Bosch had seen enough dead people to know that literally nothing was impossible during the last breaths. He had worked a suicide in which a man who had shot himself in the head had then changed pants before dying, apparently because he did not want his body to be discovered soaked in human waste.
Michael Connelly, The Black Echo, 1992
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To understand the humor of the following item one needs to know that the speaker, Sakai, is a homicide tech.
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People are dying to meet us, Bosch.
Sakai, in: Michael Connelly, The Black Echo, 1992
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Bosch knew he had nothing to worry about. IAD wouldn't even look at an officer-on-officer beef without a corroborating witness or tape recording. One cop's word against another's was something they wouldn't touch in this department. Deep down, they knew a cop's word by itself was worthless. That was why Internal Affairs cops always worked in pairs.
Michael Connelly, The Black Echo, 1992
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She walked away with Bosch thinking that waitresses were probably better observers of human behavior than most cops.
Michael Connelly, The Black Echo, 1992
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You are an institutional man, Detective Bosch. Your whole life. Youth shelters, foster homes, the army, then the police. Never leave the system. One flawed societal institution after another.
FBI agent Eleonor Wish, in: Michael Connelly, The Black Echo, 1992
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He quickly used his hand to carefully smooth back the strands of hair that had slipped off his balding cranium. He didn't realize that he was smearing black char from his hand across his forehad as he did this and Bosch didn't tell him. (several paragraphs omitted) For a few moments he watched Pounds talking to the reporters and saw the first thing worth smiling about all day. Pounds was on camera but apparently none of the reporters had told him about the dirt smeared across his forehead.
Michael Connelly, The Concrete Blonde, 1994
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As at any murder scene a carefully orchestrated and incestuous caste system was in effect. The detectives did most of the talking amongst themselves or to the SID tech. The uniforms didn't speak unless spoken to. The body movers, the lowest on the totem pole, spoke to no one except the coroner's tech. The coroner's tech said little to the cops. He despised them because in his view they were whiners -- always needed this or that, the autopsy done, the tox tests done, all of it done by yesterday.
Michael Connelly, The Concrete Blonde, 1994
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It looked as though he was composing himself, and Bosch saw that he shared the same sick expression with the civilians. Though Pounds was commander of Hollywood detectives, including the homicide table, he had never actually worked homicide himself. Like many of the department's administrators, his climb up the ladder was based on test scores and brown-nosing, not experience. It always pleased Bosch to see someone like Pounds get a dose of what real cops dealt with every day.
Michael Connelly, The Concrete Blonde, 1994
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You do not consider them evidence. They may make some highfalutin allegations, but just because they say it doesn't make it true. After all, they're lawyers.
US District Judge Alva Keyes, about opening statements, in: Michael Connelly, The Concrete Blonde, 1994
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Today she had on the gray suit. She had been alternating among three suits since jury selection began. Belk had told Bosch that this was because she didn't want to give the jurors the idea that she was wealthy. He said women lawyers could lose women jurors over something like that.
Michael Connelly, The Concrete Blonde, 1994
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The search of the house took more than four hours. The five of them, working methodically and silently, searched every room, every drawer, every cabinet. What little evidence they gathered of Detective Ray Mora's secret life they put on the dining room table. All the while, their host remained in the upstairs gym room, cuffed to one of the chrome bars of the weight machine. He was accorded fewer rights than a murderer would have received had he been arrested in his home. No phone call. No lawyer. No rights. This was always the case when cops investigated cops. Every cop knew the most flagrant abuses of police power occurred when cops turned on their own.
Michael Connelly, The Concrete Blonde, 1994
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The closet was where most cops kept their guns while off duty; going to the closet was department slang for a cop killing himself. Connors was on old beat cop in Hollywood Division who had killed himself the year before while he was under IAD investigation for trading dime bags of heroin to runaway girls for sex.
Michael Connelly, The Last Coyote, 1995
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It was obvious to Bosch by their being in Irving's conference room instead of an IAD interview room that Irving wanted to keep a tight control on this one. If it turned out to be a cop-killed-cop case, he'd need all the control he could muster to contain it. It could be a publicity debacle to rival those of the Rodney King days.
Michael Connelly, The Last Coyote, 1995
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Brockman was flustered again. He wasn't expecting something like this, Bosch could tell. Most cops never realized how important the initial interview with a suspect or witness was to an investigation. It informed all other interviews and even court testimony that followed. You had to be prepared. Like lawyers, you had to know most of the answers before you asked the questions. The IAD relied so much on its presence as an intimidating factor that most of the detectives assigned to the division never really had to prepare for interviews. And when they hit a wall like this, they didn't know what to do.
Michael Connelly, The Last Coyote, 1995
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Being dead does not absolve them of everything.
Carmen Hinojos, in: Michael Connelly, The Last Coyote, 1995
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It wasn't the official police burial with all the fanfare and colors. That ritual was reserved for those who fell in the line of duty. Though it could be argued that it was still a line-of-duty death, it wasn't considered one by the department. So Sean didn't get the Show and most of the Denver police force stayed away. Suicide is believed to be contagious by many in the thin blue line.
Jack McEvoy, in: Michael Connelly, The Poet, 1996
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The man hadn't been there before. And most alarmingly, he was wearing a sport coat and tie. The man was either a pervert or a policeman.
Jack McEvoy, in: Michael Connelly, The Poet, 1996
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Most of the longer reports examined suicide as a job risk that went with police work. Each started with a particular cop's suicide and then steered the story into a discussion among shrinks and police experts on what made cops eat their guns. All of the stories concluded that there was a causal relationship between police suicide and job stress and a traumatic event in the life of the victim.
Jack McEvoy, in: Michael Connelly, The Poet, 1996
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My experience with cops as a reporter had always been not to make appointments. If you did, all you were doing was giving them a specific place to avoid and the exact time to avoid it. Most didn't like talking to reporters, the majority didn't like even being seen with reporters. And the few that did you had to be cautious of. So you had to sneak up on them. It was a game.
Jack McEvoy, in: Michael Connelly, The Poet, 1996
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He thanked me and left the office. The episode served as a reminder to me of why I never liked dealing with FBI agents. In general, they all carried anal-retentive genes. More than most.
Jack McEvoy, in: Michael Connelly, The Poet, 1996
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He also wore a gray suit but had the air of the man in charge. (...) We shook hands and Backus had a vise for a grip. That was as standard FBI macho as the suit.
Jack McEvoy, in: Michael Connelly, The Poet, 1996
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She freely admitted that being a woman plus having a law degree put her on the bureau's fast track. The BSS was a plum assignment.
Jack McEvoy, in: Michael Connelly, The Poet, 1996
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If they move me the unit loses one of the only three females and they know I'll make a beef about it.
FBI agent Rachel Walling, in: Michael Connelly, The Poet, 1996
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I've got an enviable position in the BSS but make no mistake, the bureau's a man's world. (...) But he's got to be more careful with me than him. Prevailing factors, you know. He's got to have his shit together if he's going to try to move a woman out of the unit. So, that's my edge.
FBI agent Rachel Walling, in: Michael Connelly, The Poet, 1996
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She would never have made it before the department relaxed the physical requirements to attract more women. (...) Her double minority status coupled with the facts that she was good at what she did and had a guardian angel -- Billets wasn't sure who -- at Parker Center practically guaranteed her stay in Hollywood would be short.
Michael Connelly, Trunk Music, 1997
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She had risen to detective bureau commander primarily on the success of her skills as an administrator, not as an investigator. She knew when to watch and not get in the way.
Michael Connelly, Trunk Music, 1997
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He talked me into being in one of his movies once. That's how I met him. Made it sound like I was going to be the new Jane Fonda. You know, sexy but smart.
Veronica Aliso, in: Michael Connelly, Trunk Music, 1997
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Bosch had never liked Las Vegas, though he came often on cases. It shared a kinship with Los Angeles; both were places desperate people ran to. Often, when they ran from Los Angeles, they came here. It was the only place left. Beneath the veneer of glitz and money and energy and sex beat a dark heart. Now matter how much they tried to dress her up with neon and family entertainment, she was still a whore.
Michael Connelly, Trunk Music, 1997
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He was maneuvering to protect the department when the rot they were seeking might be inside it. But what Irving didn't know was that Bosch had accomplished everything in his life by channeling negatives into motivation. He vowed to himself that he would clear the case in spite of Irving's maneuvers. And the chips would fall where they would fall.
Michael Connelly, Angels Flight, 1999
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I don't have the time to wait on a warrant. I'm going in. A homicide case is like a shark. It's gotta keep moving or it drowns.
Detective Harry Bosch, in: Michael Connelly, Angels Flight, 1999
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Bosch was looking at Edgar as he said this last part. Edgar almost imperceptibly nodded, meaning that he understood that Bosch was telling him to find the car and to simply open it and search it. If anything of value to the investigation was found, then he would simply back out, get a warrant and they would act as if they had never been in the car in the first place. It was standard practice.
Michael Connelly, Angels Flight, 1999
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(...) the briefing is in an hour. I want your two partners there for it. I am not going to stand up there with a bunch of white faces behind me and say we are letting a white cop go pending further investigations.
Deputy Chief Irving, in: Michael Connelly, Angels Flight, 1999
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He is rich, and that always gives the appearance of intellect.
Kate Kincaid, in: Michael Connelly, Angels Flight, 1999
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Bosch had an idea what was coming. The fixer was here now. The investigation was about to go through the spin cycle where decisions and public pronouncements would be made based on what best served the department, not the truth.
Michael Connelly, Angels Flight, 1999
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That was a good sign. his calling a movie a film. Especially a cop movie. The ones who took themselves too seriously -- meaning they had money -- called them films. (...) He looked maybe twenty-five years old tops. Cassie wondered where he would get his dialogue from. He didn't look as though he had ever met a cop in his life, let alone any outlaws. The dialogue would probably come from television or other movies, she decided. (...) Another bingo. She had called him the wrong name on purpose, just to see if he would correct her. That he did meant he was serious and ego-driven, a good combination when it came to selling and buying automobiles that were serious and ego-driven.
Michael Connelly, Void Moon, 2000
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The last fifty miles took him a frustrating hour to cover. He decided that people in Los Angeles drove the way people walk through casinos: oblivious to the fact that somebody else might be on the road and need to get somewhere.
Michael Connelly, Void Moon, 2000
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If he made any "official" income he would lose his eligibility for the state medical assistance that paid for the fifty-four pills he swallowed every day. The pills were so expensive that if he had to pay for them himself he'd be bankrupt inside six months, unless he happened to be drawing a six-figure salary. It was the ugly secret behind the medical miracle that had saved him. He got a second chance at life, just as long as he didn't use it to try to earn a living.
Michael Connelly, A Darkness more than Night, 2001
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I apologize for the delay. Please remember that the justice system is in essence run by lawyers. As such it runs slowwwwwwly.
Judge Houghton, in: Michael Connelly, A Darkness more than Night, 2001
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There was polite laughter in the courtroom. Bosch noticed that the attorneys -- prosecution and defense -- dutifully joined in, a couple of them overdoing it. It had been his experience that while in open court a judge could not possibly tell a joke that the lawyers did not laugh at.
Michael Connelly, A Darkness more than Night, 2001
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Higher job, higher stress, higher level of offense.
Terry McCaleb, in: Michael Connelly, A Darkness more than Night, 2001
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After we found her we all felt so good. It was the best high I've ever had on this job. I went to Bosch and said, 'You must have kids. You spoke to her like she was one of your own.' And he just shook his head and said no. He said, 'I just know what it's like to be alone and in the dark.'
Jaye Winston, in: Michael Connelly, A Darkness more than Night, 2001
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Let your fingers do the walking through the voters registration -- I've got it on CD-ROM. She's a registered Democrat, if you can believe it. A homicide cop who votes Democrat. Wonders never cease.
Rudy Tafero, in: Michael Connelly, A Darkness more than Night, 2001
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The handshake consisted of fingers hooked together like train car couplings and then three quick squeezes like gripping a rubber ball at a blood bank -- the Doomsters had sold plasma on a regular basis while in college in order to buy beer, marijuana and computer software.
Michael Connelly, Chasing the Dime, 2002
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They mostly committed pranks, their best being the time they hacked into the local telephone company's 411 information bank and changed the number for the Domino's Pizza closest to campus to the home number of the dean of the Computer Sciences Department.
Michael Connelly, Chasing the Dime, 2002
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It wasn't too far from the truth, anyway. It was social engineering. Turn the truth just a little bit and make it work for you.
Michael Connelly, Chasing the Dime, 2002
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Langwiser nodded but didn't seem particularly interested in his protestations of innocence. Pierce had always heard that good defense attorneys were never as interested in the ultimate question of their clients' guilt or innocence as they were in the strategy of defense. They practiced law, not justice. Pierce found this frustrating because he wanted Langwiser to acknowledge his innocence and then go out and fight to defend it.
Michael Connelly, Chasing the Dime, 2002
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You forget, I've been in this department more than twenty-five years. You're just a boot, a baby. I've got more enemies inside the wire than you've got arrests under your belt. Some of these people would take any opportunity to put me down if they could. It sounds like I'm just worrying about myself here, but the thing is if they need to go after a rookie to get to me, they'll do it in a heartbeat. I mean that. A heartbeat.
Harry Bosch, in: Michael Connelly, City of Bones, 2002
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LT:You think that matters? That doesn't matter. You're a D-three. That's supervisor level. She's a grunt and a rookie no less. If this was the military you'd get a dishonorable just for starters. Maybe even some custody time.
HB: But this is the LAPD. So what's it get me? A promotion?
Lt. Gilmore and Harry Bosch, in: Michael Connelly, City of Bones, 2002
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The department doesn't care about it. The department cares about the image, not the truth. And when the truth endangers the image, then fuck the truth.
Harry Bosch, in: Michael Connelly, City of Bones, 2002
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He knew better than to trust the instincts of young prosecutors.
Michael Connelly, City of Bones, 2002
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--there are more retired cops in the backwoods of Humboldt County than there are marijuana growers, only the growers don't know it.
Harry Bosch, in: Michael Connelly, Lost Light, 2003
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Why don't you relax, man? You've got nothing to worry about as far as I can tell. You've got a boss who's more interested in a cover-up than a cleanup. You'll do okay on this, Milton. I think he's mad because you got caught, not because of what you did.
Harry Bosch, in: Michael Connelly, Lost Light, 2003
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Cates got up. If he had been a white man the embarrassment would have been more recognizable on his face.
Michael Connelly, The Narrows, 2004
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The four of them got up and left the room without speaking. It was painful for Rachel to watch. The unchecked arrogance of command staff was endemic in the bureau. It was never going to change.
Michael Connelly, The Narrows, 2004
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Look, he's outnumbered here, okay? It's natural that he'd pick one of us to play to. It's covered in the manual on interview techniques and tendencies. Check it out sometime.
Agent Rachel Walling, in: Michael Connelly, The Narrows, 2004
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RW: I just like his style. He acts like he still has the badge, you know? He didn't stand down to us and I think that's sort of cool.
CD: You've been out in the boonies too long, Rachel, or you wouldn't say that. We don't like people who won't stand down to us.
Agent Rachel Walling and agent Cherie Dei, in: Michael Connelly, The Narrows, 2004
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You know, before nine-eleven and Homeland Security, we used to get whatever we needed. Bagging serials were the best headlines the bureau got. Now it's terrorists twenty-four-seven and we can't even get overtime.
Agent Cherie Dei, in: Michael Connelly, The Narrows, 2004
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Rachel noted how Dei pointedly did not say whether she wanted her to check up on Bosch or not. A nice way to have deniability if something went wrong.
Michael Connelly, The Narrows, 2004
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He hit the gas and pulled loudly out onto Charleston. He did this purposely. He knew that on the off chance there was a fourth car, a trailer, the car they would find the least suspicious would be the one with the driver boldly drawing attention to himself.
Michael Connelly, The Narrows, 2004
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Man, that hurts. In L. A. what they do if they want to get rid of you is give you what they call 'freeway therapy,' transfer you to the division furthest from where you live so you have to fight the traffic every day. Couple years of two-hour commutes and guys turn in their badges.
PI Harry Bosch, in: Michael Connelly, The Narrows, 2004
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The search for Backus officially ended with the discovery of the body in the drainage tunnel. Even though scientific confirmation of identity was never made, the credentials, badge and Italian suit were enough for bureau command to act swiftly in announcing closure to a case that had held wide sway in the media and had severely undercut the bureau's already tarnished image. But meantime a quiet investigation continued into the psychological backgrounding of the killer agent. These were the reports I now read. Led by the Behavioral Sciences section -- the very unit in which Backus worked -- this investigation seemed more concerned with the question of why he did what he did than with the question of how he was able to do it under the noses of the top experts in the killing field. The investigative direction was probably a protective measure. They looked at the suspect, not the system.
PI Harry Bosch, in: Michael Connelly, The Narrows, 2004
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RW: He's got all kinds of deniability on that. First, and most important, that was another director's watch. So he can lay anything he needs to off on him. That's FBI tradition. But realistically, that was another country and it wasn't an investigation we were running. And it was never absolutely confirmed. (...) So the director can simply say nothing was for sure about Backus in Amsterdam. Either way he's safe. He just has to worry about the here and the now.
HB: Manage the moment.
RW: FBI one-oh-one.
HB: And you people are going along with his going public?
RW: No. We asked for a week. He gave us the day. The press conference is at six p.m. eastern time.
HB: Like anything's going to happen today.
RW: Yeah we know. We're fucked.
HB: Backus will probably go under, change his face again and not turn up for another four years.
RW: Probably. But the director won't get hit with any blowback on it. He'll be safe.
Agent Rachel Walling and PI Harry Bosch, in: Michael Connelly, The Narrows, 2004
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The DNA made everybody jump to a conclusion. It's what's wrong with the world. People think technology is an easy ride. They're watching too much TV.
Harry Bosch, in: Michael Connelly, The Closers, 2005
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Garcia shook his head like a man who had spent a career dealing with the department's frustrations.
Michael Connelly, The Closers, 2005
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He and Green had made early mistakes but recovered to conduct a by-the-numbers investigation of the murder. The murder book bore this out. But Bosch now guessed that whatever was done well was probably done by Green. He knew he should have suspected as much when he heard that Garcia had given up homicide for management.
Harry Bosch, in: Michael Connelly, The Closers, 2005
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"Where's Kiz?" Pratt asked.
"She's working on the warrant at home. She can think better there."
"I can't think when I get home. I can only react. I have twin boys."
"Good luck."
Harry Bosch and Abel Pratt, in: Michael Connelly, The Closers, 2005
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By labeling Garcia a housekeeper Edgar was saying that Garcia rode his partner's coattails. Green was the real homicide cop and Garcia was the guy who backed him up and kept the murder books tidy and up to date. A lot of partnerships got sanded down into such relationships. An alpha dog and his assistant.
Michael Connelly, The Closers, 2005
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An uncoerced confession is a royal flush. It beats everything.
Michael Connelly, Echo Park, 2006
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Bosch smiled. She was in a hospital bed with two bullet wounds and she was still giving him shit.
Michael Connelly, Echo Park, 2006
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He would have had to provide a birth certificate, but that would not have been too hard to come up with if he knew the right people. Not in Hollywood. Not in L.A. Getting a phony birth certificate would have been an easy, almost risk-free task.
Michael Connelly, Echo Park, 2006
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Maybe her move from police to politics had changed something in her. Maybe, as with most who worked in the realm of politics, her sense of integrity had been sanded down by exposure to the world's oldest profession: political whoring.
Michael Connelly, Echo Park, 2006
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Ferras started using his thumbs to type on the phone's tiny keyboard. It looked like some sort of child's toy to Bosch. Like the ones he had seen kids use on planes. He didn't understand why people were always typing feverishly on their phones. He was sure it was some sort of warning, a sign of the decline of civilization or humanity but he couldn't put his finger on the right explanation for what he felt. The digital world was always billed as a great advancement but he remained skeptical.
Michael Connelly, The Overlook, 2006
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I don't know, Harry. But don't those hardcore Muslims have a rule about hurting women? Like it keeps them out of nirvana or heaven or whatever they call it?
Ignacio Ferras, in: Michael Connelly, The Overlook, 2006
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Ferras put the Blackberry down and turned back to his computer. Like many detectives he preferred to use his own laptop because the computers provided by the department were old and slow and most of them carried more viruses than a Hollywood Boulevard hooker.
Michael Connelly, The Overlook, 2006
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Bosch believed that the chief had been good for the department. He had made a few missteps politically and some questionable choices in command staff assignments but had largely been responsible for raising the morale of the rank and file. That was no easy task. The chief had inherited a department operating under a federal consent decree negotiated in the wake of the FBI's Rampant corruption probe and myriad other scandals. All aspects of operation and performance were subject to review and compliance assessment by federal monitors. The result was that the department was not only answering to the feds but was awash in federal paperwork.
Michael Connelly, The Overlook, 2006
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She pushed him away. He knew she was angry with herself for being caught in a lie. It was the second time in less than twelve hours.
Michael Connelly, The Overlook, 2006
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And I'm talking about the facts of the case. Not the fact that the bureau and Homeland Security and the rest of the federal government would love this to b e a terrorism event so they can justify their existence and deflect criticism from other failings.
Harry Bosch, in: Michael Connelly, The Overlook, 2006
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What about motive? This is a federal agent we're talking about. To move on this we need everything, even motive. There can be nothing left open to chance.
FBI agent Rachel Walling, in: Michael Connelly, The Overlook, 2006
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There's nothing more ingenious than framing terrorists with a crime they didn't commit. They can never defend themselves.
Harry Bosch, in: Michael Connelly, The Overlook, 2006
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Everybody lies. Cops lie. Lawyers lie. Witnesses lie. The victims lie. A trial is a contest of lies. And everybody in the courtroom knows this. The judge knows this. Even the jury knows this. They come into the building knowing they will be lied to. They take their seats in the box and agree to be lied to.
Michael Connelly, The Brass Verdict, 2008
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The woman had a dazed look on her face. Her mascara was heavy and running beneath one eye. It gave her an uneven, almost comical look. For some reason a vision of Liza Minnelli jumped to my mind.
Mickey Haller, in: Michael Connelly, The Brass Verdict, 2008
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Mounted on the wall beneath the fish was a brass plate. It said: IF I'D KEPT MY MOUTH SHUT I WOULDN'T BE HERE. Words to live by, I thought. Most criminal defendants talk their way into prison. Few talk their way out. The best single piece of advice I have ever given a client is to just keep your mouth shut. Talk to no one about your case, not even your own wife. You keep close counsel with yourself. You take the nickel and you live to fight another day.
Mickey Haller, in: Michael Connelly, The Brass Verdict, 2008
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He was like me, liked to stay in state court. It's a numbers game. More cases, more fuck-ups, more holes to slip through. The feds kind of like to stack the deck. They don't like to lose.
Mickey Haller, in: Michael Connelly, The Brass Verdict, 2008
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Royce still carried an English accent even though he had lived more than half his fifty years in the United States. It gave him an aura of culture and distinction that belied his practice of defending people accused of heinous crimes.
Mickey Haller, in: Michael Connelly, The Reversal, 2010
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Revelle was a mannish-looking woman who wore slacks and a sport jacket. She had ex-cop written all over her dour expression.
Mickey Haller, in: Michael Connelly, The Reversal, 2010
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I have always had the suspicion that officers assigned to front desk duty were chosen
by cunning supervisors because of their skills in obfuscation and disinformation. If you
doubt this, walk into any police station in the city and tell the desk officer who greets
you that you wish to make a complaint against a police officer. See how long it takes
him to find the proper form. Desk cops are usually young and dumb and unintentionally
ignorant, or old and obdurate and completely deliberate in their actions.
Mickey Haller, in: Michael Connelly, The Fifth Witness, 2010
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On a search warrant police throw as wide a net as the court allows. It’s better
to seize as much as possible than leave anything behind. Sometimes that means
seizing items that ultimately have nothing to do with the case.
Mickey Haller, in: Michael Connelly, The Fifth Witness, 2010
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Lorna, my second ex-wife, had actually done what I had told her to do. It was
a first.
Mickey Haller, in: Michael Connelly, The Fifth Witness, 2010
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The LAPD is a paramilitary organization, Chu. That means when someone of higher rank tells you to do something, you do it.
Harry Bosch, in: Michael Connelly, The Drop, 2011
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