City Of Bones

leaned back and thought about the unreadable letter that had been found in the backpack. He did not anticipate that the documents section would have any success with it. It would forever be the mystery shrouded in the mystery of the case. He gulped the last of his second cup of coffee and opened the murder book to the page containing a copy of the crime scene sketch and chart. He studied the chart and noted that the backpack had been found right next to the spot Kohl had marked as the probable original location of the body.
    Bosch wasn’t sure what it all meant but instinctively he knew that the questions he now had about the case should be kept foremost in his mind as new evidence and details continued to be gathered. They would be the screen through which everything would be sifted.
    He put the report into the murder book and then finished the updating of the paperwork by bringing the investigator’s log-an hour-by-hour time chart with small entry blocks-up to date. He then put the murder book in his briefcase.
    Bosch took his coffee cup to the sink in the rest room and washed it out. He then returned it to its drawer, picked up his briefcase and headed out the back door to his car.

Chapter 13
    THE basement of Parker Center, the headquarters of the Los Angeles Police Department, serves as the record archives for every case the department has taken a report on in the modern era. Until the mid-nineties records were kept on paper for a period of eight years and then transferred to microfiche for permanent storage. The department now used computers for permanent storage and was also moving backward, putting older files into digital storage banks. But the process was slow and had not gone further back than the late eighties.
    Bosch arrived at the counter in archives at one o’clock. He had two containers of coffee with him and two roast beef sandwiches from Philippe’s in a paper bag. He looked at the clerk and smiled.
    “Believe it or not I need to see the fiche on missing person reports, nineteen seventy-five to ’eighty-five.”
    The clerk, an old guy with a basement pallor, whistled and said, “Look out, Christine, here they come.”
    Bosch smiled and nodded and didn’t know what the man was talking about. There appeared to be no one else behind the counter.
    “The good news is they break up,” the clerk said. “I mean, I think it’s good news. You looking for adult or juvy records?”
    “Juveniles.”
    “Then that cuts it up a bit.”
    “Thanks.”
    “Don’t mention it.”
    The clerk disappeared from the counter and Bosch waited. In four minutes the man came back with ten small envelopes containing microfiche sheets for the years Bosch requested. Altogether the stack was at least four inches thick.
    Bosch went to a microfiche reader and copier, set out a sandwich and the two coffees and took the second sandwich back to the counter. The clerk refused the first offer but then took the sandwich when Bosch said it was from Philippe’s.
    Bosch went back to the machine and started fiche-ing, wading first into the year 1985. He was looking for missing person and runaway reports of young males in the age range of the victim. Once he got proficient with the machine he was able to move quickly through the reports. He would scan first for the “closed” stamp that indicated the missing individual had returned home or been located. If there was no stamp his eyes would immediately go to the age and sex boxes on the form. If they fit the profile of his victim, he’d read the summary and then push the photocopy button on the machine to get a hard copy to take with him.
    The microfiche also contained records of missing person reports forwarded to the LAPD by outside agencies seeking people believed to have gone to Los Angeles.
    Despite his speed at the task, it took Bosch more than three hours to go through all the reports for the ten years he had requested. He had hard copies of more than three hundred reports in the tray to the side of the machine when he was finished. And he had no idea whether his effort had been worth the time or not.
    Bosch rubbed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. He had a headache from staring at the machine’s screen and reading tale after tale of parental anguish and juvenile angst. He looked over and realized he hadn’t eaten his sandwich.
    He returned the stack of microfiche envelopes to the clerk and decided to do the computer work in Parker Center rather than drive