In Sunlight or In Shadow

by Lawrence Block

  Bosch just nodded. Griffin gestured to one of the chairs in front of his desk.

  “Have a seat,” he said. “Tell me what you’ve found.”

  Bosch stayed standing.

  “This won’t take long,” he said. “The lead didn’t pan out. I went to Chicago but it wasn’t her.”

  Griffin leaned back in his seat, digesting Bosch’s words. He was a man of wealth and power and was unused to being told that things didn’t pan out. Things always panned out for Reginald Griffin, producer of three Academy Award–winning films.

  “Did you speak to her?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Bosch said. “At length. I also checked out her apartment while she and her roommate were at work. I found nothing that indicated she was hiding her true identity. It’s not her.”

  “You’re wrong, Bosch. It was her. I know it.”

  “She ran away eight years ago. That’s a long time and people change. Especially kids that age. The photo was not a good shot of her.”

  “You were supposed to be good, Bosch. Highly recommended. I should have hired someone else. Looks like I have to now.”

  “You won’t have to bother. Just find a geneticist.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Bosch’s hands had been in the pockets of his coat. He had zipped out the lining after returning from Chicago, but the El Niño rain pattern continued in the City of Angels and he needed the trench coat. It may not have kept him warm in Chicago but it would keep him dry in Los Angeles, even if it did make him look like a walking cliché. His daughter had reminded him of that. At least he wasn’t wearing a fedora with it.

  From the left pocket of the coat he produced a plastic bag. He leaned forward and placed it down on the desk.

  “DNA sample,” he said. “It’s hair I took off her brush when I was in her apartment. Get a lab to extract DNA and then compare it to yours. You’ll have scientific results then and you’ll see, she’s not your daughter.”

  Griffin grabbed the bag and looked at it.

  “You said she has a roommate,” he said. “How do I know this isn’t her fucking hair?”

  “Because her roommate is African-American and she’s also a guy,” Bosch said. “Any lab will be able to tell you the content of that bag comes from a Caucasian female.”

  Bosch put his hand back in his pocket. He wanted to get out of there. He knew he should have never taken the job in the first place. The stories Griffin’s daughter had told him while sitting on the bench in front of the “Nighthawks” made it clear that he needed to vet his employers before agreeing to do anything for them. You live, you learn. Bosch was new at the private eye business. It had been less than a year since he pulled the pin at the LAPD.

  Griffin pulled the plastic bag across the top of the desk and put it into a drawer.

  “I’ll have it checked,” he said. “But I want you to stay with the case. You must have other ideas, all those years you spent on cold cases tracing people.”

  Bosch shook his head.

  “You hired me to go to Chicago, follow the photo, you said,” Bosch said. “I did that and it wasn’t the right girl. I don’t think I am interested in the rest. When your daughter wants you to know where she is, she’ll reach out.”

  Griffin seemed incensed—either by Bosch’s rejection or the idea that he should wait on his daughter to make contact.

  “Bosch, we’re not done here. I want you on the case.”

  “You can get anybody to do what I do. Just look in a phonebook. I’m not interested in continuing the relationship. We are, in fact, done.”

  Bosch turned toward the office door. Griffin’s security man was there. He was looking over Bosch’s shoulder at his employer, looking for a signal or some direction on what to do; let Bosch leave or stop him.

  “Let him go,” Griffin said. “He’s useless—no wonder he demanded his money up front. She got to him. I know it was her in the photo but she got to him.”

  The security man opened the office door and stood to the side to let Bosch pass through.

  “Bosch!” Griffin called.

  Bosch was about to pass through the door. He stopped and then turned around to take Griffin’s final verbal assault head-on.

  “She told you about Maui, didn’t she?” Griffin asked.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Bosch said. “I told you, it wasn’t your daughter.”

  “I was drunk, goddamnit, and it never happened again.”

  Bosch waited for more but that was it. He turned and walked through the door.

  “I’ll show myself out,” he said to the security man.

  The door was closed behind him and the security man trailed him as Bosch made his way through the house to the front door. At one point he heard Griffin shouting again from his closed office.

  “I was drunk!”

  As if that were an excuse, Bosch thought.

  Outside the house Bosch got into his car and drove off the property. He hoped the old Cherokee dropped oil on the cobblestone driveway.

  When he was several blocks clear of the Griffin estate he pulled to the curb and grabbed the burner out of the cup holder between the seats. He called the one number that was programmed into the throw-away phone on a speed dial.

  The call was answered after three rings.

  “Yes?” a young woman’s voice said.

  “It’s me,” Bosch said. “I just left your father’s house.”

  “Did he believe you?”

  “I don’t think so. But I don’t know. He took the hair, said he’d have it tested. If he does that he might be convinced.”

  “And it won’t come back to your daughter?”

  “No, she’s never been DNA typed anywhere. It will come back as no match. Hopefully he’ll leave it at that.”

  “I’m going to move again. I can’t risk it.”

  “It might be the smart thing.”

  “Did he mention Maui?”

  “Yes, as I was leaving.”

  “The same story I told you?”

  “He didn’t tell the story but his bringing it up, that confirmed it for me. I knew I was doing the right thing.”

  There was a silence before she spoke again.

  “Thank you.”

  “No, I should thank you. Did you figure out the photo yet?”

  “Oh, yes, I did. It was from a book signing we had at the store with D. H. Reilly, the mystery novelist. The book he was signing—No Trap So Deadly—was optioned by my father’s company. I didn’t know that. At his office they have a clip service that pulls all media hits regarding their productions and properties. It helps them target promotions. It was just dumb luck. I was in the photo in background and he must’ve seen it when he was looking through all the newspaper clips on Reilly and the book he optioned.”

  Bosch thought about that for a moment. It seemed to work. A photo at a book signing tips off a search for a runaway daughter. Griffin had not told Bosch the origin of the photo he had given him when he hired him and put him on the case.

  “Angela,” Bosch said. “Considering all of this, I think you might want to change jobs too. You might even want to do more than just move house. You might want to change cities too.”

  “Okay,” she said in a quiet voice. “You are probably right. It’s just that I love it here.”

  “Pick someplace warm,” Bosch said. “Maybe Miami.”

  His attempt at humor fell flat. He heard only silence as Angela considered having to move again to avoid her father finding her.

  During the silence Bosch flashed for a moment on the painting. The man sitting alone at the counter. He wondered how long Angela could last as a nighthawk, moving from city to city, always being at the counter by herself.

  “Listen,” he said. “I’m not going to get rid of this phone, okay? I know that was the plan but I’m going to hold on to it. You call me anytime, okay? If you need help or even if you just want to talk. You call me anytime, okay?”

&n
bsp; “Okay,” she said. “Then I guess I keep this phone as well. You can call me too.”

  Bosch nodded even though she couldn’t see this.

  “I’ll do that,” he said. “You take care.”

  He ended the call and slipped the burner into the pocket of his trench coat. He checked the side-view mirror for traffic coming up behind him. He waited for it to clear and then he pulled away from the curb. He was hungry and wanted to get something to eat. He thought one more time about the man sitting alone at the counter.

  I am that man, he thought as he drove.

  A former journalist, folksinger and attorney, JEFFERY DEAVER is an international number-one bestselling author. His novels have appeared on bestseller lists around the world; they’re sold in 150 countries and translated into twenty-five languages.

  The author of thirty-seven novels, three collections of short stories, and a nonfiction law book, and a lyricist of a country-western album, he’s received or been shortlisted for dozens of awards. His The Bodies Left Behind was named Novel of the Year by the International Thriller Writers association, and his Lincoln Rhyme thriller The Broken Window and a stand-alone, Edge, were also nominated for that prize.He’s a seven-time Edgar nominee.

  Deaver has been honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Bouchercon World Mystery Convention and the Raymond Chandler Lifetime Achievement Award in Italy.

  His book A Maiden’s Grave was made into an HBO movie starring James Garner and Marlee Matlin, and his novel The Bone Collector was a feature release from Universal Pictures, starring Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie. Lifetime aired an adaptation of his The Devil’s Teardrop.

  While his father was an accomplished painter and his sister is a talented artist, Deaver’s last foray into art involved fingerpainting; sadly, his opus no longer exists, as his mother insisted that it be scrubbed off his bedroom wall.

  Hotel by a Railroad, 1952

  31¼ × 40 in. (79.4 × 101.9 cm). Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden,

  Smithsonian Institution; Gift of the Joseph H. Hirshhorn Foundation, 1966.

  Photography by Lee Stalsworth

  THE INCIDENT OF 10 NOVEMBER

  BY JEFFERY DEAVER

  December 2, 1954

  General Mikhail Tasarich, First Deputy Chairman of the

  Council of Ministers of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

  Kremlin Senate, Moscow

  Comrade General Tasarich:

  I, Colonel Mikhail Sergeyevich Sidorov, of recent attached to the GRU, Directorate for Military Intelligence, am writing this report regarding the incident of 10 November, of this year, and the death associated therewith.

  First, allow me to offer some information about myself. I will say that in my 48 years on this earth I have spent 32 of them as a soldier in the service of Our Mother-Homeland. And those have been proud years, years that I would not exchange for any sum. During the Great Patriotic War, I fought in the 62nd Army, 13th Guards Rifle Division (our motto, as you, Comrade, may recall, is: Not One Step Back! And, O, how we stayed true to that slogan!). I was privileged to serve under General Vasily Chuikov at Stalingrad, where you, of course, commanded the army that, during the glorious Operation Uranus, crushed the Romanian flank and encircled the German 6th Army (which merely months later surrendered, setting the stage for Our Mother-Homeland’s victory over the Nazi Reich). I myself was wounded several times in the butchery that was the defense of Stalingrad but continued to fight, despite the wounds and hardships. For my efforts I received the Order of Bogdan Khmelnitsky, 3rd Class, and the Order of Glory, 2nd Class. And, of course, my unit, as yours, Comrade General, was honored with the Order of Lenin.

  After the War, I remained in the military and joined the GRU, since I had, I was told, a knack for the subject of intelligence, having identified and denounced a number of soldiers whose loyalty to the army and to Revolutionary ideals was questionable. Everyone I denounced admitted their crime or was found guilty by tribunals and either executed or sent East. Few GRU officers had such a record as I.

  I ran several networks of spies, which were successful in halting Western attempts to infiltrate Our Mother-Homeland, and I was promoted through the GRU to my recent rank of colonel.

  In March of 1951 I was given the assignment of protecting a certain individual who was deemed instrumental in Our Mother-Homeland’s plans for self-defense against the imperialism of the West.

  The man I am referring to was a former German scientist, Heinrich Dieter, then aged 47.

  Comrade Dieter was born in Obernessa, Weissenfels, the son of a professor of mathematics. His mother was a teacher of science at a boarding school near her husband’s university. Comrade Dieter had one brother, his junior by three years. Comrade Dieter studied physics at the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg, which awarded him a bachelor’s of science degree, and he received a master’s of science in physics from Leopold Franzens University of Innsbruck. He completed his doctorate work in physics shortly thereafter at the University of Berlin. He specialized in column ionization of alpha particles. No, Comrade General, I too was not familiar with this esoteric subject but, as you will see in a moment, his discipline of study was to have quite some significant consequences.

  While in school he joined the student branch of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and the Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold, which served as the party’s paramilitary wing. But he quit these organizations after a time, as he showed little interest in politics, preferring to spend the hours in the classroom or laboratory. He was, it is asserted, part Jew, and accordingly could not join the Nazi Party. However, since he appeared apolitical and did not openly practice his religion, he was permitted to maintain his teaching and research posts. That leniency on the part of the Nazis could also be attributed to his brilliance; Albert Einstein himself said of Comrade Dieter that he had a formidable mind and was, rare among scientists, a man who could appreciate both the theoretical and the applicable aspects of physics.

  When the Dieter family observed that people like themselves—intellectuals of Jewish heritage—would be at risk in Germany they made plans to emigrate. Dieter’s parents and brother (and his family) successfully traveled from Berlin to England and from there to America, but Comrade Dieter, delayed in finishing a research project, was stopped on the eve of his departure by the Gestapo, based on a professor’s recommendation that he be pressed into service to assist in the war effort. Owing to his research (concerning the aforementioned “alpha particles”), Comrade Dieter was assigned to assist with the development of the most significant weapon of our century: the atomic bomb.

  He was part of the second Uranverein, the Nazi uranium project, jointly run by the HWA, the Army Ordnance Office, and RFR, the Reich Research Council of the Ministry of Education. His contributions were significant, though he did not advance far in rank or salary owing to his Jewish background.

  Following Our Mother-Homeland’s victory over the Nazis in the Great Patriotic War, Comrade Dieter was identified as one of the Uranverein scientists by our NKVD’s Alsos Project officers in Germany. After fruitful discussions with the security officers, Comrade Dieter volunteered to come to the Soviet Union and continue his research into atomic weapons—now for the benefit of Our Mother-Homeland. He stated that he considered it an honor to assist in protecting against the West’s aggression and their attempts to spread the poisonous hegemony of capitalism and decadence throughout Europe, Asia, and the world.

  Comrade Dieter was transported immediately to Russia and underwent a period of reeducation and indoctrination. He became a member of the Communist Party, learned to speak Russian, and was helped to understand the lessons of the Revolution and the value of the Proletariat. He fervently embraced Our Mother-Homeland’s culture and people. Once this period of transition was completed he was assigned work at the All-Union Scientific Research Institute of Experimental Physics at the premier Atomograd in the nation: the closed-city of Arzamas-16. It was to her
e that I was sent and assigned the job of protecting him.

  I spent much time with Comrade Dieter and can report that he took to his work immediately, and his contributions were many, including assisting in the preparation of Our Mother-Homeland’s first hydrogen bomb, detonated last August, you may recall, Comrade General. That test, the RDS-6, was a device of 400 kilotons. Comrade Dieter’s team had recently been working to create a fissile device in the megaton range, as the Americans have done (though it is well known that their weapons are in all ways inferior to ours).

  Like most such extra-national scientists vital to our national defense, Comrade Dieter was closely watched. One of my duties was to take measure of his personal loyalty to Our Mother-Homeland and report on same to all relevant ministries. My scrupulous observations convinced me of his devotion to our cause and that his loyalty was beyond reproach.

  For instance, he was, as I mention, part Jew. Now, he knew that I had denounced certain men and women in Arzamas-16 for subversive and counterrevolutionary speech and activity; every one of those happened to be, by purest coincidence, a Jew. I inquired of Comrade Dieter if he was troubled by my actions and he assured me that, no, he would have done the same had anyone, friends or family, Jew or gentile, displayed even a whisper of anti-Revolutionary leaning. To prove that I harbored no ill will against the Children of David, I explained that one of my former assignments was identifying Jews as part of the ongoing Central Committee’s program to resettle his people in the newly formed State of Israel as expeditiously as possible. He expressed to me his pleasure at learning this fact.

  Comrade Dieter had no wife and I would arrange “chance meetings” between him and beautiful women, with the goal that he take a Russian-born wife. (This did not occur but he did have relations with some of them for varying lengths of time.) Each of these women reported to me in detail about their conversations, and not a single word of disloyalty ever passed Comrade Dieter’s lips when speaking with them, even in moments that he believed were wholly unguarded.

  Further, I can hardly count the many times when he and I would sit with a bottle of vodka, and I would regale him at length and in great detail about the philosophy of Marxist dialectic materialism, reading long passages. As his Russian was good but not perfect I would also read to him the lengthy reports of speeches by noble chairman Khrushchev, as they appeared in Pravda. He took great interest in what I read to him.