Mitford raised his hands and dropped them on the table.

“I don’t know. I was afraid, I guess. I followed the map up the hill, so that was the only way I knew back. I would have had to walk right by there and I thought, what if the cops come while I’m walking right there? I could get blamed. And I thought, if it was like the mafia or something that did it and they found out I had seen everything, then I’d be killed or something.”

Bosch nodded.

“I think you watch too much American TV up there in Canada. You don’t have to worry. We’ll take care of you. How old are you, Jesse?”

“Twenty.”

“So, what were you doing at Madonna’s house? Isn’t she a little old for you?”

“No, it wasn’t like that. It was for my mother.”

“You were stalking her for your mother?”

“I’m not a stalker. I just wanted to get my mother her autograph or see if she had a picture or something I could have. I wanted to send something back to my mom and I don’t have anything. You know, just to show her I’m okay. I thought if I told her I had met Madonna, then I wouldn’t feel like such a… you know. I grew up listening to Madonna because my mom listens to her stuff. I just thought it would be kind of cool to send her something. Her birthday’s coming up and I didn’t have anything.”

“Why’d you come to L.A., Jesse?”

“I don’t know. It just seemed like the place to go. I was hoping I could get in a band or something. But it’s looking like most people come here with their band already. I don’t have one.”

Bosch thought Mitford had adopted the pose of the wandering troubadour but there had been no guitar or other mobile instrument with his backpack in the squad room.

“Are you a musician or a singer?”

“I play the guitar but I had to pawn it a few days ago. I’ll get it back.”

“Where are you staying?”

“I don’t really have a place right now. I was going to sleep up in the hills last night. I guess it’s the real answer to why I didn’t leave after I saw what happened to that guy up there. I really didn’t have anyplace to go.”

Bosch understood. Jesse Mitford was no different from a thousand others who got off the bus every month or thumbed it into town. More dreams than plans or currency. More hope than cunning, skill or intelligence. Not all of those who fail to make it stalk those who do. But the one thing they all share is that desperate edge. And some never lose it, even after their names are put up in lights and they buy houses on top of the hills.

“Let’s take a break here, Jesse,” Bosch said. “I need to make a few phone calls and then we’ll probably need to go over it all again. You cool with that? I’ll also see about maybe getting you a hotel room or something.”

Mitford nodded.

“Think about the cars and the guy you saw, Jesse. We need you to remember more details.”

“I’m trying but I…”

He didn’t finish and Bosch left him there.

In the hallway Bosch switched on the air conditioning in the interview room and set it at sixty-four. It would soon cool off in the room and instead of sweating, Mitford would start to get cold-though coming from Canada, maybe not. After he chilled for a while Bosch would take another run at him and see if anything new came out. He checked his watch. It was almost 5 a.m. and the case meeting the feds were organizing was not for another four hours. There was a lot to do but he still had some time to work with Mitford. The first round had been productive. There was no reason for him not to think there was more to be gained by a second go at it.

Out in the squad room Bosch found Ignacio Ferras working at his desk. He was turned in his seat and was typing on his laptop on a slide-out table. Bosch noticed that Mitford’s property had been replaced on the desk by other evidence bags and file folders. It was everything from SID that the case had spawned so far on the two crime scenes.

“Harry, sorry I didn’t get back in there to watch,” Ferras said. “Anything new from the kid?”

“We’re getting there. I’m just taking a break.”

Ferras was thirty years old and had an athlete’s body. On his desk was the trophy awarded him for being his academy class’s top achiever in physical conditioning and testing. He was also handsome, with mocha skin and short-cropped hair. He had piercing green eyes.

Bosch stepped over to his own desk to use the phone. He was going to wake up Lieutenant Gandle one more time to give him another update.

“You track the vic’s gun yet?” he asked Ferras.

“Yeah, I got it off the ATF computer. He bought a twenty-two-caliber belly gun six months ago. Smith and Wesson.”

Bosch nodded.

“A twenty-two fits,” he said. “No exit wounds.”

“Bullets check in but they don’t check out.”

Ferras delivered the line like a television commercial huckster and laughed at his own joke. Bosch thought about what was lying beneath the humor. Stanley Kent had been warned that his profession made him vulnerable. His response was to purchase a gun for protection.

And now Bosch was betting that the gun he’d bought had been used against him, had been used to kill him by a terrorist who called out the name of Allah as he pulled the trigger. What a world it was, Bosch thought, when someone could draw the courage to pull the trigger on another man by calling out to his God.

“Not a good way to go,” Ferras said.

Bosch looked across the two desks at him.

“Let me tell you something,” he said. “You know what you find out on this job?”

“No, what?”

“That there are no good ways to go.”

BOSCH WENT TO THE CAPTAIN’S OFFICE to refill his coffee mug. When he reached into his pocket for another buck for the basket, he came out with Brenner’s card and it reminded him of Brenner’s request to be updated on the possibility of a witness. But Bosch had just finished updating Lieutenant Gandle on what the young Canadian said he had seen and heard at the overlook and together they had decided to keep Mitford under wraps for the time being. Until at least the 9 a.m. meeting, when it would be put-up or shut-up time with the feds. If the federal powers that be were going to keep the LAPD involved in the investigation, it would become clear at that meeting. Then it would be quid pro quo time. Bosch would share the witness’s story in exchange for a share of the investigation.

Meantime, Gandle said he would send another update through the department’s chain of command. With the latest revelation of the word Allah cropping up in the investigation, it was incumbent upon him to make sure the growing gravity of the case was communicated upward.

With his mug full he went back to his desk and started going through the evidence collected from the murder scene and the house where Alicia Kent had been held while her husband did the bidding of her captors.

He was already aware of most of what had been found at the murder scene. He started removing Stanley Kent ’s personal belongings from the evidence bags and examining them. At this stage they had been processed by Forensics and it was okay to handle them.

The first item was the physicist’s BlackBerry. Bosch was not adept in a digital world and readily acknowledged this. He had mastered his own cell phone but it was a basic model that made and received calls, stored numbers in a directory, and did nothing else-as far as he knew. This meant that he was quite lost as he tried to manipulate the higher-evolution device.

“Harry, you need help with that?”

Bosch looked up and saw Ferras smiling at him. Bosch was embarrassed by his lack of technological skill but not to the point where he wouldn’t accept help. That would turn his personal flaw into something worse.

“You know how to work this?”

“Sure.”

“It has e-mail, right?”