Bosch nodded and said, “What about the teeth? Anything there?”
“We are missing the lower mandible,” Golliher said. “On the upper teeth present there is no indication of any dental work despite indication of ante-mortem decay. This in itself is a clue. I think it puts this boy in the lower levels of social classification. He didn’t go to the dentist.”
Edgar had pulled his mask down around his neck. His expression was pained.
“When this kid was in the hospital with the hematoma, why wouldn’t he tell the doctors what was happening to him? What about his teachers, his friends?”
“You know the answers to that as well as me, Detective,” Golliher said. “Children are reliant on their parents. They are scared of them and they love them, don’t want to lose them. Sometimes there is no explanation for why they don’t cry out for help.”
“What about all these fractures and such? Why didn’t the doctors see it and do something?”
“That’s the irony of what I do. I see the history and tragedy so clearly. But with a living patient it might not be apparent. If the parents came in with a plausible explanation for the boy’s injury, what reason would a doctor have to X-ray an arm or a leg or a chest? None. And so the nightmare goes unnoticed.”
Unsatisfied, Edgar shook his head and walked to the far corner of the room.
“Anything else, Doctor?” Bosch asked.
Golliher checked his notes and then folded his arms.
“That’s it on a scientific level—you’ll get the report. On a purely personal level, I hope you find the person who did this. They will deserve whatever they get, and then some.”
Bosch nodded.
“We’ll get him,” Edgar said. “Don’t you worry about that.”
They walked out of the building and got into Bosch’s car. Bosch just sat there for a moment before starting the engine. Finally, he hit the steering wheel hard with the heel of his palm, sending a shock down the injured side of his chest.
“You know it doesn’t make me believe in God like him,” Edgar said. “Makes me believe in aliens, little green men from outer space.”
Bosch looked over at him. Edgar was leaning his head against the side window, looking down at the floor of the car.
“How so?”
“Because a human couldn’t have done this to his own kid. A spaceship must’ve come down and abducted the kid and done all that stuff to him. Only explanation.”
“Yeah, I wish that was on the checklist, Jerry. Then we could all just go home.”
Bosch put the car into drive.
“I need a drink.”
He started driving out of the lot.
“Not me, man,” Edgar said. “I just want to go see my kid and hug him until this gets better.”
They didn’t speak again until they got over to Parker Center.
8
BOSCH and Edgar rode the elevator to the fifth floor and went into the SID lab, where they had a meeting set up with Antoine Jesper, the lead criminalist assigned to the bones case. Jesper met them at the security fence and took them back. He was a young black man with gray eyes and smooth skin. He wore a white lab coat that swayed and flapped with his long strides and always moving arms.
“This way, guys,” he said. “I don’t have a lot but what I got is yours.”
He took them through the main lab, where only a handful of other criminalists were working, and into the drying room, a large climate-controlled space where clothing and other material evidence from cases were spread on stainless steel drying tables and examined. It was the only place that could rival the autopsy floor of the medical examiner’s office in the stench of decay.
Jesper led them to two tables where Bosch saw the open backpack and several pieces of clothing blackened with soil and fungus. There was also a plastic sandwich bag filled with an unrecognizable lump of black decay.
“Water and mud got into the backpack,” Jesper said. “Leached in over time, I guess.”
Jesper took a pen out of the pocket of his lab coat and extended it into a pointer. He used it to help illustrate his commentary.
“We’ve got your basic backpack containing three sets of clothes and what was probably a sandwich or some kind of food item. More specifically, three T-shirts, three underwear, three sets of socks. And the food item. There was also an envelope, or what was left of an envelope. You don’t see that here because documents has it. But don’t get your hopes up, guys. It was in worse shape than that sandwich—if it was a sandwich.”
Bosch nodded. He made a list of the contents in his notebook.
“Any identifiers?” he asked.
Jesper shook his head.
“No personal identifiers on the clothing or in the bag,” he said. “But two things to note. First, this shirt here has a brand-name identifier. ‘Solid Surf.’ Says it across the chest. You can’t see it now but I picked it up with the black light. Might help, might not. If you are not familiar with the term ‘Solid Surf,’ I can tell you that it is a skateboarding reference.”
“Got it,” Bosch said.
“Next is the outside flap of the bag.”
He used his pointer to flip over the flap.
“Cleaned this up a little bit and came up with this.”
Bosch leaned over the table to look. The bag was made of blue canvas. On the flap was a clear demarcation of color forming a large letter B at the center.
“It looks like there was some kind of adhesive applicate at one time on the bag,” Jesper said. “It’s gone now and I don’t really know if that occurred before or after this thing was put in the ground. My guess is before. It looks like it was peeled off.”
Bosch stepped back from the table and wrote a few lines in his notebook. He then looked at Jesper.
“Okay, Antoine, good stuff. Anything else?”
“Not on this stuff.”
“Then let’s go to documents.”
Jesper led the way again through the central lab and then into a sub-lab where he had to enter a combination into a door lock to enter.
The documents lab contained two rows of desks that were all empty. Each desk had a horizontal light box and a magnifying glass mounted on a pivot. Jesper went to the middle desk in the second row. The nameplate on the desk said Bernadette Fornier. Bosch knew her. They had worked a case previously in which a suicide note had been forged. He knew she did good work.
Jesper picked up a plastic evidence pouch that was sitting in the middle of the desk. He unzipped it and removed two plastic viewing sleeves. One contained an unfolded envelope that was brown and smeared with black fungus. The other contained a deteriorated rectangular piece of paper that was broken into three parts along the folds and was also grossly discolored by decay and fungus.
“This is what happens when stuff gets wet, man,” Jesper said. “It took Bernie all day just to unfold the envelope and separate the letter. As you can see, it came apart at the folds. And as far as whether we’ll ever be able to tell what was in the letter, it doesn’t look good.”
Bosch turned on the light box and put the plastic sleeves down on it. He swung the magnifier over and studied the envelope and the letter it had once contained. There was nothing remotely readable on either document. One thing he noted was that it looked like there was no stamp on the envelope.
“Damn,” he said.
He flipped the sleeves over and kept looking. Edgar came over next to him as if to confirm the obvious.
“Woulda been nice,” he said.
“What will she do now?” Bosch asked Jesper.
“Well, she’ll probably try some dyes, some different lights. Try to get something that reacts with the ink, brings it up. But she wasn’t too optimistic yesterday. So like I said, I wouldn’t be getting my hopes up about it.”
Bosch nodded and turned off the light.
9
NEAR the back entrance to the Hollywood Division station was a bench with large sand-filled ashtrays on either side. It was called
the Code 7, after the radio call for out-of-service or on break. At 11:15 P.M. on Saturday night Bosch was the only occupant on the Code 7 bench. He wasn’t smoking, though he wished he was. He was waiting. The bench was dimly lit by the lights over the station’s back door and had a view of the parking lot jointly shared by the station and the firehouse on the back end of the city complex.
Bosch watched as the patrol units came in from the three-to-eleven shift and the officers went into the station to change out of uniforms, shower and call it a night, if they could. He looked down at the MagLite he held in his hands and rubbed his thumb over the end cap and felt the scratchings where Julia Brasher had etched her badge number.
He hefted the light and then flipped it in his hand, feeling its weight. He flashed on what Golliher had said about the weapon that had killed the boy. He could add flashlight to the list.
Bosch watched a patrol car come into the lot and park by the motor pool garage. A cop he recognized as Julia Brasher’s partner, Edgewood, emerged from the passenger side and headed into the station carrying the car’s shotgun. Bosch waited and watched, suddenly unsure of his plan and wondering if he could abandon it and get into the station without being seen.
Before he decided on a move Brasher got out of the driver’s side and headed toward the station door. She walked with her head down, the posture of someone tired and beat from a long day. Bosch knew the feeling. He also thought something might be wrong. It was a subtle thing, but the way Edgewood had gone in and left her behind told Bosch something was off. Since Brasher was a rookie, Edgewood was her training officer, even though he was at least five years younger than her. Maybe it was just an awkward situation because of age and gender. Or maybe it was something else.
Brasher didn’t notice Bosch on the bench. She was almost to the station door before he spoke.
“Hey, you forgot to wash the puke out of the back seat.”
She looked back while continuing to walk until she saw it was him. She stopped then and walked over to the bench.
“I brought you something,” Bosch said.
He held out the flashlight. She smiled tiredly as she took it.
“Thank you, Harry. You didn’t have to wait here to—”
“I wanted to.”
There was an awkward silence for a moment.
“Were you working the case tonight?” she asked.
“More or less. Started the paperwork. And we sort of got the autopsy earlier today. If you could call it an autopsy.”
“I can tell by your face it was bad.”
Bosch nodded. He felt strange. He was still sitting and she was still standing.
“I can tell by the way you look that you had a tough one, too.”
“Aren’t they all?”
Before Bosch could say anything two cops, fresh from showers and in street clothes, came out of the station and headed toward their personal cars.
“Cheer up, Julia,” one of them said. “We’ll see you over there.”
“Okay, Kiko,” she said back.
She turned and looked back down at Bosch. She smiled.
“Some people from the shift are getting together over at Boardner’s,” she said. “You want to come?”
“Um . . .”
“That’s okay. I just thought maybe you could use a drink or something.”
“I could. I need one. Actually, that’s why I was waiting here for you. I just don’t know if I want to get into a group thing at a bar.”
“Well, what were you thinking, then?”
Bosch checked his watch. It was now eleven-thirty.
“Depending on how long you take in the locker room, we could probably catch the last martini call at Musso’s.”
She smiled broadly now.
“I love that place. Give me fifteen minutes.”
She headed toward the station door without waiting for a reply from him.
“I’ll be here,” he called after her.
10
MUSSO and Frank’s was an institution that had been serving martinis to the denizens of Hollywood—both famous and infamous—for a century. The front room was all red leather booths and quiet conversation with ancient waiters in red half-coats moving slowly about. The back room contained the long bar, where most nights it was standing room only while patrons vied for the attention of bartenders who could have been the fathers of the waiters. As Bosch and Brasher came into the bar two patrons slipped off their stools to leave. Bosch and Brasher quickly moved in, beating two black-clad studio types to the choice spots. A bartender who recognized Bosch came over and they both ordered vodka martinis, slightly dirty.
Bosch was already feeling at ease with her. They had spent lunch together at the crime scene picnic tables the last two days and she had never been far from his sight during the hillside searches. They had ridden over to Musso’s together in his car and it seemed like a third or fourth date already. They small-talked about the division and the details Bosch was willing to part with about his case. By the time the bartender put down their martini glasses along with the sidecar carafes, he was ready to forget about bones and blood and baseball bats for a while.
They clinked glasses and Brasher said, “To life.”
“Yeah,” Bosch said. “Getting through another day.”
“Just barely.”
Bosch knew that now was the time to talk to her about what was troubling her. If she didn’t want to talk, he wouldn’t press it.
“That guy you called Kiko in the back lot, why’d he tell you to cheer up?”
She slumped a little and didn’t answer at first.
“If you don’t want to talk about—”
“No, it’s not that. It’s more like I don’t want to think about it.”
“I know the feeling. Forget I asked.”
“No, it’s okay. My partner’s going to write me up and since I’m on probation, it could cost me.”
“Write you up for what?”
“Crossing the tube.”
It was a tactical expression, meaning to walk in front of the barrel of a shotgun or other weapon held by a fellow officer.
“What happened? I mean, if you want to talk about it.”
She shrugged and they both took long drinks from their glasses.
“Oh, it was a domestic—I hate domestics—and the guy locked himself in the bedroom with a gun. We didn’t know if he was going to use it on himself, his wife or us. We waited for backup and then we were going to go in.”
She took another drink. Bosch watched her. Her inner turmoil showed clearly in her eyes.
“Edgewood had shotgun. Kiko had the kick. Fennel, Kiko’s partner, and I had the door. So we did the deed. Kiko’s big. He opened the door with one kick. Fennel and I went in. The guy was passed out on the bed. Seemed like no problem but Edgewood had a big problem with me. He said I crossed the tube.”
“Did you?”
“I don’t think so. But if I did, then so did Fennel, and he didn’t say jack to him.”
“You’re the rookie. You’re the one on probation.”
“Yeah, and I’m getting tired of it, that’s for sure. I mean, how did you make it through, Harry? Right now you’ve got a job that makes a difference. What I do, just chasing the radio all day and night, going from dirtbag to dirtbag, it’s like spitting on a house fire. We’re not making any headway out there and on top of that I’ve got this uptight male asshole telling me every two minutes how I fucked up.”
Bosch knew what she was feeling. Every cop in a uniform went through it. You wade through the cesspool every day and soon it seems that that is all there is. An abyss. It was why he could never go back to working patrol. Patrol was a Band-Aid on a bullet hole.
“Did you think it would be different? When you were in the academy, I mean.”
“I don’t know what I thought. I just don’t know if I can make it through to a point where I think I’m making any difference.”
“I think you can. The first couple years ar
e tough. But you dig in and you start seeing the long view. You pick your battles and you pick your path. You’ll do all right.”
He didn’t feel confident giving her the rah-rah speech. He had gone through long stretches of indecision about himself and his choices. Telling her to stick it out made him feel a little false.
“Let’s talk about something else,” she said.
“Fine with me,” he said.
He took a long drink from his glass, trying to think of how to turn the conversation in another direction. He put his glass down, turned and smiled at her.
“So there you were, hiking in the Andes and you said to yourself, ‘Gee, I wanna be a cop.’ ”
She laughed, seemingly shaking off the blues of her earlier comments.
“Not quite like that. And I’ve never been in the Andes.”
“Well, what about the rich, full life you lived before putting on the badge? You said you were a world traveler.”
“Never made it to South America.”
“Is that where the Andes are? All this time I thought they were in Florida.”
She laughed again and Bosch felt good about successfully changing the subject. He liked looking at her teeth when she laughed. They were just a little bit crooked and in a way that made them perfect.
“So seriously, what did you do?”
She turned in the stool so they were shoulder to shoulder, looking at each other in the mirror behind all the colored bottles lined along the back wall of the bar.
“Oh, I was a lawyer for a while—not a defense lawyer, so don’t get excited. Civil law. Then I realized that was bullshit and quit and just started traveling. I worked along the way. I made pottery in Venice, Italy. I was a horse guide in the Swiss Alps for a while. I was cook on a day-trip tourist boat in Hawaii. I did other things and I just saw a lot of the world—except for the Andes. Then I came home.”
“To L.A.?”
“Born and raised. You?”
“Same. Queen of Angels.”
Michael Connelly Page 6