City Of Bones

like waitin’ around for something to happen, you know?”
    “Yeah, Harry, I know.”
    Edgar stood up and took his jacket off the back of his chair.
    “Then I’ll go tell Bullets,” Bosch said.

Chapter 27
    THEY were more than halfway across the desert to Palm Springs before either one of them spoke.
    “Harry,” Edgar said, “you’re not talking.”
    “I know,” Bosch said.
    The one thing they had always had as partners was the ability to share long silences. Whenever Edgar felt the need to break the silence, Bosch knew there was something on his mind he wanted to talk about.
    “What is it, J. Edgar?”
    “Nothing.”
    “The case?”
    “No, man, nothing. I’m cool.”
    “All right, then.”
    They were passing a windmill farm. The air was dead. None of the blades were turning.
    “Did your parents stay together?” Bosch asked.
    “Yeah, all the way,” Edgar said, then he laughed. “I think they wished sometimes they didn’t but, yeah, they stuck it out. That’s how it goes, I guess. The strong survive.”
    Bosch nodded. They were both divorced but rarely talked about their failed marriages.
    “Harry, I heard about you and the boot. It’s getting around.”
    Bosch nodded. This is what Edgar had wanted to bring up. Rookies in the department were often called “boots.” The origin of the term was obscure. One school of thought was that it referred to boot camp, another that it was a sarcastic reference to rookies being the new boots of the fascist empire.
    “All I’m saying, man, is be careful with that. You got rank on her, okay?”
    “Yeah, I know. I’ll figure something out.”
    “From what I hear and have seen, she’s worth the risk. But you still gotta be careful.”
    Bosch didn’t say anything. After a few minutes they passed a road sign that said Palm Springs was coming up in nine miles. It was nearing dusk. Bosch was hoping to knock on the door where Christine Waters lived before it got dark.
    “Harry, you going to take the lead on this, when we get there?”
    “Yeah, I’ll take it. You can be the indignant one.”
    “That will be easy.”
    Once they crossed the city boundary into Palm Springs they picked up a map at a gas station and made their way through the town until they found Frank Sinatra Boulevard and took it up toward the mountains. Bosch pulled the car up to the gate house of a place called Mountaingate Estates. Their map showed the street Christine Waters lived on was within Mountaingate.
    A uniformed rent-a-cop stepped out of the gate house, eying the slickback they were in and smiling.
    “You guys are a little ways off the beat,” he said.
    Bosch nodded and tried to give a pleasant smile. But it only made him look like he had something sour in his mouth.
    “Something like that,” he said.
    “What’s up?”
    “We’re going to talk to Christine Waters, three-twelve Deep Waters Drive.”
    “Mrs. Waters know you’re coming?”
    “Not unless she’s a psychic or you tell her.”
    “That’s my job. Hold on a second.”
    He returned to the gate house and Bosch saw him pick up a phone.
    “Looks like Christine Delacroix seriously traded up,” Edgar said.
    He was looking through the windshield at some of the homes that were visible from their position. They were all huge with manicured lawns big enough to play touch football on.
    The guard came out, put both hands on the window sill of the car and leaned down to look in at Bosch.
    “She wants to know what it’s about.”
    “Tell her we’ll discuss it with her at her house. Privately. Tell her we have a court order.”
    The guard shrugged his shoulders in a have-it-your-way gesture and went back inside. Bosch watched him speaking on the phone for a few more moments. After he hung up, the gate started to open slowly. The guard stood in the open doorway and waved them in. But not without the last word.
    “You know that tough-guy stuff probably works real well for you in L.A. Out here in the desert it’s just-”
    Bosch didn’t hear the rest. He drove through the gate while putting the window up.
    They found Deep Waters Drive at the far extreme of the development. The homes here looked to be a couple million dollars more opulent than those built near the entrance to Mountaingate.
    “Who would name a street in the desert Deep Waters Drive?” Edgar mused.
    “Maybe somebody named Waters.”
    It dawned on Edgar then.
    “Damn. You think? Then she really has traded up.”
    The address Edgar came up with for