City Of Bones

was a kid I was a boarder and this was what I wanted but never had the dough for. Pretty ironic, huh?”
    “What is?”
    “A Boney board and the case. You know, bones.”
    Bosch nodded.
    “Whatever. I want whatever you can get me by tomorrow.”
    “Um, I can try. I can’t prom-”
    “Tomorrow, Antoine. The sixth floor, remember? I’ll be talking to you tomorrow.”
    Jesper nodded.
    “Give me the morning, at least.”
    “You got it. Anything happening with documents?”
    Jesper shook his head.
    “Nothing yet. She tried the dyes and nothing came up. I don’t think you should count on anything there, Harry.”
    “All right, Antoine.”
    Bosch left him there holding the box.
    On the way back to Hollywood he let Edgar drive while he pulled the tip sheet out of his briefcase and called Sheila Delacroix on his cell phone. She answered promptly and Bosch introduced himself and said her call had been referred to him.
    “Was it Arthur?” she asked urgently.
    “We don’t know, ma’am. That’s why I’m calling.”
    “Oh.”
    “Will it be possible for me and my partner to come see you tomorrow morning to talk about Arthur and get some information? It will help us to be better able to determine if the remains are those of your brother.”
    “I understand. Um, yes. You can come here, if that is convenient.”
    “Where is there, ma’am?”
    “Oh. My home. Off Wilshire in the Miracle Mile.”
    Bosch looked at the address on the call-in sheet.
    “On Orange Grove.”
    “Yes, that’s correct.”
    “Is eight-thirty too early for you?”
    “That would be fine, Officer. If I can help I would like to. It just bothers me to think that that man lived there all those years after doing something like this. Even if the victim wasn’t my brother.”
    Bosch decided it wasn’t worth telling her that Trent was probably completely innocent in terms of the bone case. There were too many people in the world who believed everything they saw on television.
    Instead, Bosch gave her his cell phone number and told her to call it if something came up and eight-thirty the next morning turned out to be a bad time for her.
    “It won’t be a bad time,” she said. “I want to help. If it’s Arthur, I want to know. Part of me wants it to be him so I know it is over. But the other part wants it to be somebody else. That way I can keep thinking he is out there someplace. Maybe with a family of his own now.”
    “I understand,” Bosch said. “We’ll see you in the morning.”

Chapter 22
    IT was a brutal drive to Venice and Bosch arrived more than a half hour late. His lateness was then compounded by his fruitless search for a parking space before he went back to the library lot in defeat. His delay was no bother to Julia Brasher, who was in the critical stage of putting things together in the kitchen. She instructed him to go to the stereo and put on some music, then pour himself a glass of wine from the bottle that was already open on the coffee table. She did not make a move to touch him or kiss him, but her manner was completely warm. He thought things seemed good, that maybe he had gotten past the gaffe of the night before.
    He chose a CD of live recordings of the Bill Evans Trio at the Village Vanguard in New York. He had the CD at home and knew it would make for quiet dinner music. He poured himself a glass of red wine and casually walked around the living room, looking at the things she had on display.
    The mantel of the white brick fireplace was crowded with small framed photos he hadn’t gotten a chance to look at the night before. Some were propped on stands and displayed more prominently than others. Not all were of people. Some photos were of places he assumed she had visited in her travels. There was a ground shot of a live volcano billowing smoke and spewing molten debris in the air. There was an underwater shot of the gaping mouth and jagged teeth of a shark. The killer fish appeared to be launching itself right at the camera-and whoever was behind it. At the edge of the photo Bosch could see one of the iron bars of the cage the photographer-who he assumed was Brasher-had been protected by.
    There was a photo of Brasher with two Aboriginal men on either side of her standing somewhere, Bosch assumed, in the Australian outback. And there were several other photos of her with what appeared to be fellow backpackers in other locations of exotic or rugged terrain that Bosch could not readily identify. In none of the