Michael Connelly: City Of Bones

“I’m not sure you’ll be able to stay with her.”

“I’ll worry about that, Doctor.”

“This way then.”

They walked up the incline toward the small turnaround circle where Wonderland reached a dead end. Brasher made a hand signal to her partner in the car and walked along with them.

“You know, we had a little excitement up this way a few years ago,” Guyot said. “A man was followed home from the Hollywood Bowl and then killed in a robbery.”

“I remember,” Bosch said.

He knew the investigation was still open but didn’t mention it. It wasn’t his case.

Dr. Guyot walked with a strong step that belied his age and apparent condition. He let the dog set the pace and soon moved several paces ahead of Bosch and Brasher.

“So where were you before?” Bosch asked Brasher.

“What do you mean?”

“You said you were new in Hollywood Division. What about before?”

“Oh. The academy.”

He was surprised. He looked over at her, thinking he might need to reassess his age estimate.

She nodded and said, “I know, I’m old.”

Bosch got embarrassed.

“No, I wasn’t saying that. I just thought that you had been somewhere else. You don’t seem like a rookie.”

“I didn’t go in until I was thirty-four.”

“Really? Wow.”

“Yeah. Got the bug a little late.”

“What were you doing before?”

“Oh, a bunch of different things. Travel mostly. Took me a while to figure out what I wanted to do. And you want to know what I want to do the most?”

Bosch looked at her.

“What?”

“What you do. Homicide.”

He didn’t know what to say, whether to encourage her or dissuade her.

“Well, good luck,” he said.

“I mean, don’t you just find it to be the most fulfilling job ever? Look at what you do, you take the most evil people out of the mix.”

“The mix?”

“Society.”

“Yeah, I guess so. When we get lucky.”

They caught up to Dr. Guyot, who had stopped with the dog at the turnaround circle.

“This the place?”

“Yes. I let her go here. She went up through there.”

He pointed to an empty and overgrown lot that started level with the street but then quickly rose into a steep incline toward the crest of the hills. There was a large concrete drainage culvert, which explained why the lot had never been built on. It was city property, used to funnel storm water runoff away from the homes on the street. Many of the streets in the canyon were former creek and river beds. When it rained they would return to their original purpose if not for the drainage system.

“Are you going up there?” the doctor asked.

“I’m going to try.”

“I’ll go with you,” Brasher said.

Bosch looked at her and then turned at the sound of a car. It was the patrol car. It pulled up and Edgewood put down the window.

“We got a hot shot, partner. Double D.”

He nodded toward the empty passenger seat. Brasher frowned and looked at Bosch.

“I hate domestic disputes.”

Bosch smiled. He hated them too, especially when they turned into homicides.

“Sorry about that.”

“Well, maybe next time.”

She started around the front of the car.

“Here,” Bosch said, holding out the MagLite.

“I’ve got an extra in the car,” she said. “You can just get that back to me.”

“You sure?”

He was tempted to ask for a phone number but didn’t.

“I’m sure. Good luck.”

“You too. Be careful.”

She smiled at him and then hurried around the front of the car. She got in and the car pulled away. Bosch turned his attention back to Guyot and the dog.

“An attractive woman,” Guyot said.

Bosch ignored it, wondering if the doctor had made the comment based on seeing Bosch’s reaction to Brasher. He hoped he hadn’t been that obvious.

“Okay, Doctor,” he said, “let the dog go and I’ll try to keep up.”

Guyot unhooked the leash while patting the dog’s chest.

“Go get the bone, girl. Get a bone! Go!”

The dog took off into the lot and was gone from sight before Bosch had taken a step. He almost laughed.

“Well, I guess you were right about that, Doc.”

He turned to make sure the patrol car was gone and Brasher hadn’t seen the dog take off.

“You want me to whistle?”

“Nah. I’ll just go in and take a look around, see if I can catch up to her.”

He turned the flashlight on.

THE woods were dark long before the sun disappeared. The overhead canopy created by a tall stand of Monterey pines blocked out most of the light before it got to the ground. Bosch used the flashlight and made his way up the hillside in the direction in which he had heard the dog moving through the brush. It was slow moving and hard work. The ground contained a foot-thick layer of pine needles that gave way often beneath Bosch’s boots as he tried for purchase on the incline. Soon his hands were sticky with sap from grabbing branches to keep himself upright.

It took him nearly ten minutes to go thirty yards up the hillside. Then the ground started to level off and the light got better as the tall trees thinned. Bosch looked around for the dog but didn’t see her. He called down to the street, though he could no longer see it or Dr. Guyot.

“Dr. Guyot? Can you hear me?”

“Yes, I hear you.”

“Whistle for your dog.”

He then heard a three-part whistle. It was distinct but very low, having the same trouble getting through the trees and underbrush as the sunlight had. Bosch tried to repeat it and after a few tries thought he had it right. But the dog didn’t come.

Bosch pressed on, staying on the level ground because he believed that if someone was going to bury or abandon a body, then it would be done on even ground as opposed to the steep slope. Following a path of least resistance, he moved into a stand of acacia trees. And here he immediately came upon a spot where the earth had recently been disturbed. It had been overturned, as if a tool or an animal had been randomly rooting in the soil. He used his foot to push some of the dirt and twigs aside and then realized they weren’t twigs.

He dropped to his knees and used the light to study the short brown bones scattered over a square foot of dirt. He believed he was looking at the disjointed fingers of a hand. A small hand. A child’s hand.

Bosch stood up. He realized that his interest in Julia Brasher had distracted him. He had brought no means with him for collecting the bones. Picking them up and carrying them down the hill would violate every tenet of evidence collection.

The Polaroid camera hung on a shoelace around his neck. He raised it now and took a close-up shot of the bones. He then stepped back and took a wider shot of the spot beneath the acacia trees.

In the distance he heard Dr. Guyot’s weak whistle. Bosch went to work with the yellow plastic crime scene tape. He tied a short length of it around the trunk of one of the acacia trees and then strung a boundary around the trees. Thinking about how he would work the case the following morning, he stepped out of the cover of the acacia trees and looked for something to use as an aerial marker. He found a nearby growth of sagebrush. He wrapped the crime scene tape around and over the top of the bush several times.

When he was finished it was almost dark. He took another cursory look around the area but knew that a flashlight search was useless and the ground would need to be exhaustively covered in the morning. Using a small penknife attached to his key chain, he began cutting four-foot lengths of the crime scene tape off the roll.

Making his way back down the hill, he tied the strips off at intervals on tree branches and bushes. He heard voices as he got closer to the street and used them to maintain his direction. At one point on the incline the soft ground suddenly gave way and he fell, tumbling hard into the base of a pine tree. The tree impacted his midsection, tearing his shirt and badly scratching his side.