Chapter 3
THE woods were dark long before the sun disappeared. The overhead canopy created by a tall stand of Monterey pines blocked out most of the light before it got to the ground. Bosch used the flashlight and made his way up the hillside in the direction in which he had heard the dog moving through the brush. It was slow moving and hard work. The ground contained a foot-thick layer of pine needles that gave way often beneath Bosch’s boots as he tried for purchase on the incline. Soon his hands were sticky with sap from grabbing branches to keep himself upright.
It took him nearly ten minutes to go thirty yards up the hillside. Then the ground started to level off and the light got better as the tall trees thinned. Bosch looked around for the dog but didn’t see her. He called down to the street, though he could no longer see it or Dr. Guyot.
“Dr. Guyot? Can you hear me?”
“Yes, I hear you.”
“Whistle for your dog.”
He then heard a three-part whistle. It was distinct but very low, having the same trouble getting through the trees and underbrush as the sunlight had. Bosch tried to repeat it and after a few tries thought he had it right. But the dog didn’t come.
Bosch pressed on, staying on the level ground because he believed that if someone was going to bury or abandon a body, then it would be done on even ground as opposed to the steep slope. Following a path of least resistance, he moved into a stand of acacia trees. And here he immediately came upon a spot where the earth had recently been disturbed. It had been overturned, as if a tool or an animal had been randomly rooting in the soil. He used his foot to push some of the dirt and twigs aside and then realized they weren’t twigs.
He dropped to his knees and used the light to study the short brown bones scattered over a square foot of dirt. He believed he was looking at the disjointed fingers of a hand. A small hand. A child’s hand.
Bosch stood up. He realized that his interest in Julia Brasher had distracted him. He had brought no means with him for collecting the bones. Picking them up and carrying them down the hill would violate every tenet of evidence collection.
The Polaroid camera hung on a shoelace around his neck. He raised it now and took a close-up shot of the bones. He then stepped back and took a wider shot of the spot beneath the acacia trees.
In the distance he heard Dr. Guyot’s weak whistle. Bosch went to work with the yellow plastic crime scene tape. He tied a short length of it around the trunk of one of the acacia trees and then strung a boundary around the trees. Thinking about how he would work the case the following morning, he stepped out of the cover of the acacia trees and looked for something to use as an aerial marker. He found a nearby growth of sagebrush. He wrapped the crime scene tape around and over the top of the bush several times.
When he was finished it was almost dark. He took another cursory look around the area but knew that a flashlight search was useless and the ground would need to be exhaustively covered in the morning. Using a small penknife attached to his key chain, he began cutting four-foot lengths of the crime scene tape off the roll.
Making his way back down the hill, he tied the strips off at intervals on tree branches and bushes. He heard voices as he got closer to the street and used them to maintain his direction. At one point on the incline the soft ground suddenly gave way and he fell, tumbling hard into the base of a pine tree. The tree impacted his midsection, tearing his shirt and badly scratching his side.
Bosch didn’t move for several seconds. He thought he might have cracked his ribs on the right side. His breathing was difficult and painful. He groaned loudly and slowly pulled himself up on the tree trunk so that he could continue to follow the voices.
He soon came back down into the street where Dr. Guyot was waiting with his dog and another man. The two men looked shocked when they saw the blood on Bosch’s shirt.
“Oh my, what happened?” Guyot cried out.
“Nothing. I fell.”
“Your shirt is… there’s blood!”
“Comes with the job.”
“Let me look at your chest.”
The doctor moved in to look but Bosch held his hands up.
“I’m okay. Who is this?”
The other man answered.
“I’m Victor Ulrich. I live there.”
He pointed to the house next to the lot. Bosch nodded.
“I just came out to see what was going on.”
“Well, nothing is going on at the moment. But there is a crime scene up there. Or there will be. We probably won’t be back to work it until tomorrow morning. But I need both you men to keep clear of it and not to tell anybody about this. All right?”
Both of the neighbors nodded.
“And Doctor, don’t let your dog off the leash for a few days. I need to go back down to my car to make a phone call. Mr. Ulrich, I am sure we will want to talk to you tomorrow. Will you be around?”
“Sure. Anytime. I work at home.”
“Doing what?”
“Writing.”
“Okay. We’ll see you tomorrow.”
Bosch headed back down the street with Guyot and the dog.
“You really need me to take a look at your injury,” Guyot insisted.
“It’ll be fine.”
Bosch glanced to his left and thought he saw a curtain quickly close behind a window of the house they were passing.
“The way you are holding yourself when you walk-you’ve damaged a rib,” Guyot said. “Maybe you’ve broken it. Maybe more than one.”
Bosch thought of the small, thin bones he had just seen beneath the acacia trees.
“There’s nothing you can do for a rib, broken or not,” he said.
“I can tape it. You’ll breathe a hell of a lot easier. I can also take care of that wound.”
Bosch relented.
“Okay, Doc, you get out your black bag. I’m going to get my other shirt.”
Inside Guyot’s house a few minutes later, the doctor cleaned the deep scratch on the side of Bosch’s chest and taped his ribs. It did feel better, but it still hurt. Guyot said he could no longer write a prescription but suggested Bosch not take anything more powerful than aspirin anyway.
Bosch remembered that he had a prescription bottle with some Vicodin tablets left over from when he’d had a wisdom tooth removed a few months earlier. They would smooth out the pain if he wanted to go that way.
“I’ll be fine,” Bosch said. “Thanks for fixing me up.”
“Don’t mention it.”
Bosch pulled on his good shirt and watched Guyot as he closed up his first-aid kit. He wondered how long it had been since the doctor had used his skills on a patient.
“How long have you been retired?” he asked.
“Twelve years next month.”
“You miss it?”
Guyot turned from the first-aid kit and looked at him. The tremor was gone.
“Every day. I don’t miss the actual work-you know, the cases. But it was a job that made a difference. I miss that.”
Bosch thought about how Julia Brasher had described homicide work earlier. He nodded that he understood what Guyot was saying.
“You said there was a crime scene up there?” the doctor asked.
“Yes. I found more bones. I’ve got to make a call, see what we’re going to do. Can I borrow your phone? I don’t
