Bosch leaned his elbows down on the table and moved closer to Washburn.

“Yeah, well, I don’t name informants, Charles. But I can tell you that you’ve got a big problem here, because I did some checking based on what I was told, and it turns out that in nineteen ninety-two, a white woman was murdered in the alley right behind your house. So this isn’t no made-up shit.”

Washburn’s eyes lit with recognition.

“You mean that reporter bitch during the riots? You ain’t putting that on me, man. I’m clean on that and you can tell your ear witness that she keep lyin’ and she’s going to get fucked up.”

“Charles, I am not sure you want to be threatening witnesses in front of two law enforcement officers. Now you see if something were to happen to Latitia, whether or not she was a witness, you are going to be the first person we come after, you understand?”

Washburn said nothing and Bosch pressed on.

“Actually, I have more than one witness, Charles. I’ve got another person from the neighborhood who said you had a gun back then. A Beretta, as a matter of fact, and that’s just the kind of gun used to kill the woman in the alley.”

“That gun? I found that gun in my backyard, man!”

There. Washburn had made an admission. But he also had given a plausible explanation. It seemed too genuine and extemporaneous to be made up. Bosch had to go with it.

“Your yard? You want me to believe you just found it in your backyard?”

“Look, man, I was sixteen years old. My moms wouldn’t even let me go outside during the riot. She had a lock on my bedroom door from the outside and bars on the window. She put me in there and locked me in, man. You go check with her on it.”

“So, when did you find this gun?”

“When it was over, man. All over. I went out back and there it was in the grass when I was mowin’ the lawn. I didn’t know where it came from. I didn’t even know about that killin’ till my moms told me some police came ’n’ knocked on the door.”

“Did you tell your moms about the gun?”

“No. Fuck, no, I wasn’t going to tell her about no gun. And by then I didn’t even have it no more.”

Bosch made a furtive glance over his shoulder to Gant. Harry was moving out of his zone here. Washburn’s story had the desperation and detail of truth. Whoever had shot Jespersen could’ve tossed the murder weapon over the fence to get rid of it.

Gant picked up on the glance and stood up. He pulled his chair over next to Bosch’s. He was an equal player now.

“Charles, you’ve got a serious thing here,” he said in a tone that imparted that seriousness perfectly. “You have to know that we know more about this than you ever could. You can dig yourself out of a hole here if you don’t bullshit us. If you lie, we’re going to know it.”