City Of Bones

office in case she was needed.
    Irving had a glass-topped desk. There was nothing on it except for two pieces of paper with printing on them that Bosch could not read from his spot in front of Irving’s desk and to the left.
    “Now then,” Irving began. “What do we know as fact about Mr. Trent? We know he was a pedophile with a criminal record of abusing a child. We know that he lived a stone’s throw from the burial site of a murdered child. And we know that he committed suicide on the evening he was questioned by investigators in regard to the first two points just stated.”
    Irving picked up one of the pages on his desk and studied it without sharing its contents with the room. Finally, he spoke.
    “I have here a press release that states those same three facts and goes on to say, ‘Mr. Trent is the subject of an ongoing investigation. Determination of whether he was responsible for the death of the victim found buried near his home is pending lab work and follow-up investigation.’ ”
    He looked at the page silently again and then finally put it down.
    “Nice and succinct. But it will do little to quell the thirst of the media for this story. Or to help us avert another troubling situation for this department.”
    Bosch cleared his throat. Irving seemed to ignore it at first but then spoke without looking at the detective.
    “Yes, Detective Bosch?”
    “Well, it sort of seems as though you’re not satisfied with that. The problem is, what is on that press release is exactly where we stand. I’d love to tell you I think the guy did the kid on the hill. I’d love to tell you I know he did it. But we are a long way from that and, if anything, I think we’re going to end up concluding the opposite.”
    “Based on what?” Irving snapped.
    It was becoming clear to Bosch what the purpose of the meeting was. He guessed that the second page on Irving’s desk was the press release the deputy chief wanted to put out. It probably pinned everything on Trent and called his suicide the result of his knowing he would be found out. This would allow the department to handle Thornton, the leaker, quietly outside of the magnifying glass of the press. It would spare the department the humiliation of acknowledging that a leak of confidential information from one of its officers caused a possibly innocent man to kill himself. It would also allow them to close the case of the boy on the hill.
    Bosch understood that everyone sitting in the room knew that closing a case of this nature was the longest of long shots. The case had drawn growing media attention, and Trent with his suicide had now presented them with a way out. Suspicions could be cast on the dead pedophile, and the department could call it a day and move on to the next case-hopefully one with a better chance of being solved.
    Bosch could understand this but not accept it. He had seen the bones. He had heard Golliher run down the litany of injuries. In that autopsy suite Bosch had resolved to find the killer and close the case. The expediency of department politics and image management would be second to that.
    He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his notebook. He opened it to a page with a folded corner and looked at it as if he was studying a page full of notes. But there was only one notation on the page, written on Saturday in the autopsy suite.

    44 separate indications of trauma

    His eyes held on the number he had written until Irving spoke again.
    “Detective Bosch? I asked, ‘Based on what?’ ”
    Bosch looked up and closed the notebook.
    “Based on the timing-we don’t think Trent moved into that neighborhood until after that boy was in the ground-and on the analysis of the bones. This kid was physically abused over a long period of time-from when he was a small child. It doesn’t add up to Trent.”
    “Analysis of both the timing and the bones will not be conclusive,” Irving said. “No matter what they tell us, there is still a possibility-no matter how slim-that Nicholas Trent was the perpetrator of this crime.”
    “A very slim possibility.”
    “What about the search of Trent’s home today?”
    “We took some old work boots with dried mud in the treads. It will be compared to soil samples taken where the bones were found. But they’ll be just as inconclusive. Even if they match up, Trent could have picked up the dirt hiking behind his house. It’s all part of the same sediment, geologically speaking.”
    “What