“And the bad news?” Bosch asked.

“I just ran them through the California system. No matches.”

“What about the FBI?”

“That’s next but that won’t be so fast. They have to process it. I will send it through with an expedite request but you know how that goes.”

“I do, Raj. Let me know when you know, and thanks for the effort.”

Bosch closed the phone. He felt a steep letdown and his face showed it. He could already tell the others knew the score before he delivered the news.

“No match on the DOJ database,” he said. “He’ll try the bureau’s base but that will take a while.”

“Shit!” said Renner.

“Speaking of Raj Patel,” Pratt said, “his brother scheduled the autopsy for two o’clock today. I want one team there. Who wants to take it?”

Renner weakly raised his hand. He and Robleto would take it. It was an easy assignment if you didn’t mind the visuals.

The meeting soon broke up after Pratt assigned Robinson and Nord the service station and the interviews of the people Mackey worked with there. Marcia and Jackson would work on pulling reports together and into a murder book. They were still the lead investigators and would coordinate things from room 503.

Pratt looked at the bill, divided it by nine and told everyone to put in ten. This meant Bosch had to throw in a ten even though he hadn’t even had a cup of coffee. He didn’t protest. It was the price of being late and being the guy who put them on this path.

As everyone stood Bosch caught Rider’s eye.

“Did you come directly here or did you ride with somebody?”

“Abel gave me a lift.”

“Want to ride back together?”

“Sure.”

Outside the restaurant she gave Bosch the silent treatment while they waited for his car from the valet. She stared at the large plastic steer that was atop the restaurant’s sign. Under her arm was a file containing the printouts from the pen registers.

Finally the car came and they got in. Before pulling out of the lot Bosch turned and looked at her.

“All right, say it,” he said.

“Say what?”

“Whatever it is you want to say so you can feel better.”

“You should’ve called me, Harry, that’s all.”

“Look, Kiz, I called you yesterday and you chewed me out. I was just working off of recent experience.”

“This was different and you know it. You called me yesterday because you were excited about something. Today you were following a lead. I should have been with you. And then to not find out what you came up with until you went in there and told everybody. That was embarrassing, Harry. Thanks for that.”

Bosch nodded his contrition.

“You’re right about that part. I’m sorry. I should’ve called you when I was coming in. I just forgot. I knew I was late and I had both hands on the wheel and was just trying to get here.”

She didn’t say anything, so he finally did.

“Can we get back to solving this case now?”

She shrugged and he finally put the car in drive. On the way to Parker Center he tried to fill her in on all the details he hadn’t mentioned during the breakfast meeting. He told her about McClellan’s visit to his house and how that led him to the discovery of the prints under the bed.

Twenty minutes later they were in their alcove in room 503. Bosch finally had a cup of coffee in front of him. They sat across from each other and had the pen register printouts spread between them.

Bosch was concentrating on the reports on the service station phones. The listing was at least a couple hundred entries-calls going in or out on the station’s two phones-between 6 a.m., when the surveillance started, and 4 p.m., when Mackey reported for work and Renner and Robleto started live-monitoring the line.

Bosch scanned down the list. Nothing looked immediately familiar. Many of the calls were to or from business listings with some automobile connection clearly apparent in the name. Many others came in from the AAA dispatch center and these were likely tow calls.

There were also several calls that came from personal phones. Bosch looked closely at these names but saw nothing that jumped out at him. No one listed was an already established player in the case.

There were four entries on the list that were attributed to Visa, all the same number. Bosch picked up the phone and called it. He never heard it ring. He just got the loud screeching sound of a computer hookup. It was so loud that even Rider heard it.

“What is that?”

Bosch hung up.

“I’m trying to run down that note I saw on the desk in the station about Visa calling to confirm Mackey’s employment. Remember you said it didn’t fit?”

“I forgot about that. Was that the number?”

“I don’t know. There are four listings for Visa but-wait a minute.”

He realized that the Visa calls were outgoing calls.

“Never mind, these were outgoing. It must be the number the machine calls when you use a credit card to pay. That’s not it. There is no incoming call listed as Visa.”

Bosch picked up the phone again and called Nord’s cell phone.

“Are you at the service station yet?”

She laughed.

“We’ve barely cleared Hollywood. We’ll be there in a half hour.”

“Ask them about a phone message somebody left for Mackey yesterday. Something about Visa calling to confirm employment on a credit application. Ask them what they remember from the call and more importantly, what time it came in. Try to get the exact time if you can. Ask them about this first thing and then call me back.”

“Yes, sir. You want us to pick up your laundry, too?”

Bosch realized it was getting to be a bad morning for stepping on toes.

“Sorry,” he said. “We’re working under the gun here.”

“Aren’t we all? I’ll call you as soon as we see the guy.”

Nord hung up. Bosch put the phone down and looked at Rider. She was looking at the class picture of Rebecca Verloren in the yearbook they had borrowed.

“What are you thinking?” she asked without looking up at Bosch.

“This thing with Visa bothers me.”

“I know, so what are you thinking?”

“Well, say you’re the killer and you got the gun you did it with from Mackey.”

“You’re completely giving up on Burkhart? You sure liked him last night.”

“Let’s just say the facts are persuading me. For now, okay?”

“Okay, go on.”

“All right, so you’re the killer and you got the gun from Mackey. He’s the one person in the world who can put the thing on you. But seventeen years go by and nothing ever happens and you feel safe and maybe you even lose track of Mackey.”

“Okay.”

“And then yesterday you pick up the paper and you see the picture of Rebecca and you read the story and it says they’ve got DNA. You know it wasn’t your blood, so it was either a big bluff by the cops or it’s got to be Mackey’s blood. So that’s when you know.”

“Mackey’s gotta go.”

“Exactly. The cops are getting close. He’s got to go. So how do you find him? Well, Mackey’s spent his entire life-when he isn’t in jail-driving a tow truck. If you knew that then you’d do exactly what we did. You get out the yellow pages and start calling tow companies.”

Rider stood up and went to the bank of file cabinets along the alcove’s back wall. The phone books were stacked haphazardly on top. She had to stand on her toes to reach the yellow pages for the Valley. She came back and opened the book to the pages advertising tow services. She ran her finger down a listing until she reached Tampa Towing, where Mackey had worked. She backed up to the previous listing, a company called Tall Order Towing Services. She picked up her phone and dialed the number. Bosch heard only her side of the conversation.

“Yes, who am I speaking with?”

She waited a moment.

“My name is Detective Kizmin Rider with the Los Angeles Police Department. I am investigating a fraud case and wondered if I could ask you a question.”