Alpert nodded. It sounded good to him.

"What about Bosch?"

"I'd leave him out of it. We don't have any control over him. If a reporter got to him he might lay the whole thing out." "And the body. Do we say it was Walling?"

"We say we don't know because we don't. ID is forthcoming, so on and so forth. That should be enough."

"If the reporters go to the brothels they'll get the whole story."

"No, they won't. We never told anyone the whole story."

"By the way, what happened to Bosch?"

Dei answered that one.

"I took his statement and released him. Last I saw he was driving back to Vegas."

"He'll keep quiet about this?"

Dei looked at Rachel and then back at Alpert.

"Put it this way, he isn't going to be looking to talk to anybody about it. And as long as we keep bis name out of it, there will be no reason for anyone to go looking for him."

Alpert nodded. He dug a hand into one of his pockets and came out with a cell phone.

"When we are finished here I have to call Washington. Gut reaction time: Was that Backus in that trailer?"

Rachel hesitated, not wanting to respond first.

"At this point there is no way to tell," Dei said. "If you are asking if you should tell the director that we got him, my answer right now is no, don't tell the director that. That could've been anybody in that trailer. For all we know it was an eleventh victim and we may never know who it was. Just somebody who went to one of the brothels and was intercepted by Backus."

Alpert looked at Rachel, expecting her take.

"The fuse," she said.

"What about it?" "It was long. It was like he wanted me to see the body but not get too close. But he also wanted me to get out of there."

"And?"

"On the body there was a black cowboy hat. I remember there was a man on my plane from Rapid City in a black cowboy hat."

"For chrissake, you were flying from South Dakota. Doesn't everybody wear cowboy hats there?"

"But he was there, with me. I think this whole thing was a setup. The note in the bar, the long fuse, the photos in the trailer and the black hat. He wanted me to get out of there in time to tell the world he was dead."

Alpert didn't respond. He looked down at the phone in his hands.

"There's too much we don't know yet, Randal," Dei offered.

He shoved the phone back into his pocket.

"Very well. Agent Dei, is your car here?"

"Yes."

"Take Agent Walling to the field office now."

They were dismissed, but not before Alpert looked at Rachel and threw one more grimace at her.

"Remember, Agent Walling, my desk by eight."

"You got it," Rachel said.

Eleanor Wish answered my knock and that surprised me. She stepped back to let me in.

"Don't look at me that way, Harry," she said. "You have this impression that I'm never here and that I work every night and leave her with Marisol. I don't. I work three or four nights a week and that's usually it."

I raised my hands in surrender and she saw the bandage around my right palm.

"What happened to you?"

"Cut myself on a piece of metal."

"What metal?"

"It's a long story."

"That thing up in the desert today?"

I nodded.

"I should have known. Is that going to hurt you playing the saxophone?"

Bored with retirement, I had started taking lessons the year before from a retired jazzman I had come across on a case. One night, when things were good between Eleanor and me, I had brought the instrument with me and played her a tune called "Lullaby." She had liked it.

"Actually, I haven't been playing anyway."

"How come?"

I didn't want to tell her that my teacher had died and music had dropped out of my life for a while.

"My teacher wanted me to switch from alto to tenor-as in ten or fifteen miles away from him."

She smiled at the lame joke and we left it at that. I had followed her through the house and into the kitchen, where the table was actually a felt-covered poker table-with cereal milk stains on it thanks to Maddie. Eleanor had dealt six hands faceup for practice. She sat down and started gathering up the cards.

"Don't let me stop you," I said. "I just came by to see if I could put Maddie to bed. Where is she?"

"Marisol's giving her a bath. But I was counting on putting her to bed tonight. I've worked the last three nights."

"Oh, well, that's fine. I'll just say hello then. And good-bye. I'm driving back tonight."

"Then why don't you do it? I got a new book to read her. It's on the counter."

"No, Eleanor, I want you to do it. I just want to see her because I don't know when I'll get back."

"Are you still working a case?"

"No, that all sort of ended up there today."

"The TV news didn't have much on it when I watched. What is it?"

"It's a long story."

I didn't feel like telling it once again. I walked over to the counter to look at the book she had bought. It was called Billy's Big Day and its cover showed a monkey standing on the highest step at an Olympics-style award ceremony. The gold medal was being put around his neck. A lion had received the silver and an elephant the bronze.

"Are you going back to join the department again?" I was about to open the book but I put it down and looked at Eleanor.

"I'm still thinking about it but it's looking that way." She nodded as though it was a done deal. "Any further thoughts from you on it?" "No, Harry, I want you to do what you want." I wondered why it was that when people tell you what you want them to tell you, it always comes with suspicion and second-guessing attached. Did Eleanor really want me to do what I wanted to do? Or was her saying that a way of undermining the whole thing?

Before I could say anything my daughter came into the kitchen and stood at attention. She wore blue-and-orange-striped pajamas and her dark hair was wet and slicked back on her head.

"Presenting a little girl," she said. Eleanor and I both broke out the smiles and simultaneously offered our opened arms for hugs. Maddie went to her mother first and that was all right with me. But it felt a little like when you hold out your hand to someone to shake and they don't see it or just plain ignore it. I lowered my arms and after a few moments Eleanor saved me.

"Go give Daddy a hug."

Maddie came to me and I lifted her up into a hug. She was no more than forty pounds. It is an amazing thing to be able to hold everything that is important to you in one arm. She put her damp head against my chest and I didn't mind that she was getting my shirt wet. That was no problem at all.

"How are you, baby?"

"I'm fine. I drew your picture today."

"You did? Can I see it?"

"Put me down."

I did as instructed and she ran off, out of the kitchen, her bare feet slapping on the stone tiles as she headed to the playroom. I looked at Eleanor and smiled. We both knew the secret. No matter what we had or didn't have for each other, we would always have Madeline and that might be enough.

The running of tiny feet could be heard again and soon she was back in the kitchen, towing a piece of paper held high like a kite. I took it from her and studied it. It showed the figure of a man with a mustache and dark eyes. He had his hands out and in one hand was a gun. On the other side of the page was another figure. This one was drawn in reds and oranges and had eyebrows drawn in a severe black V to indicate he was a bad guy.

I crouched down to my daughter's height to look at the drawing with her.

"Is this me with the gun?"

"Yes, because you were a policeman."

I nodded. She had said it like pleaseman.

"And who is this mean guy?"

She pointed a tiny finger at the other figure on the drawing. "That is Mr. Demon."