Bosch nodded again and looked around. He saw an RHD detective named Sheehan in a doorway below theMONTHLY RAT S sign near the front of the motel. He was questioning a man of about sixty who was wearing a sleeveless T-shirt despite the evening chill and chewing a sodden cigar stump. The manager.

“Did you know him?” Irving asked.

“ Moore? No, not really. I mean, yes, I knew him. We worked the same division, so we knew each other. He was on night shift mostly, working the streets. We didn’t have much contact…”

Bosch did not know why in that moment he decided to lie. He wondered if Irving had read it in his voice. He changed the subject.

“So, it’s suicide-is that what you told the reporters?”

“I did not tell the reporters a thing. I talked to them, yes. But I said nothing about the identity of the body in this room. And will not, until it is officially confirmed. You and I can stand here and say we are pretty sure that is Calexico Moore in there but I won’t give that to them until we’ve done every test, dotted everyi on the death certificate.”

He slapped the manila file hard on his thigh.

“This is why I pulled his personnel file. To expedite. The prints will go with the body to the medical examiner.” Irving looked back toward the door of the motel room. “But you were inside, Detective Bosch, you tell me.”

Bosch thought a moment. Is this guy interested, or is he just pulling my chain? This was the first time he had dealt with Irving outside of the adversarial situation of an Internal Affairs investigation. He decided to take a chance.

“Looks like he sits down on the floor by the tub, takes off his boot and pulls both triggers with his toe. I mean, I assume it was both barrels, judging by the damage. He pulls the triggers with his toe, the recoil throws the shotgun into the door jamb, splintering off a piece of the stock. His head goes the other way. Onto the wall and into the tub. Suicide.”

“There you go,” Irving said. “Now I can tell Detective Sheehan that you concur. Just as if you had gotten the first callout. No reason for anybody to feel left out.”

“That’s not the point, Chief.”

“What is the point, Detective? That you can’t go along to get along? That you do not accept the command decisions of this department? I am losing my patience with you, Detective. Something I had hoped would never happen to me again.”

Irving was standing too close to Bosch, his wintergreen breath puffing right in his face. It made Bosch feel pinned down by the man and he wondered if it was done on purpose. He stepped back and said, “But no note.”

“No note yet. We still have some things to check.”

Bosch wondered what. Moore ’s apartment and office would have been checked when he first turned up missing. Same with his wife’s home. What was left? Could Moore have mailed a note to somebody? It would have arrived by now.

“When did it happen?”

“Hopefully, we’ll get an idea from the autopsy tomorrow morning. But I am guessing he did it shortly after he checked in. Six days ago. In his first interview, the manager said Moore checked in six days ago and hadn’t been seen outside the room since. This jibes with the condition of the room, the condition of the body, the date on the newspaper.”

The autopsy was tomorrow morning. That told Bosch that Irving had this one greased. It usually took three days to get an autopsy done. And the Christmas holiday would back things up even further.

Irving seemed to know what he was thinking.

“The acting chief medical examiner has agreed to do it tomorrow morning. I explained there would be speculation in the media that would not be fair to the man’s wife or the department. She agreed to cooperate. After all, the acting chief wants to become the permanent chief. She knows the value of cooperation.”

Bosch didn’t say anything.

“So we will know then. But nobody, the manager included, saw Sergeant Moore after he checked in six days ago. He left specific instructions that he was absolutely not to be disturbed. I think he went ahead and did it shortly after checking in.”

“So why didn’t they find him sooner?”

“He paid for a month in advance. He demanded no disturbances. A place like this, they don’t offer daily maid service anyway. The manager thought he was a drunk who was either going to go on a binge or try to dry out. Either way, a place like this, the manager can’t be choosey. A month, that’s $600. He took the money.

“And they made good on their promise not to go to room seven until today, when the manager’s wife noticed that Mr. Moya’s car-the Mustang-had been broken into last night. That and, of course, they were curious. They knocked on his door to tell him but he didn’t answer. They used a passkey. The smell told them what was happening as soon as they opened the door.”

Irving said that Moore/Moya had set the air-conditioner on its highest and coldest level to slow decomposition and keep the odor contained in the room. Wet towels had been laid across the floor at the bottom of the front door to further seal the room.

“Nobody heard the shot?” Bosch asked.

“Not that we found. The manager’s wife is nearly deaf and he says he didn’t hear anything. They live in the last room on the other side. We’ve got stores on one side, an office building on the other. They all close at night. Alley behind. We are going through the registry and will try to track other guests that were here the first few days Moore was. But the manager says he never rented the rooms on either side of Moore ’s. He figured Moore might get loud if he was detoxing cold turkey.

“And, Detective, it is a busy street-bus stop right out front. It could have been that nobody heard a thing. Or if they heard it, didn’t know what it was.”

After some thought, Bosch said, “I don’t get renting the place for a month. I mean, why? If the guy was going to off himself, why try to hide it for so long? Why not do it and let them find your body, end of story?”

“That’s a tough one,” Irving said. “Near as I can figure it, he wanted to cut his wife a break.”

Bosch raised his eyebrows. He didn’t get it.

“They were separated,” Irving said. “Maybe he didn’t want to put this on her during the holidays. So he tried to hold up the news a couple weeks, maybe a month.”

That seemed pretty thin to Bosch but he had no better explanation just then. He could think of nothing else to ask at that moment. Irving changed the subject, signaling that Bosch’s visit to the crime scene was over.

“So, Detective, how is the shoulder?”

“It’s fine.”

“I heard you went down to Mexico to polish your Spanish while you mended.”

Bosch didn’t reply. He wasn’t interested in this banter. He wanted to tell Irving that he didn’t buy the scene, even with all the evidence and explanations that had been gathered. But he couldn’t say why, and until he could, he would be better off keeping quiet.

Irving was saying, “I have never thought that enough of our officers-the non-Latins, of course-make a good enough effort to learn the second language of this city. I want to see the whole depart-”

“Got a note,” Donovan called from the room.

Irving broke away from Bosch without another word and headed to the door. Sheehan followed him into the room along with a suit Bosch recognized as an Internal Affairs detective named John Chastain. Harry hesitated a moment before following them in.

One of the ME techs was standing in the hallway near the bathroom door with the others gathered around him. Bosch wished he hadn’t thrown away his handkerchief. He kept the cigarette in his mouth and breathed in deeply.

“Right rear pocket,” the tech said. “There’s putrefaction but you can make it out. It was folded over twice so the inside surface is pretty clean.”

Irving backed out of the hallway holding a plastic evidence bag up and looking at the small piece of paper inside it. The others crowded around him. Except for Bosch.