Michael Connelly: Trunk Music

“No, it should be free,” Donovan said slowly. “You mean you’re talking about the whole thing? The body, too?”

Bosch nodded.

“Besides, you can do a better job with it in the shed, right?”

“Absolutely. But what about the ME? They’ve got to sign off on something like this, Harry.”

“I’ll deal with that. Before we put it on the flatbed, though, make sure you guys have got stills and video in case things shift during transit. Also, run a print card off the guy and give it to me.”

“You got it.”

While Donovan went to Quatro to explain the drill, Bosch huddled with Edgar and Rider.

“Okay, for now we’re going to run with this one. If you had plans for the rest of the night, make your calls. It’s going to be a long one. This is how I want to break it up.”

He pointed up to the homes on the crestline.

“First, Kiz, I want you to go up there and do a house-to-house. You know the routine. See if anybody remembers seeing the Rolls or knows how long it’s been here. Maybe somebody heard the shots. They might’ve echoed up the side of the hill. We want to try to pin down the time this happened. After that, I-you got a phone?”

“No. I have a rover in the car.”

“No. I want to keep everything about this off the air.”

“I can use a phone in somebody’s house.”

“Okay, call me when you’re done or I’ll page you when I’m done. Depending on how things shake out, you and I will either do next of kin or his office after that.”

She nodded. Bosch turned to Edgar.

“Jerry, you go in and work from the station. You’ve got the paper on this one.”

“She’s the rookie.”

“Well, then, next time don’t show up in a T-shirt. You can’t go knocking on doors dressed like that.”

“I got a shirt in the car. I’ll change.”

“Next time. You’re on the paper on this one. But before you start, I want you to put Aliso through the box and see what you get on him. He’s got a DL issued last year, so they’ve got his thumb print on file through DMV. See if you can get somebody from prints to compare it to the print card Art’s getting for you right now. I want the ID confirmed as soon as possible.”

“There ain’t going to be anybody in prints t’night. Art’s the guy on call. He should do this.”

“Art’s going to be tied up. See if you can shake somebody at home loose. We need the ID.”

“I’ll try but I can’t prom-”

“Good. After that, I want you to call everybody who works a basic car in this area and see if anyone’s seen the Rolls. Powers-the guy up at the road-is going to pull shake cards on the kids who hang out here. I want you to start running them down, too. After that you can start the paper going.”

“Shit, with all this, I’ll be lucky if I start typing before next Monday.”

Bosch ignored his whining and appraised both his partners.

“I’ll stay with the body. If I get tied up, Kiz, you go on to check out the office address and I’ll handle next of kin. Okay, everybody know what’s what?”

Rider and Edgar nodded. Bosch could tell Edgar was still annoyed about something.

“Kiz, you head out now.”

She walked away and Bosch waited until she was out of earshot before speaking.

“Okay, Jerry, what’s the problem?”

“I just want to know if that’s how it’s going to be on this team. Am I going to get the shit work while the princess skates?”

“No, Jerry, it’s not going to be like that, and I think you know me well enough not to ask. What’s the real problem?”

“I don’t like your choices on this, Harry. We should be on the phone with Organized Crime right now. If anything looks like an OC case, this is it. I think you should call ’em, but I think ’cause you’re fresh back on the table and been waiting for a case so long, you’re not making the call. That’s the problem.”

Edgar held his hands out as if to indicate how obvious this was.

“You know, you’ve got nothing to prove here, Harry. And there’s never going to be a shortage of bodies to come along. This is Hollywood, remember? I think we should just turn this one over and wait for the next one.”

Bosch nodded.

“You may be right,” he said. “You probably are. About all of it. But I’m the three. So we do it my way for now. I’m going to call Bullets and tell her what we’ve got, then I’m going to call OCID. But even if they roll out, we’re going to keep a part of this. You know that. So let’s do it good. Okay?”

Edgar nodded reluctantly.

“Look,” Bosch said, “your objection is noted for the record, okay?”

“Sure, Harry.”

Bosch saw the blue ME’s van pull into the clearing then. The tech behind the wheel was Richard Matthews. It was a break. Matthews wasn’t as territorial as some of the others, and Bosch figured he could convince him to go along with the plan to move the whole package to the print shed. Matthews would understand that it was the only choice.

“Stay in touch,” Bosch said as Edgar walked off.

Edgar sullenly waved without looking back.

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.

Finally, he put his thoughts aside and walked toward the ME’s van to talk to Matthews. There was a burst of applause from the Bowl as Sheherazade ended.

The print shed was a World War II Quonset hut that sat in the City Services equipment yard behind the police headquarters at Parker Center. It had no windows and a double-wide garage door. The interior was painted black and every crack or crevice where light might come in was taped over. There were thick black curtains that could be pulled closed after the garage door was shut. When they were pulled, the interior was as black as a loan shark’s heart. The techs who worked there even referred to the place as “the cave.”

While the Rolls was being unloaded from the OPG truck, Bosch took his briefcase to a workbench inside the shed and got the phone out. The Organized Crime Investigation Division was a secret society within the greater closed society of the department. Bosch knew very little about OCID and was acquainted with few detectives assigned to the unit. The OCID was a mysterious force, even to those within the department. Not many knew exactly what it did. And this, of course, bred suspicions and jealousies.

Most OCID detectives were known in Detective Services as big-footers. They swooped down to take investigations away from detectives like Bosch, but they didn’t often make cases in return. Bosch had seen many investigations disappear under their door with not many prosecutions of OC wise guys resulting. They were the only division in the department with a black budget-approved in closed session by the chief and a police commission that largely followed his lead. From there, the money disappeared into the dark, to pay for informants, investigations and high-tech equipment. Many of their cases disappeared in that netherworld as well.

Bosch asked the communications operator to connect his call to the OCID supervisor on call for the weekend. As he waited for the patch through, he thought again about the body in the trunk. Anthony Aliso-if that was who it was-had seen it coming and closed his eyes. Bosch hoped it wouldn’t be that way for himself. He didn’t want to know.

“Hello,” a voice said.

“Yes, this is Harry Bosch. I’m the D-three on a homicide call out in Hollywood. Who am I speaking with?”

“Dom Carbone. I’ve got the weekend call out. You going to spoil it?”