had a partner who had a lot more years and experience than me and who said trust me on this until the time is right, then I think I would. And I would thank him for watching out for me.”
Bosch let that sink in for a moment before dismissing Chu.
“I’ll see you back there. I gotta go.”
They started walking to their separate cars. Bosch glanced back at his partner and saw him walking with his head down, a hangdog expression on his face. Chu didn’t understand the complexities of high jingo. But Bosch did.
By the time he was behind the wheel, Harry had Kiz Rider on the phone.
“Meet me at the academy in fifteen minutes. In the video room.”
“Harry, there’s no way. I’m about to go into a budget meeting.”
“Then don’t complain to me about not knowing what’s going on with the Irving case.”
“Can’t you just tell me?”
“No, you have to be shown. When can you meet?”
There was a long pause before she responded.