“No, he kept quiet. You can’t be that stupid and get away with a double murder for almost twenty years. That’s a nice run.”

“Yeah, what’s he been doing?”

“Looks like he’s just been laying low. Owns a hardware on Santa Monica. Married and has a kid and a dog. A total reform case. But he’s going back to Biloxi. I hope he likes southern cooking ’cause he won’t be coming back here anytime soon.”

Edgar laughed again. Bosch said nothing. The story was depressing because it was a reminder of what he was no longer doing. It also reminded him about what Hinojos had asked about defining his mission.

“Got a couple of Mississippi state troopers comin’ out tomorrow,” Edgar said. “Talked to them a little while ago and they are happy campers.”

Bosch didn’t say anything for a while.

“Harry, you still there?”

“Yeah, I was just thinking about something…Well, it sounds like a hell of a day of crime fighting. How’s the fearless leader taking it?”

“Pounds? Jesus, he’s got a hard-on over this the size of a Louisville slugger. You know what he’s doing? He’s trying to figure out a way to take credit for all three clearances. He’s trying to put the Biloxi cases on our rate.”

It didn’t surprise Bosch. It was a widespread practice among department managers and statisticians to add positive credit to crime clearance levels whenever and wherever possible. In the air bag case, there was no actual murder. It was an accident. But because the death occurred during the commission of a crime, California law held that an accomplice to the crime could be charged with his partner’s death. Bosch knew that based on the partner’s arrest for murder, Pounds intended to add a case to the murder clearance chart. He would not balance this by adding a case to the murder occurrence chart because the death by air bag was an accident. This little statistical two-step would result in a nice little boost for the Hollywood Division’s overall homicide clearance rate, which in recent years had continually threatened to dip below fifty percent.