against the door and pushing it open.
“All right if we come in?” he asked, already halfway across the threshold.
“No, it’s not all right,” Trent said quickly.
Edgar stopped and put a puzzled look on his face.
“Sir, we just have a few more questions we’d like to ask.”
“Yeah, and that’s bullshit!”
“Excuse me?”
“We all know what is going on here. I talked to my attorney already. Your act is just that, an act. A bad one.”
Bosch could see they were not going to get anywhere with the trick-or-treat strategy. He stepped up and pulled Edgar back by the arm. Once his partner had cleared the threshold he looked at Trent.
“Mr. Trent, if you knew we’d be back, then you knew we’d find out about your past. Why didn’t you tell Detective Edgar about it before? It could have saved us some time. Instead, it gives us suspicion. You can understand that, I’m sure.”
“Because the past is the past. I didn’t bring it up. I buried the past. Leave it that way.”
“Not when there are bones buried in it,” Edgar said in an accusatory tone.
Bosch looked back at Edgar and gave him a look that said use some finesse.
“See?” Trent said. “This is why I am saying, ‘Go away.’ I have nothing to tell you people. Nothing. I don’t know anything about it.”
“Mr. Trent, you molested a nine-year-old boy,” Bosch said.
“The year was nineteen sixty-six and I was punished for it. Severely. It’s the past. I’ve been a perfect citizen ever since. I had nothing to do with those bones up there.”
Bosch waited a moment and then spoke in a calm and quieter tone.
“If that is the truth, then let us come in and ask our questions. The sooner we clear you, the sooner we move on to other possibilities. But you have to understand something here. The bones of a young boy were found about a hundred yards from the home of a man who molested a young boy in nineteen sixty-six. I don’t care what kind of citizen he’s been since then, we need to ask him some questions. And we will ask those questions. We have no choice. Whether we do it in your home right now or with your lawyer at the station with all of the news cameras waiting outside, that’s going to be your choice.”
He paused. Trent looked at him with scared eyes.
“So you can understand our situation, Mr. Trent, and we can certainly understand yours. We are willing to move quickly and discreetly but we can’t without your cooperation.”
Trent shook his head as though he knew that no matter what he did now, his life as he knew it was in jeopardy and probably permanently altered. He finally stepped back and signaled Bosch and Edgar in.
Trent was barefoot and wearing baggy black shorts that showed off thin ivory legs with no hair on them. He wore a flowing silk shirt over his thin upper body. He had the same build as a ladder, all hard angles. He led them to a living room cluttered with antiques. He sat down in the center of a couch. Bosch and Edgar took the two leather club chairs opposite. Bosch decided to keep the lead. He didn’t like the way Edgar had handled the door.
“To be cautious and careful, I am going to read you your constitutional rights,” he said. “Then I’ll ask you to sign a waiver form. This protects you as well as us. I am also going to record our conversation so that nobody ends up putting words in anybody else’s mouth. If you want a copy of the tape I will make it available.”
Trent shrugged and Bosch took it as reluctant agreement. When Bosch had the form signed he slipped it into his briefcase and took out a small recorder. Once he started it and identified those present as well as the time and date, he nodded to Edgar to assume the lead again. This was because Bosch thought that observations of Trent and his surroundings were going to be more important than his answers now.
“Mr. Trent, how long have you lived in this house?”
“Since nineteen eighty-four.”
He then laughed.
“What is funny about that?” Edgar asked.
“Nineteen eighty-four. Don’t you get it? George Orwell? Big Brother?”
He gestured toward Bosch and Edgar as the front men of Big Brother. Edgar apparently didn’t follow the statement and continued with the interview.
“Rent or own?”
“Own. Uh, at first I rented, then I bought the house in ’eighty-seven from the landlord.”
“Okay, and you are a set designer in the entertainment industry?”
“Set decorator. There is a difference.”
“What is the difference?”
“The designer plans and supervises the construction of the set. The decorator then goes in and puts in the details. The little character strokes. The characters’ belongings or tools. Like that.”
“How long have you done this?”
“Twenty-six years.”
“Did you bury that boy up on the hillside?”
Trent stood up indignantly.
“Absolutely not. I’ve never even set foot on that hill. And you people are making a big mistake if you waste your time on me when the true killer of that poor soul is still out there somewhere.”
Bosch leaned forward in his chair.
“Sit down, Mr. Trent,” he said.
The fervent way in which Trent delivered the denial made Bosch instinctively think he was either innocent or one of the better actors he had come across on the job. Trent slowly sat down on the couch again.
“You’re a smart guy,” Bosch said, deciding to jump in. “You know exactly what we’re doing here. We have to bag you or clear you. It’s that simple. So why don’t you help us out? Instead of dancing around with us, why don’t you tell us how to clear you?”
Trent raised his hands wide.
“I don’t know how! I don’t know anything about the case! How can I help you when I don’t know the first thing about it?”
“Well, right off the bat, you can let us take a look around here. If I can start to get comfortable with you, Mr. Trent, then maybe I can start seeing it from your side of things. But right now… like I said, I’ve got you with your record and I’ve got bones across the street.”
Bosch held up his two hands as if he was holding those two things in them.
“It doesn’t look that good from where I’m looking at things.”
Trent stood up and threw one hand out in a gesture toward the interior of the house.
“Fine! Be my guest. Look around to your heart’s content. You won’t find a thing because I had nothing to do with it. Nothing!”
Bosch looked at Edgar and nodded, the signal being that he should keep Trent occupied while Bosch took a look around.
“Thank you, Mr. Trent,” Bosch said as he stood up.
As he headed into a hallway that led to the rear of the house, he heard Edgar asking if Trent had ever seen any unusual activity on the hillside where the bones had been found.
“I just remember kids used to play up-”
He stopped, apparently when he realized that any mention he made of kids would only further suspicion about him. Bosch glanced back to make sure the red light of the recorder was still on.
“Did you like watching the kids play up there in the woods, Mr. Trent?” Edgar asked.
Bosch stayed in the hallway, out of sight but listening to Trent’s answer.
“No, I couldn’t see them if they were up in the woods. On occasion I would be driving up or walking my dog- when he was alive-and I would see the kids climbing up there. The girl across the street. The Fosters next door. All the kids around here. It’s a city-owned right-of-way-the only undeveloped land in the neighborhood. So they went up there to play. Some of the neighbors thought the older ones went up there to smoke cigarettes, and the concern was they would set the whole hillside on fire.”
“How long ago are you talking about?”
