Echo Park

responded.
    “Harry, those are official investigative files. You know you shouldn’t have parted with them. And we’re going to need them tomorrow for the interview.”
    “I told you, I’ll have them back tonight.”
    “Let’s hope so. But I’ve gotta tell you, partner, you’re doing the cowboy thing again and I don’t like it very much.”
    “Kiz, I’m just trying to keep things moving. And I want to be ready for this guy in that room tomorrow. What Walling is giving me will give us an edge.”
    “Fine. I trust you. Maybe at some point you will trust me enough to ask my opinion before you go off and make decisions that affect both of us.”
    Bosch felt his cheeks flare hot, mostly because he knew she was right. He didn’t say anything because he knew that apologizing for leaving her out of the loop wasn’t going to cut it.
    “Call me back if Olivas gives us a time for tomorrow,” she said.
    “You got it.”
    After closing the phone Bosch thought about things for a moment. He tried to move on from his embarrassment over Rider’s indignation. He focused on the case and what he had left out of the investigation so far. After a few minutes he reopened the phone, called Olivas and asked if a time and place had been set for the Waits interview.
    “Tomorrow morning, ten o’clock,” Olivas said. “Don’t be late.”
    “Were you going to tell me, Olivas, or was I supposed to pick it up telepathically?”
    “I just found out myself. You called me before I could call you.”
    Bosch ignored his excuse.
    “Where?”
    “The DA’s office. We’ll have him brought down from high-power and set him up in an interview room here.”
    “You’re at the DA’s now?”
    “I had some things to go over with Rick.”
    Bosch let that float out there without a response.
    “Anything else?” Olivas asked.
    “Yeah, I have a question,” Bosch said. “Where’s your partner in all of this, Olivas? What happened to Colbert?”
    “He’s in Hawaii. He’ll be back next week. If this thing carries over till then he’ll be part of it.”
    Bosch wondered if Colbert even knew what was happening or that he was missing out on a potentially career-making case while he was off on vacation. From everything Bosch knew about Olivas, there would be no surprise if he was scheming to ace out his own partner on a glory case.
    “Ten o’clock, then?” Bosch asked.
    “Ten.”
    “Anything else I should know, Olivas?”
    He was curious about why Olivas was at the DA’s office but didn’t want to directly ask why.
    “Matter of fact, there is one more thing. Sort of a delicate thing, you could say. I’ve been talking to Rick about it.”
    “What’s that?”
    “Well, take a guess at what I’m looking at here.”
    Bosch blew out his breath. Olivas was going to string it out. Bosch had known him less than one day and already knew without a doubt that he didn’t like the man and never would.
    “I have no idea, Olivas. What?”
    “Your fifty-ones from Gesto.”
    He was referring to the Investigative Chronology, a master listing kept by date and time of all aspects of a case, ranging from an accounting of detectives’ time and movements to notations on routine phone calls and messages to media inquiries and tips from citizens. Usually, these were handwritten with all manner of shorthand and abbreviations employed as they were updated throughout each day, sometimes hourly. Then, when a page became full, it was typed up on a form called a 51, which would be complete and legible when and if the case ever moved into the courts, and lawyers, judges and juries needed to review the investigative files. The original handwritten pages were then discarded.
    “What about them?” Bosch asked.
    “I’m looking at the last line on page fourteen. The listing is for September twenty-ninth, nineteen ninety-three, at six-forty p.m. Must’ve been quitting time. The initials on the entry are JE.”
    Bosch felt the bile rising in his throat. Whatever it was Olivas was getting at, he was enjoying milking it.
    “Obviously,” he said impatiently, “that would’ve been my partner at the time, Jerry Edgar. What’s the entry say, Olivas?”
    “It says . . . I’ll just read it. It says, ‘Robert Saxon DOB eleven/three/’seventy-one. Saw
Times
story. Was at Mayfair and saw MG alone. Nobody following.’ It gives Saxon’s phone number and that’s all it says. But that’s enough, Hotshot. You know what it means?”
    Bosch did. He had just