City Of Bones

Chapter 51

BOSCH pulled the car into a space in front of the Lone Pine Diner. The booths by all the windows were filled and almost all of the people in them looked out at the LAPD car two hundred miles from home.

He was starved but knew he needed to talk to Edgar before delaying any further. He took out the cell phone and made the call. Edgar answered after half a ring.

“It’s me. Did you put the BOLO out?”

“Yeah, it’s out. But it’s a little hard to do when you don’t know what the fuck is going on, partner.”

He said the last word as if it was a synonym for asshole. It was their last case together and Bosch felt bad that they were going to end their time this way. He knew it was his fault. He had cut Edgar out of the case for reasons Bosch wasn’t even sure about.

“Jerry, you’re right,” he said. “I fucked up. I just wanted to keep things moving and that meant driving through the night.”

“I would’ve gone with you.”

“I know,” Bosch lied. “I just didn’t think. I just drove. I’m coming back now.”

“Well, start at the beginning so I know what the fuck is going on in our own case. I feel like a moron here, putting out a BOLO and not even knowing why.”

“I told you, Stokes is the guy.”

“Yeah, you told me that and you didn’t tell me anything else.”

Bosch spent the next ten minutes watching diners eat their food while he recounted his moves for Edgar and brought him up to date.

“Jesus Christ, and we had him right here,” Edgar said when Bosch was finished.

“Yeah, well, it’s too late to worry about that. We have to get him back.”

“So you’re saying that when the kid packed up and ran away, he went to Stokes. Then Stokes leads him up there into the woods and just kills him.”

“More or less.”

“Why?”

“That’s what we have to ask him. I’ve got a theory, though.”

“What, the skateboard?”

“Yeah, he wanted the skateboard.”

“He’d kill a kid over a skateboard?”

“We’ve both seen it done for less and we don’t know if he intended to kill him or not. It was a shallow grave, dug by hand. Nothing premeditated about that. Maybe he just pushed him and knocked him down. Maybe he hit him with a rock. Maybe there was something else going on between them we don’t even know about.”

Edgar didn’t say anything for a long moment and Bosch thought maybe they were finished and he could get some food.

“What did the foster parents think about your theory?”

Bosch sighed.

“I didn’t really spin it for them. But put it this way, they weren’t too surprised when I started asking questions about Stokes.”

“You know something, Harry, we’ve been spinning our wheels is what we’ve been doing.”

“What do you mean?”

“This whole case. It comes down to what?-a thirteen-year-old killing a twelve-year-old over a fucking toy. Stokes was a juvy when this went down. Ain’t nobody going to prosecute him now.”

Bosch thought about this for a moment.

“They might. Depends on what we get out of him after we pick him up.”

“You just said yourself there was no sign of premed. They’re not going to file it, partner. I’m telling you. We’ve been chasing our tail. We close the case but nobody goes away for it.”

Bosch knew Edgar was probably right. Under the law, it was rare that adults were prosecuted for crimes committed while they were juveniles as young as thirteen. Even if they pulled a full confession out of Stokes he would probably walk.

“I should have let her shoot him,” he whispered.

“What’s that, Harry?”

“Nothing. I’m going to grab something to eat and get on the road. You going to be there?”

“Yeah, I’m here. I’ll let you know if anything happens.”

“All right.”

He hung up and got out of the car, thinking about the likelihood of Stokes walking away from his crime. As he entered the warm diner and was hit with the smells of grease and breakfast, he suddenly realized he had lost his appetite.