He turned back around and headed up the driveway to the house with Edgar. The reporters threw more questions at them but Bosch gave no indication of even hearing them.

At the front door Edgar knocked sharply and called out to Trent, telling him it was the police. After a few moments he knocked again and made the same announcement. They waited again and nothing happened.

“The back?” Edgar asked.

“Yeah, or the garage has a door on the side.”

They walked across the driveway and started heading down the side of the house. The reporters yelled more questions. Bosch guessed they were so used to throwing questions that were not answered at people that it simply became natural for them to do it and natural for them to know they would not be answered. Like a dog barking in the backyard long after the master has left for work.

They passed the side door to the garage, and Bosch noted that he was correct in remembering that there was only a single key lock on the knob. They continued into the backyard. There was a kitchen door with a dead bolt and a key lock on the knob. There was also a sliding door, which would be easy to pop open. Edgar stepped over to it but looked down through the glass to the interior sliding track and saw that there was a wooden dowel in place that would prevent the door from being opened from the outside.

“This won’t work, Harry,” he said.

Bosch had a small pouch containing a set of lock picks in his pocket. He didn’t want to have to work the dead bolt on the kitchen door.

“Let’s do the garage, unless…”

He walked over to the kitchen door and tried it. It was unlocked and he opened the door. In that moment he knew they would find Trent dead inside. Trent would be the helpful suicide. The one who leaves the door open so people don’t have to break in.

“Shit.”

Edgar came over, pulling his gun from its holster.

“You’re not going to need that,” Bosch said.

He stepped into the house and they moved through the kitchen.

“Mr. Trent?” Edgar yelled. “Police! Police in the house! Are you here, Mr. Trent?”

“Take the front,” Bosch said.

They split up and Bosch went down the short hallway to the rear bedrooms. He found Trent in the walk-in shower of the master bath. He had taken two wire hangers and fashioned a noose which he had attached to the stem pipe of the shower. He had then leaned back against the tiled wall and dropped his weight and asphyxiated himself. He was still dressed in the clothes he had worn the night before. His bare feet were on the floor tiles. There were no indications at all that Trent had had second thoughts about killing himself. Being that it was not a suspension hanging, he could have stopped his death at any time. He didn’t.

Bosch would have to leave it for the coroner’s people but he judged by the darkening of the body’s tongue, which was distended from the mouth, that Trent had been dead at least twelve hours. That would put his death in the vicinity of the very early morning, not long after Channel 4 had first announced his hidden past to the world and labeled him a suspect in the bones case.

“Harry?”

Bosch nearly jumped. He turned around and looked at Edgar.

“Don’t do that to me, man. What?”

Edgar was staring at the body as he spoke.

“He left a three-page note out on the coffee table.”

Bosch stepped out of the shower and pushed past Edgar. He headed toward the living room, taking a pair of latex gloves from his pocket and blowing into them to expand the rubber before snapping them on.

“Did you read the whole thing?”

“Yeah, he says he didn’t do the kid. He says he’s killing himself because the police and reporters have destroyed him and he can’t go on. Like that. There’s some weird stuff, too.”

Bosch went into the living room. Edgar was a few steps behind him. Bosch saw three handwritten pages spread side by side on the coffee table. He sat down on the couch in front of them.

“This how they were?”

“Yup. I didn’t touch them.”

Bosch started reading the pages. What he presumed were Trent’s last words were a rambling denial of the murder of the boy on the hillside and a purging of anger over what had been done to him.

Now EVERYBODY will know! You people have ruined me, KILLED me. The blood is on you, not on me! I didn’t do it, I didn’t do it, no, no, NO! I never hurt anyone. Never, never, never. Not a soul on this earth. I love the children. LOVE!!!! No, it was you who hurt me. You. But it is I who can’t live with the pain of what you have ruthlessly caused. I can’t.

It was repetitive and almost as if someone had written down an extemporaneous diatribe rather than sat down with pen and paper and wrote out their thoughts. The middle of the second page was blocked off and inside the box were names under a heading of “Those Found Responsible.” The list started with Judy Surtain, included the anchor on the Channel 4 nightly news, and listed Bosch, Edgar and three names Bosch didn’t recognize. Calvin Stumbo, Max Rebner and Alicia Felzer.

“Stumbo was the cop and Rebner was the DA on the first case,” Edgar said. “In the sixties.”

Bosch nodded.

“And Felzer?”

“Don’t know that one.”

The pen with which the pages were apparently written was on the table next to the last page. Bosch didn’t touch it because he planned to have it checked for Trent’s fingerprints.

As he continued to read, Bosch noticed that each page was signed at the bottom with Trent’s signature. At the end of the last page, Trent made an odd plea that Bosch didn’t readily understand.

My one regret is for my children. Who will care for my children? They need food and clothes. I have some money. The money goes to them. Whatever I have. This is my last will and testament signed by me. Give the money to the children. Have Morton give the money and don’t charge me anything. Do it for the children.

“His children?” Bosch asked.

“Yeah, I know,” Edgar said. “Weird.”

“What are you doing here? Where is Nicholas?”

They looked at the doorway from the kitchen to the living room. A short man in a suit who Bosch guessed was a lawyer and had to be Morton stood there. Bosch stood up.

“He’s dead. It looks like a suicide.”

“Where?”

“Master bath, but I wouldn’t-”

Morton was already gone, heading to the bathroom. Bosch called after him.

“Don’t touch anything.”

He nodded to Edgar to follow and make sure. Bosch sat back down and looked at the pages again. He wondered how long it took Trent to decide that killing himself was all that he had left and then to labor over the three-page note. It was the longest suicide note he had ever encountered.

Morton came back into the living room, Edgar just behind him. His face was ashen and his eyes held on the floor.

“I tried to tell you not to go back there,” Bosch said.

The lawyer’s eyes came up and fixed on Bosch. They filled with anger, which seemed to restore some color to Morton’s face.

“Are you people happy now? You completely destroyed him. Give a man’s secret to the vultures, they put it on the air and this is what you get.”

He gestured with a hand in the direction of the bathroom.

“Mr. Morton, you’ve got your facts wrong, but essentially it looks like that’s what happened. In fact, you’d probably be surprised by how much I agree with you.”

“Now that he’s dead, that must be very easy for you to say. Is that a note? Did he leave a note?”

Bosch got up and gestured for him to take his spot on the couch in front of the three pages.

“Just don’t touch the pages.”

Morton sat down, unfolded a pair of reading glasses and started studying the pages.

Bosch walked over to Edgar and said in a low voice, “I’m going to use the phone in the kitchen to make the calls.”

Edgar nodded.

“Better get Media Relations on it. The shit is going to hit that fan.”