be taken out of the world. At best he was wading into the dark waters of the abyss with two leaking buckets in his hands.
“But you have other things on your mind, don’t you?” Golliher said, interrupting Bosch’s thoughts. “Do you have the hospital records?”
Bosch brought his briefcase up onto the worktable and opened it. He handed Golliher a file. Then, from his pocket he pulled the stack of photos he and Edgar had borrowed from Sheila Delacroix.
“I don’t know if these help,” he said. “But this is the kid.”
Golliher picked up the photos. He went through them quickly, stopping at the posed close-up of Arthur Delacroix in a jacket and tie. He went over to a chair where a backpack was slung over the armrest. He pulled out his own file and came back to the worktable. He opened the file and took out an 8 ? 10 photo of the skull from Wonderland Avenue. For a long moment he held the photos of Arthur Delacroix and the skull side by side and studied them.
Finally, he said, “The malar and superciliary ridge formation look similar.”
“I’m not an anthropologist, Doc.”
Golliher put the photos down on the table. He then explained by running his finger across the left eyebrow of the boy and then down around the outside of his eye.
“The brow ridge and the exterior orbit,” he said. “It’s wider than usual on the recovered specimen. Looking at this photo of the boy, we see his facial structure is in line with what we see here.”
Bosch nodded.
“Let’s look at the X-rays,” Golliher said. “There’s a box back here.”
Golliher gathered the files and led Bosch to another worktable, where there was a light box built into the surface. He opened the hospital file, picked up the X-rays and began reading the patient history report.
Bosch had already read the document. The hospital reported that the boy was brought into the emergency room at 5:40 P.M. on February 11, 1980, by his father, who said he was found in a dazed and unresponsive state following a fall from a skateboard in which he struck his head. Neurosurgery was performed in order to relieve pressure inside the skull caused by swelling of the brain. The boy remained in the hospital under observation for ten days and was then released to his father. Two weeks later he was readmitted for follow-up surgery to remove the clips that had been used to hold his skull together following the neurosurgery.
There was no report anywhere in the file of the boy complaining about being mistreated by his father or anyone else. While recovering from the initial surgery he was routinely interviewed by an on-site social worker. Her report was less than half a page. It reported that the boy said he had hurt himself while skateboarding. There was no follow-up questioning or referral to juvenile authorities or the police.
Golliher shook his head while he finished his scan of the document.
“What is it?” Bosch asked.
“It’s nothing. And that’s the problem. No investigation. They took the boy at his word. His father was probably sitting right there in the room with him when he was interviewed. You know how hard it would have been for him to tell the truth? So they just patched him up and sent him right back to the person who was hurting him.”
“Hey, Doc, you’re getting a little bit ahead of us. Let’s get the ID, if it’s there, and then we’ll figure out who was hurting the kid.”
“Fine. It’s your case. It’s just that I’ve seen this a hundred times.”
Golliher dropped the reports and picked up the X-rays. Bosch watched him with a bemused smile on his face. It seemed that Golliher was annoyed because Bosch had not jumped to the same conclusions he had with the same speed he had.
Golliher put two X-rays down on the light box. He then went to his own file and brought out X-rays he had taken of the Wonderland skull. He flipped the box’s light on and three X-rays glowed before them. Golliher pointed to the X-ray he had taken from his own file.
“This is a radiological X-ray I took to look inside the bone of the skull. But we can use it here for comparison purposes. Tomorrow when I get back to the medical examiner’s office I will use the skull itself.”
Golliher leaned over the light box and reached for a small glass eyepiece that was stored on a nearby shelf. He held one end to his eye and pressed the other against one of the X-rays. After a few moments he moved to one of the hospital X-rays and pressed the eyepiece to the same location on the skull. He went back and forth numerous times, making comparison after comparison.
When he was finished, Golliher straightened up, leaned back against the next worktable and folded his arms.
“Queen of Angels was a government-subsidized hospital. Money was always tight. They should have taken more than two pictures of this kid’s head. If they had, they might have seen some of his other injuries.”
“Okay. But they didn’t.”
“Yeah, they didn’t. But based on what they did do and what we’ve got here, I was able to make several comparison points on the roundel, the fracture pattern and along the squamous suture. There is no doubt in my mind.”
He gestured toward the X-rays still glowing on the light box.
“Meet Arthur Delacroix.”
Bosch nodded.
“Okay.”
Golliher stepped over to the light box and started collecting the X-rays.
“How sure are you?”
“Like I said, there’s no doubt. I’ll look at the skull tomorrow when I’m downtown, but I can tell you now, it’s him. It’s a match.”
“So, if we get somebody and go into court with it, there aren’t going to be any surprises, right?”
Golliher looked at Bosch.
“No surprises. These findings can’t be challenged. As you know, the challenge lies in the interpretation of the injuries. I look at this boy and see something horribly, horribly wrong. And I will testify to that. Gladly. But then you have these official records.”
He gestured dismissively to the open file of hospital records.
“They say skateboard. That’s where the fight will be.”
Bosch nodded. Golliher put the two X-rays back into the file and closed it. Bosch put it back in his briefcase.
“Well, Doctor, thanks for taking the time to see me here. I think-”
“Detective Bosch?”
“Yes?”
“The other day you seemed very uncomfortable when I mentioned the necessity of faith in what we do. Basically, you changed the subject.”
“Not really a subject I feel comfortable talking about.”
“I would think that in your line of work it would be paramount to have a healthy spirituality.”
“I don’t know. My partner likes blaming aliens from outer space for everything that’s wrong. I guess that’s healthy, too.”
“You’re avoiding the question.”
Bosch grew annoyed and the feeling quickly slipped toward anger.
“What is the question, Doc? Why do you care so much about me and what I believe or don’t believe?”
“Because it is important to me. I study bones. The framework of life. And I have come to believe that there is something more than blood and tissue and bone. There is something else that holds us together. I have something inside, that you’ll never see on any X-ray, that holds me together and keeps me going. And so, when I meet someone who carries a void in the place where I carry my faith, I get scared for him.”
Bosch looked at him for a long moment.
“You’re wrong about me. I have faith and I have a mission. Call it blue religion, call it whatever you like. It’s the belief that this won’t just go by. That those bones came out of the ground for a reason. That they came out of the ground for me to find, and for me to do something about. And that’s what holds me together and keeps me going. And it won’t show up on any X-ray either. Okay?”
He stared at Golliher, waiting for a reply. But the anthropologist said nothing.
