Read Online Echo Park by Michael Connelly - Free Book Online Page A

had been more than eighteen months since they had spoken. And that was at the end of an intense week when they had crossed paths on a case, Bosch working on a private ticket before coming back to the department and Walling working on resuscitating her career with the bureau. The case led Bosch back to the blue fold and Walling to the L.A. field office. Whether Tactical, whatever that was, constituted an improvement over her previous posting in South Dakota was something Bosch didn’t know. What he did know was that before she had fallen from grace and been cast out to the reservation beat in the Dakotas, she had been a profiler in the Behavioral Science Unit at Quantico.
    “I called because I thought maybe you’d be interested in putting some of your old skills to work again,” he said.
    “You mean a profile?”
    “Sort of. Tomorrow I have to go head to head in a room with an admitted serial killer and I don’t know the first thing about what makes him tick. This guy wants to confess to nine murders in a deal to avoid the needle. I have to make sure he’s not playing us. I have to figure out if he’s telling the truth before we turn around and tell all the families—what families we know of—that we’ve got the right guy.”
    He waited a moment for her to react. When she didn’t he pressed on.
    “I’ve got crimes, a couple crime scenes and forensics. I’ve got his apartment inventory and photos. But I don’t have a handle on him. I was calling because I was wondering if I could show you some of this stuff and, you know, maybe get some ideas from you on how to handle him.”
    There was another long silence before she answered.
    “Where are you, Harry?” she finally asked.
    “Right now? Right now I’m heading into Chinatown to pick up some shrimp fried rice. I missed lunch.”
    “I’m downtown. I could meet you. I missed lunch, too.”
    “You know where Chinese Friends is?”
    “Of course. How about a half hour?”
    “I’ll order before you get there.”
    Bosch closed the phone and felt a thrill that he knew came from something other than the idea that Rachel Walling might be able to help him with the Waits case. Their last encounter had ended badly but the sting of it had eroded over time. What was left in his memory was the night they had made love in a Las Vegas motel room and he had believed he had connected with a kindred soul.
    He looked at his watch. He had time to kill even if he was going to order food before she got there. In Chinatown he pulled to the curb outside the restaurant and opened up his phone again. Before he had turned the Gesto murder book over to Olivas he had written down names and numbers he might need. He now called Bakersfield and the home of Marie Gesto’s parents. The call would not be a complete shock to them. His habit had always been to call them every time he pulled the file to take another look at the case. He thought it was some measure of comfort for them to know he had not given up.
    The missing woman’s mother answered the phone.
    “Irene, it’s Harry Bosch.”
    “Oh!”
    There was always that initial note of hope and excitement when one of them answered.
    “Nothing yet, Irene,” he responded quickly. “I just have a question for you and Dan, if you don’t mind.”
    “Of course, of course. It’s just good to hear from you.”
    “It’s nice to hear your voice, too.”
    It had been more than ten years since he had actually seen Irene and Dan Gesto. After two years they had stopped coming to L.A. in hopes of finding their daughter, had given up her apartment and gone home. After that, Bosch always called.
    “What is your question, Harry?”
    “It’s a name, actually. Do you remember Marie ever mentioning someone named Ray Waits? Maybe Raynard Waits? Raynard is an unusual name. You might remember it.”
    He heard her breath catch and he immediately knew he had made a mistake. The recent arrest and court hearings involving Waits had made it into the