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Michael Connelly

Blue on Black

Bosch had left her alone in the room for almost an hour. It was time. He knocked once on the door and entered. Rachel Walling looked up from the table. She had the photos spread out across it so she could view them all at once.

He moved into the room and sat down across from her.

“It looks like you like the photos,” he said.

“There isn’t much else here,” she said.

She waved her hand dismissively at the record of his work on the case. He nodded. She was right. He didn’t have jack.

“You see anything? You said you could only give me an hour. I don’t want to—”

“But you knew I would start to look at the photos and I’d get caught up in it. That’s why you called me, Harry. ”

“No, I called you because I’m desperate. I know this is the guy. I can put him in close proximity to both women. He was following them. He’s got the history and profile — the guy’s an apex predator. But after that, I’ve got nothing. So what have you got, Rachel? Can you help me or not?”

She dropped her eyes from Bosch’s without answering. She returned her focus to the photos. Denninger’s prior mug shots and prison ID shots from the rape conviction. Denninger posing with a number of prize fish he’d caught in Santa Monica Bay. Denninger on his boat. On the Avalon Pier on Catalina. Photos of his home, inside and out.

“He likes to fish,” she finally said.

“Yeah. That and poker. He told us those are his hobbies. ”

“Does he own this boat?”

“Uh-huh.

He keeps it down in Marina del Rey on a trailer lot. We were thinking he probably used the boat to dump the bodies. Because we sure haven’t found anything in his house or pickup. Nothing on land. ”

“And you searched the boat. ”

“Yeah, we searched it. And got nothing. We took it to the police garage and put it in the blackout room. Lumed the whole thing and it glowed like Christmas. Blood everywhere, but it was all fish blood. Not a drop of human blood, not even his own. ”

She nodded and picked up the photo taken off the ATM video that showed the first missing woman, Olivia Martz, making a withdrawal. It was taken through a fisheye lens, designed to capture the entire environment around the ATM. Denninger was behind her and to the right, probably never thinking he would be on the film.

“So,” Walling said. “You have his prior record as a sexual predator and then the two videos. The parking garage video puts him in the Grove at the same time Allison Beaumont was there on the day she disappeared, and likewise you have the ATM video of Olivia Martz making a withdrawal that puts him right behind her at the Third Street Promenade. Together this got you probable cause for search warrants, and the searches turned up nothing. ”

Bosch nodded in defeat.

“That’s about the size of it. ”

“Are you watching Denninger?”

“We have a loose tail on him for now. But that won’t last forever. There’s no overtime left in the budget. That’s why I called you. ”

“You should have called Behavioral. You’d get the whole package from them. ”

“Yeah, in about six months. How many more girls might go missing by then? Look, Rachel, I know this isn’t your beat anymore, but you’re good at it and you’re fast. That’s why I called you. Now is there anything in all of that that can help me? Your lunch hour’s over. ”