The cops reluctantly shuffled out of the room, leaving only Bosch and Edgar. Edgar got up and walked over to the window. Bosch went to the corner farthest from the closet and looked back at the body. He then approached the body and squatted down in the same spot where Edgar had been.

He studied the gun in Stokes’s hand. He assumed that when it was removed from the hand OIS investigators would find the serial number had been burned away by acid.

He thought about the shots he had heard while on the stairway landing. Two and two. It was hard to judge them by memory, especially considering his position at the time. But he thought the first two rounds had been louder and heavier than the second two. If that was so it would mean Stokes had fired his little popper after Edgewood had fired his service weapon. It would mean Stokes had gotten off two shots after he had been hit in the face and chest-wounds that appeared instantly fatal to Bosch.

“What do you think?”

Edgar had come up behind him.

“It doesn’t matter what I think,” Bosch said. “He’s dead. It’s an OIS case now.”

“What it is is a closed case, partner. I guess we didn’t have to worry about whether the DA would file the case after all.”

Bosch nodded. He knew there would be wrap-up investigation and paperwork, but the case was finished. It would ultimately be classified as “closed by other means,” meaning no trial and no conviction but carried in the solved column just the same.

“Guess not,” he said.

Edgar swatted him on the shoulder.

“Our last case together, Harry. We go out on top.”

“Yeah. Tell me something, did you mention the DA and about it being a juvy case during the briefing in the roll-call room this morning?”

After a long moment Edgar said, “Yeah, I might’ve mentioned something about it.”

“Did you tell them we were spinning our wheels, the way you said it to me? That the DA probably wouldn’t even file a case on Stokes?”

“Yeah, I might’ve said it like that. Why?”

Bosch didn’t answer. He stood up and walked over to the room’s window. He could see the Capitol Records building and farther past it the Hollywood sign up on the crest of the hill. Painted on the side of a building a few blocks away was an anti-smoking sign showing a cowboy with a drooping cigarette in his mouth accompanied by a warning about cigarettes causing impotence.

He turned back to Edgar.

“You going to hold the scene until OIS gets here?”

“Yeah, sure. They’re going to be pissed off about having to hump the thirteen floors.”

Bosch headed toward the door.

“Where are you going, Harry?”

Bosch walked out of the room without answering. He used the stairwell at the farthest end of the hallway so that he wouldn’t catch up to the others as he was going down.

Chapter 53

THE living members of what had once been a family stood as points of a hard-edged triangle with the grave in the middle. They stood on a sloping hillside in Forest Lawn, Samuel Delacroix on one side of the coffin while his ex-wife stood across from him. Sheila Delacroix’s spot was at the end of the coffin opposite the preacher. The mother and daughter had black umbrellas open against the light drizzle that had been falling since dawn. The father had none. He stood there getting wet, and neither woman made a move to share her protection with him.

The sound of the rain and the freeway hissing nearby drowned out most of what the rented preacher had to say before it got to Bosch. He had no umbrella either and watched from a distance and the protection of an oak tree. He thought that it was somehow appropriate that the boy should be formally buried on a hill and in the rain.

He had called the medical examiner’s office to find out which funeral home was handling the service and it had led him to Forest Lawn. He had also learned that it had been the boy’s mother who had claimed the remains and planned the service. Bosch came to the funeral for the boy, and because he wanted to see the mother again.

Arthur Delacroix’s coffin looked like it had been made for an adult. It was polished gray with brushed chrome handles. As coffins went it was beautiful, like a newly waxed car. The rain beaded on its surface and then slid down into the hole beneath. But it was still too big for those bones and somehow that bothered Bosch. It was like seeing a child in ill-fitting clothes, obvious hand-me-downs. It always seemed to say something about the child. That they were wanting. That they were second.

When the rain started coming down harder the preacher raised an umbrella from his side and held his prayer book with one hand. A few of his lines managed to drift over to Bosch intact. He was talking about the greater kingdom that had welcomed Arthur. It made Bosch think of Golliher and his unfaltering faith in that kingdom despite the atrocities he studied and documented every day. For Bosch, though, the jury was still out on all of that. He was still a dweller in the lesser kingdom.

Bosch noticed that none of the three family members looked at one another. After the coffin was lowered and the preacher made the final sign of the cross, Sheila turned and started walking down the slope to the parking road. She had never once acknowledged her parents.

Samuel immediately followed and when Sheila looked back and saw him coming after her she picked up speed. Finally, she just dropped the umbrella and started running. She made it to her car and drove away before her father could catch up.

Samuel watched his daughter’s car cutting through the vast cemetery until it disappeared through the gate. He then went back and picked up the discarded umbrella. He took it to his own car and left as well.

Bosch looked back at the burial site. The preacher was gone. Bosch looked about and saw the top of a black umbrella disappearing over the crest of the hill. Bosch didn’t know where the man was going, unless he had another funeral to officiate on the other side of the hill.

That left Christine Waters at the grave. Bosch watched her say a silent prayer and then walk toward the two remaining cars on the road below. He chose an angle of intersection and headed that way. As he got close she calmly looked at him.

“Detective Bosch, I am surprised to see you here.”

“Why is that?”

“Aren’t detectives supposed to be aloof, not get emotionally involved? Showing up at a funeral shows emotional attachment, don’t you think? Especially rainy-day funerals.”

He fell into stride next to her and she gave him half of the umbrella’s protection.

“Why did you claim the remains?” he asked. “Why did you do this?”

He gestured back toward the grave on the hill.

“Because I didn’t think anybody else would.”

They got to the road. Bosch’s car was parked in front of hers.

“Good-bye, Detective,” she said as she broke from him, walked between the cars and went to the driver’s door of hers.

“I have something for you.”

She opened the car door and looked back at him.

“What?”

He opened his door and popped the trunk. He walked back between the cars. She closed her umbrella and threw it into her car and then came over.

“Somebody once told me that life was the pursuit of one thing. Redemption. The search for redemption.”

“For what?”

“For everything. Anything. We all want to be forgiven.”

He raised the trunk lid and took out a cardboard box. He held it out to her.

“Take care of these kids.”

She didn’t take the box. Instead she lifted the lid and looked inside. There were stacks of envelopes held together by rubber bands. There were loose photos. On top was the photo of the boy from Kosovo who had the thousand-yard stare. She reached into the box.

“Where are they from?” she asked, as she lifted an envelope from one of the charities.