“You were in Vietnam,” she said, putting things together. “I’ve been in those tunnels.”
“What do you mean?”
“When I was on the road. I spent six weeks in Vietnam. The tunnels, they’re like a tourist thing now. You pay your money and you can go down into them. It must’ve been… what you had to do must’ve been so frightening.”
“It was more scary afterward. Thinking about it.”
“They have them roped off so they can sort of control where you go. But nobody really watches you. So I went under the rope and went further in. It got so dark in there, Harry.”
Bosch studied her eyes.
“And did you see it?” he asked quietly. “The lost light?”
She held his eyes for a moment and nodded.
“I saw it. My eyes adjusted and there was light. Almost like a whisper. But it was enough for me to find my way.”
“Lost light. We called it lost light. We never knew where it came from. But it was down there. Like smoke hanging in the dark. Some people said it wasn’t light, that it was the ghosts of everybody who died in those things. From both sides.”
They spoke no more after that. They held each other and soon she was asleep.
Bosch realized he had not thought about the case for more than three hours. At first this made him feel guilty but then he let it go and soon he too was asleep. He dreamed he was moving through a tunnel. But he wasn’t crawling. It was as if he were underwater and moving like an eel through the labyrinth. He came to a dead end and there was a boy sitting against the curve of the tunnel’s wall. He had his knees up and his face down, buried in his folded arms.
“Come with me,” Bosch said.
The boy peeked his eyes over one arm and looked up at Bosch. A single bubble of air rose from his mouth. He then looked past Bosch as if something was coming up behind him. Bosch turned around but there was only the darkness of the tunnel behind him.
When he looked back at the boy, he was gone.
Chapter 12
LATE Sunday morning Bosch drove Brasher to the Hollywood station so she could get her car and he could resume work on the case. She was off duty Sundays and Mondays. They made plans to meet at her house in Venice that night for dinner. There were other officers in the parking lot when Bosch dropped her next to her car. Bosch knew that word would get around quickly that it appeared they had spent the night together.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I should have thought it out better last night.”
“I don’t really care, Harry. I’ll see you tonight.”
“Hey, look, you should care. Cops can be brutal.”
She made a face.
“Oh, police brutality, yeah, I’ve heard of it.”
“I’m serious. It’s also against regs. On my part. I’m a D-three. Supervisor level.”
She looked at him a moment.
“Well, that’s your call, then. I’ll see you tonight. I hope.”
She got out and closed the door. Bosch drove on to his assigned parking slot and went into the detective bureau, trying not to think of the complications he might have just invited into his life.
It was deserted in the squad room, which was what he was hoping for. He wanted time alone with the case. There was still a lot of office work to do but he also wanted to step back and think about all the evidence and information that had been accumulated since the discovery of the bones.
The first thing to do was put together a list of what needed to be done. The murder book-the blue binder containing all written reports pertaining to the case-had to be completed. He had to draw up search warrants seeking medical records of brain surgeries at local hospitals. He had to run routine computer checks on all the residents living in the vicinity of the crime scene on Wonderland. He also had to read through all the call-in tips spawned by the media coverage of the bones on the hill and start gathering missing person and runaway reports that might match the victim.
He knew it was more than a day’s work if he labored by himself but decided to keep with his decision to allow Edgar the day off. His partner, the father of a thirteen-year-old boy, had been greatly upset by Golliher’s report the day before and Bosch wanted him to take a break. The days ahead would likely be long and just as emotionally upsetting.
Once Bosch had his list together he took his cup out of a drawer and went back to the watch office to get coffee. The smallest he had on him was a five-dollar bill but he put it in the coffee fund basket without taking any change. He figured he’d be drinking more than his share through the day.
“You know what they say?” someone said behind him as he was filling the cup.
Bosch turned. It was Mankiewicz, the watch sergeant.
“About what?”
“Fishing off the company dock.”
“I don’t know. What do they say?”
“I don’t know either. That’s why I was asking you.”
Mankiewicz smiled and moved toward the machine to warm up his cup.
So already it was starting to get around, Bosch thought. Gossip and innuendo-especially anything with a sexual tone-moved through a police station like a fire racing up a hill in August.
“Well, let me know when you find out,” Bosch said as he started for the door of the watch office. “Could be useful to know.”
“Will do. Oh, and one other thing, Harry.”
Bosch turned, ready for another shot from Mankiewicz.
“What?”
“Just stop fooling around and wrap up your case. I’m tired of my guys having to take all the calls.”
There was a facetious tone in his voice. In his humor and sarcasm was a legitimate complaint about his officers on the desk being tied up by the tip calls.
“Yeah, I know. Any good ones today?”
“Not that I could tell, but you’ll get to slog through the reports and use your investigative wiles to decide that.”
“Wiles?”
“Yes, wiles. Like Wile E. Coyote. Oh, and CNN must’ve had a slow morning and picked up the story-good video, all you brave guys on the hill with your makeshift stairs and little boxes of bones. So now we’re getting the long- distance calls. Topeka and Providence so far this morning. It’s not going to end until you clear it, Harry. We’re all counting on you back here.”
Again there was a smile-and a message-behind what he was saying.
“All right, I’ll use all my wiles. I promise, Mank.”
“That’s what we’re counting on.”
Back at the table Bosch sipped his coffee and let the details of the case move through his mind. There were anomalies, contradictions. There were the conflicts between location choice and method of burial noticed by Kathy Kohl. But the conclusions made by Golliher added even more to the list of questions. Golliher saw it as a child abuse case. But the backpack full of clothes was an indication that the victim, the boy, was possibly a runaway.
Bosch had spoken to Edgar about it the day before when they returned to the station from the SID lab. His partner was not as sure of the conflict as Bosch but offered a theory that perhaps the boy was the victim of child abuse both at the hands of his parents and then an unrelated killer. He rightfully pointed out that many victims of abuse run away only to be drawn into another form of abusive relationship. Bosch knew the theory was legitimate but tried not to let himself go down that road because he knew it was even more depressing than the scenario
