clothed children. From Appalachia to the Brazilian rain forest to Kosovo, Trent had been sending checks for years. Bosch found no check for an amount higher than twelve dollars. He found dozens and dozens of photographs of the children he was supposedly helping as well as small handwritten notes from them.
Bosch had seen any number of public-service ads for the charities on late-night television. He had always been suspicious. Not about whether a few dollars could keep a child from going hungry and unclothed, but about whether the few dollars would actually get to them. He wondered if the photos Trent kept in the drawers of his desk were the same stock shots sent to everybody who contributed. He wondered if the thank-you notes in childish printing were fake.
“Man,” Edgar said as he surveyed the contents of the desk. “This guy, it’s like I think he was paying a penance or something, sending all his cash to these outfits.”
“Yeah, a penance for what?”
“We may never know.”
Edgar went back to searching the second bedroom. Bosch studied some of the photos he had spread on the top of the desk. There were boys and girls, none looking older than ten, though this was hard to estimate because they all had the hollow and ancient eyes of children who have been through war and famine and indifference. He picked up one shot of a young white boy and turned it over. The information said the boy had been orphaned during the fighting in Kosovo. He had been injured in the mortar blast that killed his parents. His name was Milos Fidor and he was ten years old.
Bosch had been orphaned at age eleven. He looked into the boy’s eyes and saw his own.
At 4 P.M. they locked Trent’s home and took three boxes of seized materials to the car. A small group of reporters lingered outside during the whole afternoon, despite word from Media Relations that all information on the day’s events would be distributed through Parker Center.
The reporters approached them with questions but Bosch quickly said that he was not allowed to comment on the investigation. They put the boxes in the trunk and drove off, heading downtown, where a meeting had been called by Deputy Chief Irvin Irving.
Bosch was uncomfortable with himself as he drove. He was ill at ease because Trent’s suicide-and he had no doubts now that it was-had served to deflect the forward movement of the investigation of the boy’s death. Bosch had spent half the day going through Trent’s belongings when what he had wanted to be doing was nailing down the ID of the boy, running out the lead he had received in the call-in reports.
“What’s the matter, Harry?” Edgar asked at one point on the drive.
“What?”
“I don’t know. You’re acting all morose. I know that’s probably your natural disposition, but you usually don’t show it so much.”
Edgar smiled but didn’t get one in return from Bosch.
“I’m just thinking about things. This guy might be alive today if we had handled things differently.”
“Come on, Harry. You mean like if we didn’t investigate him? There was no way. We did our job and things ran their course. Nothing we could do. If anybody’s responsible it’s Thornton, and he’s gonna get his due. But if you ask me, the world’s better off without somebody like Trent in it anyway. My conscience is clear, man. Crystal clear.”
“Good for you.”
Bosch thought about his decision to give Edgar the day off on Sunday. If he hadn’t done that, Edgar might have been the one to make the computer runs on the names. Kiz Rider would’ve been out of the loop and the information would have never gotten to Thornton.
He sighed. Everything always seemed to work on a domino theory. If, then, if, then, if, then.
“What’s your gut say on this guy?” he asked Edgar.
“You mean, like did he do the boy on the hill?”
Bosch nodded.
“I don’t know,” Edgar said. “Have to see what the lab says about the dirt and the sister says about the skateboard. If it is the sister and we get an ID.”
Bosch didn’t say anything. But he always felt uncomfortable about relying on lab reports in determining which way to go with an investigation.
“What about you, Har?”
Bosch thought of the photos of all the children Trent thought he was caring for. His act of contrition. His chance at redemption.
“I’m thinking we’re spinning our wheels,” he said. “He isn’t the guy.”
Chapter 20
DEPUTY Chief Irvin Irving sat behind his desk in his spacious office on the sixth floor of Parker Center. Also seated in the room were Lt. Grace Billets, Bosch and Edgar and an officer from the Media Relations unit named Sergio Medina. Irving’s adjutant, a female lieutenant named Simonton, stood in the open doorway of the office in case she was needed.
Irving had a glass-topped desk. There was nothing on it except for two pieces of paper with printing on them that Bosch could not read from his spot in front of Irving’s desk and to the left.
“Now then,” Irving began. “What do we know as fact about Mr. Trent? We know he was a pedophile with a criminal record of abusing a child. We know that he lived a stone’s throw from the burial site of a murdered child. And we know that he committed suicide on the evening he was questioned by investigators in regard to the first two points just stated.”
Irving picked up one of the pages on his desk and studied it without sharing its contents with the room. Finally, he spoke.
“I have here a press release that states those same three facts and goes on to say, ‘Mr. Trent is the subject of an ongoing investigation. Determination of whether he was responsible for the death of the victim found buried near his home is pending lab work and follow-up investigation.’ ”
He looked at the page silently again and then finally put it down.
“Nice and succinct. But it will do little to quell the thirst of the media for this story. Or to help us avert another troubling situation for this department.”
Bosch cleared his throat. Irving seemed to ignore it at first but then spoke without looking at the detective.
“Yes, Detective Bosch?”
“Well, it sort of seems as though you’re not satisfied with that. The problem is, what is on that press release is exactly where we stand. I’d love to tell you I think the guy did the kid on the hill. I’d love to tell you I know he did it. But we are a long way from that and, if anything, I think we’re going to end up concluding the opposite.”
“Based on what?” Irving snapped.
It was becoming clear to Bosch what the purpose of the meeting was. He guessed that the second page on Irving’s desk was the press release the deputy chief wanted to put out. It probably pinned everything on Trent and called his suicide the result of his knowing he would be found out. This would allow the department to handle Thornton, the leaker, quietly outside of the magnifying glass of the press. It would spare the department the humiliation of acknowledging that a leak of confidential information from one of its officers caused a possibly innocent man to kill himself. It would also allow them to close the case of the boy on the hill.
Bosch understood that everyone sitting in the room knew that closing a case of this nature was the longest of long shots. The case had drawn growing media attention, and Trent with his suicide had now presented them with a way out. Suspicions could be cast on the dead pedophile, and the department could call it a day and move on to the next case-hopefully one with a better chance of being solved.
Bosch could understand this but not accept it. He had seen the bones. He had heard Golliher run down the litany of injuries. In that autopsy suite Bosch had resolved to find the killer and close the case. The expediency of department politics and image management would be second to that.
He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his notebook. He opened it to a page with a folded corner and
