The second bedroom was the cleanest room in the home because it appeared to be unused. There was a bureau and a side table but no mattress on the bed frame. Bosch recalled the mattress and box spring he had seen earlier in the garage and realized that the set had probably been moved down from here. He checked the closet and found it crowded but more orderly. The clothes were hung neatly in plastic bags for long-term storage.
He went back into the hall to check the bathroom.
“Harry, everything okay up there?” Chu called from downstairs.
“Everything’s cool. Be right down.”
He re-holstered his weapon and leaned his head into the bathroom. Dingy towels hung on a rack and one more ashtray was on top of the toilet tank. A plastic air freshener sat next to it. Bosch almost laughed at the sight of it.
The bathtub enclosure had a plastic curtain with mold on it and the tub completed the motif with a ring of grime that looked years in the making. Disgusted, Bosch turned to go back down the stairs. But then he thought better of it and returned to the bathroom. He opened the medicine cabinet and found the three glass shelves fully racked with prescription bottles and inhalers. He randomly took one off its shelf and read the label. It was a four- year-old prescription for Hardy for something called generic theophylline. He replaced it and took down one of the inhalers. It was another generic prescription, this time for something called albuterol. It was three years old.
Bosch studied another inhaler. Then another. And then he checked every inhaler and bottle in the cabinet. There were many different generic drugs and some of the bottles were full while most of them were almost empty. But there wasn’t a prescription in the cabinet that was more recent than three years old.
Bosch closed the cabinet, coming to his own face in the mirror. He looked at his dark eyes for a long moment.
And suddenly he knew.
He left the bathroom and walked quickly back to Hardy’s bedroom. He closed the door so he would not be heard from the living room. Pulling his phone as he picked up one of the oxygen canisters, he called the number for ReadyAire and asked to speak to the delivery and pickup coordinator. He was connected to someone named Manuel.
“Manuel, my name is Detective Bosch. I work for the Los Angeles Police Department and I am conducting an investigation. I need to know very quickly when you last delivered prescription oxygen to one of your customers. Can you help me?”
Manuel at first thought the call was a joke, a prank perpetrated by a friend.
“Listen to me,” Bosch said sternly. “This is no joke. This is an urgent investigation and I need this information right now. I need you to help me or put me on with someone who can.”
There was a silence and Bosch heard Chu call his name out again. Bosch put down the canister and covered his phone with his hand. He opened the bedroom door.
“I’ll be right down,” he called out.
He then closed the door and went back to the phone.
“Manuel, are you there?”
“Yes. I can put the name into the computer and see what we have.”
“Okay, do it. The name is Chilton Aaron Hardy.”
Bosch waited and heard typing.
“Uh, he’s here,” Manuel said. “But he doesn’t get his oh-two from us anymore.”
“What do you mean?”
“It shows our last delivery to him was July of oh-eight. He either died or started getting it from somewhere else. Probably somewhere cheaper. We lose a lot of business that way.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m looking at it right here.”
“Thank you, Manuel.”
Bosch disconnected the call. He put his phone away and pulled his gun back out.
35
As Bosch descended the stairs his adrenaline level rose. He saw that Hardy had not moved from his chair but he was now smoking a cigarette. Chu was sitting on the arm of the couch, keeping watch.
“I made him turn off the tank,” he said. “So he wouldn’t blow us all up.”
“There’s nothing in the tank,” Bosch said.
“What?”
Bosch didn’t answer. He moved across the room until he was standing directly in front of Hardy.
“Stand up.”
Hardy looked up, confusion on his face.
“I said stand up.”
“What’s going on?”
Bosch reached down with both hands, grabbed him by the shirt and yanked him up out of the chair. He spun him around and pushed him face-first against the wall.
“Harry, what are you doing?” Chu asked. “He’s an old—”
“It’s him,” Bosch said.
“What?”
“It’s the
Bosch pulled his handcuffs off his belt and bound Hardy’s arms behind his back.
“Chilton Hardy, you’re under arrest for the murder of Lily Price.”
Hardy said nothing as Bosch recited his Constitutional rights. He turned his cheek to the wall and even had a small smile on his face.
“Harry, is the father upstairs?” Chu asked from behind him.
“No.”
“Then, where is he?”
“I think he’s dead. Junior’s been living here as him, collecting his pension and social security and all that stuff. Open the file. Where’s the DL photo?”
Chu stepped forward with the blowup shot of Chilton Aaron Hardy Jr. Bosch turned Hardy around and then held him against the wall with one hand on his chest. He held the photo up next to his face. He then flicked the thick eyeglasses off him and they fell to the floor.
“It’s him. He shaved his head for the DL photo. Changed his appearance. We never pulled up his father’s photo. I guess we should have.”
Bosch handed the photo back to Chu. Hardy’s smile grew broader.
“You think this is funny?” Bosch asked.
Hardy nodded.
“I think it’s pretty fucking funny that you don’t have any evidence and you don’t have a case.”
His voice was different now. A deeper timbre. Not the fragile old man’s voice from before.
“And I think it’s pretty fucking funny that you searched this place illegally. No judge is going to believe I gave you permission. Too bad you didn’t find anything. I’d love watching the judge throw it all out.”
Bosch grabbed a handful of Hardy’s shirt and pulled him off the wall, then slammed him back against it. He felt his rage building.
“Hey, partner?” he said. “Go out to the car and get your computer. I want to write up a search warrant right now.”
“Harry, I already checked on my phone, there’s no Wi-Fi here. How’re we going to send it in?”
“
“Okay, partner. I’ll go get the laptop.”
Message received.
Bosch never took his eyes off Hardy’s. He saw them register the situation, that he was about to be left alone with Bosch, and the beginning of fear entered their shiny coldness. As soon as he heard the front door close, Bosch
