The Reversal

Babysitters, Bosch thought. As soon as RHD moved in, they would be moved out. He pulled his phone and called his lieutenant.

“Gandle.”

“Lieutenant, who’s taking the four on the floor by the Kyoto?”

“Bosch? Where are you?”

“At the scene. It was my guy from the trial. Jessup.”

“Shit, what went wrong?”

“I don’t know. Who are you sending and where the hell are they?”

“I’m sending four. Penzler, Kirshbaum, Krikorian and Russell. But they were all at lunch up at Birds. I’m coming over, too, but you don’t have to be there, Harry.”

“I know. I’m not staying long.”

Bosch closed the phone and looked around for McPherson. He had lost her in the confusion of the crime scene. He spotted her crouching down next to a man sitting on the sidewalk curb in front of the bail-bonds shop next door to Royce’s office. Bosch recognized him from the night he and McPherson rode on the surveillance of Jessup. There was blood on his hands and shirt from his efforts to save his partner. Bosch went to them.

“… he went to his car when they got back here. For just a minute. Got in and then got out. He then went into the office. Right away we heard shots. We moved and Manny got hit as soon as we opened the door. I got off a couple rounds but I had to try to help Manny…”

“So Jessup must’ve gotten the gun from his car, right?”

“Must’ve. They’ve got the metal detectors at the courthouse. He didn’t have it in court today.”

“But you never saw it?”

“No, never saw the weapon. If we had seen it, we would’ve done something.”

Bosch left them there and went to the door of Royce and Associates. He got there just as Lieutenant Wright did. Together they entered.

“Oh, my God,” Wright said when he saw his man on the floor just inside the front door.

“What was his name?” Bosch asked.

“Manuel Branson. He’s got two kids and I have to go tell his wife.”

Branson was on his back. He had bullet entry wounds on the left side of his neck and upper left cheek. There had been a lot of blood. The neck shot appeared to have sliced through the carotid artery.

Bosch left Wright there and moved past a reception desk and down a hallway on the right side. There was a wall of glass that looked into a boardroom with doors on both ends. The rest of the victims were in here, along with two detectives who wore gloves and booties and were taking notes on clipboards. Roche and Stout. Bosch stood in the first doorway of the room but did not enter. The two detectives looked at him.

“Who are you?” one asked.

“Bosch, RHD.”

“You taking this?”

“Not exactly. I’m on something related. The others are coming.”

“Christ, we’re only two blocks from the PAB.”

“They weren’t there. They were at lunch up in Hollywood. But don’t worry, they’ll get here. It’s not like these people are going anywhere.”

Bosch looked at the bodies. Clive Royce sat dead in a chair at the head of a long board table. His head was snapped back as if he were looking at the ceiling. There was a bloodless bullet hole in the center of his forehead. Blood from the exit wound at the back of his head had poured down the back of his jacket and chair.

The investigator, Karen Revelle, was on the floor on the other side of the room near the other door. It appeared that she had tried to make a run for it before being hit by gunfire. She was facedown and Bosch could not see where or how many times she had been hit.

Royce’s pretty associate counsel, whose name Bosch could not remember, was no longer pretty. Her body was in a seat diagonal to Royce, her upper body down on the table, an entry wound at the back of her head. The bullet had exited below her right eye and destroyed her face. There was always more damage coming out than going in.

“What do you think?” asked one of the Central guys.

“Looks like he came in shooting. Hit these two first and then tagged the other as she made a run for the door. Then backed into the hall and opened up on the SIS guys as they came in.”

“Yeah. Looks that way.”

“I’m going to check the rest of the place out.”

Bosch continued down the hall and looked through open doors into empty offices. There were nameplates on the wall outside the doors and he was reminded that Royce’s associate was named Denise Graydon.

The hallway ended at a break room, where there was a kitchenette with a refrigerator and a microwave. There was another communal table here. And an exit door that was three inches ajar.

Bosch used his elbow to push the door open. He stepped into an alley lined with trash bins. He looked both ways and saw a pay parking lot a half block down to his right. He assumed it was the lot where Jessup had parked his car and had gone to retrieve the gun.