houses on the water. An arched footbridge, lighted by the moon and nothing else, crossed the canal twenty yards away, its reflection perfect on the water. He turned and walked back up the steps to the porch. He hesitated at the door again and soon Brasher opened it.
“The porch creaks, remember?”
He nodded and she waited. He wasn’t sure how to say what he wanted to say. Finally, he just began.
“One time when I was in one of those tunnels we were talking about last night I came up head-on with some guy. He was VC. Black pajamas, greased face. We sort of looked at each other for a split second and I guess instincts took over. We both raised up and fired at the same time. Simultaneous. And then we fucking ran in opposite directions. Both of us scared shitless, screaming in the dark.”
He paused as he thought about the story, seeing it more than remembering it.
“Anyway, I thought he had to have hit me. It was almost point-blank, too close to miss. I thought my gun had backfired and jammed or something. The kick had felt wrong. When I got up top the first thing I did was check myself. No blood, no pain. I took all of my clothes off and checked myself. Nothing. He had missed. Point-blank and somehow the guy had missed.”
She stepped over the door’s threshold and leaned against the front wall beneath the porch light. She didn’t say anything and he pressed on.
“Anyway, then I checked my forty-five for a jam and I found out why he hadn’t hit me. The guy’s bullet was in the barrel of my gun. With mine. We had pointed at each other and his shot went right up the barrel of my gun. What were the chances of that? A million to one? A billion?”
As he spoke he held his empty hand out as a gun pointing at her. His hand was extended directly in front of his chest. The bullet that day in the tunnel had been meant for his heart.
“I guess I just want you to know that I know how lucky I was with you tonight.”
He nodded and then turned and went down the steps.
Chapter 17
DEATH investigation is a pursuit with countless dead ends, obstacles and colossal chunks of wasted time and effort. Bosch knew this every day of his existence as a cop but was reminded of it once again when he got to the homicide table shortly before noon Monday and found his morning’s time and effort had most likely been wasted while a brand-new obstacle awaited him.
The homicide squad had the area at the rear corner of the detective bureau. The squad consisted of three teams of three. Each team had a table consisting of the three detectives’ desks pushed together, two facing each other, the third along one side. Sitting at Bosch’s table, in the slot left vacant by Kiz Rider’s departure, was a young woman in a business suit. She had dark hair and even darker eyes. They were eyes sharp enough to peel a walnut and they held on Bosch his whole way through the squad room.
“Can I help you?” he asked when he got to the table.
“Harry Bosch?”
“That’s me.”
“Detective Carol Bradley, IAD. I need to take a statement from you.”
Bosch looked around. There were several people in the squad room trying to act busy while surreptitiously watching.
“Statement about what?”
“Deputy Chief Irving asked our division to determine if the criminal record of Nicholas Trent was improperly divulged to the media.”
Bosch still hadn’t sat down. He put his hands on the top of his chair and stood behind it. He shook his head.
“I think it’s pretty safe to assume it was improperly divulged.”
“Then I need to find out who did it.”
Bosch nodded.
“I’m trying to run an investigation here and all anybody cares about is-”
“Look, I know you think it’s bullshit. And I may think it’s bullshit. But I’ve got the order. So let’s go into one of the rooms and put your story on tape. It won’t take long. And then you can go back to your investigation.”
Bosch put his briefcase on the table and opened it. He took out his tape recorder. He had remembered it while driving around all morning delivering search warrants at the local hospitals.
“Speaking of tape, why don’t you take this into one of the rooms and listen to it first? I had it on last night. It should end my involvement in this pretty quick.”
She hesitantly took the recorder, and Bosch pointed to the hallway that led to the three interview rooms.
“I’m still going to need to-”
“Fine. Listen to the tape, then we’ll talk.”
“Your partner, too.”
“He should be in anytime now.”
Bradley went down the hall with the recorder. Bosch finally sat down and didn’t bother to look at any of the other detectives.
It wasn’t even noon but he felt exhausted. He had spent the morning waiting for a judge in Van Nuys to sign the search warrants for medical records and then driving across the city delivering them to the legal offices of nineteen different hospitals. Edgar had taken ten of the warrants and headed off on his own. With fewer to deliver, he was then going downtown to conduct record searches on Nicholas Trent’s criminal background and to check the reverse directories and property records for Wonderland Avenue.
Bosch noticed that waiting for him was a stack of phone messages and the latest batch of call-in tips from the front desk. He took the phone messages first. Nine out of twelve of them were from reporters, all no doubt wanting to follow up on Channel 4’s report on Trent the night before and then rebroadcast during the morning news program. The other three were from Trent’s lawyer, Edward Morton. He had called three times between 8 and 9:30 A.M.
Bosch didn’t know Morton but expected he was calling to complain about Trent’s record being given to the media. He normally wasn’t quick to return calls to lawyers but decided it would be best to get the confrontation over with and to assure Morton that the leak had not come from the investigators on the case. Even though he doubted that Morton would believe anything he said, he picked up the phone and called back. A secretary told him that Morton had gone to a court hearing but was due to check in at any moment. Bosch said he would be waiting for him to call again.
After hanging up Bosch dropped the pink slips with the reporters’ numbers on them into the trash can next to his spot at the table. He started going through the call-in sheets and quickly noticed that the desk officers were now asking the questions he had typed out the morning before and given to Mankiewicz.
On the eleventh report in the pile he came across a direct hit. A woman named Sheila Delacroix had called at 8:41 A.M. that morning and said she had seen the Channel 4 report that morning. She said her younger brother Arthur Delacroix disappeared in 1980 in Los Angeles. He was twelve years old at the time and was never heard from since.
In answer to the medical questions, she responded that her brother had been injured during a fall from a skateboard a few months before his disappearance. He suffered a brain injury that required hospitalization and neurosurgery. She did not remember the exact medical details but was sure the hospital was Queen of Angels. She could not recall the name of any of the doctors who treated her brother. Other than an address and call-back number for Sheila Delacroix, that was all the information on the report.
Bosch circled the word “skateboard” on the sheet. He opened his briefcase and got out a business card Bill Golliher had given him. He called the first number and got a machine at the anthropologist’s office at UCLA. He called the second and got Golliher while he was eating lunch in Westwood Village.
“Got a quick question. The injury that required surgery on the skull.”
“The hematoma.”
“Right. Could that have been caused by a fall from a skateboard?”
