“How the hell did she know we were here?”
“Probably a neighbor,” Bosch said. “She was out here the whole two days of the dig. She’s a celebrity. She made nice with the residents. Made friends. Plus, we’re sitting in a goddamn Shamu. Might as well have called a press conference.”
Bosch thought of the inanity of trying to do detective work in a car painted black and white. Under a program designed to make cops more visible on the street, the department had assigned detectives in the divisions to black-and-whites that didn’t carry the emergency lights on top but were just as noticeable.
They watched as the reporter and her cameraman went to Trent’s door.
“She’s going to try to talk to him,” Edgar said.
Bosch quickly went into his briefcase and got out his cell phone. He was about to dial Trent’s number and tell him not to answer when he realized he couldn’t get a cell signal.
“Goddammit,” he said.
“Too late anyway,” Edgar said. “Let’s just hope he plays it smart.”
Bosch could see Trent at his front door, totally bathed in the white light from the camera. He said a few words and then made a waving gesture and closed the door.
“Good,” Edgar said.
Bosch started the car, turned it around and headed back through the canyon to the station.
“So what’s next?” Edgar asked.
“We have to pull the records on his conviction, see what it was about.”
“I’ll do that first thing.”
“No. First thing I want to deliver the search warrants to the hospitals. Whether Trent fits our picture or not, we need to ID the kid in order to connect him to Trent. Let’s meet at Van Nuys Courthouse at eight. We get them signed and then split ’em up.”
Bosch had picked Van Nuys court because Edgar lived nearby and they could separate and go from there in the morning after the warrants had been approved by a judge.
“What about a warrant on Trent’s place?” Edgar said. “You see anything while you were looking around?”
“Not much. He’s got a skateboard in a box in the garage. You know, with his work stuff. For putting on a set. I was thinking of our victim’s shirt when I saw that. And there were some work boots with dirt in the treads. It might match the samples from the hill. But I’m not counting on a search coming through for us. The guy has had twenty years to make sure he’s clear. If he’s the guy.”
“You don’t think so?”
Bosch shook his head.
“Timing’s wrong. ’Eighty-four is on the late side. The far edge of our window.”
“I thought we were looking at ’seventy-five to ’eighty-five.”
“We are. In general. But you heard Golliher-twenty to twenty-five years ago. That’s early eighties on the high side. I don’t know about ’eighty-four being early eighties.”
“Well, maybe he moved to that house because of the body. He buried the kid there before and wanted to be close by so he moves into the neighborhood. I mean, Harry, these are sick fucks, these guys.”
Bosch nodded.
“There’s that. But I just wasn’t getting the vibe from the guy. I believed him.”
“Harry, your mojo’s been wrong before.”
“Oh, yeah…”
“I think it’s him. He’s the guy. Hear how he said, ‘just because I touched a boy.’ Probably to him, sodomizing a nine-year-old is reaching out and touching somebody.”
Edgar was being reactionary but Bosch didn’t call him on it. He was a father; Bosch wasn’t.
“We’ll get the records and we’ll see. We also have to go to the Hall to check the reverses, see who was on that street back then.”
The reverses were phone books that listed residents by address instead of by name. A collection of the books for every year was kept in the Hall of Records. They would allow the detectives to determine who was living on the street during the 1975 to 1985 range they were looking at as the boy’s time of death.
“That’s going to be a lot of fun,” Edgar said.
“Oh, yeah,” Bosch said. “I can’t wait.”
They drove in silence the rest of the way. Bosch became depressed. He was disappointed with himself for how he had run the investigation so far. The bones were discovered Wednesday, and the full investigation took off on Thursday. He knew he should have run the names-a basic part of the investigation-sooner than Sunday. By delaying it he had given Trent the advantage. He’d had three days to expect and prepare for their questions. He had even been briefed by an attorney. He could have even been practicing his responses and looks in a mirror. Bosch knew what his internal lie detector said. But he also knew that a good actor could beat it.
Chapter 15
BOSCH drank a beer on the back porch with the sliding door open so he could hear Clifford Brown on the stereo. Almost fifty years before, the trumpet player made a handful of recordings and then checked out in a car crash. Bosch thought about all the music that had been lost. He thought about young bones in the ground and what had been lost. And then he thought about himself and what he had lost. Somehow the jazz and the beer and the grayness he was feeling about the case had all mixed together in his mind. He felt on edge, like he was missing something that was right in front of him. For a detective it was just about the worst feeling in the world.
At 11 P.M. he came inside and turned the music down so he could watch the news on Channel 4. Judy Surtain’s report was the third story after the first break. The anchor said, “New developments in the Laurel Canyon bone case. We go to Judy Surtain at the scene.”
“Ah, shit,” Bosch said, not liking the sound of the introduction.
The program cut to a live shot of Surtain on Wonderland Avenue, standing on the street in front of a house Bosch recognized as Trent’s.
“I’m here on Wonderland Avenue in Laurel Canyon, where four days ago a dog brought home a bone that authorities say was human. The dog’s find led to the discovery of more bones belonging to a young boy who investigators believe was murdered and then buried more than twenty years ago.”
Bosch’s phone started ringing. He picked it up off the arm of the TV chair and answered it.
“Hold on,” he said and then held the phone down by his side while he watched the news report.
Surtain said, “Tonight the lead investigators on the case returned to the neighborhood to speak to one resident who lives less than one hundred yards from the place where the boy was buried. That resident is Nicholas Trent, a fifty-seven-year-old Hollywood set decorator.”
The program cut to tape of Bosch being questioned by Surtain that night. But it was used as visual filler while Surtain continued her report in a voice-over dub.
“Investigators declined to comment on their questioning of Trent, but Channel Four news has learned-”
Bosch sat down heavily on the chair and braced himself.
“-that Trent was once convicted of molesting a young boy.”
The sound was then brought up on the street interview just as Bosch said, “That’s really all I can tell you.”
The next jump was to video of Trent standing in his doorway and waving the camera off and closing the door.
“Trent declined comment on his status in the case. But neighbors in the normally quiet hillside neighborhood expressed shock upon learning of Trent’s background.”
As the report shifted to a taped interview of a resident Bosch recognized as Victor Ulrich, Bosch hit the mute button on the TV remote and brought the phone up. It was Edgar.
“You watching this shit?” he asked.
“Oh, yeah.”
“We look like shit. We look like we told her. They used your quote out of context, Harry. We’re going to be
