Marjorie Lowe's last known destination was a party in Hancock Park. According to Katherine Register, she was more specifically going to meet Conklin. After she was dead, Conklin had called the detectives on the case to make an appointment but any record of the interview, if any occurred, was missing. Bosch knew it was all a general correlation of facts but it served to deepen and solidify the suspicion he had felt from the night he had first looked through the murder book. Something was not right about the case. Something didn't fit. And the more he thought about it, the more he believed Conklin was the wrong piece.

He reached into his jacket, which was on the chairback behind him, and took out his small phone book. He took it into the kitchen, where he dialed the home line of Deputy District Attorney Roger Goff.

Goff was a friend who shared Bosch's affection for the tenor saxophone. They'd spent many days in court sitting side by side during trials and many nights in jazz bars side by side on stools. Goff was an old-line prosecutor who had been with the office nearly thirty years. He had no political aspirations inside or outside of the office. He just liked his job. He was a rarity because he never tired of it. A thousand deputies had come in, burned out, and gone on to corporate America during Goff's watch, but he stayed. He now labored in the criminal courts building with prosecutors and public defenders twenty years his junior.

But he was still good at it and, more important, still had the fire in his voice when he stood before a jury and called down the outrage of God and society against those in the defendant's chair. His mixture of tenacity and plain fairness had made him a legend in downtown legal and law enforcement circles. And he was one of the few prosecutors Bosch had unconditional respect for.

'Roger, Harry Bosch.'

'Hey, goddamnit, how you doing?'

'I'm fine. What are you up to?'

'Watching the tube like everybody else. What're you doing?'

'Nothing. I was just thinking, you remember Gloria

Jeffries?'

'Glo — shit, of course I do. Let's see. She's ... yeah, she's the one with the husband got quaded in the motorcycle accident, right?'

Recalling the case, it sounded as if he were reading it off one of his yellow tablets.

'She got tired of caring for him. So one morning he's in bed and she sits on his face until she smothers him. It was about to go by as a natural but a suspicious detective named Harry Bosch wouldn't let it go. He came up with a witness who Gloria had told everything to. The clincher, the thing that got the jury, was that she told the wit that when she smothered him, it was the first orgasm the poor devil had ever been able to give her. How is that for a memory?'

'Damn, you're good.'

'So what about her?'

'She's raising up at Frontera. Getting ready to. I was wondering if you'd have time to write a letter.'

'Fuck, already? What was that, three, four yean ago?'

'Almost five. I hear she's got the book now and goes to

the board next month. I'll write a letter but it'd be good if there was one from the prosecutor, too.'

'Don't worry about it, I got a standard in my computer. All I do is change the name and the crime, throw in a few of the gruesome details. The basic line is that the crime was too heinous for parole to be considered at this time. It's a good letter. I'll send it out tomorrow. It usually works charms.'

'Good. Thanks.'

'You know, they gotta stop giving the book to those women. They all get religion when they're coming up. You ever go to one of those hearings?'

'A couple.'

'Yeah, sit through a half a day of them if you have the time and aren't feeling particularly suicidal sometime. They sent me out to Frontera once when one of the Manson girls was up. See, with the big ones like that they send a body out instead of a letter. So, I went out and I sat through about ten of these things waiting for my girl to come up. And let me tell you, everybody's quoting Corinthians, they're quoting Revelations, Matthew, Paul, John three-sixteen, John this, John that. And it works! It goddamn works. These old guys on the board eat that shit up. Plus I guess they're all sitting up there getting thick in their pants having all these women groveling in front of them. Anyway, you got me started, Harry. It's your fault, not mine.'

'Sorry about that.'

'It's okay. So what else is new? Haven't seen you in the building. You got anything coming my way?'

It was the question Bosch had been waiting for Goff to get to so he could nonchalantly steer the conversation toward Arno Conklin.

'Ah, nothing much. It's been slow. But, hey, let me ask you, did you know Arno Conklin?'

'Arno Conklin? Sure, I knew him. He hired me. What are you asking about him for?'

'Nothing. I was going through some old files, making room in one of the cabinets, and I came across some old newspapers. They were pushed into the back. There were some stories about him and I thought of you, thought it was about when you started.'

'Yeah, Arno, tried to be a good man. A little high and mighty for my taste, but I think he was a decent man overall. Especially considering he was both a politician and a lawyer.'

Goff laughed at his own line but Bosch was silent. GofF had used the past tense. Bosch felt a heavy presence push into his chest and he only realized then how strong the desire to avenge could be.

'He's dead?'

He closed his eyes. He hoped Goff wouldn't detect the urgency he had let slip into his voice.

'Oh, no, he's not dead. I meant, you know, when I knew him. He was a good man then.'

'He's still practicing law somewhere?'

'Oh, no. He's an old man. Retired. Once a year they wheel him out at the annual prosecutors banquet. He personally hands out the Arno Conklin Award.'

'What's that?'

'Some piece of wood with a brass plate on it that goes to the administrative prosecutor of the year, if you can believe that. That's the guy's legacy, an annual award to a so-called prosecutor who doesn't set foot inside a courtroom all year. It always goes to one of the division heads. I don't know how they decide which one. Prob'ly whoever got his or her nose farthest up the DA's ass that year.'

Bosch laughed. The line wasn't that funny but he was also feeling the relief of learning that Conklin was still alive.

'It's not funny, Bosch. It's fucking sad. Administrative prosecutor, whoever heard of such a thing? An oxymoron. Like Andrew and his screenplays. He deals with these studio people called, get this, creative executives. There's your classic contradiction. Well, there you go, Bosch, you got me going again.'

Bosch knew Andrew was Goff's roommate but he had never met him.

'Sorry, Roger. Anyway, what do you mean, they wheel him out?'

'Arno? Well, I mean they wheel him out. He's in a chair. I told you, he's an old man. Last I heard he was in some full-care retirement home. One of the classy ones in Park La Brea. I keep saying I'm going to see him one day, thank him for hiring me way back when. Who knows, maybe I could put in a word for that award or something.' 'Funny guy. You know, I heard that Gordon Mittel used to be his frontman.'

'Oh, yeah, he was the bulldog outside the door. Ran his campaigns. That's how Mittel got started. Now that's one mean — I'm glad he got out of criminal law and into politics, he'd be a motherfucker to come up against in court.'

'Yeah, I've heard,' Bosch said. 'Whatever you've heard, you can double it.' 'You know him?'

'Not now and not then. I just knew to keep clear. He was already out of the office by the time I came in. But there were stories. Supposedly in those early days, when Arno was the heir apparent and everybody knew it, there was a lot of maneuvering. You know, to get next to him. There was one guy, Sinclair I think his name was, that was set to run Arno's campaign. Then one night the cleaning lady found some porno shots under his blotter. There was an internal investigation and the photos proved to be