Before long, Bosch had finished his food. He looked across the table and saw that he might get a little bit of mac and cheese if he was lucky.

“You want anymore frickles?” he asked.

“No, you can have the rest,” she said.

He ate the remaining pickles with one bite. He eyed the book she was reading. It was assigned in English lit. She was near the end. Bosch guessed she had no more than a couple chapters left.

“I’ve never seen you jump on a book like that before,” he said. “You going to finish it tonight?”

“We’re not supposed to read the last chapter tonight but there’s no way I can stop. It’s sad.”

“You mean the guy dies?”

“No—I mean, I don’t know yet. I don’t think so. But I’m sad because it will be over.”

Bosch nodded. He wasn’t much of a reader but he knew what she meant. He remembered feeling that way when he got to the end of Straight Life, which might have been the last book he actually read cover to cover.

She put the book down so she could work on finishing her meal. Harry could now see that there would be no leftover mac and cheese for him.

“You know, you sort of remind me of him,” she said.

“Really? The kid in the book?”

“Mr. Moll said it’s about innocence. He wants to catch little children before they fall off the cliff. That’s the metaphor for the loss of innocence. He knows the realities of the real world and wants to stop the innocent children from having to face it.”

Mr. Moll was her teacher. Maddie had told Bosch that when they took tests in class, he climbed up and stood on his desk so he could watch the students from above and guard against cheating. The kids called him the “Catcher on the Desk.”

Bosch didn’t know how to respond to her, because he had never read the book. He had grown up in youth halls and occasional foster homes. Somehow, the assignment had never come to him. Even if it had, he probably wouldn’t have read it. He was not a good student.

“Well,” he said, “I think I sort of come in after they’ve gone over the cliff, don’t you think? I investigate murders.”

“No, but it’s what makes you want to do that,” she said. “You were robbed of things early. I think that made you want to be a policeman.”