Michael Connelly: City Of Bones

This last part gave Bosch pause.

“Teresa,” he finally said, “I want to try to keep this as low profile as I can for as long as I can.”

“And what are you implying?”

“That I’m not sure that the medical examiner for Los Angeles County needs to be there. And that I haven’t seen you at a crime scene without a cameraman in tow for a long time.”

“Harry, he is a private videographer, okay? The film he takes is for future use by me and controlled solely by me. It doesn’t end up on the six o’clock news.”

“Whatever. I just think we need to avoid any complications on this one. It’s a child case. You know how they get.”

“Just get over here with that bone. I’m leaving in an hour.”

She abruptly hung up.

Bosch wished he had been a little more politic with Corazon but was glad he’d made his point. Corazon was a personality, regularly appearing on Court TV and network shows as a forensic expert. She had also taken to having a cameraman follow her so that her cases could be turned into documentaries for broadcast on any of the cop and legal shows on the vast cable and satellite spectrum. He could not and would not let her goals as a celebrity coroner interfere with his goals as an investigator of what might be the homicide of a child.

He decided he’d make the calls to the department’s Special Services and K-9 units after he got confirmation on the bone. He got up and left the room, looking for Guyot.

The doctor was in the kitchen, sitting at a small table and writing in a spiral-bound notebook. He looked up at Bosch.

“Just writing a few notes on your treatment. I’ve kept notes on every patient I’ve ever treated.”

Bosch just nodded, even though he thought it was odd for Guyot to be writing about him.

“I’m going to go, Doctor. We’ll be back tomorrow. In force, I’d expect. We might want to use your dog again. Will you be here?”

“I’ll be here and be glad to help. How are the ribs?”

“They hurt.”

“Only when you breathe, right? That’ll last about a week.”

“Thanks for taking care of me. You don’t need that shoe box back, do you?”

“No, I wouldn’t want that back now.”

Bosch turned to head toward the front door but then turned back to Guyot.

“Doctor, do you live alone here?”

“I do now. My wife died two years ago. A month before our fiftieth anniversary.”

“I’m sorry.”

Guyot nodded and said, “My daughter has her own family up in Seattle. I see them on special occasions.”

Bosch felt like asking why only on special occasions but didn’t. He thanked the man again and left.

Driving out of the canyon and toward Teresa Corazon’s place in Hancock Park, he kept his hand on the shoe box so that it would not be jostled or slide off the seat. He felt a deep sense of dread rising from within. He knew it was because fate had certainly not smiled on him this day. He had caught the worst kind of case there was to catch. A child case.

Child cases haunted you. They hollowed you out and scarred you. There was no bulletproof vest thick enough to stop you from being pierced. Child cases left you knowing the world was full of lost light.

TERESA Corazon lived in a Mediterranean-style mansion with a stone turnaround circle complete with koi pond in front. Eight years earlier, when Bosch had shared a brief relationship with her, she had lived in a one-bedroom condominium. The riches of television and celebrity had paid for the house and the lifestyle that came with it. She was not even remotely like the woman who used to show up at his house unannounced at midnight with a cheap bottle of red wine from Trader Joe’s and a video of her favorite movie to watch. The woman who was unabashedly ambitious but not yet skilled at using her position to enrich herself.

Bosch knew he now served as a reminder of what she had been and what she had lost in order to gain all that she had. It was no wonder their interactions were now few and far between but as tense as a visit to the dentist when they were unavoidable.

He parked on the circle and got out with the shoe box and the Polaroids. He looked into the pond as he came around the car and could see the dark shapes of the fish moving below the surface. He smiled, thinking about the movie Chinatown and how often they had watched it the year they were together. He remembered how much she enjoyed the portrayal of the coroner. He wore a black butcher’s apron and ate a sandwich while examining a body. Bosch doubted she had the same sense of humor about things anymore.

The light hanging over the heavy wood door to the house went on, and Corazon opened it before he got there. She was wearing black slacks and a cream-colored blouse. She was probably on her way to a New Year’s party. She looked past him at the slickback he had been driving.

“Let’s make this quick before that car drips oil on my stones.”

“Hello to you, too, Teresa.”

“That’s it?”

She pointed at the shoe box.

“This is it.”

He handed her the Polaroids and started taking the lid off the box. It was clear she was not asking him in for a glass of New Year’s champagne.

“You want to do this right here?”

“I don’t have a lot of time. I thought you’d be here sooner. What moron took these?”

“That would be me.”

“I can’t tell anything from these. Do you have a glove?”

Bosch pulled a latex glove out of his coat pocket and handed it to her. He took the photos back and put them in an inside pocket of his jacket. She expertly snapped the glove on and reached into the open box. She held the bone up and turned it in the light. He was silent. He could smell her perfume. It was strong as usual, a holdover from her days when she spent most of her time in autopsy suites.

After a five-second examination she put the bone back down in the box.

“Human.”

“You sure?”

She looked up at him with a glare as she snapped off the glove.

“It’s the humerus. The upper arm. I’d say a child of about ten. You may no longer respect my skills, Harry, but I do still have them.”

She dropped the glove into the box on top of the bone. Bosch could roll with all the verbal sparring from her, but it bothered him that she did that with the glove, dropping it on the child’s bone like that.

He reached into the box and took the glove out. He remembered something and held the glove back out to her.

“The man whose dog found this said there was a fracture on the bone. A healed fracture. Do you want to take a look and see if you-”

“No. I’m late for an engagement. What you need to know right now is if it is human. You now have that confirmation. Further examination will come later under proper settings at the medical examiner’s office. Now, I really have to go. I’ll be there tomorrow morning.”

Bosch held her eyes for a long moment.

“Sure, Teresa, have a good time tonight.”

She broke off the stare and folded her arms across her chest. He carefully put the top back on the shoe box, nodded to her and headed back to his car. He heard the heavy door close behind him.

Thinking of the movie again as he passed the koi pond, he spoke the film’s final line quietly to himself.

“Forget it, Jake, it’s Chinatown.”

He got in the car and drove home, his hand holding the shoe box secure on the seat next to him.

BY nine o’clock the next morning the end of Wonderland Avenue was a law enforcement encampment. And at its center was Harry Bosch. He directed teams from patrol, K-9, the Scientific Investigation Division, the medical examiner’s office and the Special Services unit. A department helicopter circled above and a dozen police academy cadets milled about, waiting for orders.