“I’m not going anywhere at all. Now please leave. Just leave me alone.”

They walked out the door and Trent closed it hard behind them. At the bottom of the driveway was a large bougainvillea bush in full bloom. It blocked Bosch’s view of the left side of the street until he got there.

A bright light suddenly flashed on and in Bosch’s face. A reporter with a cameraman in tow moved in on the two detectives. Bosch was blinded for a few moments until his eyes started to adjust.

“Hi, detectives. Judy Surtain, Channel Four news. Is there a break in the bones case?”

“No comment,” Edgar barked. “No comment and turn that damn light off.”

Bosch finally saw her in the glare of the light. He recognized her from TV and from the gathering at the roadblock earlier in the week. He also recognized that a “no comment” was not the way to leave this situation. He needed to diffuse it and keep the media away from Trent.

“No,” he said. “No breakthrough. We’re just following routine procedures.”

Surtain shoved the microphone she was carrying toward Bosch’s face.

“Why are you out here in the neighborhood again?”

“We’re just finishing the routine canvas of the residents here. I hadn’t had a chance to talk to the resident here before. We just finished up, that’s all.”

He was talking with a bored tone in his voice. He hoped she was buying it.

“Sorry,” he added. “No big story tonight.”

“Well, was this neighbor or any of the neighbors helpful to the investigation?”

“Well, everyone here has been very cooperative with us but as far as investigative leads go it has been difficult. Most of these people weren’t even living in the neighborhood when the bones were buried. That makes it tough.”

Bosch gestured toward Trent’s house.

“This gentleman, for example. We just found out that he didn’t buy his home here until nineteen eighty-seven and we’re pretty sure those bones were already up there by then.”

“So then it’s back to the drawing board?”

“Sort of. And that’s really all I can tell you. Good night.”

He pushed past her toward his car. A few moments later Surtain was on him at the car door. Without her cameraman.

“Detective, we need to get your name.”

Bosch opened his wallet and took out a business card. The one with the general station number printed on it. He gave it to her and said good night again.

“Look, if there is anything you can tell me, you know, off the record, I would protect you,” Surtain said. “You know, off camera like this, whatever you want to do.”

“No, there is nothing,” Bosch said as he opened the door. “Have a good night.”

Edgar cursed the moment the doors of the car were closed.

“How the hell did she know we were here?”

“Probably a neighbor,” Bosch said. “She was out here the whole two days of the dig. She’s a celebrity. She made nice with the residents. Made friends. Plus, we’re sitting in a goddamn Shamu. Might as well have called a press conference.”

Bosch thought of the inanity of trying to do detective work in a car painted black and white. Under a program designed to make cops more visible on the street, the department had assigned detectives in the divisions to black-and-whites that didn’t carry the emergency lights on top but were just as noticeable.

They watched as the reporter and her cameraman went to Trent’s door.

“She’s going to try to talk to him,” Edgar said.

Bosch quickly went into his briefcase and got out his cell phone. He was about to dial Trent’s number and tell him not to answer when he realized he couldn’t get a cell signal.

“Goddammit,” he said.

“Too late anyway,” Edgar said. “Let’s just hope he plays it smart.”

Bosch could see Trent at his front door, totally bathed in the white light from the camera. He said a few words and then made a waving gesture and closed the door.

“Good,” Edgar said.

Bosch started the car, turned it around and headed back through the canyon to the station.

“So what’s next?” Edgar asked.

“We have to pull the records on his conviction, see what it was about.”

“I’ll do that first thing.”

“No. First thing I want to deliver the search warrants to the hospitals. Whether Trent fits our picture or not, we need to ID the kid in order to connect him to Trent. Let’s meet at Van Nuys Courthouse at eight. We get them signed and then split ’em up.”

Bosch had picked Van Nuys court because Edgar lived nearby and they could separate and go from there in the morning after the warrants had been approved by a judge.

“What about a warrant on Trent’s place?” Edgar said. “You see anything while you were looking around?”

“Not much. He’s got a skateboard in a box in the garage. You know, with his work stuff. For putting on a set. I was thinking of our victim’s shirt when I saw that. And there were some work boots with dirt in the treads. It might match the samples from the hill. But I’m not counting on a search coming through for us. The guy has had twenty years to make sure he’s clear. If he’s the guy.”

“You don’t think so?”

Bosch shook his head.

“Timing’s wrong. ’Eighty-four is on the late side. The far edge of our window.”

“I thought we were looking at ’seventy-five to ’eighty-five.”

“We are. In general. But you heard Golliher-twenty to twenty-five years ago. That’s early eighties on the high side. I don’t know about ’eighty-four being early eighties.”

“Well, maybe he moved to that house because of the body. He buried the kid there before and wanted to be close by so he moves into the neighborhood. I mean, Harry, these are sick fucks, these guys.”

Bosch nodded.

“There’s that. But I just wasn’t getting the vibe from the guy. I believed him.”

“Harry, your mojo’s been wrong before.”

“Oh, yeah…”

“I think it’s him. He’s the guy. Hear how he said, ‘just because I touched a boy.’ Probably to him, sodomizing a nine-year-old is reaching out and touching somebody.”

Edgar was being reactionary but Bosch didn’t call him on it. He was a father; Bosch wasn’t.

“We’ll get the records and we’ll see. We also have to go to the Hall to check the reverses, see who was on that street back then.”

The reverses were phone books that listed residents by address instead of by name. A collection of the books for every year was kept in the Hall of Records. They would allow the detectives to determine who was living on the street during the 1975 to 1985 range they were looking at as the boy’s time of death.

“That’s going to be a lot of fun,” Edgar said.

“Oh, yeah,” Bosch said. “I can’t wait.”

They drove in silence the rest of the way. Bosch became depressed. He was disappointed with himself for how he had run the investigation so far. The bones were discovered Wednesday, and the full investigation took off on Thursday. He knew he should have run the names-a basic part of the investigation-sooner than Sunday. By delaying it he had given Trent the advantage. He’d had three days to expect and prepare for their questions. He had even been briefed by an attorney. He could have even been practicing his responses and looks in a mirror. Bosch knew what his internal lie detector said. But he also knew that a good actor could beat it.