Michael Connelly

by Harry Bosch 08 - City Of Bones (v5)

  As he spoke he held his empty hand out as a gun pointing at her. His hand was extended directly in front of his chest. The bullet that day in the tunnel had been meant for his heart.

  “I guess I just want you to know that I know how lucky I was with you tonight.”

  He nodded and then turned and went down the steps.

  17

  DEATH investigation is a pursuit with countless dead ends, obstacles and colossal chunks of wasted time and effort. Bosch knew this every day of his existence as a cop but was reminded of it once again when he got to the homicide table shortly before noon Monday and found his morning’s time and effort had most likely been wasted while a brand-new obstacle awaited him.

  The homicide squad had the area at the rear corner of the detective bureau. The squad consisted of three teams of three. Each team had a table consisting of the three detectives’ desks pushed together, two facing each other, the third along one side. Sitting at Bosch’s table, in the slot left vacant by Kiz Rider’s departure, was a young woman in a business suit. She had dark hair and even darker eyes. They were eyes sharp enough to peel a walnut and they held on Bosch his whole way through the squad room.

  “Can I help you?” he asked when he got to the table.

  “Harry Bosch?”

  “That’s me.”

  “Detective Carol Bradley, IAD. I need to take a statement from you.”

  Bosch looked around. There were several people in the squad room trying to act busy while surreptitiously watching.

  “Statement about what?”

  “Deputy Chief Irving asked our division to determine if the criminal record of Nicholas Trent was improperly divulged to the media.”

  Bosch still hadn’t sat down. He put his hands on the top of his chair and stood behind it. He shook his head.

  “I think it’s pretty safe to assume it was improperly divulged.”

  “Then I need to find out who did it.”

  Bosch nodded.

  “I’m trying to run an investigation here and all anybody cares about is—”

  “Look, I know you think it’s bullshit. And I may think it’s bullshit. But I’ve got the order. So let’s go into one of the rooms and put your story on tape. It won’t take long. And then you can go back to your investigation.”

  Bosch put his briefcase on the table and opened it. He took out his tape recorder. He had remembered it while driving around all morning delivering search warrants at the local hospitals.

  “Speaking of tape, why don’t you take this into one of the rooms and listen to it first? I had it on last night. It should end my involvement in this pretty quick.”

  She hesitantly took the recorder, and Bosch pointed to the hallway that led to the three interview rooms.

  “I’m still going to need to—”

  “Fine. Listen to the tape, then we’ll talk.”

  “Your partner, too.”

  “He should be in anytime now.”

  Bradley went down the hall with the recorder. Bosch finally sat down and didn’t bother to look at any of the other detectives.

  It wasn’t even noon but he felt exhausted. He had spent the morning waiting for a judge in Van Nuys to sign the search warrants for medical records and then driving across the city delivering them to the legal offices of nineteen different hospitals. Edgar had taken ten of the warrants and headed off on his own. With fewer to deliver, he was then going downtown to conduct record searches on Nicholas Trent’s criminal background and to check the reverse directories and property records for Wonderland Avenue.

  Bosch noticed that waiting for him was a stack of phone messages and the latest batch of call-in tips from the front desk. He took the phone messages first. Nine out of twelve of them were from reporters, all no doubt wanting to follow up on Channel 4’s report on Trent the night before and then rebroadcast during the morning news program. The other three were from Trent’s lawyer, Edward Morton. He had called three times between 8 and 9:30 A.M.

  Bosch didn’t know Morton but expected he was calling to complain about Trent’s record being given to the media. He normally wasn’t quick to return calls to lawyers but decided it would be best to get the confrontation over with and to assure Morton that the leak had not come from the investigators on the case. Even though he doubted that Morton would believe anything he said, he picked up the phone and called back. A secretary told him that Morton had gone to a court hearing but was due to check in at any moment. Bosch said he would be waiting for him to call again.

  After hanging up Bosch dropped the pink slips with the reporters’ numbers on them into the trash can next to his spot at the table. He started going through the call-in sheets and quickly noticed that the desk officers were now asking the questions he had typed out the morning before and given to Mankiewicz.

  On the eleventh report in the pile he came across a direct hit. A woman named Sheila Delacroix had called at 8:41 A.M. that morning and said she had seen the Channel 4 report that morning. She said her younger brother Arthur Delacroix disappeared in 1980 in Los Angeles. He was twelve years old at the time and was never heard from since.

  In answer to the medical questions, she responded that her brother had been injured during a fall from a skateboard a few months before his disappearance. He suffered a brain injury that required hospitalization and neurosurgery. She did not remember the exact medical details but was sure the hospital was Queen of Angels. She could not recall the name of any of the doctors who treated her brother. Other than an address and call-back number for Sheila Delacroix, that was all the information on the report.

  Bosch circled the word “skateboard” on the sheet. He opened his briefcase and got out a business card Bill Golliher had given him. He called the first number and got a machine at the anthropologist’s office at UCLA. He called the second and got Golliher while he was eating lunch in Westwood Village.

  “Got a quick question. The injury that required surgery on the skull.”

  “The hematoma.”

  “Right. Could that have been caused by a fall from a skateboard?”

  There was silence and Bosch let Golliher think. The clerk who took the calls to the general lines in the squad room came up to the homicide table and shot Bosch a peace sign. Bosch covered his receiver.

  “Who is it?”

  “Kiz Rider.”

  “Tell her to hold.”

  He uncovered the receiver.

  “Doc, you there?”

  “Yes, I’m just thinking. It might be possible, depending on what it was he hit. But a fall just to the ground, I would say it’s not likely. You had a tight fracture pattern, which indicates a small area of surface-to-surface contact. Also, the location is high up on the cranium. It’s not the back of the head, which you would normally associate with fall injuries.”

  Bosch felt some of the wind going out of his sails. He had thought he might have an ID on the victim.

  “Is this a particular person you are talking about?” Golliher asked.

  “Yeah, we just got a tip.”

  “Are there X-rays, surgical records?”

  “I’m working on it.”

  “Well, I’d like to see them to make a comparison.”

  “As soon as I get them. What about the other injuries? Could they be from skateboarding?”

  “Of course some of them could be from that,” Golliher said. “But I would say not all. The ribs, the twist fractures—also, some of these injuries dated to very early childhood, Detective. There aren’t many three-year-olds on skateboards, I would think.”

  Bosch nodded and tried to think if there was anything else to ask.

  “Detective, you do know that in abuse cases the reported cause of injury and the true cause are not often the same?”

  “I understand. Whoever brought the kid into the emergency room wouldn’t volunteer he hit him with a flashlight or whatever.”

  “Right. There would be a story. The child would adhere to it.”

  “Skateb
oard accident.”

  “It’s possible.”

  “Okay, Doc, I gotta go. I’ll get you the X-rays as soon as I get them. Thanks.”

  He punched line two on the phone.

  “Kiz?”

  “Harry, hi, how’re you doing?”

  “Busy. What’s up?”

  “I feel awful, Harry. I think I fucked up.”

  Bosch leaned back in his chair. He would have never guessed it was her.

  “Channel Four?”

  “Yeah. I, uh . . . yesterday after you left Parker and my partner stopped watching the football game, he asked what was up with you being in there. So I told him. I’m still trying to establish the relationship, Harry, you know? I told him I ran the names for you and there was a hit. One of the neighbors had a molestation record. That’s all I told him, Harry. I swear.”

  Bosch breathed out heavily. He actually felt better. His instinct about Rider had been right on. She was not the leak. She had simply trusted someone she should have been able to trust.

  “Kiz, I got IAD sitting up here waiting to talk to me about this. How do you know Thornton gave it to Channel Four?”

  “I saw the report on TV this morning when I was getting ready. I know Thornton knows that reporter. Surtain. Thornton and I worked a case a few months ago—an insurance murder on the Westside. It got some media play and he was feeding her stuff off the record. I saw them together. Then yesterday, after I told him about the hit, he said he had to go to the can. He picked the sports page up and went down the hall. But he didn’t go to the can. We got a call out and I went down and banged on the door to tell him we were rolling. He didn’t answer. I didn’t really think anything about it until I saw the news today. I think he didn’t go to the can because he went into another office or down to the lobby to use a phone to call her.”

  “Well, it explains a lot.”

  “I’m really sorry, Harry. That TV report didn’t make you look good at all. I’m going to talk to IAD.”

  “Just hold on to that, Kiz. For now. I’ll let you know if I need you to talk to IAD. But what are you going to do?”

  “Get a new partner. I can’t work with this guy.”

  “Be careful. You start jumping partners and pretty soon you’ll be all alone.”

  “I’d rather work alone than with some asshole I can’t trust.”

  “There’s that.”

  “What about you? The offer still stand?”

  “What, I’m an asshole you can trust?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “The offer stands. All you have to do is—”

  “Hey, Harry, I gotta go. Here he comes.”

  “Okay, bye.”

  Bosch hung up and rubbed his mouth with his hand as he thought about what to do about Thornton. He could tell Kiz’s story to Carol Bradley. But there was still too much room in it for error. He wouldn’t feel comfortable going to IAD with it unless he was sure. The actual idea of going to IAD about anything repulsed him, but in this instance someone was harming Bosch’s investigation.

  And that was something he could not let pass.

  After a few minutes he came up with a plan and checked his watch. It was ten minutes before noon. He called Kiz Rider back.

  “It’s Harry. Is he there?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “Repeat after me, in a sort of excited voice. ‘You did, Harry? Great! Who was he?’ ”

  “You did, Harry? That’s great! Who was he?”

  “Okay, now you’re listening, listening, listening. Now say, ‘How did a ten-year-old get here from New Orleans?’ ”

  “How did a ten-year-old get all the way here from New Orleans?”

  “Perfect. Now hang up and don’t say anything. If Thornton asks you, tell him we ID’d the kid through dental records. He was a ten-year-old runaway from New Orleans last seen in nineteen seventy-five. His parents are on a plane heading here now. And the chief is going to have a press conference about it all today at four.”

  “Okay, Harry, good luck.”

  “You, too.”

  Bosch hung up and looked up. Edgar was standing across the table from him. He had heard the last part of the conversation and his eyebrows were up.

  “No, it’s all bullshit,” Bosch said. “I’m setting up the leak. And that reporter.”

  “The leak? Who is the leak?”

  “Kiz’s new partner. We think.”

  Edgar slid into his chair and just nodded.

  “But we do have a possible ID on the bones,” Bosch said.

  He told Edgar about the call-in sheet on Arthur Delacroix and his subsequent conversations with Bill Golliher.

  “Nineteen eighty? That’s not going to work with Trent. I checked the reverses and property records. He wasn’t on that street until ’eighty-four. Like he said last night.”

  “Something tells me he isn’t our guy.”

  Bosch thought about the skateboard again. It wasn’t enough to alter his gut feeling.

  “Tell that to Channel Four.”

  Bosch’s phone rang. It was Rider.

  “He just went to the can.”

  “You tell him about the press conference?”

  “I told him everything. He kept asking questions, the dipshit.”

  “Well, if he tells her that everybody will have it at four, she’ll go out with the exclusive on the noon news. I’m going to go watch.”

  “Let me know.”

  He hung up and checked his watch. He still had a few minutes. He looked at Edgar.

  “By the way, IAD is in one of the rooms back there. We’re under investigation.”

  Edgar’s jaw dropped. Like most cops, he resented Internal Affairs because even when you did a good and honest job, the IAD could still be on you for any number of things. It was like the Internal Revenue Service, the way just seeing a letter with the IRS return address in the corner was enough to pull your guts into a knot.

  “Relax. It’s about the Channel Four thing. We should be clear of it in a few minutes. Come with me.”

  They went into Lt. Billets’s office, where there was a small television on a stand. She was doing paperwork at her desk.

  “You mind if we check out Channel Four’s noon report?” Bosch asked.

  “Be my guest. I’m sure Captain LeValley and Chief Irving are going to be watching as well.”

  The news program opened with a report on a sixteen-car pileup in the morning fog on the Santa Monica Freeway. It wasn’t that significant a story—no one was killed—but they had good video, so it led the program. But the “dog bone” case had moved up to second billing. The anchor said they were going to Judy Surtain with another exclusive report.

  The program cut to Surtain sitting at a desk in the Channel 4 newsroom.

  “Channel Four has learned that the bones found in Laurel Canyon have been identified as those of a ten-year-old runaway from New Orleans.”

  Bosch looked at Edgar and then at Billets, who was rising from her seat with an expression of surprise on her face. Bosch put out his hand as if to signal her to wait a moment.

  “The parents of the boy, who reported him missing more than twenty-five years ago, are en route to Los Angeles to meet with police. The remains were identified through dental records. Later today, the chief of police is expected to hold a press conference where he will identify the boy and discuss the investigation. As reported by Channel Four last night, police are focusing on—”

  Bosch turned the TV off.

  “Harry, Jerry, what’s going on?” Billets asked immediately.

  “All of that was bogus. I was smoking out the leak.”

  “Who?”

  “Kiz’s new partner. A guy named Rick Thornton.”

  Bosch explained what Rider had explained to him earlier. He then outlined the scam he had just pulled.

  “Where’s the IAD detective?” Billets asked.

  “One of the interview rooms. She’s listening to a tape I had of me and the reporter last night.
”

  “A tape? Why didn’t you tell me about it last night?”

  “I forgot about it last night.”

  “All right, I’ll take it from here. You feel Kiz is clean on this?”

  Bosch nodded.

  “She has to trust her partner enough to tell him anything. He took that trust and gave it to Channel Four. I don’t know what he’s getting in return but it doesn’t matter. He’s fucking with my case.”

  “All right, Harry, I said I would handle it. You go back to the case. Anything new I should know about?”

  “We’ve got a possible ID—this one legit—that we’ll be running down today.”

  “What about Trent?”

  “We’re letting that sit until we find out if this is the kid. If it is, the timing is wrong. The kid disappeared in nineteen eighty. Trent didn’t move into the neighborhood until four years later.”

  “Great. Meantime, we’ve taken his buried secret and put it on TV. Last I heard from patrol, the media was camped in his driveway.”

  Bosch nodded.

  “Talk to Thornton about it,” he said.

  “Oh, we will.”

  She sat down behind her desk and picked up the phone. It was their cue to leave. On the way back to the table Bosch asked Edgar if he had pulled the file on Trent’s conviction.

  “Yeah, I got it. It was a weak case. Nowadays the DA probably wouldn’t have even filed on it.”

  They went to their respective spots at the table and Bosch saw that he had missed a callback from Trent’s lawyer. He reached for the phone but then waited until Edgar finished his report.

  “The guy worked as a teacher at an elementary school in Santa Monica. He was caught by another teacher in a stall in the bathroom holding an eight-year-old’s penis while he urinated. He said he was teaching the kid how to aim it, that the kid kept pissing on the floor. What it came down to is the kid’s story was all over the place but didn’t back his. And the parents said the boy already knew how to aim by the time he was four. Trent was convicted and got a two plus one. He served fifteen months of it up at Wayside.”

  Bosch thought about all of this. His hand was still on the phone.

  “It’s a long ass jump from that to beating a kid to death with a baseball bat.”