With the preliminaries out of the way, Bosch knew that she now had to finesse the rest, because the plaintiff was essentially presenting a two-part case, hoping to win at least one of them. One being that maybe Norman Church was the Dollmaker, a monstrous serial killer, but even if so, Bosch’s actions behind the badge were equally heinous and should not be forgiven. The second part, the one that would surely bring untold riches if the jury bought it, was that Norman Church was an innocent and that Bosch had cut him down in cold blood, depriving his family of a loving husband and father.

“The evidence presented this week points to two possible findings by you,” Chandler told the jury. “And this will be the most difficult task you have, to determine the level of Detective Bosch’s culpability. Without a doubt it is clear that he acted rashly, recklessly and with wanton disregard for life and safety on the night Norman Church was killed. His actions were inexcusable and a man paid for it with his life. A family paid for it with its husband and father.

“But you must look beyond that at the man who was killed. The evidence-from the videotape that is a clear alibi for one killing attributed to Norman Church, if not all of them, to the testimony of loved ones-should convince you that the police had the wrong man. If not, then Detective Bosch’s own acknowledgments on the witness stand make it clear that the killings did not stop, that he killed the wrong man.

Bosch saw that Belk was scribbling on his pad. Hopefully, he was making note of all the things about Bosch’s testimony and others that Chandler was conveniently leaving out of her argument.

“Lastly,” she was saying, “you must look beyond the man who was killed and look at the killer.”

Killer, Bosch thought. It sounded so awful when applied to him. He said the word over and over in his mind. Yes, he had killed. He had killed before and after Church, yet being called simply a killer without the explanations attached somehow seemed horrible. In that moment he realized that he did care after all. Despite what he had said earlier to Belk, he wanted the jury to sanction what he had done. He needed to be told he had done the right thing.

“You have a man,” she said, “who has repeatedly shown the taste for blood. A cowboy who killed before and since the episode with the unarmed Mr. Church. A man who shoots first and looks for evidence later. You have a man with a deep-seated motive for killing a man who he thought might be a serial killer of women, of women from the street… like his own mother.”

She let that float out there for a while as she pretended to be checking a point or two in the notes on her pad.

“When you go back into that room, you will have to decide if this is the kind of police officer you want in your city. The police force is supposed to mirror the society it protects. Its officers should exemplify the best in us. Ask yourself while you deliberate, who does Harry Bosch exemplify? What segment of our society does he present the mirror image of? If the answers to those questions don’t trouble you, then return with a verdict in the defendant’s favor. If they do trouble you, if you think our society deserves better than the cold-blooded killing of a potential suspect, then you have no choice but to return a verdict finding for the plaintiff.”

Chandler paused here to go to the plaintiff’s table and pour a glass of water. Belk leaned close to Bosch and whispered, “Not bad but I’ve seen her do better… I’ve also seen her do worse.”

“The time she did worse,” Bosch whispered back, “did she win?”

Belk looked down at his pad, making the answer clear. As Chandler was returning to the lectern he leaned back to Bosch.

“This is her routine. Now she’ll talk about money. After getting the water, Money always talks about money.”

Chandler cleared her throat and began again.

“You twelve people are in a rare position. You have the ability to make societal change. Not many people ever get that chance. If you feel Detective Bosch was wrong, to whatever degree, and find for the plaintiff, you will be making change because you will be sending a clear signal, a message to every police officer in this city. From the chief and the administrators inside Parker Center two blocks from here to every rookie patrol officer on the street, the message will be that we do not want you to act this way. We will not accept it. Now, if you return such a verdict you must also set monetary damages. This is not a complicated task. The complicated part is the first part, deciding whether Detective Bosch was right or wrong. The damages can be anything, from one dollar to one million dollars or more. It doesn’t matter. What is important is the message. For with the message, you will bring justice for Norman Church. You will bring justice to his family.”

Bosch looked around behind himself and saw Bremmer in the gallery with the other reporters. Bremmer smiled slyly and Bosch turned back around. The reporter had been right on the money about Money.

Chandler walked back to the plaintiff’s table, picked up a book and took it back to the lectern. It was old and without a dust jacket, its green cloth binding cracking. Bosch thought he could see a mark, probably a library stamp, on the top edge of its pages.

“In closing now,” she said, “I would like to address a concern you might have. I know it is one I might have if I were in your place. And that is, how is it that we have come to have men like Detective Bosch as our police? Well, I don’t think we can hope to answer that and it is not at point in this case. But if you recall, I quoted to you the philosopher Nietzsche at the beginning of the week. I read his words about the black place he called the abyss. To paraphrase him, he said we must take care that whoever fights monsters for us does not also become a monster. In today’s society it is not hard to accept that there are monsters out there, many of them. And so it is not hard, then, to believe that a police officer could become a monster himself.

“After we finished here yesterday, I spent the evening at the library.”

She glanced over at Bosch as she said this, flaunting the lie. He stared back at her and refused the impulse to look away.

“And I’d like to finish by reading something I found that Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote about the same subject we are dealing with today. That chasm of darkness where it can be easy for a person to cross over to the wrong side. In his bookThe Marble Faun, Hawthorne wrote, ‘The chasm was merely one of the orifices of that pit of blackness that lies beneath us… everywhere.’

“Ladies and gentlemen, be careful in your deliberations and be true to yourselves. Thank you.”

It was so quiet that Bosch could hear her heels on the rug as she walked back to her seat.

“Folks,” Judge Keyes said, “we’re gonna take a fifteen minute break and then Mr. Belk gets his turn.”

As they were standing for the jury, Belk whispered, “I can’t believe she used the word orifice in her closing argument.”

Bosch looked at him. Belk seemed gleeful but Bosch recognized that he was just latching on to something, anything, so that he could pump himself up and get ready for his own turn behind the lectern. For Bosch knew that whatever words Chandler had used, she had been awfully good. Appraising the sweating fat man next to him, he felt not one bit of confidence.

Bosch went out to the justice statue and smoked two cigarettes during the break but Honey Chandler never came out. Tommy Faraway swung by, however, and clicked his tongue approvingly when he found the nearly whole cigarette she had put in the ash can before. He moved on without saying anything else. It occurred to Bosch that he had never seen Tommy Faraway smoke one of the stubs he culled from the sand.