City Of Bones

controlled solely by me. It doesn’t end up on the six o’clock news.”
    “Whatever. I just think we need to avoid any complications on this one. It’s a child case. You know how they get.”
    “Just get over here with that bone. I’m leaving in an hour.”
    She abruptly hung up.
    Bosch wished he had been a little more politic with Corazon but was glad he’d made his point. Corazon was a personality, regularly appearing on Court TV and network shows as a forensic expert. She had also taken to having a cameraman follow her so that her cases could be turned into documentaries for broadcast on any of the cop and legal shows on the vast cable and satellite spectrum. He could not and would not let her goals as a celebrity coroner interfere with his goals as an investigator of what might be the homicide of a child.
    He decided he’d make the calls to the department’s Special Services and K-9 units after he got confirmation on the bone. He got up and left the room, looking for Guyot.
    The doctor was in the kitchen, sitting at a small table and writing in a spiral-bound notebook. He looked up at Bosch.
    “Just writing a few notes on your treatment. I’ve kept notes on every patient I’ve ever treated.”
    Bosch just nodded, even though he thought it was odd for Guyot to be writing about him.
    “I’m going to go, Doctor. We’ll be back tomorrow. In force, I’d expect. We might want to use your dog again. Will you be here?”
    “I’ll be here and be glad to help. How are the ribs?”
    “They hurt.”
    “Only when you breathe, right? That’ll last about a week.”
    “Thanks for taking care of me. You don’t need that shoe box back, do you?”
    “No, I wouldn’t want that back now.”
    Bosch turned to head toward the front door but then turned back to Guyot.
    “Doctor, do you live alone here?”
    “I do now. My wife died two years ago. A month before our fiftieth anniversary.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    Guyot nodded and said, “My daughter has her own family up in Seattle. I see them on special occasions.”
    Bosch felt like asking why only on special occasions but didn’t. He thanked the man again and left.
    Driving out of the canyon and toward Teresa Corazon’s place in Hancock Park, he kept his hand on the shoe box so that it would not be jostled or slide off the seat. He felt a deep sense of dread rising from within. He knew it was because fate had certainly not smiled on him this day. He had caught the worst kind of case there was to catch. A child case.
    Child cases haunted you. They hollowed you out and scarred you. There was no bulletproof vest thick enough to stop you from being pierced. Child cases left you knowing the world was full of lost light.

Chapter 4
    TERESA Corazon lived in a Mediterranean-style mansion with a stone turnaround circle complete with koi pond in front. Eight years earlier, when Bosch had shared a brief relationship with her, she had lived in a one-bedroom condominium. The riches of television and celebrity had paid for the house and the lifestyle that came with it. She was not even remotely like the woman who used to show up at his house unannounced at midnight with a cheap bottle of red wine from Trader Joe’s and a video of her favorite movie to watch. The woman who was unabashedly ambitious but not yet skilled at using her position to enrich herself.
    Bosch knew he now served as a reminder of what she had been and what she had lost in order to gain all that she had. It was no wonder their interactions were now few and far between but as tense as a visit to the dentist when they were unavoidable.
    He parked on the circle and got out with the shoe box and the Polaroids. He looked into the pond as he came around the car and could see the dark shapes of the fish moving below the surface. He smiled, thinking about the movie Chinatown and how often they had watched it the year they were together. He remembered how much she enjoyed the portrayal of the coroner. He wore a black butcher’s apron and ate a sandwich while examining a body. Bosch doubted she had the same sense of humor about things anymore.
    The light hanging over the heavy wood door to the house went on, and Corazon opened it before he got there. She was wearing black slacks and a cream-colored blouse. She was probably on her way to a New Year’s party. She looked past him at the slickback he had been driving.
    “Let’s make this quick before that car drips oil on my stones.”
    “Hello to you, too,