City Of Bones

exterior look during daylight hours.
    Twenty minutes after he left to begin the search Bosch returned to the living room empty-handed. Trent looked up at him expectantly.
    “Satisfied?”
    “I’m satisfied for now, Mr. Trent. I appreciate your-”
    “You see? It never ends. ‘Satisfied for now.’ You people will never let it go, will you? I mean, if I was a drug dealer or a bank robber, my debt would be cleared and you people would leave me alone. But because I touched a boy almost forty years ago I am guilty for life.”
    “I think you did more than touch him,” Edgar said. “But we’ll get the records. Don’t worry.”
    Trent put his face in his hands and mumbled something about it being a mistake to have cooperated. Bosch looked at Edgar, who nodded that he was finished and ready to go. Bosch stepped over and picked up his recorder. He slid it into the breast pocket of his jacket but didn’t turn it off. He’d learned a valuable lesson on a case the year before-sometimes the most important and telling things are said after an interview is supposedly over.
    “Mr. Trent, thank you for your cooperation. We’re going to go. But we might need to talk to you tomorrow. Are you working tomorrow?”
    “God, no, don’t call me at work! I need this job and you’ll ruin it. You’ll ruin everything.”
    He gave Bosch his pager number. Bosch wrote it down and headed toward the front door. He looked back at Edgar.
    “Did you ask him about trips? He’s not planning to go anywhere, is he?”
    Edgar looked at Trent.
    “Mr. Trent, you work on movies, you know how the dialogue goes. You call us if you plan to go out of town. If you don’t and we have to find you… you’re not going to like it very much.”
    Trent spoke in a flat-line monotone, his eyes focused forward, somewhere far away.
    “I’m not going anywhere at all. Now please leave. Just leave me alone.”
    They walked out the door and Trent closed it hard behind them. At the bottom of the driveway was a large bougainvillea bush in full bloom. It blocked Bosch’s view of the left side of the street until he got there.
    A bright light suddenly flashed on and in Bosch’s face. A reporter with a cameraman in tow moved in on the two detectives. Bosch was blinded for a few moments until his eyes started to adjust.
    “Hi, detectives. Judy Surtain, Channel Four news. Is there a break in the bones case?”
    “No comment,” Edgar barked. “No comment and turn that damn light off.”
    Bosch finally saw her in the glare of the light. He recognized her from TV and from the gathering at the roadblock earlier in the week. He also recognized that a “no comment” was not the way to leave this situation. He needed to diffuse it and keep the media away from Trent.
    “No,” he said. “No breakthrough. We’re just following routine procedures.”
    Surtain shoved the microphone she was carrying toward Bosch’s face.
    “Why are you out here in the neighborhood again?”
    “We’re just finishing the routine canvas of the residents here. I hadn’t had a chance to talk to the resident here before. We just finished up, that’s all.”
    He was talking with a bored tone in his voice. He hoped she was buying it.
    “Sorry,” he added. “No big story tonight.”
    “Well, was this neighbor or any of the neighbors helpful to the investigation?”
    “Well, everyone here has been very cooperative with us but as far as investigative leads go it has been difficult. Most of these people weren’t even living in the neighborhood when the bones were buried. That makes it tough.”
    Bosch gestured toward Trent’s house.
    “This gentleman, for example. We just found out that he didn’t buy his home here until nineteen eighty-seven and we’re pretty sure those bones were already up there by then.”
    “So then it’s back to the drawing board?”
    “Sort of. And that’s really all I can tell you. Good night.”
    He pushed past her toward his car. A few moments later Surtain was on him at the car door. Without her cameraman.
    “Detective, we need to get your name.”
    Bosch opened his wallet and took out a business card. The one with the general station number printed on it. He gave it to her and said good night again.
    “Look, if there is anything you can tell me, you know, off the record, I would protect you,” Surtain said. “You know, off camera like this, whatever you want to do.”
    “No, there is nothing,” Bosch said as he opened the door. “Have