“Didn’t even what?” Bosch asked louder.
Then he heard Delacroix vomit onto the floor of the back compartment.
“Ah, shit!” Edgar yelled. “I knew this was going to happen.”
The car filled with the acrid smell of a drunk tank. Alcohol-based vomit. Bosch lowered his window all the way despite the brisk January air. Edgar did the same. Bosch turned the car into Parker Center.
“It’s your turn, I think,” Bosch said. “I got the last one. That wit we pulled out of Bar Marmount.”
“I know, I know,” Edgar said. “Just what I wanna be doing before dinner.”
Bosch pulled into one of the spaces near the intake doors that were reserved for vehicles carrying prisoners. A booking officer standing by the door started heading toward the car.
Bosch recalled Julia Brasher’s complaint about having to clean vomit out of the back of patrol cars. It was almost like she was jabbing him in the sore ribs again, making him smile despite the pain.
Chapter 39
SHEILA Delacroix answered the door of the home where she and her brother had lived but only one of them had grown up. She was wearing black leggings and a long T-shirt that went almost to her knees. Her face was scrubbed of makeup and Bosch noticed for the first time that she had a pretty face when it was not hidden by paint and powder. Her eyes grew wide when she recognized Bosch and Edgar.
“Detectives? I wasn’t expecting you.”
She made no move to invite them in. Bosch spoke.
“Sheila, we have been able to identify the remains from Laurel Canyon as those of your brother, Arthur. We are sorry to have to tell you this. Can we come in for a few minutes?”
She nodded as she received the information and leaned for just a moment on the door frame. Bosch wondered if she would leave the place now that there was no chance of Arthur ever coming back.
She stepped aside and waved them in.
“Please,” she said, signaling them to sit down as they moved to the living room.
Everybody took the same seats as they had before. Bosch noticed the box of photos she had retrieved the other day was still on the coffee table. The photos were neatly stacked in rows in the box now. Sheila noticed his glance.
“I kind of put them in order. I had been meaning to get around to it for a long time.”
Bosch nodded. He waited until she took her seat before sitting down last and continuing. He and Edgar had worked out how the visit should go on the way over. Sheila Delacroix was going to be an important component of the case. They had her father’s confession and the evidence of the bones. But what would pull it all together would be her story. They needed her to tell what it was like growing up in the Delacroix house.
“Uh, there’s more, Sheila. We wanted to talk to you before you saw it on the news. Late today your father was charged with Arthur’s murder.”
“Oh, my God.”
She leaned forward and brought her elbows down to her knees. She clasped her hands into fists and held them tight against her mouth. She closed her eyes and her hair fell forward, helping to hide her face.
“He’s being held down at Parker Center pending his arraignment tomorrow and a bail hearing. I would say that from the looks of things-his lifestyle, I mean-I don’t think he’ll be able to make the kind of bail they’re going to be talking about.”
She opened her eyes.
“There must be some kind of mistake. What about the man, the man across the street? He killed himself, he must be the one.”
“We don’t think so, Sheila.”
“My father couldn’t have done this.”
“Actually,” Edgar said softly, “he confessed to it.”
She straightened herself, and Bosch saw the true surprise on her face. And this surprised him. He thought she would have always harbored the idea, the suspicion about her father.
“He told us that he hit him with a baseball bat because he skipped school,” Bosch said. “Your father said he was drinking at the time and that he just lost it and he hit him too hard. An accident, according to him.”
Sheila stared back at him as she tried to process this information.
“He then put your brother’s body in the trunk of the car. He told us that when you two drove around looking for him that night, he was in the trunk all along.”
She closed her eyes again.
“Then, later that night,” Edgar continued, “while you were sleeping, he snuck out and drove up into the hills and dumped the body.”
Sheila started shaking her head like she was trying to fend off the words.
“No, no, he…”
“Did you ever see your father strike Arthur?” Bosch asked.
Sheila looked at him, seemingly coming out of her daze.
“No, never.”
“Are you sure about that?”
She shook her head.
“Nothing more than a swat on the behind when he was small and being a brat. That’s all.”
Bosch looked over at Edgar and then back at the woman, who was leaning forward again, looking down at the floor by her feet.
“Sheila, I know we’re talking about your father here. But we’re also talking about your brother. He didn’t get much of a chance at life, did he?”
He waited and after a long moment she shook her head without looking up.
“We have your father’s confession and we have evidence. Arthur’s bones tell us a story, Sheila. There are injuries. A lot of them. From his whole life.”
She nodded.
“What we need is another voice. Someone who can tell us what it was like for Arthur to grow up in this house.”
“To try to grow up,” Edgar added.
Sheila straightened herself and used her palms to smear tears across her cheeks.
“All I can tell you is that I never saw him hit my brother. Never once.”
She wiped more tears away. Her face was becoming shiny and distorted.
“This is unbelievable,” she said. “All I did… all I wanted was to see if that was Arthur up there. And now… I should have never called you people. I should’ve…”
She didn’t finish. She pinched the bridge of her nose in an effort to stop the tears.
“Sheila,” Edgar said. “If your father didn’t do it, why would he tell us he did?”
She sharply shook her head and seemed to grow agitated.
“Why would he tell us to tell you he said he was sorry?”
“I don’t know. He’s sick. He drinks. Maybe he wants the attention, I don’t know. He was an actor, you know.”
Bosch pulled the box of photos across the coffee table and used his finger to go through one of the rows. He saw a photo of Arthur as maybe a five-year-old. He pulled it out and studied it. There was no hint in the picture that the boy was doomed, that the bones beneath the flesh were already damaged.
He slid the photo back into its place and looked up at the woman. Their eyes held.
“Sheila, will you help us?”
She looked away from him.
“I can’t.”
