was covered up by the truck assembly.”
“You mean like when the board was made?”
“No, I don’t think so. It’s not a professional job. In fact it was hard to read. I had to put it under glass and angled light. I just think it was the original owner’s way of marking his board in a secret way in case there was ever a dispute or something over ownership. Like if somebody stole it from him. Like I said in the report, Boney boards were the choice board for a while there. They were hard to get-might’ve been easier to steal one than find one in a store. So the kid who had this one took off the back truck-this would have been the original truck, not the current wheels-and carved in the date. Nineteen eighty A.D.”
Bosch looked over at Edgar. He was on the phone speaking with his hand cupped over the mouthpiece. A personal call.
“You said A.D.?”
“Yeah, you know, as in anno Domini or however you say it. It’s Latin. Means the year of our Lord. I looked it up.”
“No, it means Arthur Delacroix.”
“What? Who’s that?”
“That’s the vic, Antoine. Arthur Delacroix. As in A.D.”
“Damn! I didn’t have the vic’s name here, Bosch. You filed all of this evidence while he was still a John Doe and never amended it, man. I didn’t even know you had an ID.”
Bosch wasn’t listening to him. A surge of adrenaline was moving through his body. He knew his pulse was quickening.
“Antoine, don’t move. I’m coming down there.”
“I’ll be here.”
Chapter 47
THE freeway was crowded with people getting an early start on the weekend. Bosch couldn’t keep his speed as he headed downtown. He had a feeling of pulsing urgency. He knew it was because of Jesper’s discovery and the message from the O-3.
He turned his wrist on the wheel so he could see his watch and check the date. He knew that transfers usually took place at the end of a pay period. There were two pay periods a month-beginning the first and the fifteenth. If the transfer they were going to put on him was immediate, he knew that gave him only three or four days to wrap up the case. He didn’t want to be taken off it, to leave it in Edgar’s or anybody else’s hands. He wanted to finish it.
Bosch reached into his pocket and brought out the phone slip. He unfolded it, driving with the heels of his palms on the wheel. He studied it for a moment and then got out his phone. He punched in the number from the message and waited.
“Office of Operations, Lieutenant Bollenbach speaking.”
Bosch clicked the phone off. He felt his face grow hot. He wondered if Bollenbach had caller ID on his phone. He knew that delaying the call was ridiculous because what was done was done whether he called in to get the news or not.
He put the phone and the message aside and tried to concentrate on the case, particularly the latest information Antoine Jesper had provided about the skateboard found in Nicholas Trent’s house. Bosch realized that after ten days the case was wholly out of his grasp. A man he had fought with others in the department to clear was now the only suspect-with apparent physical evidence tying him to the victim. The thought that immediately poked through all of this was that maybe Irving was right. It was time for Bosch to go.
His phone chirped and he immediately thought it was Bollenbach. He was not going to answer but then decided his fate was unavoidable. He flipped open the phone. It was Edgar.
“Harry, what are you doing?”
“I told you. I had to go to SID.”
He didn’t want to tell him about Jesper’s latest discovery until he had seen it for himself.
“I could’ve gone with you.”
“Would’ve been a waste of your time.”
“Yeah, well, listen, Harry, Bullets is looking for you and, uh, there’s a rumor floatin’ around up here that you caught a transfer.”
“Don’t know anything about it.”
“Well, you’re going to let me know if something’s happening, aren’t you? We’ve been together a long time.”
“You’ll be the first, Jerry.”
When Bosch got to Parker Center he had one of the patrolmen stationed in the lobby help him lug the dummy up to SID, where he returned it to Jesper, who took it and carried it easily to its storage closet.
Jesper led Bosch into a lab where the skateboard was on an examination table. He turned on a light that was mounted on a stand next to the board, then turned off the overhead light. He swung a mounted magnifying glass over the skateboard and invited Bosch to look. The angled light created small shadows in the etchings of the wood, allowing the letters to be clearly seen.
1980 A.D.
Bosch could definitely see why Jesper had jumped to the conclusion he did about the letters, especially since he did not have the case victim’s name.
“It looks like somebody sanded it down,” Jesper said while Bosch continued to look. “I bet what happened was that the whole board was rehabbed at one point. New trucks and new lacquer.”
Bosch nodded.
“All right,” he said after straightening up from the magnifying glass. “I’m going to need to take this with me, maybe show it to some people.”
“I’m done with it,” Jesper said. “It’s all yours.”
He turned the overhead light back on.
“Did you check under these other wheels?”
“’Course. Nothing there, though. So I put the truck back on.”
“You got a box or something?”
“Oh, I thought you were going to ride it out of here, Harry.”
Bosch didn’t smile.
“That’s a joke.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Jesper left the room and came back with an empty cardboard file box that was long enough to contain the skateboard. He put the skateboard in it along with the detached set of wheels and the screws, which were in a small plastic bag. Bosch thanked him.
“Did I do good, Harry?”
Bosch hesitated and then said, “Yeah, I think so, Antoine.”
Jesper pointed to Bosch’s cheek.
“Shaving?”
“Something like that.”
The drive back to Hollywood was even slower on the freeway. Bosch finally bailed at the Alvarado exit and worked his way over to Sunset. He took it the rest of the way in, not making any better time and knowing it.
As he drove he kept thinking about the skateboard and Nicholas Trent, trying to fit explanations into the framework of time and evidence that they had. He couldn’t do it. There was a piece missing from the equation. He knew that at some level and at some place it all made sense. He was confident he would get there, if he had enough time.
At four-thirty Bosch banged through the back door into the station house carrying the file box containing the skateboard. He was heading quickly down the hallway to the squad room, when Mankiewicz ducked his head into
