Suicide Run

pacing. There was little space for this with the table and two chairs taking up most of the interview room but Blitzstein was moving from one wall to the opposite wall, repeatedly going back and forth. Each time his pattern brought him within inches of the one-way glass—mirrored on his side—and each time that he stared into his own eyes he was also unknowingly staring into Bosch’s eyes on the other side.
    “Okay,” Bosch finally said. “I’m ready.”
    He handed his cell phone to Gunn.
    “Keep this. If my partner calls with news, come in and say the captain’s on the phone.”
    “Got it.”
    They went into the detective bureau and Bosch filled two foam cups with coffee. He put four packs of sugar into one and took them both to the interview room. He entered and put the oversweetened coffee down on one side of the table in the center while he sat on the other side with the other.
    “Why don’t you sit down, Mr. Blitzstein,” he said. “Have some coffee. It’s going to be a long day for you.”
    Blitzstein came over and sat down.
    “Thank you,” he said. “Who are you? What’s going on with my wife?”
    “My name’s Harry Bosch. I’ve been assigned as lead detective on your wife’s case. I am very sorry for your loss. I am sorry to keep you waiting but hope to get you out of here as soon as possible so that you can be with your family and begin to make arrangements for your wife.”
    Blitzstein nodded his thanks. He picked up his coffee cup and sipped from it. His face soured at the taste but he didn’t complain. This was good. Bosch wanted him to keep drinking. He was hoping to push him into a sugar rush. People often mistook a sugar high for clarity of thought. Bosch knew the truth was that the rush made them take chances and they made mistakes.
    Blitzstein put the cup down and Bosch noticed he had used his left hand. There was the first mistake.
    “I just need to go over things once more before we get you out of here,” Bosch said.
    “I told everything I know to that black girl.”
    “You mean Detective Gunn? Well, that was sort of preliminary. Before I was assigned. I need to hear some things for myself. Plus we now have the advantage of having studied the crime scene and talked to the witnesses.”
    Blitzstein’s eyebrows shot up momentarily and he tried to cover by bringing the cup up and gulping down more coffee. But Bosch now had one of his tells and he registered it accordingly.
    “Wow, that’s hot!” he exclaimed. “You mean there are witnesses?”
    “We’ll get to the witnesses in a few minutes,” Bosch said. “First I want to hear your version of events again. This way I have it directly from you instead of secondhand through Detective Gunn. This way it’s not colored by anything anybody else has said or claimed to have seen.”
    “What do you mean, ‘claimed to have seen’?”
    “Just a turn of phrase, Mr. Blitzstein,” Bosch said.
    Blitzstein blew out his breath in exasperation and started recounting the same story he had told Gunn four hours earlier. He threw in no new details and left nothing out from his first accounting. This was unusual. True stories evolve as details are remembered and others are forgotten. A false story, one that has been rehearsed in the mind, usually remains constant. Bosch knew all of this and felt his suspicion of Blitzstein was moving onto more solid ground.
    “So how soon were you to the car after the shot?”
    “I don’t know because I didn’t hear it. But I don’t think it was too long. I had heard her pull in. I waited and when she didn’t come into the house, I went out to see what was wrong.”
    “So if somebody said they thought you were already at the car when the shot was fired, would they be wrong?”
    “What? Right at the—no way, I wasn’t right there when the shot was fired. I didn’t even see who did it. What are you trying to say?”
    Bosch shook his head.
    “I’m not trying to say anything. I’m trying to get as clear a picture of what happened as I can. As you can imagine, we get conflicting views. People say different things. I had a partner once who said if you put twenty people in a room and a naked man ran through it, you’d get twelve people who would say he was white, seven who would say he was black and at least one who would claim it was a woman.”
    Blitzstein didn’t even smile.
    “Tell you what,” Bosch said. “Why don’t you tell me your theory of what happened out