City Of Bones

Trent’s criminal background and to check the reverse directories and property records for Wonderland Avenue.
    Bosch noticed that waiting for him was a stack of phone messages and the latest batch of call-in tips from the front desk. He took the phone messages first. Nine out of twelve of them were from reporters, all no doubt wanting to follow up on Channel 4’s report on Trent the night before and then rebroadcast during the morning news program. The other three were from Trent’s lawyer, Edward Morton. He had called three times between 8 and 9:30 A.M.
    Bosch didn’t know Morton but expected he was calling to complain about Trent’s record being given to the media. He normally wasn’t quick to return calls to lawyers but decided it would be best to get the confrontation over with and to assure Morton that the leak had not come from the investigators on the case. Even though he doubted that Morton would believe anything he said, he picked up the phone and called back. A secretary told him that Morton had gone to a court hearing but was due to check in at any moment. Bosch said he would be waiting for him to call again.
    After hanging up Bosch dropped the pink slips with the reporters’ numbers on them into the trash can next to his spot at the table. He started going through the call-in sheets and quickly noticed that the desk officers were now asking the questions he had typed out the morning before and given to Mankiewicz.
    On the eleventh report in the pile he came across a direct hit. A woman named Sheila Delacroix had called at 8:41 A.M. that morning and said she had seen the Channel 4 report that morning. She said her younger brother Arthur Delacroix disappeared in 1980 in Los Angeles. He was twelve years old at the time and was never heard from since.
    In answer to the medical questions, she responded that her brother had been injured during a fall from a skateboard a few months before his disappearance. He suffered a brain injury that required hospitalization and neurosurgery. She did not remember the exact medical details but was sure the hospital was Queen of Angels. She could not recall the name of any of the doctors who treated her brother. Other than an address and call-back number for Sheila Delacroix, that was all the information on the report.
    Bosch circled the word “skateboard” on the sheet. He opened his briefcase and got out a business card Bill Golliher had given him. He called the first number and got a machine at the anthropologist’s office at UCLA. He called the second and got Golliher while he was eating lunch in Westwood Village.
    “Got a quick question. The injury that required surgery on the skull.”
    “The hematoma.”
    “Right. Could that have been caused by a fall from a skateboard?”
    There was silence and Bosch let Golliher think. The clerk who took the calls to the general lines in the squad room came up to the homicide table and shot Bosch a peace sign. Bosch covered his receiver.
    “Who is it?”
    “Kiz Rider.”
    “Tell her to hold.”
    He uncovered the receiver.
    “Doc, you there?”
    “Yes, I’m just thinking. It might be possible, depending on what it was he hit. But a fall just to the ground, I would say it’s not likely. You had a tight fracture pattern, which indicates a small area of surface-to-surface contact. Also, the location is high up on the cranium. It’s not the back of the head, which you would normally associate with fall injuries.”
    Bosch felt some of the wind going out of his sails. He had thought he might have an ID on the victim.
    “Is this a particular person you are talking about?” Golliher asked.
    “Yeah, we just got a tip.”
    “Are there X-rays, surgical records?”
    “I’m working on it.”
    “Well, I’d like to see them to make a comparison.”
    “As soon as I get them. What about the other injuries? Could they be from skateboarding?”
    “Of course some of them could be from that,” Golliher said. “But I would say not all. The ribs, the twist fractures-also, some of these injuries dated to very early childhood, Detective. There aren’t many three-year-olds on skateboards, I would think.”
    Bosch nodded and tried to think if there was anything else to ask.
    “Detective, you do know that in abuse cases the reported cause of injury and the true cause are not often the same?”
    “I understand. Whoever brought the kid into the emergency room wouldn’t volunteer he hit him with a flashlight or