Suicide Run: Three Harry Bosch Stories by Michael Connelly Page A

We don’t have anything. No gun, no motive. Even if we find the money in the car, it’s not going to matter. It doesn’t preclude a follow home and we won’t be able to charge him.”
    “Then it’s an eight-by-eight case.”
    “What’s that mean?”
    “It means it’s going to come down to what happens in that eight-by-eight room at Parker Center. We go talk to him and wait for him to make a mistake.”
    “He’s a professional poker player, remember?”
    “Yeah, I remember.”
    It took them half an hour to get from Hollywood to Parker Center downtown because of the morning rush hour. In the third-floor Robbery-Homicide Division office Bosch watched David Blitzstein through one-way glass for five minutes as he readied himself for the interview. Blitzstein didn’t look like a man mourning the murder of his wife. He reminded Bosch more of a caged tiger. He was pacing. There was little space for this with the table and two chairs taking up most of the interview room but Blitzstein was moving from one wall to the opposite wall, repeatedly going back and forth. Each time his pattern brought him within inches of the one-way glass—mirrored on his side—and each time that he stared into his own eyes he was also unknowingly staring into Bosch’s eyes on the other side.
    “Okay,” Bosch finally said. “I’m ready.”
    He handed his cell phone to Gunn.
    “Keep this. If my partner calls with news, come in and say the captain’s on the phone.”
    “Got it.”
    They went into the detective bureau and Bosch filled two foam cups with coffee. He put four packs of sugar into one and took them both to the interview room. He entered and put the oversweetened coffee down on one side of the table in the center while he sat on the other side with the other.
    “Why don’t you sit down, Mr. Blitzstein,” he said. “Have some coffee. It’s going to be a long day for you.”
    Blitzstein came over and sat down.
    “Thank you,” he said. “Who are you? What’s going on with my wife?”
    “My name’s Harry Bosch. I’ve been assigned as lead detective on your wife’s case. I am very sorry for your loss. I am sorry to keep you waiting but hope to get you out of here as soon as possible so that you can be with your family and begin to make arrangements for your wife.”
    Blitzstein nodded his thanks. He picked up his coffee cup and sipped from it. His face soured at the taste but he didn’t complain. This was good. Bosch wanted him to keep drinking. He was hoping to push him into a sugar rush. People often mistook a sugar high for clarity of thought. Bosch knew the truth was that the rush made them take chances and they made mistakes.
    Blitzstein put the cup down and Bosch noticed he had used his left hand. There was the first mistake.
    “I just need to go over things once more before we get you out of here,” Bosch said.
    “I told everything I know to that black girl.”
    “You mean Detective Gunn? Well, that was sort of preliminary. Before I was assigned. I need to hear some things for myself. Plus we now have the advantage of having studied the crime scene and talked to the witnesses.”
    Blitzstein’s eyebrows shot up momentarily and he tried to cover by bringing the cup up and gulping down more coffee. But Bosch now had one of his tells and he registered it accordingly.
    “Wow, that’s hot!” he exclaimed. “You mean there are witnesses?”
    “We’ll get to the witnesses in a few minutes,” Bosch said. “First I want to hear your version of events again. This way I have it directly from you instead of secondhand through Detective Gunn. This way it’s not colored by anything anybody else has said or claimed to have seen.”
    “What do you mean, ‘claimed to have seen’?”
    “Just a turn of phrase, Mr. Blitzstein,” Bosch said.
    Blitzstein blew out his breath in exasperation and started recounting the same story he had told Gunn four hours earlier. He threw in no new details and left nothing out from