“The washer – the polish man – touches the book when he’s working inside the car,” Bosch added. “There are your prints.”

“The polish man was Harris,” Edgar said. He then looked at Pelfry and said, “The manager at the car wash said you came back to look at the time cards.”

Pelfry nodded.

“I did. I got a copy of a time card that proves Harris was working at the time that white Volvo came in and got the special. Eli asked me to go over to the car wash and try to finesse that without a su’peenie. I figure the time card was the linchpin and he didn’t want anybody to know about it.”

“Even the judge who signed the subpoenas on the case,” Bosch said. “He must not have trusted anybody.”

“Looks like with good reason,” Pelfry said.

While Edgar asked Pelfry to show him the time card, Bosch withdrew and tried to think about this latest information. He remembered what Sheehan had said the night before about the fingerprints being so good because the person who had left them had probably been sweating. He understood now that that was not because of nervousness over the crime being committed, but because he was working at the car wash, vacuuming a car when those prints were left on that book. Michael Harris. He was innocent. Truly innocent. Bosch had not been convinced until that moment. And it was astounding to him. He wasn’t a dreamer. He knew cops made mistakes and innocent people went to prison. But the mistake here was colossal. An innocent man tortured as cops tried to bully him into confessing to something he had clearly not done. Satisfied they had their man, the police had dropped their investigation and let the real killer slip away – until a civil rights lawyer’s investigation found him, a discovery that got the lawyer killed. The chain reaction went even further, pushing the city once more to the brink of self-destruction.

“So then, Mr. Pelfry,” Bosch said, “who killed Stacey Kincaid?”

“It’s Jenks. And I don’t know. I know it wasn’t Michael Harris – ain’t no doubt about that. But Eli didn’t tell me the other part – if he knew before they got him.”

“They?” Bosch asked.

“Whatever.”

“Tell us about Mistress Regina,” Edgar said.

“What’s to tell? Eli got a tip, he passed it to me. I checked the broad out and couldn’t see any connection. She’s just a freak – a dead end. If you guys were there, you know what I mean. I think Eli dropped it after I told him about her.”

Bosch thought a moment and shook his head.

“I don’t think so. There’s something there.”

“Well, if there is, he didn’t tell me about it.”

In the car Bosch called Rider to check in. She said she had completed a review of the files without anything that needed immediate follow-up catching her eye.

“We’re going to see the Kincaids,” Bosch said.

“How come so soon?”

“Turns out one of them was Harris’s alibi.”

“What?”

Bosch explained the license plate discovery Pelfry and Elias had made.

“One out of four,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“We now know what one out of four of the mystery notes means.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“I was thinking about the first two. I think they’re connected and I’ve got an idea about ‘dot the i.’ I’m going to go online and check it out. You know what a hypertext link is?”

“I don’t speak that language, Kiz. I still type with two fingers.”

“I know. I’ll explain it when you get back here. Maybe I’ll know if I have something.”

“Okay. Good luck.”

He was about to hang up.

“Oh, Harry?”

“What?”

“You gotta call from Carla Entrenkin. She said she needed to talk to you. I was going to give her your pager but then I thought you might not want that. She might start paging you every time she gets a wild hair.”

“That’s fine. Did she leave a number?”

She gave it to him and they hung up.

“We’re going to the Kincaids’?” Edgar asked.

“Yeah, I just decided. Get on the radio and run the plate on that white Volvo. See what name’s on it. I’ve got to make a call.”

Bosch called the number Carla Entrenkin had left and she answered after two rings.

“It’s Bosch.”

“Detective…”

“You called?”

“Yes, uh, I just wanted to apologize about last night. I was upset at what I saw on the television and… and I think I spoke too soon. I’ve done some checking and I think I was wrong about what I said.”

“You were.”

“Well, I’m sorry.”

“Okay, Inspector, I appreciate you calling. I better – ”

“How is the investigation going?”

“It’s going. Have you talked to Chief Irving?”

“Yes, I have. He told me that they are questioning Detective Sheehan.”

“Don’t hold your breath on that.”

“I’m not. What about what you are pursuing? I was told you are reinvestigating the original case. The murder of Stacey Kincaid.”

“Well, we can now prove Harris didn’t do it. You were right about that. Elias was going to go into court and clear him. He didn’t do it. We now just have to prove somebody else did. And my money is still on that somebody being the one who also did Elias. I have to go now, Inspector.”

“Will you call me if you make significant progress?”

Bosch thought about this for a few moments. Dealing with Carla Entrenkin somehow gave him the feel of consorting with the enemy.

“Yes,” he finally said. “I’ll call if there is significant progress.”

“Thank you, Detective.”

“Don’t mention it.”

THE Los Angeles car czar and his wife now lived off Mulholland Drive in an exclusive development called The Summit. It was a gated and guarded neighborhood of side-by-side millionaires with spectacular homes that looked down from the Santa Monica Mountains and north across the basin of the San Fernando Valley. The Kincaids had moved from Brentwood to these gated hills after their daughter’s murder. It was a move toward security that was too late for the little girl.

Bosch and Edgar had called ahead and were welcomed at the gatehouse. There they were given directions along a curving development road to a huge French Provincial mansion built on a piece of property that must have been the summit of The Summit. A Latina maid answered the door and led them to a living room that was bigger than Bosch’s entire house. It had two fireplaces and three distinct groupings of furniture. Bosch wasn’t sure what the purpose of this could be. The long northern wall of the room was almost entirely glass. It revealed an expansive view across the Valley. Bosch had a hill house but the difference in views was a couple of thousand feet in altitude and maybe ten million dollars in attitude. The maid told them that the Kincaids would be with them shortly.

Bosch and Edgar stepped to the window, which they were meant to do. The rich kept you waiting so you could feel free to admire all that they had.

“Jetliner views,” Edgar said.

“What’s that?”

“It’s what they call it when you’re this high up. Jetliner views.”

Bosch nodded. Edgar had sold real estate as a side job with his wife a few years back, until it threatened to turn his police work into a side job.

Bosch could see across the Valley to the Santa Susana Mountains. He could pick out Oat Mountain above Chatsworth. He remembered going there years before on a field trip from the youth hall. The overall view, however, could not be called beautiful. A heavy layer of smog – especially for April – stretched across the Valley. They were high enough in the Kincaid house to be above it. Or so it seemed.

“I know what you’re thinking. It’s a million-dollar-view of the smog.”

Bosch turned around. A smiling man and a blank-faced woman had entered the living room. Behind them stood a second man in a dark suit. Bosch recognized the first man from TV. Sam Kincaid, the car czar. He was smaller than Bosch expected. More compact. His deep tan was real, not television makeup, and his jet-black hair seemed legitimate. On TV it always looked like a wig. He was wearing a golf shirt like the ones he always wore on his commercials. Like the ones his father had worn when he was the one on the commercials a decade earlier.