Suicide Run Read Free Page A

her head.
    “No, never.”
    Bosch nodded and thanked her for her time. He asked if he could take the headshot and she said that was fine. At the door to the studio she stopped him with a question.
    “You don’t think she did this to herself, do you, Detective Bosch?”
    Bosch looked at her a long moment before answering. He knew he should keep his assumptions and theories to himself. But he could tell she needed the answer.
    “No, I don’t.”
    She shook her head. The alternate to suicide was somehow more horrible to contemplate.
    “Who would do this?” she asked. “Who
could
do this?”
    “I don’t know,” he said. “But I’m going to find out.”

    In the crime analysis office Bosch sat with an officer named Kizmin Rider. He had worked with her before and knew she was one of the quickest cops on a computer he had ever seen. She was clearly going places in the department and he knew she was being fast-tracked for administration. But the last time they had worked together she had confided that she really wanted to be a detective.
    When she was ready Bosch told her what he wanted.
    “I’m looking for suicides in the last five years,” Bosch said. “Young females.”
    “That’s going to be a lot.”
    She worked the keyboard and went into the department’s database. In less than a minute she had it.
    “Eighty-nine suicides of females between twenty and thirty.”
    Bosch nodded, trying to think of ways to narrow the search.
    “Do you have it by method?” he asked.
    “Yes. What are you looking for?”
    “Pills.”
    “That would be overdose.”
    She typed it in and had the answer in seconds. “Fifty-six.”
    “What about by profession? I think I’m looking at actresses only.”
    “That would be a catchall: entertainer.”
    She typed and had the answer before Bosch took his next breath.
    “Twenty-six.”
    “White females?”
    She typed.
    “Twenty-three.”
    Bosch nodded. He could think of nothing else to narrow it down to cases similar to Lizbeth Grayson’s phony suicide.
    “Can you print out the names and case numbers for me?”
    “No problem.”
    Thirty seconds later Bosch had the list and was ready to go down to archives to pull the files.
    “You need any help with that, Harry?” Rider asked.
    “You mean like you might want to do some detective work?”
    She smiled.
    “I wouldn’t mind,” she said. “It gets kind of boring up here looking at the computer all day.”
    Bosch checked his watch. It was almost lunchtime.
    “Tell you what. I’ll go pull the twenty-three files and then meet you in the cafeteria for lunch. We can look through them then. I could probably use the help because my partner thinks this is the wildest goose chase I’ve ever been on. He’s working on our backlog while I do this. And he’s losing his patience.”
    She kept her smile.
    “I’ll get a table and see you down there.”
    Bosch opened his briefcase and pulled out the Grayson file.
    “Start with this.”

    In the cafeteria, Bosch put the stack of files down on a table Rider had commandeered. She had half of a tuna fish sandwich on a plate and was looking through the last few documents in the Grayson file.
    “Are you sure you can do this?” he asked her.
    “No problem. What are we looking for?”
    “I don’t know yet. But if you read that file, you know there are inconsistencies in the Grayson case. The suicide note was a plant and a piece of jewelry is missing. A silver-chain necklace with a single pearl on it.”
    Rider frowned.
    “What about the autopsy?”
    “That was yesterday. We’re waiting on the tox.”
    “Was she raped?”
    “No abrasions. No DNA recovered.”
    “What do you think happened, Harry?”
    “What do I
think
happened? I think somebody drugged her and had his way with her when she couldn’t resist. And then he let her OD. Now ask me what I can prove.”
    “What can you prove?”
    “Nothing. That’s why I pulled these files.”
    “Looking for what?”
    “Sometimes you