Medina looked like he had another question to ask but knew better. He nodded and left the office.

Irving nodded to his adjutant and she closed the office door, remaining in the anteroom outside. The deputy chief then turned his head, looking from Billets to Edgar to Bosch.

“We have a delicate situation here,” he said. “Are we clear on how we are proceeding?”

“Yes,” Billets and Edgar said in unison.

Bosch said nothing. Irving looked at him.

“Detective, do you have something to say?”

Bosch thought a moment before answering.

“I just want to say that I am going to find out who killed that boy and put him up in that hole. If it’s Trent, fine. Good. But if it’s not him, I’m going to keep going.”

Irving saw something on his desk. Something small like a hair or other near-microscopic particle. Something Bosch couldn’t see. Irving picked it up with two fingers and dropped it into the trash can behind him. As he brushed his fingers together over the shredder, Bosch looked on and wondered if the demonstration was some sort of threat directed at him.

“Not every case is solved, Detective, not every case is solvable,” he said. “At some point our duties may require us to move on to more pressing matters.”

“Are you giving me a deadline?”

“No, Detective. I am saying I understand you. And I just hope you understand me.”

“What’s going to happen with Thornton?”

“It’s under internal review. I can’t discuss it with you at this time.”

Bosch shook his head in frustration.

“Watch yourself, Detective Bosch,” Irving said curtly. “I’ve shown a lot of patience with you. On this case and others before it.”

“What Thornton did jammed up this case. He should-”

“If he is responsible he will be dealt with accordingly. But keep in mind he was not operating in a vacuum. He needed to get the information in order to leak it. The investigation is ongoing.”

Bosch stared at Irving. The message was clear. Kiz Rider could go down with Thornton if Bosch didn’t fall into step with Irving’s march.

“You read me, Detective?”

“I read you. Loud and clear.”

BEFORE taking Edgar back to Hollywood Division and then heading out to Venice, Bosch got the evidence box containing the skateboard out of the trunk and took it back inside Parker Center to the SID lab. At the counter he asked for Antoine Jesper. While he waited, he studied the skateboard. It appeared to be made out of laminated plywood. It had a lacquered finish to which several decals had been applied, most notably a skull and crossbones located in the middle of the top surface of the board.

When Jesper came to the counter, Bosch presented him with the evidence box.

“I want to know who made this, when it was made and where it was sold,” he said. “It’s priority one. I got the sixth floor riding my back on this case.”

“No problem. I can tell you the make right now. It’s a Boney board. They don’t make ’ em anymore. He sold out and moved, I think, to Hawaii.”

“How do you know all of that?”

“’Cause when I was a kid I was a boarder and this was what I wanted but never had the dough for. Pretty ironic, huh?”

“What is?”

“A Boney board and the case. You know, bones.”

Bosch nodded.

“Whatever. I want whatever you can get me by tomorrow.”

“Um, I can try. I can’t prom-”

“Tomorrow, Antoine. The sixth floor, remember? I’ll be talking to you tomorrow.”

Jesper nodded.

“Give me the morning, at least.”

“You got it. Anything happening with documents?”

Jesper shook his head.

“Nothing yet. She tried the dyes and nothing came up. I don’t think you should count on anything there, Harry.”

“All right, Antoine.”

Bosch left him there holding the box.

On the way back to Hollywood he let Edgar drive while he pulled the tip sheet out of his briefcase and called Sheila Delacroix on his cell phone. She answered promptly and Bosch introduced himself and said her call had been referred to him.

“Was it Arthur?” she asked urgently.

“We don’t know, ma’am. That’s why I’m calling.”

“Oh.”

“Will it be possible for me and my partner to come see you tomorrow morning to talk about Arthur and get some information? It will help us to be better able to determine if the remains are those of your brother.”

“I understand. Um, yes. You can come here, if that is convenient.”

“Where is there, ma’am?”

“Oh. My home. Off Wilshire in the Miracle Mile.”

Bosch looked at the address on the call-in sheet.

“On Orange Grove.”

“Yes, that’s correct.”

“Is eight-thirty too early for you?”

“That would be fine, Officer. If I can help I would like to. It just bothers me to think that that man lived there all those years after doing something like this. Even if the victim wasn’t my brother.”

Bosch decided it wasn’t worth telling her that Trent was probably completely innocent in terms of the bone case. There were too many people in the world who believed everything they saw on television.

Instead, Bosch gave her his cell phone number and told her to call it if something came up and eight-thirty the next morning turned out to be a bad time for her.

“It won’t be a bad time,” she said. “I want to help. If it’s Arthur, I want to know. Part of me wants it to be him so I know it is over. But the other part wants it to be somebody else. That way I can keep thinking he is out there someplace. Maybe with a family of his own now.”

“I understand,” Bosch said. “We’ll see you in the morning.”

IT was a brutal drive to Venice and Bosch arrived more than a half hour late. His lateness was then compounded by his fruitless search for a parking space before he went back to the library lot in defeat. His delay was no bother to Julia Brasher, who was in the critical stage of putting things together in the kitchen. She instructed him to go to the stereo and put on some music, then pour himself a glass of wine from the bottle that was already open on the coffee table. She did not make a move to touch him or kiss him, but her manner was completely warm. He thought things seemed good, that maybe he had gotten past the gaffe of the night before.

He chose a CD of live recordings of the Bill Evans Trio at the Village Vanguard in New York. He had the CD at home and knew it would make for quiet dinner music. He poured himself a glass of red wine and casually walked around the living room, looking at the things she had on display.

The mantel of the white brick fireplace was crowded with small framed photos he hadn’t gotten a chance to look at the night before. Some were propped on stands and displayed more prominently than others. Not all were of people. Some photos were of places he assumed she had visited in her travels. There was a ground shot of a live volcano billowing smoke and spewing molten debris in the air. There was an underwater shot of the gaping mouth and jagged teeth of a shark. The killer fish appeared to be launching itself right at the camera-and whoever was behind it. At the edge of the photo Bosch could see one of the iron bars of the cage the photographer-who he assumed was Brasher-had been protected by.

There was a photo of Brasher with two Aboriginal men on either side of her standing somewhere, Bosch assumed, in the Australian outback. And there were several other photos of her with what appeared to be fellow backpackers in other locations of exotic or rugged terrain that Bosch could not readily identify. In none of the photos in which Julia was a subject was she looking at the camera. Her eyes were always staring off in the distance or at one of the other individuals posed with her.