City of Bones (38 page)

Now she looked up at him.

“You sure? I could go get a coffee so you can have the office to yourself if you want.”

“It’s all right. Go ahead and make the call.”

She put the phone on speaker and called Bollenbach’s office. He answered right away.

“Lieutenant, this is Lieutenant Billets. I have Detective Bosch in my office.”

“Very good, Lieutenant. Just let me find the order here.”

There was the sound of papers rustling, then Bollenbach cleared his throat.

“Detective High . . . Heronyim . . . is that—”

“Hieronymus,” Bosch said. “Rhymes with anonymous.”

“Hieronymus then. Detective Hieronymus Bosch, you are ordered to report for duty at Robbery-Homicide Division at oh-eight-hundred January fifteen. That is all. Are these orders clear to you?”

Bosch was stunned. RHD was a promotion. He had been demoted from RHD to Hollywood more than ten years earlier. He looked at Billets, who also had a look of suspicious surprise on her face.

“Did you say RHD?”

“Yes, Detective, Robbery-Homicide Division. Are these orders clear?”

“What’s my assignment?”

“I just told you. You report at—”

“No, I mean what do I do at RHD? What’s my assignment there?”

“You’ll have to get that from your new commanding officer on the morning of the fifteenth. That’s all I have for you, Detective Bosch. You have your orders. Have a nice weekend.”

He clicked off and a dial tone came from the speaker.

Bosch looked at Billets.

“What do you think? Is this some kind of a joke?”

“If it is, it’s a good one. Congratulations.”

“But three days ago Irving told me to quit. Then he turns around and sends me downtown?”

“Well, maybe it’s because he wants to watch you more closely. They don’t call Parker Center the glass house for nothing, Harry. You better be careful.”

Bosch nodded.

“On the other hand,” she said, “we both know you should be down there. You should’ve never been taken out of there in the first place. Maybe it’s just the circle closing. Whatever it is, we’re going to miss you. I’ll miss you, Harry. You do good work.”

Bosch nodded his thanks. He made a move toward leaving but then looked back up at her and smiled.

“You’re not going to believe this, especially in light of what just happened, but we’re looking at Trent again. The skateboard. SID found a link to the boy on it.”

Billets threw her head back and laughed loudly, loud enough to draw the attention of everyone in the squad room.

“Well,” she said, “when Irving hears that, he’s definitely going to change RHD to Southeast Division, for sure.”

Her reference was to the gang-infested district at the far end of the city. A posting that would be the pure-form example of freeway therapy.

“I wouldn’t doubt it,” Bosch said.

Billets dropped the smile and got serious. She asked Bosch about the latest turn in the case and listened intently while he outlined the plan to put together what would basically be a full-life profile on the dead set decorator.

“I’ll tell you what,” she said when he was finished. “I’ll take you guys off rotation. No sense in you pulling a new case if you’re splitting for RHD. I’m also authorizing weekend OT. So work on Trent and hit it hard and let me know. You’ve got four days, Harry. Don’t leave this one on the table when you go.”

Bosch nodded and left the office. On his way back to his space he knew all eyes in the squad room were on him. He gave nothing away. He sat down at his space and kept his eyes down.

“So?” Edgar eventually whispered. “What did you get?”

“RHD.”

“RHD?”

He had practically yelled it. It would now be known to all in the squad room. Bosch felt his face getting red. He knew everybody else would be looking at him.

“Jesus Christ,” Edgar said. “First Kiz and now you. What am I, fucking chopped liver?”

48

K
IND of Blue
played on the stereo. Bosch held a bottle of beer and leaned back in the recliner with his eyes closed. It had been a confusing day at the end of a confusing week. He now just wanted to let the music move through him and clear out his insides. He felt sure that what he was looking for he already had in his possession. It was a matter of ordering things and getting rid of the unimportant things that cluttered the view.

He and Edgar had worked until seven before deciding on an early night. Edgar couldn’t concentrate. The news of Bosch’s transfer had affected him more deeply than it did Bosch. Edgar perceived it as a slight against him because he wasn’t chosen to go to RHD. Bosch tried to calm him by assuring him that it was a pit of snakes that Bosch would be entering, but it was no use. Bosch pulled the plug and told his partner to go home, have a drink and get a good night’s sleep. They would work through the weekend gathering information on Trent.

Now it was Bosch who was having the drink and falling asleep in his chair. He sensed he was at a threshold of some sort. He was about to begin a new and clearly defined time in his life. A time of higher danger, higher stakes and higher rewards. It made him smile, now that he knew no one was watching him.

The phone rang and Bosch bolted upright. He clicked off the stereo and went into the kitchen. When he answered, a woman’s voice told him to hold for Deputy Chief Irving. After a long moment Irving’s voice came on the line.

“Detective Bosch?”

“Yes?”

“You received your transfer orders today?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Good. I wanted to let you know that I made the decision to bring you back to Robbery-Homicide Division.”

“Why is that, Chief?”

“Because I decided after our last conversation to hold out one last chance to you. This assignment is that chance. You will be in a position where I can watch your moves very closely.”

“What position is that?”

“You were not told?”

“I was just told to report to RHD next pay period. That was it.”

There was silence on the phone and Bosch thought now he would find the sand in the engine oil. He was going back to RHD, but as what? He tried to think, What was the worst assignment within the best assignment?

Irving finally spoke.

“You are getting your old job back. Homicide Special. An opening came up today when Detective Thornton turned in his badge.”

“Thornton.”

“That is correct.”

“I’ll be working with Kiz Rider?”

“That will be up to Lieutenant Henriques. But Detective Rider is currently without a partner and you have an established working relationship with her.”

Bosch nodded. The kitchen was dark. He was elated but did not want to transmit his feelings over the phone to Irving.

As if knowing these thoughts, Irving said, “Detective, you may feel as though you fell into the sewer but came out smelling like a rose. Do not think that. Do not make any assumptions. Do not make any mistakes. If you do, I will be there. Am I clear?”

“Crystal clear.”

Irving hung up without another word. Bosch stood there in the dark holding the phone to his ear until it started making a loud, annoying tone. He hung up and went back into the living room. He thought about calling Kiz and seeing what she knew but decided he would wait. When he sat back down on the recliner he felt something hard jab into his hip. He knew it wasn’t his gun because he had already unclipped it. He reached into his pocket and came up with his mini-cassette recorder.

He turned it on and listened to his verbal exchange with Surtain, the TV reporter outside Trent’s house on the night he killed himself. Filtering it through the history of what would happen, Bosch felt guilty and thought that maybe he should have done or said more in an effort to stop the reporter.

After he heard the car door slam on the tape he stopped it and hit the rewind button. He realized that he had not yet heard the whole interview with Trent because he had been out of earshot while searching some parts of the house. He decided he would listen to the interview now. It would be a starting point for the weekend’s investigation.

As he listened, Bosch tried to analyze the words and sentences for new meanings, things that would reveal a killer. All the while he was warring with his own instincts. As he listened to Trent speak in almost desperate tones he still felt convinced the man was not the killer, that his protests of innocence had been true. And this of course contradicted what he now knew. The skateboard—found in Trent’s house—had the dead boy’s initials on it and the year he both got the skateboard and was killed. The skateboard now served as a tombstone of sorts. A marker for Bosch.

He finished the Trent interview, but nothing in it, including the parts he had not previously heard, sparked any ideas in him. He rewound the tape and decided to play it again. And it was early in the second go-through that he picked up on something that made his face suddenly grow hot, almost with a feeling of being feverish. He quickly reversed the tape and replayed the exchange between Edgar and Trent that had drawn his attention. He remembered standing in the hallway in Trent’s house and listening to this part of the interview. But he had missed its significance until this moment.

“Did you like watching the kids play up there in the woods, Mr. Trent?”

“No, I couldn’t see them if they were up in the woods. On occasion I would be driving up or walking my dog—when he was alive—and I would see the kids climbing up there. The girl across the street. The Fosters next door. All the kids around here. It’s a city-owned right-of-way—the only undeveloped land in the neighborhood. So they went up there to play. Some of the neighbors thought the older ones went up there to smoke cigarettes, and the concern was they would set the whole hillside on fire.”

He turned off the tape and went back to the kitchen and the phone. Edgar answered after one ring. Bosch could tell he had not been asleep. It was only nine o’clock.

“You didn’t bring anything home with you, did you?”

“Like what?”

“The reverse directory lists?”

“No, Harry, they’re at the office. What’s up?”

“I don’t know. Do you remember when you were making that chart on the board today, was there anybody named Foster on Wonderland?”

“Foster. You mean last name of Foster?”

“Yeah, last name.”

He waited. Edgar said nothing.

“Jerry, you remember?”

“Harry, take it easy. I’m thinking.”

More silence.

“Um,” Edgar finally said. “No Foster. None that I can remember.”

“How sure are you?”

“Well, Harry, come on. I don’t have the board or the lists here. But I think I would’ve remembered that name. Why is it so important? What’s going on?”

“I’ll call you back.”

Bosch took the phone with him out to the dining room table where he had left his briefcase. He opened it and took out the murder book. He quickly turned to the page that listed the current residents of Wonderland Avenue with their addresses and phone numbers. There were no Fosters on the list. He picked up the phone and punched in a number. After four rings it was answered by a voice he recognized.

“Dr. Guyot, this is Detective Bosch. Am I calling too late?”

“Hello, Detective. No, it’s not too late for me. I spent forty years getting phone calls at all hours of the night. Nine o’clock? Nine o’clock is for amateurs. How are your various injuries?”

“They’re fine, Doctor. I’m in a bit of a hurry and I need to ask you a couple questions about the neighborhood.”

“Well, go right ahead.”

“Going way back, nineteen eighty or so, was there ever a family or a couple on the street named Foster?”

There was silence as Guyot thought over the question.

“No, I don’t think so,” he finally said. “I don’t remember anybody named Foster.”

“Okay. Then can you tell me if there was anybody on the street that took in foster kids?”

This time Guyot answered without hesitation.

“Uh, yes, there was. That was the Blaylocks. Very nice people. They helped many children over the years, taking them in. I admired them greatly.”

Bosch wrote the name down on a blank piece of paper at the front of the murder book. He then flipped to the report on the neighborhood canvas and saw there was no one named Blaylock currently living on the block.

“Do you remember their first names?”

“Don and Audrey.”

“What about when they moved from the neighborhood? Do you remember when that was?”

“Oh, that would have been at least ten years ago. After the last child was grown, they didn’t need that big house anymore. They sold it and moved.”

“Any idea where they moved to? Are they still local?”

Guyot said nothing. Bosch waited.

“I’m trying to remember,” Guyot said. “I know I know this.”

“Take your time, Doctor,” Bosch said, even though it was the last thing he wanted Guyot to do.

“Oh, you know what, Detective?” Guyot said. “Christmas. I saved all the cards I received in a box. So I know who to send cards to next year. My wife always did that. Let me put the phone down and get the box. Audrey still sends me a card every year.”

“Go get the box, Doctor. I’ll wait.”

Bosch heard the phone being put down. He nodded to himself. He was going to get it. He tried to think about what this new information could mean but then decided to wait. He would gather the information and then sift through it after.

It took Guyot several minutes to come back to the phone. The whole time Bosch waited with his pen poised to write the address on the note page.

“Okay, Detective Bosch, I’ve got it here.”

Guyot gave him the address and Bosch almost sighed out loud. Don and Audrey Blaylock had not moved to Alaska or some other far reach of the world. They were still within a car drive. He thanked Guyot and hung up.

49

A
T 8 A.M. Saturday morning Bosch was sitting in his slickback watching a small wood-frame house a block off the main drag in the town of Lone Pine three hours north of Los Angeles in the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas. He was sipping cold coffee from a plastic cup and had another one just like it ready to take over when he was finished. His bones ached from the cold and a night spent driving and then trying to sleep in the car. He had made it to the little mountain town too late to find a motel open. He also knew from experience that coming to Lone Pine without a reservation on a weekend was not advisable anyway.