City Of Bones

Chapter 50

BY the time Don Blaylock went to the kitchen to brew a second pot of coffee Bosch had two pages of notes on Johnny Stokes. He had come to the Blaylock house through a DYS referral in January 1980 and was gone the following July, when he was arrested for stealing a car and going on a joyride through Hollywood. It was his second arrest for car theft. He was incarcerated at the Sylmar Juvenile Hall for six months. By the time his period of rehabilitation was completed he was returned by a judge to his parents. Though the Blaylocks heard from him on occasion and even saw him during his infrequent visits to the neighborhood, they had other children still in their care and soon drifted from contact with the boy.

When Blaylock went to make the coffee Bosch settled into what he thought would be an uncomfortable silence with Audrey. But then she spoke to him.

“Twelve of our children graduated from college,” she said. “Two have military careers. One followed Don into the fire service. He works in the Valley.”

She nodded at Bosch and he nodded back.

“We’ve never considered ourselves to be one hundred percent successful with our children,” she continued. “We did our best with each one. Sometimes the circumstances or the courts or the youth authorities prevented us from helping a child. John was one of those cases. He made a mistake and it was as if we were to blame. He was taken from us… before we could help him.”

All Bosch could do was nod.

“You seemed to know of him already,” she said. “Have you already spoken to him?”

“Yes. Briefly.”

“Is he in jail now?”

“No, he’s not.”

“What has his life been since… we knew him?”

Bosch spread his hands apart.

“He hasn’t done well. Drugs, a lot of arrests, prison.”

She nodded sadly.

“Do you think he killed that boy in our neighborhood? While he was living with us?”

Bosch could tell by her face that if he were to answer truthfully he would knock down everything she had built out of what was good in what they had done. The whole wall of pictures, the graduation gowns and the good jobs would mean nothing next to this.

“I don’t really know. But we do know he was a friend of the boy who was killed.”

She closed her eyes. Not tightly, just as if she were resting them. She said nothing else until Blaylock came back into the room. He went past Bosch and put another log on the fire.

“Coffee will be up in a minute.”

“Thank you,” Bosch said.

After Blaylock walked back to the couch, Bosch stood up.

“I have some things I would like you to look at, if you don’t mind. They’re in my car.”

He excused himself and went out to the slickback. He grabbed his briefcase from the front seat and then went to the trunk to get the file box containing the skateboard. He thought it might be worth a try showing it to the Blaylocks.

His phone chirped just as he closed the trunk and this time he answered it. It was Edgar.

“Harry, where are you?”

“Up in Lone Pine.”

“Lone Pine! What the fuck are you doing up there?”

“I don’t have time to talk. Where are you?”

“At the table. Like we agreed. I thought you-”

“Listen, I’ll call you back in an hour. Meantime, put out a new BOLO on Stokes.”

“What?”

Bosch checked the house to make sure the Blaylocks weren’t listening or in sight.

“I said put out another BOLO on Stokes. We need him picked up.”

“Why?”

“Because he did it. He killed the kid.”

“What the fuck, Harry?”

“I’ll call you in an hour. Put out the BOLO.”

He hung up and this time turned the phone off.

Inside the house Bosch put the file box down on the floor and then opened his briefcase on his lap. He found the envelope containing the family photos borrowed from Sheila Delacroix. He opened it and slid them out. He split the stack in two and gave one-half to each of the Blaylocks.

“Look at the boy in these pictures and tell me if you recognize him, if he ever came to your house. With Johnny or anybody else.”

He watched as the couple looked at the photos and then exchanged stacks. When they were finished they both shook their heads and handed the photos back.

“Don’t recognize him,” Don Blaylock said.

“Okay,” Bosch said as he put the photos back into the envelope.

He closed his briefcase and put it on the floor. He then opened the file box and lifted out the skateboard.

“Has either of you-”

“That was John’s,” Audrey said.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I recognize it. When he was… taken from us, he left it behind. I told him we had it. I called his house but he never came for it.”

“How do you know that this is the one that was his?”

“I just remember. I didn’t like the skull and crossbones. I remember those.”

Bosch put the skateboard back in the box.

“What happened to it if he never came for it?”

“We sold it,” Audrey said. “When Don retired after thirty years and we decided to move up here, we sold all of our junk. We had a gigantic garage sale.”

“More like a house sale,” her husband added. “We got rid of everything.”

“Not everything. You wouldn’t sell that stupid fire bell we have in the backyard. Anyway, that was when we sold the skateboard.”

“Do you remember who you sold it to?”

“Yes, the man who lived next door. Mr. Trent.”

“When was this?”

“Summer of ’ninety-two. Right after we sold the house. We were still in escrow, I remember.”

“Why do you remember selling the skateboard to Mr. Trent? ’Ninety-two was a long time ago.”

“I remember because he bought half of what we were selling. The junky half. He gathered it all up and offered us one price for everything. He needed it all for his work. He was a set designer.”

“Set decorator,” her husband corrected. “There is a difference.”

“Anyway, he used everything he bought from us on movie sets. I always hoped I would see something in a movie that I’d know came from our house. But I never did.”

Bosch scribbled some notes in his pad. He had just about everything he needed from the Blaylocks. It was almost time to head south, back to the city to put the case together.

“How did you get the skateboard?” Audrey asked him.

Bosch looked up from his notepad.

“Uh, it was in Mr. Trent’s possessions.”

“He’s still on the street?” Don Blaylock asked. “He was a great neighbor. Never a problem at all with him.”

“He was until recently,” Bosch said. “He passed away, though.”

“Oh, my gosh,” Audrey proclaimed. “What a shame. And he wasn’t that old a man.”

“I just have a couple more questions,” Bosch said. “Did John Stokes ever tell either of you how he came to have the skateboard?”

“He told me that he had won it during a contest with some other boys at school,” Audrey said.

“The Brethren School?”

“Yes, that’s where he went. He was going when he first came to us and so we continued it.”

Bosch nodded and looked down at his notes. He had everything. He closed the notebook, put it in his coat pocket and stood up to go.