Trunk Music (Harry Bosch, #5; Harry Bosch Universe, #6)

by Michael Connelly

For the next few moments Bosch stood alone in the midst of the activities of the crime scene. He realized he truly reveled in his role. The start of a case always seemed to jazz him this way, and he knew how much he had missed it and craved it during the last year and a half.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know the details. It looks like it was your only choice.’ Bosch liked that about her. She wasn’t always right and she was willing to admit it. ‘Thanks, Lieutenant.’ ‘So what do we have?’

‘I don’t know. If he was, he didn’t tell me. You can call me Veronica.’ ‘You never asked if he was getting into trouble?’ Rider asked. ‘I just assumed that he would tell me if he was.’ She turned the hard dark eyes on Rider now, and Bosch felt a weight lift off him. Veronica Aliso was challenging them to disagree.

‘Mrs Aliso, do you remember if you hugged him or kissed him good-bye?’ This seemed to fluster her, and Bosch immediately regretted the way he had phrased the question. ‘I’m sorry. What I meant was that we found some fingerprints on the jacket. On the shoulder. And if you might have touched him there on the day he left, it could explain this piece of evidence.’ She was quiet a moment and Bosch thought that she was finally going to begin to cry. But instead, she said, ‘I might have but I don’t remember ... I don’t think I did.’ Bosch opened his briefcase and looked for a print screen. He found one in one of the pockets. It looked like a photo slide but the center was a double-sided screen with ink between the screens. A thumb could be pressed on the A side and a fingerprint would be imprinted on a card held against the B side. ‘I want to take your thumbprint so we can compare it to the print taken off the jacket. If you did not touch him there, then it might be a good lead for us.’ She stepped over to him and he pressed her right thumb down on the print screen. When he was done she looked at her thumb.

voyeuristic

Though the squad room was deserted because of the holiday, they all rolled chairs into the lieutenant’s office and closed the door. Billets started things off by saying that members of the local media, apparently having picked up on the case by checking the coroner’s over-night log, were already beginning to take a more than routine interest in the Aliso murder. Also, she said, the department weight all the way up the line was questioning whether the investigation should be turned over to the elite Robbery-Homicide Division. This, of course, grated on Bosch. Earlier in his career he had been assigned to RHD. But then a questionable on-duty shooting resulted in his demotion to Hollywood. And so it was particularly upsetting to him to think of turning over the case to the big shots downtown. If OCID had been interested, that would have been easier to accept. But Bosch told Billets that he could not accept turning the case over to RHD after his team had spent almost an entire night without sleep on it and had produced some viable leads. Rider jumped in and agreed with him. Edgar, still riding his sulk over being put on the paperwork, remained silent.

Bosch involuntarily yawned and Edgar and Rider followed suit. He drank from the cup of stale coffee he had brought into the office with him. He had long had the caffeine jitters but knew if he stopped feeding the beast now he would quickly crash.

‘Well, we’ve got a lot of ground to cover,’ Bosch said. ‘I once heard this story about a sculptor and somebody asked him how he turned a block of granite into a beautiful statue of a woman. And he said that he just chips away everything that isn’t the woman. That’s what we have to do now. We’ve got this big block of information and evidence. We’ve got to chip away everything that doesn’t count, that doesn’t fit.’ Billets smiled and Bosch suddenly felt embarrassed about the analogy, though he believed it was accurate. ‘What about Las Vegas?’ she asked. ‘Is that part of the statue or the part we need to chip away?’ Now Rider and Edgar were smiling.

The three of them stood up while Billets stayed seated. Bosch took his time taking the tape out of the VCR so that the other two were out of the office when he was done, and he was alone with Billets. ‘I’d heard that you didn’t have any actual time on a homicide table while you were coming up,’ he said to her. ‘That’s true. My only job as an actual detective was working sexual crimes in Valley Bureau.’ ‘Well, for what it’s worth, I would have assigned things just the way you just did.’ ‘But did it annoy you that I did it instead of you?’ Bosch thought a moment. ‘I’ll get over it.’ ‘Thank you.’ ‘No problem. Listen, that thing about Powers leaving his print, I probably would have told you about it, but I didn’t think this meeting was the right time. I chewed him out for opening the car yesterday. He said if he hadn’t opened it and waited for us to check it out, the car would probably still be sitting out there. He is an asshole but he makes a point.’ ‘I understand.’ ‘You pissed at me for not telling you?’ Billets thought a moment. ‘I’ll get over it.’

Bosch had never liked Las Vegas, though he came often on cases. It shared a kinship with Los Angeles; both were places desperate people ran to. Often, when they ran from Los Angeles, they came here. It was the only place left. Beneath the veneer of glitz and money and energy and sex beat a dark heart. No matter how much they tried to dress her up with neon and family entertainment, she was still a whore.

the old what-might-have-been blues.

Things happened fast in this city. Everything but the moment seemed like ancient history.