Angle of Investigation_ Three Harry Bosch Stories - Michael Connelly [23]
In most cases Speigelman and Finster had asked for birth dates, addresses and even Social Security numbers while conducting their interviews. It was standard operating procedure. Their thoroughness back then would now help Bosch when he ran every name from the list through the crime computer.
When finished reading, Bosch closed the murder book and looked at his list. He had collected thirty-six names to run through the computer. He knew he had theen w he ha names and the palm print and that was about it. He could also run ketamine hydrochloride through the computer to see if it had come up in any other investigations since 1972.
He decided that if nothing came out of the three angles of investigation he would drop the case, admit defeat to his partner and press on to the next case that had a valid hook.
As he finished his coffee, he thought about the palm print. There had been no analysis of it other than to measure its location on the wall and have it ready for comparison to suspects that might come up in the investigation. But Bosch knew that there was more to it than that. If the print was sixty-six inches up the wall, that meant it was likely that the man who had left it was over six feet tall. He came to this conclusion because he knew that if the suspect leaned forward to brace himself while urinating, he would probably put his hand on the wall at shoulder level or slightly above. Add a foot in height for his neck and head and you have a man ranging from six two to six six in total height. A tall, left-handed man.
“That narrows it down,” Bosch said to himself, noting his own sarcasm.
He got up, dumped his coffee cup and headed out of the cafeteria. On the elevator up to five he thought about the times he had leaned his hand on the wall over a toilet. He was either drunk, middle-of-the-night sleepy or burdened by something besides a heavy bladder. He wondered which of these conditions had fit the tall, left-handed man.
Most of the police department’s civilian offices were on the fifth floor along with the Open-Unsolved Unit. He passed the unit’s door and went down to the Personnel Department. He picked up contact information on Speigelman, Finster and his old partner, Eckersly. In years past such information would be jealously guarded. But under order from the Office of the Chief of Police, detectives with the Open-Unsolved Unit were given carte blanche because it was part of investigatory protocol to contact and interview the original investigators of a case that had been reopened.
Eckersly, of course, was not one of the original investigators. He was only there on the morning they had found the lady in the tub. But Bosch thought it might be worth a call to see if he remembered that day and had any thoughts on the reinvestigation of the case. Bosch had lost contact with Eckersly after he completed his street training and was transferred out of Wilshire Division. He assumed he was no longer on the job and was not mistaken. Eckersly had pulled the plug at twenty years, and his pension was sent to the town of Ten Thousand Palms, where he was the police chief.
Nice move, Bosch thought. Running a small-town police force in the desert and collecting an LAPD pension on the side. Every cop’s dream.
Bosch also noted the coincidence of Eckersly now living in a town called Ten Thousand Palms and the fact that Bosch was currently running an angle through a database of ten thousand palm prints.
Rider was not at her desk when Bosch got back to the unit. There was no note of explanation left on his desk and he figured she had simply taken a break. He sat at her desk and looked at her laptop. She had left it on but had cleared the screen before leavingchifore le the office. He pulled the list of names out of the murder book and connected to the National Crime Index Computer. He didn’t have his own computer and was not highly skilled in the use of the Internet and most law enforcement databases. But the NCIC had been around for years and he knew how to run names on it.
All thirty-six names on his list