“Nope, you’re wrong. This is home. When I was over there, that’s when I was far away.”

Bosch gave a that’s-fair-enough nod and showed the badge. He held it the same way as when he’d showed it to McKittrick’s wife.

“I’m Harry Bosch, from Hollywood homicide.”

“Yeah, that’s what I heard.”

Bosch was the one who showed surprise. He could not think of who in L.A. would have tipped McKittrick to his arrival. No one knew. He had only told Hinojos and he could not fathom that she would betray him.

McKittrick relieved him by gesturing to the portable phone on the dashboard of the boat.

“The wife called.”

“Oh.”

“So what’s this all about, Detective Bosch? When I used to work there, we did things in pairs. It was safer that way. You folks that understaffed, you’re going singleton?”

“Not really. My partner’s chasing down another old case. These are such long shots, they’re not wasting money sending two.”

“I assume you’re going to explain that.”

“Yeah. As a matter of fact, I am. Mind if I come down there?”

“Suit yourself. I’m fixing to shove off as soon as the wife comes with the food.”

Bosch began walking along the finger dock to the side of McKittrick’s boat. He then stepped down into the craft. It wobbled on the water with the added weight but then steadied. McKittrick lifted the engine cover and began snapping it back in place. Bosch felt grossly out of place. He wore street shoes with black jeans, an Army green T-shirt and a black light-weight sport jacket. And he was still hot. He took the jacket off and folded it over one of the two chairs in the cockpit.

“What are you going for?”

“Whatever’s biting. What are you going for?”

He looked directly at Bosch when he asked this and Harry saw that his eyes were brown like beer-bottle glass.

“Well, you heard about the earthquake, didn’t you?”

“Sure, who didn’t? You know, I’ve been through quakes and ’canes and you can keep the quakes. At least with a hurricane, you see it coming. You take Andrew, he left a lot of devastation, but think how much it woulda been if nobody knew he was about to hit. That’s what you get with your earthquakes.”

It took Bosch a few moments to place Andrew, the hurricane that had slammed the South Florida coast a couple of years earlier. It was hard to keep track of all the disasters in the world. There were enough just in L.A. He looked out across the inlet. He saw a fish jump and its reentry create a stampede of jumping among the others in the school. He looked at McKittrick and was about to tell him when he realized it was probably something McKittrick saw every day of his life.

“When’d you leave L.A.?”

“Twenty-one years ago. I got my twenty in and pffft, I was gone. You can have L.A., Bosch. Shit, I was out there for the Sylmar quake in seventy-one. Knocked down a hospital and a couple freeways. At the time we were living in Tujunga, a few miles from the epicenter. I’ll always remember that one. It was like God and the devil meetin’ in the room and you were there with ’em playin’ referee. Goddamn…So what’s the quake got to do with you being here?”

“Well, it’s kind of a strange phenomenon but the murder rate’s fallen off. People are being more civil, I guess. We-”

“Maybe there’s nothing left there worth killing for.”

“Maybe. Anyway, we’re usually running seventy, eighty murders a year in the division, I don’t know what it was like when you-”

“We’d do less than half that. Easy.”

“Well, we’re running way below the average this year. It’s given us time to go back through some of the old ones. Everybody on the table’s taken a share. One of the ones I’ve got has your name on it. I guess you know your partner from back then passed away and-”

“Eno’s dead? Goddamn, I didn’t know that. I thought I would’ve heard about that. Not that it would’ve mattered a whole hell of a lot.”

“Yeah, he’s dead. His wife gets the pension checks. Sorry, you hadn’t heard.”

“That’s okay. Eno and me…well, we were partners. That’s about it.”

“Anyway, I’m here because you’re alive and he isn’t.”

“What’s the case?”

“Marjorie Lowe.” He waited a moment for a reaction from McKittrick’s face and got none. “You remember it? She was found in the trash in an alley off-”

“Vista. Behind Hollywood Boulevard between Vista and Gower. I remember them all, Bosch. Cleared or not, I remember every goddamn one of them.”

But you don’t remember me, Bosch thought but didn’t say.

“Yeah, that’s the one. Between Vista and Gower.”

“What about it?”

“It was never cleared.”

“I know that,” McKittrick said, his voice rising. “I worked sixty-three cases during seven years on the homicide table. I worked Hollywood, Wilshire, then RHD. Cleared fifty-six. I’ll put that up against anybody. Today they’re lucky if they clear half of ’em. I’ll put it up against you blind.”

“And you’d win. That’s a good record. This isn’t about you, Jake. It’s about the case.”

“Don’t call me Jake. I don’t know you. Never seen you before in my life. I-wait a minute.”

Bosch stared at him, astonished that he might actually remember the pool. But then he realized that McKittrick had stopped because of his wife’s approach along the dock. She was carrying a plastic cooler. McKittrick waited silently for her to put it down on the dock near the boat and he hoisted it aboard.

“Oh, Detective Bosch, you’ll be way too hot in that,” Mrs. McKittrick said. “Do you want to come back up and borrow a pair of Jake’s shorts and a white T-shirt?”

Bosch looked at McKittrick, then up at her.

“No, thanks, ma’am, I’m fine.”

“You are going fishing, aren’t you?”

“Well, I haven’t exactly been invited and I-”

“Oh, Jake, invite him fishing. You’re always looking for somebody to go out with you. Besides, you can catch up on all that blood-and-guts stuff you used to love in Hollywood.”

McKittrick looked up at her and Bosch could see the horses fighting against the restraints. He was able to get it under control.

“Mary, thanks for the sandwiches,” he said calmly. “Now, could you go back up to the house and leave us be?”

She threw him a frown and shook her head as if he were a spoiled boy. She went back the way she had come without another word. The two of them left on the boat let some time go by before Bosch finally spoke and tried to recover the situation.

“Look, I’m not here for any reason other than to ask you a few questions about this case. I’m not trying to suggest there was anything wrong with the way it was handled. I’m just taking another look at it. That’s all.”

“You left something out.”

“What’s that?”

“That you’re full of shit.”

Bosch could feel the horses rearing up in himself. He was angry at this man’s questioning his motives, even though he was right to do so. He was on the verge of shedding the nice-guy skin and going at him. But he knew better. He knew that for McKittrick to act this way, there must be a reason. Something about the old case was like a pebble in his shoe. He had worked it over to the side where it didn’t hurt when he walked. But it was still in there. Bosch had to make him want to take it out. He swallowed his own anger and tried to stay level.

“Why am I full of shit?” he said.

McKittrick’s back was to him. The former cop was reaching down under the steering console. Bosch couldn’t see what he was trying to do, except he guessed he was maybe looking for a hidden set of boat keys.

“Why are you full of shit?” McKittrick answered as he turned around. “I’ll tell you why. Because you come here flashing that bullshit badge around when we both know you don’t have a badge.”

McKittrick was pointing a Beretta twenty-two at Bosch. It was small but it would do the job at this distance, and Bosch had to believe that McKittrick knew how to use it.