think my cell will work around here.”
“No, they never do in the canyon. Use the phone on the desk there and I’ll give you some privacy.”
He headed out, carrying the first-aid kit with him. Bosch went behind the desk and sat down. The dog was on the ground next to the chair. The animal looked up and seemed startled when she saw Bosch in the master’s spot.
“Calamity,” he said. “I think you lived up to your name today, girl.”
Bosch reached down and rubbed the scruff of the dog’s neck. The dog growled and he quickly took his hand away, wondering if it was the dog’s training or something about himself that had caused the hostile response.
He picked up the phone and called the home of his supervisor, Lt. Grace Billets. He explained what had happened on Wonderland Avenue and his findings up on the hill.
“Harry, how old do these bones look?” Billets asked.
Bosch looked at the Polaroid he had taken of the small bones he had found in the dirt. It was a bad photo, the flash overexposing it because he was too close.
“I don’t know, they look old to me. I’d say we’re talking years here.”
“Okay, so whatever’s there at the scene isn’t fresh.”
“Maybe freshly uncovered, but no, it’s been there.”
“That’s what I’m saying. So I think we should stick a pin in it and gear up for tomorrow. Whatever is up there on that hill, it’s not going anywhere tonight.”
“Yeah,” Bosch said. “I’m thinking the same thing.”
She was silent a moment before speaking.
“These kind of cases, Harry…”
“What?”
“They drain the budget, they drain manpower… and they’re the hardest to close, if you can close them.”
“Okay, I’ll climb back up there and cover the bones up. I’ll tell the doctor to keep his dog on a leash.”
“Come on, Harry, you know what I mean.” She exhaled loudly. “First day of the year and we’re going to start in the hole.”
Bosch was silent, letting her work through her administrative frustrations. It didn’t take long. It was one of the things he liked about her.
“Okay, anything else happen today?”
“Not too much. A couple suicides, that’s it so far.”
“Okay, when are you going to start tomorrow?”
“I’d like to get out there early. I’ll make some calls and see what I can get going. And get the bone the dog found confirmed before we start anything.”
“Okay, let me know.”
Bosch agreed and hung up the phone. He next called Teresa Corazon, the county medical examiner, at home. Though their relationship outside of work had ended years before and she had moved at least two times since, she had always kept the same number and Bosch knew it by heart. It came in handy now. He explained what he had going and that he needed an official confirmation of the bone as human before he set other things in motion. He also told her that if it was confirmed he would need an archeological team to work the crime scene as soon as possible.
Corazon put him on hold for almost five minutes.
“Okay,” she said when she came back on the line. “I couldn’t get Kathy Kohl. She’s not home.”
Bosch knew that Kohl was the staff archeologist. Her real expertise and reason for her inclusion as a full-time employee was retrieving bones from the body dump sites up in the desert of the north county, which was a weekly occurrence. But Bosch knew she would be called in to handle the search for bones off Wonderland Avenue.
“So what do you want me to do? I want to get this confirmed tonight.”
“Just hold your horses, Harry. You are always so impatient. You’re like a dog with a bone, no pun intended.”
“It’s a kid, Teresa. Can we be serious?”
“Just come here. I’ll look at this bone.”
“And what about tomorrow?”
“I’ll get things in motion. I left a message for Kathy and as soon as we hang up here I’ll call the office and have her paged. She’ll head up the dig as soon as the sun is up and we can get in there. Once the bones are recovered, there is a forensic anthropologist at UCLA we have on retainer and I can bring him in if he’s in town. And I’ll be there myself. Are you satisfied?”
This last part gave Bosch pause.
“Teresa,” he finally said, “I want to try to keep this as low profile as I can for as long as I can.”
“And what are you implying?”
“That I’m not sure that the medical examiner for Los Angeles County needs to be there. And that I haven’t seen you at a crime scene without a cameraman in tow for a long time.”
“Harry, he is a private videographer, okay? The film he takes is for future use by me and controlled solely by me. It doesn’t end up on the six o’clock news.”
“Whatever. I just think we need to avoid any complications on this one. It’s a child case. You know how they get.”
“Just get over here with that bone. I’m leaving in an hour.”
She abruptly hung up.
Bosch wished he had been a little more politic with Corazon but was glad he’d made his point. Corazon was a personality, regularly appearing on Court TV and network shows as a forensic expert. She had also taken to having a cameraman follow her so that her cases could be turned into documentaries for broadcast on any of the cop and legal shows on the vast cable and satellite spectrum. He could not and would not let her goals as a celebrity coroner interfere with his goals as an investigator of what might be the homicide of a child.
He decided he’d make the calls to the department’s Special Services and K-9 units after he got confirmation on the bone. He got up and left the room, looking for Guyot.
The doctor was in the kitchen, sitting at a small table and writing in a spiral-bound notebook. He looked up at Bosch.
“Just writing a few notes on your treatment. I’ve kept notes on every patient I’ve ever treated.”
Bosch just nodded, even though he thought it was odd for Guyot to be writing about him.
“I’m going to go, Doctor. We’ll be back tomorrow. In force, I’d expect. We might want to use your dog again. Will you be here?”
“I’ll be here and be glad to help. How are the ribs?”
“They hurt.”
“Only when you breathe, right? That’ll last about a week.”
“Thanks for taking care of me. You don’t need that shoe box back, do you?”
“No, I wouldn’t want that back now.”
Bosch turned to head toward the front door but then turned back to Guyot.
“Doctor, do you live alone here?”
“I do now. My wife died two years ago. A month before our fiftieth anniversary.”
“I’m sorry.”
Guyot nodded and said, “My daughter has her own family up in Seattle. I see them on special occasions.”
Bosch felt like asking why only on special occasions but didn’t. He thanked the man again and left.
Driving out of the canyon and toward Teresa Corazon’s place in Hancock Park, he kept his hand on the shoe box so that it would not be jostled or slide off the seat. He felt a deep sense of dread rising from within. He knew it was because fate had certainly not smiled on him this day. He had caught the worst kind of case there was to catch. A child case.
Child cases haunted you. They hollowed you out and scarred you. There was no bulletproof vest thick enough to stop you from being pierced. Child cases left you knowing the world was full of lost light.
