Edgar put the mug down on its coaster.

“It’s fine.”

“Ms. Delacroix? If you’re in the entertainment business, did you by any chance know Nicholas Trent?”

“Please, just call me Sheila. Now, that name, Nicholas Trent. It sounds familiar but I can’t quite place it. Is he an actor or is he in casting?”

“Neither. He’s the man who lived up on Wonderland. He was a set designer-I mean, decorator.”

“Oh, the one on TV, the man who killed himself. Oh, no wonder it was familiar.”

“So you didn’t know him from the business, then?”

“No, not at all.”

“Okay, well I shouldn’t have asked that. We’re out of order here. Let’s just start with your brother. Tell us about Arthur. Do you have a picture we can look at?”

“Yes,” she said, as she stood up and walked behind his chair. “Here he is.”

She went to a waist-high cabinet Bosch hadn’t noticed behind him. There were framed photos on it displayed in much the same way he had seen the photos on Julia Brasher’s mantel. Delacroix chose one and turned around and handed it to Bosch.

The frame contained a photo of a boy and a girl sitting on a set of stairs Bosch recognized as the stairs they had climbed before knocking on her door. The boy was much smaller than the girl. Both were smiling at the camera and had the smiles of children who have been told to smile-a lot of teeth but not a legitimately turned-up mouth.

Bosch handed the photo to Edgar and looked at Delacroix, who had returned to the couch.

“Those stairs… was that taken here?”

“Yes, this is the home we grew up in.”

“When he disappeared, it was from here?”

“Yes.”

“Are any of his belongings still here in the house?”

Delacroix smiled sadly and shook her head.

“No, it’s all gone. I gave his things to the charity rummage sale at church. That was a long time ago.”

“What church is that?”

“The Wilshire Church of Nature.”

Bosch just nodded.

“They’re the ones who don’t let you have coffee?” Edgar asked.

“Nothing with caffeine.”

Edgar put the framed photo down next to his tea.

“Do you have any other photos of him?” he asked.

“Of course, I have a box of old photos.”

“Can we look at those? You know, while we talk.”

Delacroix’s eyebrows came together in confusion.

“Sheila,” Bosch said. “We found some clothing with the remains. We would like to look at the photos to see if any of it matches. It will help the investigation.”

She nodded.

“I see. Well, then I’ll be right back. I just need to go to the closet in the hallway.”

“Do you need help?”

“No, I can manage.”

After she was gone Edgar leaned over to Bosch and whispered, “This Church of Nature tea tastes like piss water.”

Bosch whispered back, “How would you know what piss water tastes like?”

The skin around Edgar’s eyes drew tight with embarrassment as he realized he had walked into that one. Before he could muster a response Sheila Delacroix came back into the room carrying an old shoe box. She put it down on the coffee table and removed the lid. The box was filled with loose photographs.

“These aren’t in any order or anything. But he should be in a lot of them.”

Bosch nodded to Edgar, who reached into the box for the first stack of photos.

“While my partner looks through these, why don’t you tell me about your brother and when he disappeared?”

Sheila nodded and composed her thoughts before beginning.

“May fourth, nineteen eighty. He didn’t come home from school. That’s it. That’s all. We thought he had run away. You said you found clothes with the remains. Well, my father looked in his drawers and said that Arthur had taken clothes. That was what made us think he had run away.”

Bosch wrote a few notes down in a notebook he had pulled from his coat pocket.

“You mentioned that he had been injured a few months before on a skateboard.”

“Yes, he hit his head and they had to operate.”

“When he disappeared, did he take his skateboard?”

She thought about this for a long moment.

“It was so long ago… all I know is that he loved that board. So I think he probably took it. But I just remember the clothes. My father found some of his clothes missing.”

“Did you report him missing?”

“I was sixteen years old at the time, so I didn’t do anything. My father talked to the police though. I’m sure of it.”

“I couldn’t find any record of Arthur being reported missing. Are you sure he reported him missing?”

“I drove with him to the police station.”

“Was it Wilshire Division?”

“I would assume but I don’t really remember.”

“Sheila, where is your father? Is he still alive?”

“He’s alive. He lives in the Valley. But he’s not well these days.”

“Where in the Valley?”

“Van Nuys. In the Manchester Trailer Park.”

There was silence while Bosch wrote the information down. He had been to the Manchester Trailer Park before on investigations. It wasn’t a pleasant place to live.

“He drinks…”

Bosch looked at her.

“Ever since Arthur…”

Bosch nodded that he understood. Edgar leaned forward and handed him a photograph. It was a yellowed 3 × 5. It showed a young boy, his arms raised in an effort to maintain balance, gliding on the sidewalk on a skateboard. The angle of the photograph showed little of the skateboard other than its profile. Bosch could not tell if it carried a bone design on it or not.

“Can’t see much there,” he said as he started to hand the photo back.

“No, the clothes-the shirt.”

Bosch looked at the photo again. Edgar was right. The boy in the photo wore a gray T-shirt with SOLID SURF printed across the chest.

Bosch showed the photo to Sheila.

“This is your brother, right?”

She leaned forward to look at the photo.

“Yes, definitely.”

“That shirt he is wearing, do you remember if it is one of the pieces of clothing your father found missing?”

Delacroix shook her head.

“I can’t remember. It’s been-I just remember that he liked that shirt a lot.”

Bosch nodded and gave the photo back to Edgar. It wasn’t the kind of solid confirmation they could get from X-rays and bone comparison but it was one more notch. Bosch was feeling more and more sure that they were about to identify the bones. He watched Edgar put the photo in a short stack of pictures he intended to borrow from Sheila’s collection.

Bosch checked his watch and looked back at Sheila.

“What about your mother?”

Sheila immediately shook her head.

“Nope, she was long gone by the time all of this happened.”

“You mean she died?”

“I mean she took a bus the minute the going got tough. You see, Arthur was a difficult child. Right from the beginning. He needed a lot of attention and it fell to my mother. After a while she couldn’t take it any longer. One night she went out to get some medicine at the drugstore and she never came back. We found little notes from her under our pillows.”

Bosch dropped his eyes to his notebook. It was hard to hear this story and keep looking at Sheila Delacroix.

“How old were you? How old was your brother?”

“I was six, so that would make Artie two.”

Bosch nodded.

“Did you keep the note from her?”

“No. There was no need. I didn’t need a reminder of how she supposedly loved us but not enough to stay with us.”

“What about Arthur? Did he keep his?”

“Well, he was only two, so my father kept it for him. He gave it to him when he was older. He may have kept it, I don’t know. Because he never really knew her, he was always very interested in what she was like. He asked me a lot of questions about her. There were no photos of her. My father had gotten rid of them all so he wouldn’t have any reminders.”

“Do you know what happened to her? Or if she’s still alive?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea. And to tell you the truth, I don’t care if she is alive or not.”