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side for Coleman to look at and read.
    “I’m going to put one of these two letters in that envelope and drop it in a mailbox as soon as I get out of here today. You’re going to decide which one.”
    Coleman leaned forward and Bosch heard the shackles click against the back of his metal chair. He was so big it looked like he was wearing a linebacker’s shoulder pads under his gray prison jumpsuit.
    “What are you talking about, Five-oh? I can’t read that shit.”
    Bosch leaned back and turned the letters so he could read them.
    “Well, they are letters addressed to the parole board. One speaks very favorably of you. It says you are remorseful about the crimes you have committed and have been cooperating with me in seeking the resolution of a long unsolved murder. It ends—”
    “I ain’t cooperating with you on shit, man. You can’t put a snitch jacket on me. You watch your fucking mouth on that shit.”
    “It ends with me recommending that you be granted parole.”
    Bosch put the letter down and turned his attention to the other.
    “Now, this second one is not so good for you. This one says nothing about remorse. It says that you have refused to cooperate in a murder investigation in which you have important information. And lastly it says that the LAPD’s Gang Intelligence Unit has gathered intel that suggests that the RollingSixties are awaiting your return to freedom so they can once again utilize your skills as a hit man for the—”
    “That’s some bullshit right there! That’s a lie! You can’t send that shit!”
    Bosch calmly put the letter down on the table and started folding it for the envelope. He looked at Coleman deadpan.
    “You’re going to sit there and tell me what I can do and can’t do? Uh-uh, that’s not how this works, Rufus. You give me what I want and I give you what you want. That’s how it works.”
    Bosch ran his finger along the creases of the letter and then started sliding it into the envelope.
    “What murder you talking about?”
    Bosch looked up at him. There was the first give. Bosch reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out the photo of Jespersen he’d had made from her press pass. He held it up for Coleman to see.
    “A white girl? I don’t know nothin’ about no murdered white girl.”
    “I didn’t say you did.”
    “Then, what the fuck we doin’ here? When did she get her ass killed?”
    “May first, nineteen ninety-two.”
    Coleman did the date math, shook his head, and smiled like he was dealing with a dummy.
    “You got the wrong guy. ’Ninety-two I was in Corcoran on a five spot. Eat that shit, Dee -tective.”
    “I know exactly where you were in ’ninety-two. You think I’d come all the way up here if I didn’t know everything about you?”
    “All I know is that I was nowhere near some white girl’s murder.”
    Bosch shook his head as if to say he wasn’t arguing that point.
    “Let me explain it to you, Rufus, because I’ve got somebody else I want to see in here and then a plane to catch. You listening now?”
    “I’m listening. Let’s hear your shit.”
    Bosch held the photo up again.
    “So we’re talking twenty years ago. The night of April thirtieth going into May first, nineteen ninety-two. The second night of the L.A. riots. Anneke Jespersen from Copenhagen is down on Crenshaw with her cameras. She’s taking pictures for the newspaper back in Denmark.”
    “The fuck she doin’ down there? She shouldn’t a been down there.”
    “I won’t argue that, Rufus. But she was there. And somebody stood her up against a wall in an alley and popped her right in the eye.”
    “Wadn’t me and I don’t know a thing about it.”
    “I know it wasn’t you. You’ve got the perfect alibi. You were in prison. Can I continue?”
    “Yeah, man, tell your story.”
    “Whoever killed Anneke Jespersen used a Beretta. We recovered the shell at the scene. The shell showed the distinctive markings of a Beretta model