Desert Star (Renée Ballard, #5; Harry Bosch Universe, #36) (69)

“Yes, no worries. And if you have to get back, we can talk later.”

“I’ll check in on you.”

“I didn’t even know you work Sundays.”

“Yeah, I work Thursday to Sunday now.”

“Cool. Maybe we can have lunch tomorrow or Tuesday. I have a feeling my knee will be too sore for me to want to go sit at a desk.”

“Uh, yeah.”

She seemed hesitant to commit.

“I just haven’t seen you very much lately,” Bosch said.

“I know,” she said. “And it’s my fault. I get so busy. But, yeah, let’s do it. I’ll check on you in the morning, and if you’re too sore, we’ll go for Tuesday.”

“I’d like that, Maddie.”

“Bye, Dad. I love you. So glad you’re okay.”

She hugged him again.

“Love you, too,” Bosch said.

“I’ll find Renée and tell her you’re clear,” she said.

And then she was gone.

Bosch now waited for both the doctor and Ballard. He tentatively reached a finger to his ear to see if it could bend without sending sparks of pain shooting through his brain.

“Don’t touch that.”

Bosch turned to see that the ER doc had entered. He went to a sink and washed his hands and then came over to Bosch. He looked at the sutures in Bosch’s ear.

“This is going to look pretty nasty for a while, but something tells me you won’t care,” he said.

“The only thing I care about right now is getting out of here,” Bosch replied.

“Well, you’re free to go. I have a prescription waiting for you at the hospital pharmacy. Take it only to manage pain. If there is no pain, don’t take it. Stay sharp.”

“Got it. And thanks, Doc. I appreciate it.”

“Doin’ my job, just like you were doin’ yours. But you should come back in a couple days and let me look at that, make sure there’s no infection.”

“I will. Thank you. What about the stitches?”

“We’ll check them then, but I think we’ll need to keep them in longer. You don’t want that ear flopping over like my dog’s.”

“Right.”

Ten minutes later, Bosch was in Ballard’s car and they were pulling out of the emergency vehicle parking area outside the ER entrance. He had decided not to pick up the prescription and would manage the pain with over-the-counter measures.

“Let’s get you home,” Ballard said.

“Go by the scene first,” Bosch said. “I want to see it.”

“Harry, they’re not going to want you there.”

“Just a drive-by. It’s five minutes out of the way, tops.”

“All right. But no stopping.”

“Doesn’t FID or Santa Monica want to talk to you?”

“They already did. There will be more tomorrow but I was cleared to leave.”

“Maddie said you had something to tell me.”

“Yeah, the box.”

“What box?”

“There was a box in the trunk of the BMW.”

“The trunk was open when I saw the car in the alley. There could have been a box but I didn’t see it. How big is it?”

“Sixteen by sixteen by six—it said it on the box. It’s a shipping box like they sell in his shop.”

“I could’ve missed it. What’s in it?”

“It’s filled with keepsakes. From his kills. There were more victims, most likely between Pearlman and Wilson, and then afterward. Probably a lot, and we’ll be going through the box for a long time.”

“Damn.”

“And it’s probably why he did himself at the end.”

“Wait a minute, what?”

“He killed himself.”

“No, I hit him. I saw it.”

“You did, but that wasn’t the fatal shot. You knocked him down in front of your car. But then he put the gun in his mouth. It was his last bullet.”

Bosch thought about the shooting. It had been so quick and intense that it was hard for him to remember every microsecond of detail. He knew the first shot from Rawls went through the windshield and ripped through his ear. He returned fire, getting off half a clip. The windshield shattered, allowing his remaining shots to fly true as Rawls continued his charge and fired back. One round hit Rawls in the right shoulder and he went down. He fell out of sight, and Bosch remembered hearing the last shot but didn’t realize it was self-inflicted.

He had opened his door and tumbled out onto the ground. Blood was running down the side of his head, and at the time, he thought he had been more seriously injured than he was. Limping on the injured leg and not being sure of what he had left in his clip, he moved cautiously around his car and came up on the front from the passenger side. He saw Rawls dead on the ground, and he thought he had killed him.

“The FID guys didn’t tell me that,” he said.

“Well, that’s what they told me,” Ballard said.

Bosch went silent and stared out the window as Ballard drove. After a while, she got concerned.

“You doing okay, Harry?” she asked. “Don’t get sick in my car.”

“I won’t,” Bosch said. “I was thinking about that shop and the others Rawls had.”