"Why'd you threaten him?"

"I didn't."

"He filed an addendum to the a.s.sault complaint of two weeks earlier."

"I don't care what he filed. There was no threat. The guy was a coward. He probably felt threatened. But there was no threat. There is a difference."

Bosch looked over at the other suit. Toliver. It looked as if he was going to be silent the whole time. That was his role. He just stared at Bosch as if he were a TV screen.

Bosch looked around the rest of the room and for the first time noticed the phone on the banquette to the left of the table. The green light signaled a conference call was on. The interview was being piped out of the room. Probably to a tape recorder. Probably to Irving in his office next door.

"There is a witness," Brockman said.

"To what?"

"The threat."

"I'll tell you what, Lieutenant, why don't you tell me exactly what the threat was so I know what we're talking about. After all, if you believe I made it, what's wrong with me knowing what it was I said?"

Brockman gave it some thought before answering.

"Very simple, as most are, you told him if he ever, quote, f.u.c.ked with you again, you'd kill him. Not too original."

"But d.a.m.ning as h.e.l.l, right? Well, f.u.c.k you, Brockman, I never said that. I don't doubt that that a.s.shole wrote up an addendum, that was just his style, but whoever this wit is you got, they're full of s.h.i.t."

"You know Henry Korchmar?"

"Henry Korchmar?"

Bosch had no idea whom he was talking about. Then he realized Brockman meant old Henry of the Nod Squad. Bosch had never known his last name and so hearing it in this context had confused him.

"The old guy? He wasn't in the room. He's no witness. I told him to get out and he did. Whatever he told you, he probably backed Pounds because he was scared. But he wasn't there. You go ahead with it, Brockman. I'll be able to pull twelve people out of that squadroom who watched the whole thing through the gla.s.s.

And they'll say Henry wasn't in there, they'll say Pounds was a liar and everybody knew it, and then where's your threat?"

Brockman said nothing into the silence so Bosch continued.

"See, you didn't do your work. My guess is that you know everybody who works in that squadroom thinks people like you are the bottom feeders of this department. They've got more respect for the people they put in jail. And you know that, Brickman, so you were too intimidated to go to them. Instead, you rely on some old man's word and he probably didn't even know Pounds was dead when you talked to him."

Bosch could tell by the way Brockman's eyes darted away that he had nailed him. Empowered with the victory, he stood up and headed toward the door.

"Where are you going?"

"To get some water."

"Jerry, go with him."

Bosch paused at the door and looked back.

"What, do you think I'm going to run, Brockman? You think that and you don't know the first thing about me. You think that and you haven't prepared for this interview. Why don't you come over to Hollywood one day and I'll teach you how to interview murder suspects. Free of charge."

Bosch walked out, Toliver following. At the water fountain down the hall, he took a long drink of water and then wiped his mouth with his hand. He felt nervous, frayed. He didn't know how long it would be before Brockman could see through the front he was putting up.

As he walked back to the conference room, Toliver stayed a silent three paces behind him.

"You're still young," Bosch said over his shoulder. "There might be a chance for you, Toliver."

Bosch stepped back into the conference room just as Brockman stepped through a door from the other side of the room. Bosch knew it was a direct entrance to Irving's office. He had once worked an investigation of a serial killer out of this room and under Irving's thumb.

Both men sat down across from each other again.

"Now, then," Brockman started. "I'm going to read you your rights, Detective Bosch."

He took a small card from his wallet and proceeded to read to Bosch the Miranda warning. Bosch knew for sure the phone line was going to a tape recorder. This was something they would want on tape.

"Now," Brockman said when he was finished. "Do you agree to waive those rights and talk to us about this situation?"

"It's a situation now, huh? I thought it was a murder. Yeah, I'll waive."

"Jerry, go get a waiver, I don't have one here."

Jerry got up and left through the hallway door. Bosch could hear his feet moving quickly on the linoleum, then a door open. He was taking the stairs down to IAD on the fifth.

"Uh, let's start by-"

"Don't you want to wait until you have your witness back? Or is this being secretly recorded without my knowledge?"

This immediately fl.u.s.tered Brockman.

"Yes, Bosch it's being sec-it's being recorded. But not secretly. We told you before we started that we'd be taping."

"Good cover-up, Lieutenant. That last line, that was a good one. I'll have to remember that one."

"Now, let's start with-"

The door opened and Toliver came in with a sheet of paper. He handed it to Brockman, who studied it a moment, made sure it was the correct form and slid it across the table to Bosch. Harry grabbed it and quickly scribbled a signature on the appropriate line. He was familiar with the form. He slid it back and Brockman put it off to the side of the table without looking at it. So he didn't notice the signature Bosch had written was "f.u.c.k You."

"All right, let's get this going. Bosch, give us your whereabouts over the last seventy-two hours."

"You don't want to search me first, do you? How 'bout you, Jerry?"

Bosch stood up, opening his jacket so they could see he was not armed. He thought by taunting them like this they would do the exact opposite and not search him. Carrying Pounds's badge was a piece of evidence that would probably put him in the ground if they discovered it.

"Siddown, Bosch!" Brockman barked. "We're not going to search you. We're trying to give you every benefit of the doubt but you make it d.a.m.n hard."

Bosch sat back down, relieved for the time being.

"Now, just give us your whereabouts. We don't have all day."

Bosch thought about this. He was surprised by the window of time they wanted. Seventy-two hours. He wondered what had happened to Pounds and why they hadn't narrowed time of death to a shorter span.

"Seventy-two hours ago. Well, about seventy-two hours ago it was Friday afternoon and I was in Chinatown at the Fifty-One-Fifty building. Which reminds me, I'm due over there in ten minutes. So, boys, if you'll excuse me..."

He stood up.

"Siddown, Bosch. That's been taken care of. Sit down."

Bosch sat down and said nothing. He realized, though, that he actually felt disappointed he would miss the session with Carmen Hinojos.

"Come on, Bosch, let's hear it. What happened after that?"

"I don't remember all the details. But I ate over at the Red Wind that night, also stopped at the Epicentre for a few drinks. Then I got to the airport about ten. I took a red-eye to Florida, to Tampa, spent the weekend there and got back about an hour and a half before I found you people illegally inside my home."

"It's not illegal. We had a warrant."

"I've been shown no warrant."

"Never mind that, what do you mean you were in Florida?"

"I guess I mean I was in Florida. What do you think it means?"

"You can prove this?"

Bosch reached into his pocket, took out his airline folder with the ticket receipt and slid it across the table.

"For starters there's the ticket receipt. I think there's one in there for a rental car, too."

Brockman quickly opened the ticket folder and started reading.

"What were you doing there?" he asked without looking up.

"Dr. Hinojos, that's the company shrink, said I should try to get away. And I thought, how 'bout Florida? I'd never been there and all my life I've liked orange juice. I thought, what the h.e.l.l? Florida."

Brockman was fl.u.s.tered again. He wasn't expecting something like this. Bosch could tell. Most cops never realized how important the initial interview with a suspect or witness was to an investigation. It informed all other interviews and even court testimony that followed. You had to be prepared. Like lawyers, you had to know most of the answers before you asked the questions. The IAD relied so much on its presence as an intimidating factor that most of the detectives a.s.signed to the division never really had to prepare for interviews. And when they hit a wall like this, they didn't know what to do.

"Okay, Bosch, uh, what did you do in Florida?"

"You ever heard that song Marvin Gaye sang? Before he got killed? It's called-"

"What are you talking about?"

"-'s.e.xual Healing.' It says it's good for the soul."

"I've heard it," Toliver said.

Both Brockman and Bosch looked at him.

"Sorry," he offered.

"Again, Bosch," Brockman said. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about that I spent most of the time with a woman I know there. Most of the other time I spent with a fishing guide on a boat in the Gulf of Mexico. What I'm talking about, a.s.shole, is that I was with people almost every minute. And the times I wasn't weren't long enough for me to fly back here and kill Pounds. I don't even know when he was killed but I'll tell you right now you don't have a case, Brockman, because there is no case. You're looking in the wrong direction."

Bosch had chosen his words carefully. He was unsure what, if anything, they knew about his private investigation and he wasn't going to give them anything if he could help it. They had the murder book and the evidence box but he thought that he might be able to explain all of that away. They also had his notebook because he had stuffed it into his overnighter at the airport. In it were the names, numbers and addresses of Jasmine and McKittrick, the address of the Eno house in Vegas, and other notes about the case. But they might not be able to put together what it all meant. Not if he was lucky.

Brockman pulled a notebook and pen from the inside pocket of his jacket.

"Okay, Bosch, give me the name of the woman and this fishing guide. I need their numbers, everything."

"I don't think so."

Brockman's eyes widened.

"I don't care what you think, give me the names."

Bosch said nothing, just stared down at the table in front of him.

"Bosch, you've told us your whereabouts, now we need to confirm them."

"I know where I was at, that's all I need."

"If you're in the clear, as you claim, let us check it out, clear you and move on to other things, other possibilities."

"You've got the airlines and the car rental right there. Start with that. I'm not dragging people into this who don't need to be. They're good people and unlike you, they like me. I'm not going to let you spoil that by having you come in with your concrete block feet and step all over the relationships."

"You don't have a choice, Bosch."

"Oh, yes, I do. Right now, I do. You want to try to make a case against me, do it. If it gets to that point, I'll bring these people out and they'll blow your s.h.i.t away, Brockman. You think at the moment you've got PR problems in the department over sending Bill Connors to the closet? You'll end this case with worse PR than Nixon had. I'm not giving you the names. If you want to write something down there in your notebook, just write that I said 'f.u.c.k you.' That ought to cover it."

Brockman's face got kind of blotchy with pinks and whites. He was quiet a moment before speaking.

"Know what I think? I still think you did it. I think you hired somebody to do it and you went waltzing off to Florida so you'd be nowhere near here. A fishing guide. If that doesn't sound like a conjured-up piece of s.h.i.t I don't know what does. And the woman? Who was she, some hooker you picked up in a bar? What was she, a fifty-dollar alibi? Or did you go a hundred?"

In one explosive move, Bosch shoved the table toward Brockman, catching him completely by surprise. It slid under his arms and crashed into his chest. His chair tipped back against the wall behind him. Bosch kept the pressure on his end and pinned Brockman against the wall. Bosch pushed back on his own chair until it was against the wall behind him. He raised his left leg and put his foot against the table to keep the pressure on it. He saw the blotches of color on Brockman's face become more p.r.o.nounced as he went without air. His eyes bugged. But he had no leverage and couldn't move the table off himself.

Toliver was slow to react. Stunned, he seemed to look at Brockman for a long moment as if awaiting orders before jumping up and moving toward Bosch. Bosch was able to fend off his first effort, shoving the younger man back into a potted palm tree that was in the corner of the room. While Bosch did this, he saw in his peripheral vision a figure enter the room through the other door. Then his chair was abruptly knocked over and he was on the ground with a heavy weight on top of him. By turning his head slightly he could see it was Irving.

"Don't move, Bosch!" Irving yelled in his ear. "Settle down right now!"

Bosch went limp to signify his compliance and Irving got off him. Bosch stayed still for a few moments and then put a hand up on the table to pull himself up. As he got up, he saw Brockman hacking and trying to get air into his lungs while holding both hands against his chest. Irving held one hand out to Bosch's chest as a calming gesture and a means of stopping him from taking another run at Brockman. With his other hand, he pointed at Toliver, who was trying to right the potted palm. It had become uprooted and wouldn't stand up. He finally just leaned it against the wall.

"You," Irving snapped at him. "Out."

"But, sir, the-"

"Get out!"

Toliver quickly left through the hallway door as Brockman was finally finding his voice.