Trunk Music - Michael Connelly [17]
“Hopefully tomorrow. The rest of the fiber stuff I’ll take a look at, but it’s probably going to be exclusionary.”
That meant most of the material they had collected would sit in storage after a quick examination by Donovan, and come into play only if a suspect was identified. It would then be used either to tie that suspect to the crime scene or to exclude him.
Bosch took a large envelope off a shelf over the counter, put all the pieces of evidence he was taking into it, then put it in his briefcase and snapped it closed. He headed for the curtain with Billets.
“Good to see you again, Art,” she said.
“Likewise, Lieutenant.”
“You want me to call OPG to come get the car?” Bosch asked.
“Nah, I’m, going to be here a while,” Donovan said. “Gotta use the vac and I might think of something else to do. I’ll take care of it, Harry.”
“Okay, man, later.”
Bosch and Billets stepped through the curtain and then through the door. Outside he lit a cigarette and looked up at the dark, starless sky. Billets lit one of her own.
“Where to?” she asked.
“Next of kin. You want to come? It’s always a fun thing.”
She smiled at his sarcasm.
“No, I think I’ll pass on that. But before you leave, what’s your gut on this, Harry? I mean, OCID passing without taking a look, that kind of bothers me.”
“Me, too,” He took a long drag and exhaled. “My gut is that this one’s going to be tough. Unless something good comes out of those prints. That’s our only real break so far.”
“Well, tell your people that I want everybody in at eight for a roundtable on what we’ve got so far.”
“Let’s make it nine, Lieutenant. I think by then we should have something back from Donovan on the prints.”
“Okay, nine then. I’ll see you then, Harry. And from now on, when we’re talking like this, you know, informally, call me Grace.”
“Sure, Grace. Have a nice night.”
She expelled her smoke in a short burst that sounded like the start of a laugh.
“You mean, what’s left of it.”
On the way up to Mulholland Drive and Hidden Highlands Bosch paged Rider and she called back from one of the houses she was visiting. She said it was the last of the houses overlooking the clearing where the Rolls was parked. She told him the best she could come up with was a resident who remembered seeing the white Rolls-Royce from the back deck of his home on Saturday morning about ten. The same resident also believed the car was not there on Friday evening when he was out on the deck to watch the sunset.
“That fits with the time frame the ME’s looking at and the plane ticket. I think we’re zeroing in on Friday night, sometime after he got in from Vegas. Probably on his way home from the airport. Nobody heard any shots?”
“Not that I’ve found. There’s two houses where I got no answer. I was going to go back and try them now.”
“Maybe you can catch them tomorrow. I’m heading up to Hidden Highlands. I think you should go with me.”
They made arrangements to meet outside the entrance to the development where Aliso had lived, and Bosch closed the phone. He wanted Kiz along when he told Aliso’s next of kin he was dead because it would be good for her to learn the grim routine and because the percentages called for whoever that next of kin was to be considered a possible suspect. It was always good to have a witness with you when you first spoke to the person who later could become your quarry.
Bosch looked at his watch. It was nearly ten. Taking care of the notification meant they probably wouldn’t be getting to the victim’s office until midnight. He called the communications center and gave the operator the address on Melrose and had her look it up in the cross directory. It came back to Archway Pictures, as Bosch had guessed. He knew they had caught a bit of a break. Archway was a midsize studio that largely rented offices and production facilities to independent filmmakers. As far as Bosch knew, it hadn’t made its own films since the 1960s. The break was that he knew someone in security over there. Chuckie Meachum was a former Robbery-Homicide