The Drop

Read The Drop for Free Online Page B

Book: Read The Drop for Free Online
Authors: Michael Connelly
Tags: Fiction, General, Mystery & Detective
buttons. He checked the rest of the shirt and found that the right cuff was missing a button.
    He felt Glanville come up and look over his shoulder.
    “I think it’s a match to the one out there on the floor,” Bosch said.
    “Yeah, what’s it mean?” Glanville said.
    Bosch turned around and looked at him.
    “I don’t know.”
    Before leaving the room, Bosch noticed that one of the bed’s side tables was askew. One corner had been pulled away from the wall and Bosch guessed it had been done when Irving unplugged the clock.
    “What do you think, that he took the clock out there to listen to music from his iPhone?” he asked without looking back at Glanville.
    “Could be but there’s another dock out there under the TV for that. Maybe he just didn’t see it.”
    “Maybe.”
    Bosch moved back out to the suite’s living room and Glanville followed. Chu was on his phone and Bosch gave him the cut it off sign. Chu put his hand over the phone and said, “I’m getting good stuff here.”
    “Yeah, well, get it later,” Bosch said. “We have things to do.”
    Chu got off the phone and the four detectives stood in a circle in the middle of the room.
    “Okay, this is how I want to do this,” Bosch began. “We’re going to knock on every door in this building. We ask what people heard, what they saw. We cover—”
    “Jesus Christ, what a waste of time,” Solomon said, turning from the circle and looking out one of the windows.
    “We can leave no stone unturned,” Bosch said. “That way, if and when we call it suicide, nobody can second-guess us. Not the councilman, not the chief, not even the press. So the three of you split up the floors and start knocking on doors.”
    “People in here are all night crawlers,” Glanville said. “They’re still going to be sleeping.”
    “That’s good. That means we’ll get to them before they get out of the building.”
    “Okay, so we get to wake everybody up,” Solomon said. “What are you going to be doing?”
    “I’m going down to see the manager. I want a copy of the registration and the combination used to lock the room safe. I’ll see about cameras and after that I’ll check Irving’s car in the garage. You never know, maybe he left a note in the car. You two never checked it.”
    “We would’ve gotten to it,” Glanville said defensively.
    “Well, I’ll get to it now,” Bosch said.
    “The safe combo, Harry?” Chu asked. “What for?”
    “Because it might tell us whether it was Irving who punched it in.”
    Chu had a confused look on his face. Bosch decided he would explain it all later.
    “Chu, I also want you to climb that ladder out there and check the roof. Do that first, before you start knocking on doors.”
    “Got it.”
    “Thank you.”
    It was refreshing not to get a complaint. Bosch turned back to Crate and Barrel.
    “Now, here’s the part you two aren’t going to like.”
    “Oh, really?” Solomon said. “Imagine that.”
    Bosch walked over to the balcony doors, signaling them over. They stepped back out and Bosch pointed a finger and swept it across the vista of homes that terraced the hillside. Though on the seventh floor, he was level with numerous homes with windows facing the Chateau.
    “I want all of them canvassed,” he said. “Use patrol if they can spare the bodies, but I want all those doors knocked on. Somebody might have seen something.”
    “Don’t you think we would’ve heard from them?” Glanville said. “You see a guy jump off a balcony and I think you’re going to call it in.”
    Bosch glanced from the view to Glanville and then back out to the view.
    “Maybe they saw something before the drop. Maybe they saw him out here alone. Maybe he wasn’t alone. And maybe they saw him get thrown and they’re too scared to get involved. Too many maybes to let it go, Crate. It has to be done.”
    “He’s Crate. I’m Barrel.”
    “Sorry. I couldn’t tell the difference.”
    The disdain in Bosch’s voice

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