“Look, I didn’t see nobody’s face. It was too dark, man,” the boy said to Bosch. Eleanor let out a breath. Bosch felt like telling her that if she thought the boy was a waste of time she could leave.

“I was hiding,” Sharkey said. “ ’Cause, see, at first I thought they were after me or something. I had nothin’ to do with this. Why you dragging me down, man?”

“We got a man dead, Edward. We’ve got to find out why. We don’t care about faces. That’s fine. Tell us what you did see, and then you’re no longer in it.”

“That’ll be it?”

“That’ll be it.”

Bosch leaned back then and lit his second cigarette.

“Well, yeah, I was up there and I wasn’t too tired yet so I was doing my paint thing and I heard a car coming. Like holy shit. And what was weird was that I heard it before I saw it. ’Cause the guy has no lights on. So, man, I hauled ass and hid in the bushes on the hill right by there, you know, right by the pipe, right by where I hide my bike, you know, while I’m sleeping.”

The boy was becoming more animated, using his hands and nodding his head and looking mostly at Bosch now.

“Shit, I thought those guys were coming for me, like somebody had called the cops on account of me being up there spraying a scrip or something. So like I hid. In fact, when they got there a guy gets out and says to the other guy he smells paint. But it turns out they didn’t even see me. They just stopped by the pipe ’cause of the body. And only it wasn’t a car, either. It was a Jeep.”

“You get a license plate number?” Wish said.

“Let him tell it,” Bosch said without looking at her.

“No, I didn’t get a fuckin’ plate. Shit, their lights were off and it was too dark. So anyway, there was three of them, if you count the dead guy. One guy gets out, he was the driver, and he pulls the dead guy right out of the back, from underneath a blanket or something. Opened a little back door those Jeeps got and drug the guy onto the ground. It was total horror, man. I could tell it was real, you know, a real dead body, just kinda by the way it fell on the ground. Like a dead guy. It made a noise like a body. Not like on TV. But what you’d expect, like, ‘Oh no, that’s a body he drug out of there,’ or something. Then he drug it into the pipe. The other guy wouldn’t help him. He stayed in the Jeep. So the first dude, he did it by hisself.”

Sharkey took a deep drag on his cigarette and then killed it in the tin ashtray, which was already full of ash and old butts. He exhaled through his nose and looked at Bosch, who just nodded for him to continue. The boy pulled himself up in the seat.

“Um, I stayed there and the guy came out of the pipe after a minute. No longer than that. He looked around when he came out but didn’t see me. He went over to a bush near where I was hiding and tore off a branch. Then he went back inside the pipe for a while. And I could hear him in there sweeping or something with the branch. Then he came out and they left. Oh, and uh, he started to back up and the reverse light went on, you know. He took it out of gear like real quick. Then I heard him say something about they couldn’t go backward ’cause of the light. They might get seen. So then they went forward, you know, without lights. They drove down the road and across the dam and around the other side of the lake. When they went by that little house on the dam they bashed the light bulb. I saw it go out. I stayed hidden till I couldn’t hear the engine anymore. Then I come out.”

Sharkey stopped the story for a beat and Wish said, “I’m sorry, can we open the door, get some of this smoke out of here?”

Bosch reached over and pulled the door open without getting up or trying to hide his annoyance. “Go on, Sharkey,” was all he said.

“So when they were gone I went over to the pipe and yelled in to the guy. You know, ‘Hey, in there’ and ‘Are you all right,’ stuff like that. But nobody answered. So I leaned my bike down on the ground so the light would go in there and I crawled in a little bit. I also lighted a match like you say. And I could see him in there and he looked dead and all. I was going to check but it was too creepy. I got out. I went down the hill and I called the cops. That’s all I did, and that’s the whole thing.”

Bosch figured the boy was going to rob the body but got scared halfway in. That was okay though. The boy could keep that as his secret. Then he thought of the branch taken from the bush and used by the man Sharkey had seen to obliterate the tracks and drag marks in the pipe. He wondered why the uniform cops hadn’t come across either the discarded branch or the broken bush during the crime scene search. But he didn’t dwell on it long, because he knew the answer. Sloppiness. Laziness. It wasn’t the first time things had been missed and wouldn’t be the last.

“We’re going to go check on that pizza,” Bosch said, and he stood up. “We’ll only be a couple of minutes.”

Outside the interview room Bosch checked his anger and said, “My fault. We should have talked more about how we wanted to do it before we heard his story. I like to hear what they have to say first, then ask questions. It was my fault.”

“No problem,” Wish said curtly. “He doesn’t seem that valuable anyway.”

“Maybe.” He thought a moment. “I was thinking of going back in and talking a little more to him, maybe bring an Identikit in. And if he doesn’t get any better at remembering things we could hypnotize him.”

Bosch had no way of knowing what her reaction to the last suggestion would be. He offered it in an offhand manner, half hoping it would slip by unnoticed. California courts had ruled that hypnotizing a witness taints that witness’s later court testimony. If they hypnotized Sharkey, he could never be a witness in any court case that could arise from the Meadows investigation.

Wish frowned.

“I know,” Bosch said. “We’d lose him in court. But we might never get to court with what he’s given us now. You just said yourself he’s not that valuable.”

“I just don’t know whether we should close the door on his usefulness now. So early in the investigation.”

Bosch walked over to the interview room door and looked through the one-way glass at the boy. He was smoking another cigarette. He put it down on the ashtray and stood up. He looked at the door window, but Bosch knew he couldn’t see out. The boy quickly and quietly switched his chair with the one Wish had been using. Bosch smiled and said, “He’s a smart kid. There might be more there that we won’t get unless we put him under. I think it’s worth the chance.”

“I didn’t know you were one of LAPD’s hypnotists. I must have missed that in your file.”

“I’m sure there’s a lot you missed,” Bosch replied. After a few moments, he said, “I guess I’m one of the last around. After the supreme court shot it down the department quit training people. There was only one class of us. I was one of the youngest. Most of the others have retired.”

“Anyway,” she said, “I don’t think we should do it yet. Let’s talk to him some more, maybe wait a couple days before we waste him as a witness.”

“Fine. But in a couple days who knows where a kid like Sharkey will be?”

“Oh, you’re resourceful. You found him this time. You can do it again.”

“You want to take a shot in there?”

“No, you’re doing okay. As long as I can jump in now, whenever I think of something.”

She smiled and he smiled and they went back into the interview room, which smelled of smoke and sweat. Bosch left the door open again to air it out. Wish didn’t have to ask.

“No food?” Sharkey said.

“Still on the way,” Bosch said.

Bosch and Wish took Sharkey through his story two more times, picking up small details along the way. They did it as a team. Partners, exchanging knowing looks, surreptitious nods, even smiles. A few times Bosch noticed Wish slipping in her chair and thought he saw a smile play on Sharkey’s boyish face. When the pizza came he protested the anchovies but still ate three-quarters of the pie and downed two of the Cokes. Bosch and Wish passed.