Bosch turned and saw the SID photographer standing behind him. It was Mark Baron. They had worked many crime scenes together. Baron gestured toward his camera.
“I haven’t shot any of that yet,” he said. “I don’t want it moved.”
“Okay, hold on a second.”
Bosch stooped down so he could look beneath the table. It had no drawers but there was a single shelf and it held a stack of
Bosch got up and stepped back to let Baron get close to take his shots. He walked back to Fulton.
“Who found her?”
“The landlord. He said he got a call from her agent and then another call from her acting coach. They were worried about her. She missed a big audition or something today. The landlord has a passkey and came in. He said the coach was very convincing.”
“Was she on display like that or covered?”
“She was covered. The coroner’s people did that.”
Bosch nodded.
“Where’s the landlord?”
“He went back to his place. He lives on-site. He was looking pretty pale.”
“Get him.”
“This is pretty simple, right? We’re all going to get out of here in a few minutes, right?”
Bosch looked at Fulton. Even she wanted to turn pumpkin at midnight.
“Just get the landlord, please.”
Fulton left and Bosch went over to the bureau, where Edgar was looking through the contents of the top drawer. There were several different photos. There was a stack of 8x10 glossies that showed a collage featuring Lizbeth Grayson in varying poses and costumes. No matter what she was wearing or what the facial pose was, it was impossible to hide her beauty in character. Bosch imagined that it opened some doors but kept others closed. She would never have been taken seriously as an actress with that face.
“Man, this girl had it all going for her,” Edgar said. “Why’d she want to go and waste it all?”
“Maybe she didn’t.”
Edgar dropped the photo he was looking at back into the drawer and looked at Bosch.
“Harry, what are you seeing?”
Bosch shook his head.
“Nothing yet. I’m just saying. I’m asking the question, you know?”
“Don’t go crazy on this. You want to talk to the landlord, fine. Let’s talk to him and put this thing to bed-no pun intended.”
“All I’m saying is that you can’t come into this with a preconceived idea, you know? It’s infectious.”
Bosch sauntered over to one of the coroner’s investigators, who was putting equipment back into a toolbox. Bosch knew him, too. Nester Gonzmart.
“How’s it look, Nester?”
“Looks like we’re out of here, boss.”
“What do you have for TOD?”
“We took the liver temp. I’m going to say between midnight and four this morning.”
“So twenty-four hours tops. Any trauma?”
“Not a hangnail, man. This is a clean scene. Sometimes it’s hard to believe but it’s looking to me like what it is. We’ll get the tox in about two weeks and we’ll see the Perc on the screens. That’ll be it.”
“Make sure you get it to me.”
“You got it, Harry.”
He snapped the latches on the toolbox and headed out of the room with it. Bosch knew he would be back with the stretcher. They were going to take Lizbeth Grayson on a ride downtown.
“Everybody?” Baron said. “Can I get everybody to step back into the hall so I can get my wide shots?”
Bosch moved toward the hall, wondering where Fulton was with the landlord.
“Thank you,” Baron said.
Fulton was in the front living room with a man who was small, slight and maybe as old as the apartment building. He was introduced as Ziggy Wojciechowski. He recounted for Bosch and Edgar his finding of Lizbeth Grayson dead. It was the same story Fulton had already related.
“Was the door locked?” Bosch asked.
“Yes. I have a passkey to all the apartments. I used it.”
Bosch glanced over at the front door and saw the security chain hanging on the jamb.
“The chain wasn’t on?”
“No, no chain.”
“Did she pay her rent or did somebody pay it for her?”
It was always good to throw in a changeup, something unexpected at the interview subject.
“Uh, she paid. She always paid with a check.”
“What about boyfriends?”
“I don’t know. I don’t spy on my tenants. The Orchidia offers privacy. I don’t intrude.”
“What about girlfriends?”
“Same answer, Detective. I don’t-”
“Mr. Wojciechowski, when did you come into the apartment and find her?”
The landlord seemed a little confused by the way the questions jumped around.
“It would have been about ten fifteen. I had watched the beginning of the news on channel five-Hal Fishman. Her coach called again and I finally said I would check on her just so they would stop calling.”
“When you came in, were the lights on?”
Wojciechowski didn’t answer as he contemplated the question.
“Think about when you entered. What did you see? Could you see anything or did you have to put on the lights?”
“I could see the light at the end of the hall. Her bedroom. The light was on.”
Bosch nodded.
“Okay, Mr. Wojciechowski, that will be enough for now. We may have to talk later.”
He watched the little man walk out of the apartment. Edgar came up close to him then so that they could speak quietly.
“I don’t like that look in your eyes, Harry. I’ve seen it before.”
“And?”
“It tells me you’re in love. You want this to be something it’s not.”
“The chain wasn’t on the door.”
“So what? She was being considerate. She knew she was going to check out and she didn’t want anybody to have to break down the door. We’ve seen that a hundred times before, easy.”
“The lights in the bedroom were left on.”
“So?”
“People don’t leave the lights on. They want it to be like they’re going to sleep at night. They want to go easy.”
Edgar nodded his head.
“All right, I’ll give you that. But it’s not enough. It’s an anomaly. You know what that is? Something that deviates from the norm. What we have here is a deviation within the norm. It’s not something we-”
There was a sudden flash. Bosch turned to see Baron coming from the hallway into the living room. He had fired off a shot at Bosch and Edgar.
“Sorry about that,” he said. “Misfire. You guys want me to shoot anything else? I’m done with Marilyn Monroe in there.”
“No,” Edgar said. “You’re clear, Mark.”
Baron, a short man with a widening middle, threw a mock salute and walked out the open front door of the apartment. Bosch looked at Edgar sharply. He didn’t like the junior member of the team making the call to break up
