The Drop(32)

Bosch opened the file and handed her the first evaluation report.

“He was whipped so hard he must’ve bled,” he said. “That report says he had scars on his backside from the abuse. To leave a scar you have to break the skin. You break the skin and you get blood.”

He watched her as she scanned the report, her eyes fixed in concentration. He felt his phone vibrate but ignored it. He knew it was probably his partner reporting that he had completed the DNA lab visit.

“Johnny,” she said as she handed the report back.

Bosch nodded.

“I think he’s our man and I need to talk to Pell to get a line on him. Has he ever told you his full name? In the PSIs he only calls him Johnny.”

“No, he just called him Johnny in our sessions, too.”

“That’s why I need to talk to him.”

She paused as she considered something Bosch apparently hadn’t thought of. He thought she would be as excited about the lead as he was.

“What?”

“Harry, I have to consider what this will do to him, dredging all of this up. I’m sorry but I have to consider his well-being before the well-being of your investigation.”

Bosch wished she hadn’t said that.

“Wait a minute,” he said. “What do you mean ‘dredging it up’? It’s in all three of his psych reports here. He has to have talked to you about this guy. I’m not asking you to break that confidence. I want to talk directly to him.”

“I know and I can’t stop you from talking to him. It’s really his option. He’ll talk to you or he won’t. But my only worry is that he’s quite fragile as you can—”

“You can get him to talk to me, Hannah. You can tell him it will help him.”

“You mean lie to him? I won’t do that.”

Bosch stood up, since she had not returned to her seat.

“I don’t mean lie. I mean tell the truth. This will help him get this guy out of the shadows of the past. Like an exorcism. Maybe he even knows that this guy was killing girls.”

“You mean there’s more than one?”

“I don’t know but you saw the photos. It doesn’t look like a onetime thing, like, oh, I got that out of my system and it’s back to being a good citizen again. This was a predator’s crime and predators don’t stop. You know that as well as I do. It doesn’t matter if this happened twenty-two years ago. If this guy Johnny is still out there, I have to find him. And Clayton Pell is the key.”





13




Clayton Pell agreed to talk to Bosch but only if Dr. Stone remained present. Harry had no problem with that and thought that having Stone on hand might be helpful during the interview. He only advised her that Pell might become a witness in an eventual trial and as such Bosch would conduct the interview in a methodical and linear fashion.

An orderly walked Pell into the interview room, where three chairs had been set up, one facing the other two. Bosch introduced himself and shook Pell’s hand without hesitation. Pell was a small man no more than five foot two and a hundred ten pounds, and Bosch knew that victims of sexual abuse during childhood often suffered from stunted growth. Disrupted psychological growth affected physical growth.

Bosch pointed Pell to his seat and cordially asked if he needed anything.

“I could use a smoke,” Pell said.

When he sat, he brought his legs up and crossed them on the seat. It seemed like a childlike thing to do.

“I could use one, too, but we’re not going to break the rules today,” Bosch said.

“That’s too bad, then.”

Stone had suggested that they set the three seats up around a table to make it less formal but Bosch had said no. He also choreographed the seating arrangement so that both he and Stone would be left and right of Pell’s center view line, which meant he would have to constantly look back and forth between them. Observing eye movement would be a good way for Bosch to measure sincerity and veracity. Pell had become a tragic figure in Stone’s estimation but Bosch held no such sympathy. Pell’s traumatic history and childlike dimensions didn’t matter. He was now a predator. Just ask the nine-year-old boy he had pulled into his van. Bosch planned to constantly remind himself that predators hid themselves and that they lied and waited for their opponents to reveal weaknesses. He wouldn’t make a mistake with Pell.

“Why don’t we get started here,” Bosch said. “If you don’t mind I will take written notes as we talk.”

“A’right by me,” Pell said.

Bosch pulled out his notebook. It had an LAPD detective’s badge embossed on its leather cover. It had been a gift from his daughter, who had had it custom-made through a friend in Hong Kong whose father was in the leather business. The embossing was complete with his badge number—2997. She’d given it to him at Christmas. It was one of his most treasured possessions because it had come from her, but also because he knew it served a valuable purpose. Every time he flipped it open to jot down a note, he was showing the badge to his interview subjects and reminding them that the power and might of the state was before them.