{"id":2890,"date":"2026-01-03T22:54:22","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T22:54:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/harry-bosch-17-the-burning-room-connelly-michael\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T22:54:22","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T22:54:22","slug":"harry-bosch-17-the-burning-room-connelly-michael","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/harry-bosch-17-the-burning-room-connelly-michael\/","title":{"rendered":"Harry Bosch 17 – The Burning Room – Connelly, Michael"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Book Preview<\/h3>\n
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1<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

I<\/span>t seemed to Bosch to be a form of torture heaped upon torture. Corazon was hunched over the steel table, her bloody and gloved hands deep inside the gutted torso, working with forceps and a long-bladed instrument she called the \u201cbutter knife.\u201d Corazon was not tall and she stood on her tiptoes to be able to reach down and in with her tools. She braced her hip against the side of the autopsy table to gain leverage.<\/p>\n

What bothered Bosch about the grisly tableau was that the body had already been so violated for so long. Both legs gone, one arm taken at the shoulder, the surgical scars old but somehow raw and red. The man\u2019s mouth was open in a silent scream. His eyes were directed upward as if beseeching his God for mercy. Deep down Bosch knew that the dead were the dead and they no longer suffered the cruelties of life, but even so he felt like saying, Enough is enough. Asking, When does it stop? Shouldn\u2019t death be the relief from the tortures of life?<\/p>\n

But he didn\u2019t say anything. He stood mute and just watched as he had hundreds of times before. More important than his outrage and the desire to speak out against the continuing atrocity inflicted on Orlando Merced was Bosch\u2019s need for the bullet Corazon was trying to pry loose from the dead man\u2019s spine.<\/p>\n

Corazon dropped back on her heels to rest. She blew out her breath and temporarily fogged her spatter shield. She glanced at Bosch through the steamed plastic.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlmost there,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd I\u2019ll tell you what, they were right not to try to take it out back then. They would have had to saw entirely through T-twelve.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bosch just nodded, knowing she was referring to one of the vertebrae.<\/p>\n

She turned to the table, where her instruments were spread out.<\/p>\n

\u201cI need something else\u2026,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She put the butter knife in a stainless-steel sink, where a running faucet kept the water level to the overflow drain. She then moved her hand to the left of the sink and across the display of sterilized tools until she chose a long, slender pick. She went back to work with her hands in the hollow of the victim\u2019s torso. All the organs and intestines had been removed, weighed, and bagged, leaving just the husk formed by the upturned ribs. She went up on her toes again and used her upper-body strength and the steel pick to finally pop the bullet loose from the spinal column. Bosch heard it rattle inside the rib cage.<\/p>\n

\u201cGot it!\u201d<\/p>\n

She pulled her arms out of the hollow, put down the pick, and sprayed the forceps with the hose attached to the table. She then held the instrument up to examine her find. She tapped the floor button for the recorder with her foot and went on the record.<\/p>\n

\u201cA projectile was removed from the anterior T-twelve vertebra. It is in damaged condition with severe flattening. I will photograph it and mark it with my initials before turning it over to Detective Hieronymus Bosch with the Open-Unsolved Unit of the Los Angeles Police Department.\u201d<\/p>\n

She tapped the recorder button with her foot again and they were off the record. She smiled at him through her plastic screen.<\/p>\n

\u201cSorry, Harry, you know me, a stickler for formalities.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t think you\u2019d even remember.\u201d<\/p>\n

He and Corazon had once had a brief romance but that was a long time ago and very few people knew his real full name.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course I would,\u201d she said in mock protest.<\/p>\n

There was almost an aura of humility about Teresa Corazon that had not been there in the past. She had been a climber and had eventually gotten what she wanted\u2014the chief medical examiner\u2019s post and all of its trappings, including a reality television show. But when one reaches the top of a public agency, one becomes a politician, and politicians fall out of favor. Teresa eventually fell hard and now she was back where she started, a deputy coroner with a caseload like anyone else\u2019s in the office. At least they had let her keep her private autopsy suite. For now.<\/p>\n

She took the bullet over to the counter, where she photographed it and then marked it with an indelible black pen. Bosch was ready with a small plastic evidence bag and she dropped it in. He then marked the bag with both of their initials, a chain-of-custody routine. He studied the misshaped projectile through the plastic. Despite the damage, he believed it was a .308-caliber bullet, which would mean it had been fired by a rifle. If so, that would be a significant new piece of information in the case.<\/p>\n

\u201cWill you stay for the rest, or was that all you wanted?\u201d<\/p>\n

She asked it as if there were something else going on between them. He held up the evidence bag.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I should probably get this going. We\u2019ve got a lot of eyes on this case.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRight. Well, then, I\u2019ll just finish up by myself. What happened to your partner anyway? Wasn\u2019t she here with you in the hall?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe had to make a call.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, I thought maybe she wanted us to have some alone time. Did you tell her about us?\u201d<\/p>\n

She smiled and batted her eyelashes and Bosch looked away awkwardly.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, Teresa. You know I don\u2019t talk about stuff like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

She nodded.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou never did. You\u2019re a man who keeps his secrets.\u201d<\/p>\n

He looked back at her.<\/p>\n

\u201cI try,\u201d he said. \u201cBesides, that was a long time ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd the flame\u2019s gone out, hasn\u2019t it?\u201d<\/p>\n

He pushed things back on subject.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the cause. You\u2019re not seeing anything different from what the hospital is reporting, right?\u201d<\/p>\n

Corazon shook her head, able to move back as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, nothing different here. Sepsis. Blood poisoning, to use the more common phrase. Put that in your press release.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd you have no trouble linking this back to the shooting? You could testify to that?\u201d<\/p>\n

She was nodding before Bosch was finished speaking.<\/p>\n

\u201cMr. Merced died because of blood poisoning, but I am listing cause of death as homicide. This was a ten-year murder, Harry, and I will gladly testify to that. I hope that bullet helps you find the killer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bosch nodded and closed his hand around the plastic bag containing the bullet.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope so too,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Book Preview 1 It seemed to Bosch to be a form of torture heaped upon torture. Corazon was hunched over the steel table, her bloody and gloved hands deep inside the gutted torso, working with forceps and a long-bladed instrument she called the \u201cbutter knife.\u201d Corazon was not tall and she stood on her tiptoes … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2889,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[163],"class_list":["post-2890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-michael-connelly"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}