“Harry, don’t walk out, where are you going?”

Bosch spoke without turning back to look.

“Give it to Jackson. He needs a case.”

“I’m giving it to you. Hey!”

Bosch strode down the center aisle and out the door to the elevator lobby. O’Toole didn’t follow him, and that was a good thing. The two things Bosch had the least patience for were politics and bureaucracy. And he believed O’Toole was engaged in both—but not necessarily by his own choice.

He rode the elevator to the tenth floor and then strode through the open door of the chief of police’s suite. There were four desks in the front room. Uniformed officers sat behind three of them. Behind the fourth was Alta Rose, who was arguably the most powerful civilian working in the police department. She had been guarding the entrance to the chief of police’s office for nearly three decades. She was part pit bull and part sweetheart of Sigma Chi. Anybody who dismissed her as simply a secretary was mistaken. She kept the chief’s schedule and more often than not told him where to be and when.

Bosch had been summoned to the chief’s office enough times over the years that Rose recognized him on sight. She smiled sweetly at him as he approached her desk.

“Detective Bosch, how are you?” she asked.

“I’m fine, Ms. Rose. How are things up here?”

“I’m not sure they could be any better. But I am sorry, I don’t have you on the chief’s calendar today. Have I made a mistake?”

“No, no mistake, Ms. Rose. I was just hoping to see if Marty—I mean, if the chief—has five minutes for me.”

Her eyes flitted down for a moment to the multiple-line telephone on her desk. One of the line buttons was glowing red.

“Oh, dear, he’s on a call.”

But Bosch knew that line was always lit, just so Alta Rose could turn people away if need be. Harry’s former partner Kiz Rider had spent time working in the chief’s office and had told Bosch the secret.

“He also has an evening appointment he’s going to have to leave for as soon as—”

“Three minutes, Ms. Rose. Just ask him. I think he’s probably even expecting me.”

Alta Rose frowned but got up from her desk and disappeared behind the big door to the inner sanctum. Bosch stood waiting.

Chief Martin Maycock had come up through the ranks. Twenty-five years before, he had been an RHD detective assigned to Homicide Special. So was Bosch. They had never partnered but they had worked task-force cases together, most notably on the Dollmaker investigation, which ended when Bosch shot the infamous serial killer to death in his Silver Lake kill pad. Maycock was handsome and more than competent, and he had a name that was easily if awkwardly remembered. He used the media attention and celebrity from those big cases to launch his rise through the command structure of the department, culminating in his appointment by the police commission as chief.