The Crossing Read Online Free PDF Page A

conservative city councilman. Skinner was a politics reporter for the
Times
. Bosch understood why she’d be called in on a Sunday. But what he didn’t understand is why she had not called him to tell him, maybe pick his brain about who she should call in the LAPD to try to get details. It underlined for him what had been going on in their relationship for the past month or so. Or rather not going on.
    “I have to go, Harry.”
    “Right. Sorry. I’ll call you after.”
    “No, I’ll call you.”
    “Okay. Are we still having dinner tonight?”
    “Yes, fine, but I need to go.”
    She disconnected. Bosch went back inside the house to grab a beer out of the refrigerator and to check its stores. He determined that he had nothing he could tempt Virginia with to come up the mountain. Besides, Bosch’s daughter would be coming home from her Police Explorer’s shift at about eight and it could get awkward with Virginia in the house. She and Maddie were still in the early stages of getting to know each other’s boundaries.
    Bosch decided that when Skinner called back, he would offer to meet her somewhere for dinner downtown.
    He had just opened a bottle and switched the CD to a Ron Carter import recorded at the Blue Note Tokyo when his phone buzzed.
    “Hey, that was fast.”
    “I just turned in the story. It’s just a sidebar on the political implications for Milton. Richie Bed-wetter will call me in ten or fifteen minutes to go over the edit. Is that enough time to talk?”
    Richie Bed-wetter was her editor, Richard Ledbetter. She called him that because he was inexperienced and young—more than twenty years her junior—but insisted on trying to tell her how to handle her beat and write her stories and a once-a-week column on local politics, which he wanted to call a blog. Things would be coming to a head between them soon, and Bosch was worried that Virginia was the vulnerable one, since her experience translated into a higher paycheck and therefore a more appealing target to management.
    “Where do you want to go? Somewhere downtown?”
    “Or near your place. Your call. But not Indian.”
    “Of course, no Indian. Let me think on it and I’ll have a plan when you’re close. Call me before you reach Echo Park. In case.”
    “Okay. But listen, can you do me a favor and pull up some stories on a case?”
    “What case?”
    “There’s a guy that got arrested for murder. LAPD case, I think. His name is Da’Quan Foster. I want to see—”
    “Yeah, Da’Quan Foster. The guy who killed Lexi Parks.”
    “Right.”
    “Harry, that’s a big case.”
    “How big?”
    “You don’t need me to pull stories. Just go on the paper’s website and punch in her name. There are a lot of stories about her because of who she was and because he didn’t get arrested until like a month after it happened. And it’s not an LAPD case. It’s Sheriff’s. Happened in West Hollywood. Look, I gotta go. Just got the signal from Richie.”
    “Okay, I’ll—”
    She was gone. Bosch put the phone in his pocket and went back to the dining room table. Holding the corners of the newspaper, he pulled the carburetor project to the side. He then took his laptop down off a shelf and turned it on. While he waited for it to boot, he looked at the carburetor sitting on the newspaper. He realized he had been wrong to think that restoring the old motorcycle could take the place of anything.
    On the stereo Ron Carter was accompanied by two guitars and playing a Milt Jackson song called “Bags’ Groove.” It got Bosch thinking about his own groove and what he was missing.
    When the computer was ready he pulled up the
Times
website and searched the name Lexi Parks. There were 333 stories in which Lexi Parks was mentioned, going back six years, long before her murder. Bosch narrowed it to the current year and found twenty-six stories listed by date and headline. The first was dated February 10, 2015:
Well-Liked WeHo Asst. Manager Found Murdered in