Michael Connelly: City Of Bones

Bosch didn’t move for several seconds. He thought he might have cracked his ribs on the right side. His breathing was difficult and painful. He groaned loudly and slowly pulled himself up on the tree trunk so that he could continue to follow the voices.

He soon came back down into the street where Dr. Guyot was waiting with his dog and another man. The two men looked shocked when they saw the blood on Bosch’s shirt.

“Oh my, what happened?” Guyot cried out.

“Nothing. I fell.”

“Your shirt is… there’s blood!”

“Comes with the job.”

“Let me look at your chest.”

The doctor moved in to look but Bosch held his hands up.

“I’m okay. Who is this?”

The other man answered.

“I’m Victor Ulrich. I live there.”

He pointed to the house next to the lot. Bosch nodded.

“I just came out to see what was going on.”

“Well, nothing is going on at the moment. But there is a crime scene up there. Or there will be. We probably won’t be back to work it until tomorrow morning. But I need both you men to keep clear of it and not to tell anybody about this. All right?”

Both of the neighbors nodded.

“And Doctor, don’t let your dog off the leash for a few days. I need to go back down to my car to make a phone call. Mr. Ulrich, I am sure we will want to talk to you tomorrow. Will you be around?”

“Sure. Anytime. I work at home.”

“Doing what?”

“Writing.”

“Okay. We’ll see you tomorrow.”

Bosch headed back down the street with Guyot and the dog.

“You really need me to take a look at your injury,” Guyot insisted.

“It’ll be fine.”

Bosch glanced to his left and thought he saw a curtain quickly close behind a window of the house they were passing.

“The way you are holding yourself when you walk-you’ve damaged a rib,” Guyot said. “Maybe you’ve broken it. Maybe more than one.”

Bosch thought of the small, thin bones he had just seen beneath the acacia trees.

“There’s nothing you can do for a rib, broken or not,” he said.

“I can tape it. You’ll breathe a hell of a lot easier. I can also take care of that wound.”

Bosch relented.

“Okay, Doc, you get out your black bag. I’m going to get my other shirt.”

Inside Guyot’s house a few minutes later, the doctor cleaned the deep scratch on the side of Bosch’s chest and taped his ribs. It did feel better, but it still hurt. Guyot said he could no longer write a prescription but suggested Bosch not take anything more powerful than aspirin anyway.

Bosch remembered that he had a prescription bottle with some Vicodin tablets left over from when he’d had a wisdom tooth removed a few months earlier. They would smooth out the pain if he wanted to go that way.

“I’ll be fine,” Bosch said. “Thanks for fixing me up.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Bosch pulled on his good shirt and watched Guyot as he closed up his first-aid kit. He wondered how long it had been since the doctor had used his skills on a patient.

“How long have you been retired?” he asked.

“Twelve years next month.”

“You miss it?”

Guyot turned from the first-aid kit and looked at him. The tremor was gone.

“Every day. I don’t miss the actual work-you know, the cases. But it was a job that made a difference. I miss that.”

Bosch thought about how Julia Brasher had described homicide work earlier. He nodded that he understood what Guyot was saying.

“You said there was a crime scene up there?” the doctor asked.

“Yes. I found more bones. I’ve got to make a call, see what we’re going to do. Can I borrow your phone? I don’t think my cell will work around here.”

“No, they never do in the canyon. Use the phone on the desk there and I’ll give you some privacy.”

He headed out, carrying the first-aid kit with him. Bosch went behind the desk and sat down. The dog was on the ground next to the chair. The animal looked up and seemed startled when she saw Bosch in the master’s spot.

“Calamity,” he said. “I think you lived up to your name today, girl.”

Bosch reached down and rubbed the scruff of the dog’s neck. The dog growled and he quickly took his hand away, wondering if it was the dog’s training or something about himself that had caused the hostile response.

He picked up the phone and called the home of his supervisor, Lt. Grace Billets. He explained what had happened on Wonderland Avenue and his findings up on the hill.

“Harry, how old do these bones look?” Billets asked.

Bosch looked at the Polaroid he had taken of the small bones he had found in the dirt. It was a bad photo, the flash overexposing it because he was too close.

“I don’t know, they look old to me. I’d say we’re talking years here.”

“Okay, so whatever’s there at the scene isn’t fresh.”

“Maybe freshly uncovered, but no, it’s been there.”

“That’s what I’m saying. So I think we should stick a pin in it and gear up for tomorrow. Whatever is up there on that hill, it’s not going anywhere tonight.”

“Yeah,” Bosch said. “I’m thinking the same thing.”

She was silent a moment before speaking.

“These kind of cases, Harry…”

“What?”

“They drain the budget, they drain manpower… and they’re the hardest to close, if you can close them.”

“Okay, I’ll climb back up there and cover the bones up. I’ll tell the doctor to keep his dog on a leash.”

“Come on, Harry, you know what I mean.” She exhaled loudly. “First day of the year and we’re going to start in the hole.”

Bosch was silent, letting her work through her administrative frustrations. It didn’t take long. It was one of the things he liked about her.

“Okay, anything else happen today?”

“Not too much. A couple suicides, that’s it so far.”

“Okay, when are you going to start tomorrow?”

“I’d like to get out there early. I’ll make some calls and see what I can get going. And get the bone the dog found confirmed before we start anything.”

“Okay, let me know.”

Bosch agreed and hung up the phone. He next called Teresa Corazon, the county medical examiner, at home. Though their relationship outside of work had ended years before and she had moved at least two times since, she had always kept the same number and Bosch knew it by heart. It came in handy now. He explained what he had going and that he needed an official confirmation of the bone as human before he set other things in motion. He also told her that if it was confirmed he would need an archeological team to work the crime scene as soon as possible.

Corazon put him on hold for almost five minutes.

“Okay,” she said when she came back on the line. “I couldn’t get Kathy Kohl. She’s not home.”

Bosch knew that Kohl was the staff archeologist. Her real expertise and reason for her inclusion as a full-time employee was retrieving bones from the body dump sites up in the desert of the north county, which was a weekly occurrence. But Bosch knew she would be called in to handle the search for bones off Wonderland Avenue.

“So what do you want me to do? I want to get this confirmed tonight.”

“Just hold your horses, Harry. You are always so impatient. You’re like a dog with a bone, no pun intended.”

“It’s a kid, Teresa. Can we be serious?”

“Just come here. I’ll look at this bone.”

“And what about tomorrow?”

“I’ll get things in motion. I left a message for Kathy and as soon as we hang up here I’ll call the office and have her paged. She’ll head up the dig as soon as the sun is up and we can get in there. Once the bones are recovered, there is a forensic anthropologist at UCLA we have on retainer and I can bring him in if he’s in town. And I’ll be there myself. Are you satisfied?”