The Reversal

“Sorry about that. Are you finished playing with your cereal?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Let’s go.”

He got up from the table and went back to his room to grab his overnight bag off the bed. He was traveling light, expecting the trip to last one night at the most. If they got lucky, they might even catch a late flight home tonight.

When he came back out, Maddie was standing by the door, her backpack over one shoulder.

“Ready?”

“No, I’m just standing here for my health.”

He walked up to her and kissed the top of her head before she could move away from him. She tried, though.

“Gotcha.”

“Daaaad!”

He locked the door behind them and put his bag in the backseat of the Mustang.

“You have your key, right?”

“Yes!”

“Just making sure.”

“Can we go? I don’t want to be late.”

They drove down the hill in silence after that. When they got to the school, he saw Sue Bambrough working the drop-off lane, getting the slow-moving kids out of the cars and into the school, keeping things moving.

“You know the routine, Mads. Call me, text me, vid me, let me know you’re doing okay.”

“I’ll get out here.”

She opened the door early, before they got to where the assistant principal was stationed. Maddie got out and then reached back in to grab her bag. Bosch waited for it, the sign that everything was really okay.

“Be safe, Dad.”

There it was.

“You, too, baby.”

She closed the door. He lowered the window and drove down to Sue Bambrough. She leaned into the open window.

“Hey, Sue. She’s a little upset but she’ll get over it by the end of the day. I told her that Aurora Smith could come by but not to make it late. Who knows, maybe they’ll do some homework.”

“She’ll be fine, Harry.”

“I left the check on the kitchen counter and there’s some cash there for anything you guys’ll need.”

“Thanks, Harry. Just let me know if you think it will be more than one night. No problem on my end.”

Bosch checked the rearview. He wanted to ask a question but didn’t want to hold people up.

“What is it, Harry?”

“Uh, to say you’re done doing something, is that wrong? You know, bad English?”

Sue tried to hide a smile.

“If she’s correcting you, that’s the natural course of things. Don’t take it personally. We drill it into them here. They go home and want to drill somebody else. It would be proper to say you finished doing something. But I know what you meant.”

Bosch nodded. Somebody in the line behind him tapped the horn-Bosch assumed it was a man hurrying to make drop-off and then get to work. He waved his thanks to Sue and pulled out.

Maggie McFierce had called Bosch the night before and told him that there was nothing out of Burbank, so they were taking a direct flight out of LAX. That meant it would be a brutal drive in morning traffic. Bosch lived on a hillside right above the Hollywood Freeway but it was the one freeway that wouldn’t help him get to the airport. Instead, he took Highland down into Hollywood and then cut over to La Cienega. It bottlenecked through the oil fields near Baldwin Hills and he lost his cushion of time. He took La Tijera from there and when he got to the airport he was forced to park in one of the expensive garages close in because he didn’t have time to ride a shuttle bus in from an economy lot.

After filling out the Law Enforcement Officer forms at the counter and being walked through security by a TSA agent, he finally got to the gate while the plane was in the final stages of loading its passengers. He looked for McPherson but didn’t see her and assumed she was already on the plane.

He boarded and went through the required meet-and-greet, stepping into the cockpit, showing his badge and shaking the hands of the flight crew. He then made his way toward the back of the plane. He and McPherson had exit-row seats across the aisle from each other. She was already in place, a tall Starbucks cup in hand. She had obviously arrived early for the flight.

“Thought you weren’t going to make it,” she said.

“It was close. How’d you get here so early? You have a daughter just like me.”

“I dropped her with Mickey last night.”

Bosch nodded.

“Exit row, nice. Who’s your travel agent?”

“We’ve got a good one. That’s why I wanted to handle it. We’ll send LAPD the bill for you.”

“Yeah, good luck with that.”

Bosch had put his bag in an overhead compartment so he would have room to extend his legs. After he sat down and buckled in, he saw that McPherson had shoved two thick files into the seat pocket in front of her. He had nothing out to prep with. His files were in his bag but he didn’t feel like getting them out. He pulled his notebook out of his back pocket and was about to lean across the aisle to ask McPherson a question when a flight attendant came down the aisle and stooped down to whisper to him.

“You’re the detective, right?”

“Uh, yes. Is there a-”

Before he could finish the Dirty Harry line, the flight attendant informed him that they were upgrading him to an unclaimed seat in the first-class section.

“Oh, that’s nice of you and the captain, but I don’t think I can do that.”