City Of Bones

Chapter 5

BY nine o’clock the next morning the end of Wonderland Avenue was a law enforcement encampment. And at its center was Harry Bosch. He directed teams from patrol, K-9, the Scientific Investigation Division, the medical examiner’s office and the Special Services unit. A department helicopter circled above and a dozen police academy cadets milled about, waiting for orders.

Earlier, the aerial unit had locked in on the sagebrush Bosch had wrapped in yellow crime scene tape and used it as a base point to determine that Wonderland offered the closest access to the spot where Bosch had found the bones. The Special Services unit then swung into action. Following the trail of crime scene tape up the hillside, the six-man team hammered and strung together a series of wooden ramps and steps with rope guidelines that led up the hillside to the bones. Accessing and exiting the site would now be much easier than it had been for Bosch the evening before.

It was impossible to keep such a nest of police activity quiet. Also by 9 A.M. the neighborhood had become a media encampment. The media trucks were stacked behind the roadblocks set a half block from the turnaround circle. The reporters were gathering into press conference-sized groups. And no fewer than five news helicopters were circling at an altitude above the department’s chopper. It all created a background cacophony that had already resulted in numerous complaints from residents on the street to police administrators at Parker Center downtown.

Bosch was getting ready to lead the first group up to the crime scene. He first conferred with Jerry Edgar, who had been apprised of the case the night before.

“All right, we’re going to take the ME and SID up first,” he said, pronouncing the acronyms as Emmy and Sid. “Then we’ll take the cadets and the dogs up. I want you to oversee that part of it.”

“No problem. You see your pal the ME’s got her damn cameraman with her?”

“Nothing we can do about it at the moment. Let’s just hope she gets bored and goes back downtown, where she belongs.”

“You know, for all we know, these could be old Indian bones or something.”

Bosch shook his head.

“I don’t think so. Too shallow.”

Bosch walked over to the first group: Teresa Corazon, her videographer and her four-person dig team, which consisted of archeologist Kathy Kohl and three investigators who would do the spadework. The dig team members were dressed in white jumpsuits. Corazon was in an outfit similar to what she was wearing the night before, including shoes with two-inch heels. Also in the group were two criminalists from SID.

Bosch signaled the group into a tighter circle so he could speak privately to them and not be overheard by all the others milling about.

“Okay, we’re going to go up and start the documentation and recovery. Once we have all of you in place we’ll bring up the dogs and the cadets to search the adjacent areas and possibly expand the crime scene. You guys-”

He stopped to reach his hand up to Corazon’s cameraman.

“Turn that off. You can film her but not me.”

The man lowered his camera, and Bosch gave Corazon a look and then continued.

“You all know what you are doing so I don’t need to brief you. The one thing I do want to say is that it is tough going getting up there. Even with the ramps and the stairs. So be careful. Hold on to the ropes, watch your footing. We don’t want anybody hurt. If you have heavy equipment, break it up and make two or three trips. If you still need help I’ll have the cadets bring it up. Don’t worry about time. Worry about safety. All right, everybody cool?”

He got simultaneous nods from everybody. Bosch signaled Corazon away from the others and into a private conversation.

“You’re not dressed right,” he said.

“Look, don’t you start telling-”

“You want me to take my shirt off so you can see my ribs? The side of my chest looks like blueberry pie because I fell up there last night. Those shoes you’ve got on aren’t going to work. It might look good for the camera but not-”

“I’m fine. I’ll take my chances. Anything else?”

Bosch shook his head.

“I warned you,” he said. “Let’s go.”

He headed toward the ramp, and the others followed. Special Services had constructed a wooden gateway to be used as a checkpoint. A patrol officer stood there with a clipboard. He took each person’s name and affiliation before they were allowed through.

Bosch led the way. The climbing was easier than the day before but his chest burned with pain as he pulled himself along on the rope guides and negotiated the ramps and steps. He said nothing and tried not to show it.

When he got to the acacia trees he signaled the others to hold back while he went under the crime scene tape to check first. He found the area of overturned earth and the small, brown bones he had seen the night before. They appeared undisturbed.

“Okay, come on in here and have a look.”

The group members came under the tape and stood over the bones in a semicircle. The camera started rolling and Corazon now took charge.

“All right, the first thing we’re going to do is back out and take photos. Then we’re going to set up a grid and Dr. Kohl will supervise the excavation and recovery. If you find anything, photograph it nine ways from Sunday before you collect it.”

She turned to one of the investigators.

“Finch, I want you to handle the sketches. Standard grid. Document everything. Don’t assume we will be able to rely on photos.”

Finch nodded. Corazon turned to Bosch.

“Detective, I think we’ve got it. The less people in here the better.”

Bosch nodded and handed her a two-way radio.

“I’ll be around. If you need me use the rover. Cell phones don’t work up here. But be careful what you say.”

He pointed up at the sky, where the media helicopters were circling.

“Speaking of which,” Kohl said, “I think we’re going to string a tarp up off these trees so we can have some privacy as well as cut down on the sun glare. Is that okay with you?”

“It’s your crime scene now,” Bosch said. “Run with it.”

He headed back down the ramp with Edgar behind him.

“Harry, this could take days,” Edgar said.

“And maybe then some.”

“Well, they’re not going to give us days. You know that, right?”

“Right.”

“I mean, these cases… we’ll be lucky if we even come up with an ID.”

“Right.”

Bosch kept moving. When he got down to the street he saw that Lt. Billets was on the scene with her supervisor, Capt. LeValley.

“Jerry, why don’t you go get the cadets ready?” Bosch said. “Give them the crime scene one-oh-one speech. I’ll be over in a minute.”

Bosch joined Billets and LeValley and updated them on what was happening, detailing the morning’s activities right down to the neighborhood complaints about noise from the hammers, saws and helicopters.

“We’ve got to give something to the media,” LeValley said. “Media Relations wants to know if you want them to handle it from downtown or you want to take it here.”

“I don’t want to take it. What does Media Relations know about it?”

“Almost nothing. So you have to call them and they’ll work up the press release.”

“Captain, I’m kind of busy here. Can I-”

“Make the time, Detective. Keep them off our backs.”

When Bosch looked away from the captain to the reporters gathered a half block away at the roadblock, he noticed Julia Brasher showing her badge to a patrol officer and being allowed through. She was in street clothes.

“All right. I’ll make the call.”

He started down the street to Dr. Guyot’s home. He was headed toward Brasher, who smiled at him as she approached.

“I’ve got your Mag. It’s in my car down here. I have to go down to Dr. Guyot’s house anyway.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it. That’s not why I’m here.”

She changed direction and continued with Bosch. He looked at her attire: faded blue jeans and a T-shirt from a 5K charity run.

“You’re not on the clock, are you?”

“No, I work the three-to-eleven. I just thought you might need a volunteer. I heard about the academy call out.”

“You want to go up there and look for bones, huh?”

“I want to learn.”

Bosch nodded. They walked up the path to Guyot’s door. It opened before they got there and the doctor invited them in. Bosch asked if he could use the phone in his office again and Guyot showed him the way even though he didn’t have to. Bosch sat down behind the desk.

“How are the ribs?” the doctor asked.

“Fine.”

Brasher raised her eyebrows and Bosch picked up on it.

“Had a little accident when I was up there last night.”

“What happened?”

“Oh, I was just sort of minding my own business when a tree trunk suddenly attacked me for no reason.”

She grimaced and somehow managed to smile at the same time.

Bosch dialed Media Relations from memory and told an officer about the case in very general terms. At one point he put his hand over the phone and asked Guyot if he wanted his name put in the press release. The doctor declined. A few minutes later Bosch was finished and hung up. He looked at Guyot.

“Once we clear the scene in a few days the reporters will probably stick around. They’ll be looking for the dog that found the bone, is my guess. So if you want to stay out of it, keep Calamity off the street or they’ll put two and two together.”

“Good advice,” Guyot said.

“And you might want to call your neighbor, Mr. Ulrich, and tell him not to mention it to any reporters, either.”

On the way out of the house Bosch asked Brasher if she wanted her flashlight and she said she didn’t want to bother carrying it while she was helping search the hillside.

“Get it to me whenever,” she said.

Bosch liked the answer. It meant he would get at least one more chance to see her.

Back at the circle Bosch found Edgar lecturing the academy cadets.

“The golden rule of the crime scene, people, is don’t touch anything until it has been studied, photographed and charted.”

Bosch walked into the circle.

“Okay, we ready?”

“They’re ready,” Edgar said. He nodded toward two of the cadets, who were holding metal detectors. “I borrowed those from SID.”

Bosch nodded and gave the cadets and Brasher the same safety speech he had given the forensic crew. They then headed up to the crime scene, Bosch introducing Brasher to Edgar and then letting his partner lead the way through the checkpoint. He took up the rear, walking behind Brasher.

“We’ll see if you want to be a homicide detective by the end of the day,” he said.

“Anything’s got to be better than chasing the radio and washing puke out of the back of your car at the end of every shift.”

“I remember those days.”

Bosch and Edgar spread the twelve cadets and Brasher out in the areas adjacent to the stand of acacia trees and had them begin conducting side-by-side searches. Bosch then went down and brought up the two K-9 teams to supplement the search.

Once things were under way he left Edgar with the cadets and went back to the acacias to see what progress had been made. He found Kohl sitting on an equipment crate and supervising the placement of wooden stakes into the ground so that strings could be used to set the excavation grid.

Bosch had worked one prior case with Kohl and knew she was very thorough and good at what she did. She was in her late thirties with a tennis player’s build and tan. Bosch had once run across her at a city park, where she was playing tennis with a twin sister. They had drawn a crowd. It looked like somebody hitting the ball off a mirrored wall.

Kohl’s straight blonde hair fell forward and hid her eyes as she looked down at the oversized clipboard on her lap. She was making notations on a piece of paper with a grid already printed on it. Bosch looked over her shoulder at the chart. Kohl was labeling the individual blocks with letters of the alphabet as the corresponding stakes were placed in the ground. At the top of the page she had written “City of Bones.”

Bosch reached down and tapped the chart where she had written the caption.

“Why do you call it that?”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“Because we’re setting out the streets and the blocks of what will become a city to us,” she said, running her fingers over some of the lines on the chart in illustration. “At least while we’re working here it will feel like it. Our little city.”

Bosch nodded.

“In every murder is the tale of a city,” he said.

Kohl looked up at him.

“Who said that?”

“I don’t know. Somebody did.”

He turned his attention to Corazon, who was squatting over the small bones on the surface of the soil, studying them while the lens of the video camera studied her. He was thinking of something to say about it when his rover was keyed and he took it off his belt.

“Bosch here.”

“Edgar. Better come on back over here, Harry. We already have something.”

“Right.”

Edgar was standing in an almost level spot in the brush about forty yards from the acacia trees. A half dozen of the cadets and Brasher had formed a circle and were looking down at something in the two-foot-high brush. The police chopper was circling in a tighter circle above.

Bosch got to the circle and looked down. It was a child’s skull partially submerged in the soil, its hollow eyes staring up at him.

“Nobody touched it,” Edgar said. “Brasher here found it.”

Bosch glanced at her and the humor she seemed to carry in her eyes and mouth were gone. He looked back at the skull and pulled the radio off his belt.

“Dr. Corazon?” he said into it.

It was a long moment before her voice came back.

“Yes, I’m here. What is it?”

“We are going to have to widen the crime scene.”