Angle of Investigation

paramedics.
    “Where was the father when you got there?”
    “They had the kid on the floor by the back door, where he had brought him in. The father was sort of collapsed on the floor next to him, screaming and crying like they do. Kicking the floor.”
    “Did he ever say anything?”
    “Not right then.”
    “Then when?”
    “When we made the decision to transport and work on the kid in the truck, he wanted to go. We told him he couldn’t. We told him to get somebody from the office to drive him.”
    “What were his words?”
    “He just said, ‘I want to go with him. I want to be with my son.’ Stuff like that.”
    Ferras shook his head as if in pain.
    “At any time did he talk about what had happened?” Bosch asked.
    Ticotin checked his partner, who shook his head.
    “No,” Ticotin said. “He didn’t.”
    “Then how were you informed of what had happened?”
    “Well, initially, we heard it from dispatch. Then one of the office workers, a lady, she told us when we got there. She led us to the back and told us along the way.”
    Bosch thought he had all he was going to get but then thought of something else.
    “You didn’t happen to take an exterior air temperature reading for that spot, did you?”
    The two paramedics looked at each other and then at Bosch.
    “Didn’t think to,” Ticotin said. “But it’s gotta be at least ninety-five with the Santa Anas kicking up like this. I don’t remember a June this hot.”
    Bosch remembered a June he had spent in a jungle but wasn’t going to get into it. He thanked the paramedics and let them get back to duty. He put his notebook away and looked at his partner.
    “Okay, tell me about the scene,” he said.
    “We’ve got to charge this guy, Harry,” Ferras said urgently.
    “Why? What did you find?”

    “It’s not what I found. It’s because it was just a kid, Harry. What kind of father would let this happen? How could he forget?”
    Ferras had become a father for the first time six months earlier. Bosch knew this. The experience had made him a professional dad and every Monday he came into the squad with a new batch of photos. To Bosch, the kid looked the same week to week, but not to Ferras. He was in love with being a father, with having a son.
    “Ignacio, you’ve got to separate your own feelings about it from the facts and the evidence, okay? You know this. Calm down.”
    “I know, I know. It’s just that, how could he forget, you know?”
    “Yeah, I know, and we’re going to keep that in mind. So tell me what you found out over there. Who’d you talk to?”
    “The office manager.”
    “And what did he say?”
    “It’s a lady. She said that he came in through the back door shortly after ten. All the sales agents park in the back and use the back door—that’s why nobody saw the kid. The father came in talking on the cell phone. Then he got off and asked if he’d gotten a fax but there was no fax. So he made another call and she heard him ask where the fax was. Then he waited for the fax.”
    “How long did he wait?”
    “She said not long but the fax was an offer to buy. So he called the client and that started a whole back-and-forth with calls and faxes and he completely forgot about the kid. It was at least two hours, Harry. Two hours!”
    Bosch could almost share his partner’s anger, but he had been on the mission a couple decades longer than Ferras and knew how to hold it in when he had to and when to let it go.
    “Harry, something else, too.”
    “What?”
    “The baby had something wrong with him.”
    “The manager saw the kid?”
    “No, I mean, always. Since birth. She said it was a big tragedy. The kid was handicapped. Blind, deaf, a bunch of things wrong. Fifteen months old and he couldn’t walk or talk and never could even crawl. He just cried a lot.”
    Bosch nodded as he tried to plug this information into everything else he knew and had accumulated. Just then another car came speeding into the parking lot. It pulled into the ambulance shoot in front of the ER doors. A woman leaped out and ran into the ER, leaving the car running and the door open.
    “That’s probably the mother,” Bosch said. “We better get in there.”
    Bosch started trotting toward the ER doors and Ferras followed. They went through the ER waiting room and down a hallway where the father had been placed in a private room to wait.
    As Bosch got close he did not hear any screaming or crying or fists on flesh—things that