The Drop

closet, Irving’s clothes were on hangers—shirt, pants and jacket—and his underwear, socks and shoes were on a side shelf next to a room safe with a partially opened door. Inside the safe were a wallet and a wedding ring along with an iPhone and a watch.
    The safe had a four-digit combination lock. Solomon had said it was found closed and locked. Bosch knew that the hotel management most likely had an electronic reader that was used to unlock the room safes. People forget combinations or check out, forgetting they’ve locked the safe. The device quickly goes through the ten thousand possible combinations until it hits the winner.
    “What was the combination?”
    “To the safe? I don’t know. Maybe Jerry got it from her.”
    “Her?”
    “The assistant manager who opened it for us. Her name’s Tamara.”
    Bosch removed the phone from the safe. He had the same model himself. But when he tried to access it he found it was password protected.
    “What do you want to bet that the password he keyed into the safe is the same password on the phone?”
    Glanville didn’t answer. Bosch put the phone back into the safe.
    “We need to get somebody up here to bag this stuff.”
    “We?”
    Bosch smiled, though Glanville couldn’t see it. He slid the hangers apart and checked the pockets on the clothing. They were empty. He then started looking at the buttons on the shirt. It was a dark blue dress shirt with black buttons. He checked the rest of the shirt and found that the right cuff was missing a button.
    He felt Glanville come up and look over his shoulder.
    “I think it’s a match to the one out there on the floor,” Bosch said.
    “Yeah, what’s it mean?” Glanville said.
    Bosch turned around and looked at him.
    “I don’t know.”
    Before leaving the room, Bosch noticed that one of the bed’s side tables was askew. One corner had been pulled away from the wall and Bosch guessed it had been done when Irving unplugged the clock.
    “What do you think, that he took the clock out there to listen to music from his iPhone?” he asked without looking back at Glanville.
    “Could be but there’s another dock out there under the TV for that. Maybe he just didn’t see it.”
    “Maybe.”
    Bosch moved back out to the suite’s living room and Glanville followed. Chu was on his phone and Bosch gave him the cut it off sign. Chu put his hand over the phone and said, “I’m getting good stuff here.”
    “Yeah, well, get it later,” Bosch said. “We have things to do.”
    Chu got off the phone and the four detectives stood in a circle in the middle of the room.
    “Okay, this is how I want to do this,” Bosch began. “We’re going to knock on every door in this building. We ask what people heard, what they saw. We cover—”
    “Jesus Christ, what a waste of time,” Solomon said, turning from the circle and looking out one of the windows.
    “We can leave no stone unturned,” Bosch said. “That way, if and when we call it suicide, nobody can second-guess us. Not the councilman, not the chief, not even the press. So the three of you split up the floors and start knocking on doors.”
    “People in here are all night crawlers,” Glanville said. “They’re still going to be sleeping.”
    “That’s good. That means we’ll get to them before they get out of the building.”
    “Okay, so we get to wake everybody up,” Solomon said. “What are you going to be doing?”
    “I’m going down to see the manager. I want a copy of the registration and the combination used to lock the room safe. I’ll see about cameras and after that I’ll check Irving’s car in the garage. You never know, maybe he left a note in the car. You two never checked it.”
    “We would’ve gotten to it,” Glanville said defensively.
    “Well, I’ll get to it now,” Bosch said.
    “The safe combo, Harry?” Chu asked. “What for?”
    “Because it might tell us whether it was Irving who punched it in.”
    Chu had a confused look on his face. Bosch decided he would explain it all later.
    “Chu, I also want you to climb that ladder out there and check the roof. Do that first, before you start knocking on doors.”
    “Got it.”
    “Thank you.”
    It was refreshing not to get a complaint. Bosch turned back to Crate and Barrel.
    “Now, here’s the part you two aren’t going to like.”
    “Oh, really?” Solomon said. “Imagine that.”
    Bosch walked over to the balcony doors, signaling them over. They stepped back out