Текст книги "Mulholland Dive"

Автор книги: Michael Connelly

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Houghton nodded once under Stilwell’s intimidating stare.

“We’re going to have over fifty thousand people in here tonight,” he said. “How are you two going to—”

“Reserve level, section eleven, row K, seat one.”

“That’s his ticket?”

Stilwell nodded.

“And if you don’t mind,” Harwick said, “we’d like to get a trace on that ticket. See who bought it, if possible.”

Stilwell looked at Harwick and nodded. He hadn’t thought of that. It was a good idea.

“That will be no problem,” said Houghton, his voice taking on a tone of full cooperation. “Now, this seat location. How close do you need and want to get?”

“Just close enough to watch what he does, who he talks to,” Stilwell said. “Make a move if we have to.”

“This seat is just below the press box. I can put you in there and you can look right down on him.”

Stilwell shook his head.

“That won’t work. If he gets up and moves, we’re a level above him. We’ll lose him.”

“How about one in the press box and one below—mobile, moving about?”

Stilwell thought about this and looked at Harwick. Harwick nodded.

“Might work,” he said. “We got the radios.”

Stilwell looked at Houghton.

“Set it up.”

They were both in the front row of the press box looking down on Vachon’s seat and waiting for him to arrive before splitting up. But the seat was empty and the national anthem had already been sung. The Dodgers were taking the field. Kevin Brown was on the mound, promising a classic matchup between himself, a fastball pitcher, and McGwire, a purebred slugger.

“This is going to be good,” Harwick said.

“Just don’t forget why we’re here,” Stilwell replied.

The Cardinals went down one, two, three, and left McGwire waiting on deck. In the bottom half of the first the Dodgers did no better. No hits, no runs.

And no sign of Milky Vachon.

Houghton came down the stairs and told them the ticket Vachon was carrying had been sold as part of a block of seats to a ticket broker in Hollywood. They took the name of the broker and decided they would check it out in the morning.

As the second inning started, Stilwell sat with his arms folded on the front sill of the press box. It allowed a full view of the stadium. All he had to do was lower his eyes and he would see row K, seat one, of section eleven.

Harwick was leaning back in his seat. To Stilwell, he seemed as interested in watching the three rows of sportswriters and broadcasters as he was the baseball game. While the Dodgers were taking the field again, he spoke to Stilwell.

“Your son,” he said. “It was drugs, wasn’t it?”

Stilwell took a deep breath and let it out. He spoke without turning to Harwick.

“What do you want to know, Harwick?”

“We’re going to be partners. I just want to…understand. Some guys, something like that happens, they dive into the bottle. Some guys dive into the work. It’s pretty clear which kind you are. I heard you go after these guys, the Saints, with a vengeance, man. Was it meth? Was your kid on crank?”

Stilwell didn’t answer. He watched a man wearing a Dodgers baseball cap take the first seat in row K below. The hat was on backward, a white ponytail hanging from beneath the brim. It was Milky Vachon. He put a full beer down on the concrete step next to him and kept another in his hand. Seat number two was empty.

“Harwick,” Stilwell said. “We’re partners, but we’re not talking about my kid. You understand?”

“I’m just trying to—”

“Baseball is a metaphor for life, Harwick. Life is hardball. People hit home runs, people get thrown out. There’s the double play, the suicide squeeze, and everybody wants to get home safe. Some people go all the way to the ninth inning. Some people leave early to beat the traffic.”

Stilwell stood up and turned to his new partner.

“I checked you out, Harwick. You’re a beat-the-traffic guy. You weren’t here. In ’eighty-eight. I know. If you were here, you gave up on them and left before the ninth. I know.”

Harwick said nothing. He turned his eyes from Stilwell.

“Vachon’s down there,” Stilwell said. “I’m going down to keep watch. If he makes a move, I’ll tail. Keep your rover close.”

Stilwell walked up the steps and out of the press box.

McGwire struck out at the top of the second inning, and Brown easily retired the side. The Dodgers picked up three runs in the third off an error, a walk, and a home run with two outs.

All was quiet after that until the fifth, when McGwire opened the inning with a drive to the right-field wall. It drew fifty thousand people out of their seats. But the right fielder gloved it on the track, his body hitting hard into the wall pads.

Watching the trajectory of the ball reminded Stilwell of the night in ’88 when Kirk Gibson put a three-two pitch into the seats in the last of the ninth and won the first game of the series. It caused a monumental shift in momentum, and the Dodgers cruised the rest of the way. It was a moment that was cherished by so many for so long. A time in L.A. before the riots, before the earthquake, before O.J.

Before Stilwell’s son was lost.

Brown carried a perfect game into the seventh inning. The crowd became more attentive and noisier. There was a sense that something was going to happen.

Throughout the innings Stilwell moved his position several times, always staying close to Vachon and using the field glasses to watch him. The ex-convict did not move other than to stand up with everybody else for McGwire’s drive to the wall. He simply drank his two beers and watched the game. No one took the seat next to him, and he spoke to no one except a vendor who sold him peanuts in the fourth.

Vachon also made no move to look around himself. He kept his eyes on the game. And Stilwell began to wonder if Vachon was doing anything other than watching a baseball game. He thought about what Harwick had said about falling out of love with baseball. Maybe Vachon, five years in stir, was simply rekindling that love. Maybe he had missed baseball with the same intensity he had missed the taste of alcohol and the feel of a woman’s body.

Stilwell took the rover out of his pocket and clicked the mike button twice. Harwick’s voice came back quickly, his tone clipped and cold.

“Yeah.”

“After the eighth you better come down here so we can be ready when he leaves.”

“I’ll be down.”

“Out.”

He put the rover back on his belt under his jacket.

Brown let it get away from him in the seventh. St. Louis opened with two singles to right, spoiling the perfect game, the no-hitter, and putting the lead in jeopardy with McGwire on deck.

With the runners at the corners Brown walked the next batter, bringing McGwire to the plate with the bases loaded. The Cardinals would gain the lead and the momentum if he could put one over the wall.

Davey Johnson trotted out to the mound for a conference with his pitcher, but the manager appeared to give only a quick pep talk. He left Brown in place and headed back to the dugout, accompanied by a chorus of applause.

The crowd rose to its feet and quieted in anticipation of what would be the confrontation of the night. Stilwell’s rover clicked twice, and he pulled it out of his pocket.

“Yeah?”

“Do you believe this? We gotta send that guy Houghton a six-pack for this.”

Stilwell didn’t reply. His eyes were on Vachon, who had stepped away from his seat and was coming up the stairs to the concessions level.

“He’s moving.”

“What? He can’t be. How can he miss this?”

Stilwell turned his back and leaned against a concrete support column as Vachon emerged from the stairs and walked behind him.

When it was clear, Stilwell looked around and saw Vachon heading toward the lavatory, making his way past several men who were rushing out in time to see McGwire bat.

Stilwell raised his rover.

“He’s going to the bathroom just past the Krispy Kreme stand.”

“He’s had two beers. Maybe he’s just taking a leak. You want me down there?”

As Stilwell replied, a huge noise rose from the crowd and then quickly subsided. Stilwell kept his eyes on the entrance to the men’s room. When he was ten feet from it, a man emerged. Not Vachon. A large white man with a long dark beard and a shaved skull. He wore a tight T-shirt and his arms were fully wrapped in tattoos. Stilwell looked for the skull-with-halo insignia of the Road Saints but didn’t see it.

Still, it was enough to slow his step. The tattooed man turned to his right and kept walking. Harwick’s voice came from the rover.

“Say again. The crowd noise blocked you out.”

Stilwell raised the radio.

“I said, get down here.”

There was another short burst of crowd noise, but it was not sustained enough to indicate a hit or an out. Stilwell walked to the lavatory entrance. He thought about the man with the shaved skull, trying to place the face. Stilwell had left his photos in the rubber band on the Volvo’s visor.

It hit him then. Weapon transfer. Vachon had come to the game to get instructions and a weapon.

Stilwell raised the rover.

“I think he has a weapon. I’m going in.”

He put the rover back into his pocket, pulled his badge out of his shirt, and let it hang on his chest. He unholstered his .45 and stepped into the restroom.

It was a cavernous yellow-tiled room with stainless-steel urine troughs running down both sides until they reached opposing rows of toilet stalls. The place appeared empty but Stilwell knew it wasn’t.

“Sheriff’s Department. Step out with your hands visible.”

Nothing happened. No sound but the crowd noise from outside the room. Stilwell stepped farther in and began again, raising his voice this time. But the sudden echoing cacophony of the crowd rose like an approaching train and drowned his voice. The confrontation on the baseball diamond had been decided.

Stilwell moved past the urinals and stood between the rows of stalls. There were eight on each side. The far door on the left was closed. The rest stood half closed but still shielded the view into each stall.

Stilwell dropped into a catcher’s crouch and looked beneath the doors. No feet could be seen in any of the stalls. But on the floor within the closed stall was a blue Dodgers hat.

“Vachon!” he yelled. “Come out now!”

He moved into position in front of the closed stall. Without hesitation he raised his left foot and kicked the door open. It swung inward and slammed against one of the interior walls of the stall. It then rebounded and slammed closed. It all happened in a second, but Stilwell had enough time to see the stall was empty.

And to know that he was in a vulnerable position.

As he turned his body, he heard a scraping sound behind him and saw movement in the far reach of his peripheral vision. Movement toward him. He raised his gun but knew he was too late. In that same moment, he realized he had solved the mystery of who Vachon’s target was.

The knife felt like a punch to the left side of his neck. A hand then grabbed the back collar of his shirt and pulled him backward at the same moment the knife was thrust forward, slicing out through the front of his neck.

Stilwell dropped his gun as his hands instinctively came up to his torn throat. A whisper then came into his ear from behind.

“Greetings from Sonny Mitchell.”

He was pulled backward and shoved against the wall next to the last stall. He turned and started to slide down the yellow tiles, his eyes on the figure of Milky Vachon heading to the exit.

When he hit the floor, he felt the gun under his leg. His left hand still holding his neck, he reached the gun with his right and raised it. He fired four times at Vachon, the bullets catching him in a tight pattern on the upper back and throwing him into a trash can overflowing with paper towels. Vachon flopped onto the floor on his back, his sky-blue eyes staring lifelessly at the ceiling, the overturned trash can rolling back and forth next to him.

Stilwell dropped his hand to the floor and let go of the gun. He looked down at his chest. The blood was everywhere, leaking between his fingers and running down his arm. His lungs were filling and he couldn’t get air into them.

He knew he was dead.

He shifted his weight and turned his hips so he could reach a hand into the back pocket of his pants. He pulled out his wallet.

There was another roar from the crowd that seemed to shake the room. And then Harwick entered, saw the bodies on opposite sides of the room, and ran to Stilwell.

“Oh, Jesus. Oh, Jesus.”

He leaned over and studied Stilwell for a moment, then pulled out his rover and started to yell into it. He realized he was on a closed frequency, quickly switched the dial to the open band, and called in the officer-down report. Stilwell listened to it in a detached way. He knew there was no chance. He dropped his eyes to the holy card he held in his hands.

“Hang in there, partner,” Harwick yelled. “Don’t go south on me, man. They’re coming, they’re coming.”

There was a commotion behind him, and Harwick turned around. Two men were standing in the doorway.

“Get out of here! Get the fuck out! Keep everybody back!”

He turned back to Stilwell.

“Listen, man, I’m sorry. I fucked up. I’m so fucking sorry. Please don’t die. Hang on, man. Please hang on.”

His words were coming out like the blood flowing from Stilwell’s neck. Nonstop, a mad torrent. Desperate.

“You were right, man. You were right about me. I—I—I lied about that game. I left and I’m so sorry I lied. You’ve got to stay with me. Please stay with me!”

Stilwell’s eyes started to close and he remembered that night so long ago. That other time. He died then, with his new partner on his knees next to him, blubbering and babbling.

Harwick didn’t quiet himself until he realized Stilwell was gone. He then studied his partner’s face and saw a measure of calm in his expression. He realized that he looked happier than at any other time Harwick had looked at him that day.

He noticed the open wallet on the floor and then the card in Stilwell’s hand. He took it from the dead fingers and looked at it. It was a baseball card. Not a real one. A gimmick card. It showed a boy of eleven or twelve in a Dodgers uniform, a bat on his shoulder, the number 7 on his shirt. It said “Stevie Stilwell, Right Field” beneath the photo.

There was another commotion behind him then, and Harwick turned to see paramedics coming into the room. He cleared out of the way, though he knew it was too late.

As the paramedics checked for vital signs on his fallen partner, Harwick stepped back and used the sleeve of his shirt to dry the tears on his face. He then took the baseball card and slipped it into one of the folded compartments of his badge case. It would be something he would carry with him always.

About the Author

Michael Connelly is the author of the recent #1 New York Times bestsellers The Drop, The Fifth Witness, The Reversal, The Scarecrow, The Brass Verdict, and The Lincoln Lawyer, as well as the bestselling Harry Bosch series of novels. He is a former newspaper reporter who has won numerous awards for his journalism and his novels. He spends his time in California and Florida.

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The following is an excerpt from the opening pages of The Black Box.

On-sale date: November 26, 2012

Order The Black Box today.

Snow White

1992

By the third night the death count was rising so high and so quickly that many of the divisional homicide teams were pulled off the front lines of riot control and put into emergency rotations in South Central. Detective Harry Bosch and his partner, Jerry Edgar, were pulled from Hollywood Division and assigned to a roving B Watch team that also included two shotgunners from patrol for protection. They were dispatched to any place they were needed—wherever a body turned up. The four-man team moved in a black-and-white patrol car, jumping from crime scene to crime scene and never staying still for long. It wasn’t the proper way to carry out homicide work, not even close, but it was the best that could be done under the surreal circumstances of a city that had come apart at the seams.

South Central was a war zone. Fires burned everywhere. Looters moved in packs from storefront to storefront, all semblance of dignity and moral code gone in the smoke that rose over the city. The gangs of South L.A. stepped up to control the darkness, even calling for a truce to their internecine battles to create a united front against the police.

More than fifty people had died already. Store owners had shot looters, National Guardsmen had shot looters, looters had shot looters, and then there were the others—killers who used the camouflage of chaos and civil unrest to settle long-held scores that had nothing to do with the frustrations of the moment and the emotions displayed in the streets.

Two days before, the racial, social, and economic fractures that ran under the city broke the surface with seismic intensity. The trial of four LAPD officers accused of excessively beating a black motorist at the end of a high-speed chase had resulted in the delivery of not-guilty verdicts. The reading of the jury’s decision in a suburban courtroom forty-five miles away had an almost immediate impact on South Los Angeles. Small crowds of angry people gathered on street corners to decry the injustice. And soon things turned violent. The ever-vigilant media went high and live from the air, broadcasting the images into every home in the city, and then the world.

The department was caught flat-footed. The chief of police was out of Parker Center and making a political appearance when the verdict came in. Other members of the command staff were out of position as well. No one immediately took charge and, more important, no one went to the rescue. The whole department retreated and the images of unchecked violence spread like wildfire across every television screen in the city. Soon the city was out of control and in flames.

Two nights later the acrid smell of burning rubber and smoldering dreams was still everywhere. Flames from a thousand fires reflected like the devil dancing in the dark sky. Gunshots and shouts of anger echoed nonstop in the wake of the patrol car. But the four men in 6-King-16 did not stop for any of these. They stopped only for murder.

It was Friday, May 1. B Watch was the emergency mobilization designation for night watch, a 6 P.M. to 6 A.M. shift. Bosch and Edgar had the backseat, while Officers Robleto and Delwyn had the front. Delwyn, in the passenger seat, held his shotgun across his lap and angled up, its muzzle poking through the open window.

They were rolling to a dead body found in an alley off Crenshaw Boulevard. The call had been relayed to the emergency communications center by the California National Guard, which had been deployed in the city during the state of emergency. It was only 10:30 and the calls were stacking up. King-16 had already handled a homicide call since coming on shift—a looter shot dead in the doorway of a discount shoe store. The shooter had been the store’s owner.

That crime scene was contained within the premises of the business, which allowed Bosch and Edgar to work with relative safety, Robleto and Delwyn posted with shotguns and full riot gear on the sidewalk out front. And that also gave the detectives time to collect evidence, sketch the crime scene, and take their own photos. They recorded the statement of the store owner and watched the videotape from the business’s surveillance camera. It showed the looter using an aluminum softball bat to smash through the glass door of the store. The man then ducked in through the jagged opening he had created and was promptly shot twice by the store owner, who was hiding behind the cash counter and waiting.

Because the coroner’s office was overrun with more death calls than it could handle, the body was removed from the store by paramedics and transported to County-USC Medical Center. It would be held there until things calmed down—if they ever did—and the coroner caught up with the work.

As far as the shooter went, Bosch and Edgar made no arrest. Self-defense or murder while lying in wait, the D.A.’s Office would make the call later.

It was not the right way to proceed but it would have to do. In the chaos of the moment the mission was simple: preserve the evidence, document the scene as well and as fast as possible, and collect the dead.

Get in and get out. And do it safely. The real investigation would come later. Maybe.

As they drove south on Crenshaw they passed occasional crowds of people, mostly young men, gathered on corners or roving in packs. At Crenshaw and Slauson a group flying Crips colors jeered as the patrol car moved by at high speed without siren or flashing lights. Bottles and rocks were thrown but the car moved too fast and the missiles fell harmlessly in its wake.

“We’ll be back, muthafuckers! Don’t you worry.”

It was Robleto who had called out and Bosch had to assume he was speaking metaphorically. The young patrolman’s threat was as hollow as the department’s response had been once the verdicts were read on live TV Wednesday afternoon.

Robleto, behind the wheel, only began to slow as they approached a blockade of National Guard vehicles and soldiers. The strategy drawn up the day before with the arrival of the Guard was to take back control of the major intersections in South L.A. and then move outward, eventually containing all trouble spots. They were less than a mile from one of those key intersections, Crenshaw and Florence, and the Guard troops and vehicles were already spread up and down Crenshaw for blocks. Only as he pulled up to the barricade at 62nd Street did Robleto lower his window.

A guardsman with sergeant stripes came to the door and leaned down to look at the car’s occupants.

“Sergeant Burstin, San Luis Obispo. What can I do for you fellows?”

“Homicide,” Robleto said. He hooked a thumb toward Bosch and Edgar in the back.

Burstin straightened up and made an arm motion so that a path could be cleared and they could be let through.

“Okay,” he said. “She’s in the alley on the east side between Sixty-sixth Place and Sixty-seventh Street. Go on through and my guys will show you. We’ll form a tight perimeter and watch the rooflines. We’ve had unconfirmed reports of sniper fire in the neighborhood.”

Robleto put his window back up as he drove through.

“‘My guys,’” he said, mimicking Burstin’s voice. “That guy’s probably a schoolteacher or something back in the real world. I heard that none of these guys they brought in are even from L.A. From all around the state but not L.A. Probably couldn’t find Leimert Park with a map.”

“Two years ago, neither could you, dude,” Delwyn said.

“Whatever. The guy doesn’t know shit about this place and now he’s all like take charge? Fucking weekend warrior. All I’m saying is we didn’t need these guys. Makes us look bad. Like we couldn’t handle it and had to bring in the pros from San Luis O-fucking-bispo.”

Edgar cleared his throat and spoke from the backseat.

“I got news for you,” he said. “We couldn’t handle it and we couldn’t look any worse than we already did Wednesday night. We sat back and let the city burn, man. You see all that shit on TV? The thing you didn’t see was any of us on the ground kicking ass. So don’t be blaming the schoolteachers from ’Bispo. It’s on us, man.”

“Whatever,” Robleto said.

“Says ‘Protect and Serve’ on the side a the car,” Edgar added. “We didn’t do much of either.”

Bosch remained silent. Not that he disagreed with his partner. The department had embarrassed itself with its feeble response to the initial breakout of violence. But Harry wasn’t thinking about that. He had been struck by what the sergeant had said about the victim being a she. It was the first mention of that and as far as Bosch knew, there hadn’t been any female murder victims so far. This wasn’t to say that women weren’t involved in the violence that had raked the city. Looting and burning were equal-opportunity endeavors. Bosch had seen women engaged in both. The night before, he’d been on riot control on Hollywood Boulevard and had witnessed the looting of Frederick’s, the famous lingerie store. Half the looters had been women.

But the sergeant’s report had given him pause nonetheless. A woman had been out here in the chaos and it had cost her her life.

Robleto drove through the opening in the barricade and continued south. Four blocks ahead a soldier was waving a flashlight, swinging its beam toward an opening between two of the retail shops that lined the east side of the street.

Aside from soldiers posted every twenty-five yards, Crenshaw was abandoned. There was an eerie and dark stillness. All of the businesses on both sides of the streets were dark. Several had been hit by looters and arsonists. Others had miraculously been left untouched. On still others, boarded-up fronts announced with spray paint that they were “Black Owned,” a meager defense against the mob.

The alley opening was between a looted wheel-and-tire shop called Dream Rims and a completely burned-out appliance store called Used, Not Abused. The burned building was wrapped with yellow tape and had been red-tagged by city inspectors as uninhabitable. Bosch guessed that this area had been hit early in the riots. They were only twenty blocks or so from the spot where the violence had initially sparked at the intersection of Florence and Normandie, the place where people were pulled from cars and trucks and beaten while the world watched from above.

The guardsman with the flashlight started walking ahead of 6-K-16, leading the car into the alley. Thirty feet in, the guardsman stopped and held up his hand in a fist, as if they were on recon behind enemy lines. It was time to get out. Edgar hit Bosch on the arm with the back of his hand.

“Remember, Harry, keep your distance. A nice six-foot separation at all times.”

It was a joke meant to lighten the situation. Of the four men in the car, only Bosch was white. He’d be the likely first target of a sniper. Of any shooter, for that matter.

“Got it,” Bosch said.

Edgar punched his arm again.

“And put your hat on.”

Bosch reached down to the floorboard and grabbed the white riot helmet he had been issued at roll call. The order was to wear it at all times while on duty. He thought the shiny white plastic, more than anything else, made them targets.

He and Edgar had to wait until Robleto and Delwyn got out and opened the rear doors of the cruiser for them. Bosch then finally stepped out into the night. He reluctantly put the helmet on but didn’t snap the chinstrap. He wanted to smoke a cigarette but time was of the essence, and he was down to a final smoke in the pack he carried in the left pocket of his uniform shirt. He had to conserve that one, as he had no idea when or where he would get the chance to replenish.

Bosch looked around. He didn’t see a body. The alley was clotted with debris old and new. Old appliances, apparently not worthy of resale, had been stacked against the side wall of Used, Not Abused. Trash was everywhere, and part of the eave had collapsed to the ground during the fire.

“Where is she?” he asked.

“Over here,” the guardsman said. “Against the wall.”

The alley was lit only by the patrol car’s lights and the guardsman’s flashlight. The appliances and other debris threw shadows against the wall and the ground. Bosch turned on his Mag-Lite and aimed its beam in the direction the guardsman had pointed. The wall of the appliance shop was covered with gang graffiti. Names, RIPs, threats—the wall was a message board for the local Crips set, the Rolling 60s.

He walked three steps behind the guardsman and soon he saw her. A small woman lying on her side at the bottom of the wall. She had been obscured by the shadow cast by a rusting-out washing machine.

Before approaching any farther, Bosch played his light across the ground. At one point in time the alley was paved but now it was broken concrete, gravel, and dirt. He saw no footprints or evidence of blood. He slowly moved forward and squatted down. He rested the heavy barrel of the six-cell flashlight on his shoulder as he moved its beam over the body. From his long experience looking at dead people, he guessed she had been deceased at least twelve to twenty-four hours. The legs were bent sharply at the knees and he knew that could be the result of rigor mortis or an indication that she had been on her knees in the moments before her death. The skin that was visible on the arms and neck was ashen and dark where blood had coagulated. Her hands were almost black and the odor of putrefaction was beginning to permeate the air.

The woman’s face was largely obscured by the long blond hair that had fallen across it. Dried blood was visible in the hair at the back of the head and was matted in the thick wave that obscured her face. Bosch moved the light up the wall above the body and saw a blood spatter-and-drip pattern that indicated she had been killed here, not just dumped.

Bosch took a pen out of his pocket and reached forward, using it to lift the hair back from the victim’s face as he played the light on it. There was gunshot stippling around the right eye socket and a penetration wound that had exploded the eyeball. She had been shot from only inches away. Front to back, point-blank range. He put the pen back in his pocket and leaned in farther, pointing the light down behind her head. The exit wound, large and jagged, was visible. Death had no doubt been instantaneous.

“Holy shit, is she white?”

It was Edgar. He had come up behind Bosch and was looking over his shoulder like an umpire hovering over a baseball catcher.

“Looks like it,” Bosch said.

He moved the light over the victim’s body now.

“What the hell’s a white girl doing down here?”

Bosch didn’t answer. He had noticed something hidden under the right arm. He put his light down so he could pull on a set of gloves.

“Put your light on her chest,” he instructed Edgar.

Gloves on, Bosch leaned back in toward the body. The victim was on her left side, her right arm extending across her chest and hiding something that was on a cord around her neck. Bosch gently pulled it free.