Echo Park

given the name Robert Saxon to Kiz Rider to background. It was either an alias or perhaps the real name of the man known currently as Raynard Waits. That name on the 51s now connected Waits to the Gesto case. It also meant that thirteen years ago Bosch and Edgar had at least a shot at Waits/Saxon. But for reasons he didn’t recall or didn’t know about they never took it. He did not recall the specific entry in the 51s. There were dozens of pages in the Investigative Chronology filled with one- and two-line entries. Remembering them all--even with his frequent returns to the investigation over the years--would have been impossible.
    It took him a long moment to find his voice.
    “That’s the only mention in the murder book?” he asked.
    “That I’ve seen,” Olivas said. “I’ve been through everything twice. I even missed it the first time through. Then the second time I said, ‘Hey, I know that name.’ It’s an alias Waits used back in the early nineties. It should be in the files you have.”
    “I know. I saw it.”
    “It meant he called you guys, Bosch. The killer called you, and you and your partner blew it. Looks like nobody ever followed up with him or ran his name through the box. You had the killer’s alias and a phone number and didn’t do anything. ’Course, you didn’t know he was the killer. Just some citizen calling in about what he saw. He must’ve been trying to play you guys in some way, trying to find out about the case. Only Edgar didn’t play. It was late in the day and he probably wanted to get to that first martini.”
    Bosch said nothing and Olivas was only too happy to continue to fill the void.
    “Too bad, you know? Maybe this whole thing could’ve ended right then. I guess we’ll ask Waits about it in the morning.”
    Olivas and his petty world no longer mattered to Bosch. The barbs couldn’t penetrate the thick, dark cloud that was already coming down on him. For he knew that if the name Robert Saxon had come up in the Gesto investigation, then it should have been routinely run through the computer. It would have scored a match in the alias database and taken them to Raynard Waits and his prior arrest for prowling. That would have made him a suspect. Not just a person of interest like Anthony Garland. A strong suspect. And that would have undoubtedly taken the investigation in a whole new direction.
    But that never happened. Apparently neither Edgar nor Bosch had run the name through the box. It was an oversight that Bosch now knew had probably cost the lives of the two women who ended up in trash bags and the seven others Waits was going to tell them about the next day.
    “Olivas?” Bosch said.
    “What, Bosch?”
    “Make sure you bring the book with you tomorrow. I want to see the fifty-ones.”
    “Oh, I will. We’ll need it to do the interview.”
    Bosch closed his phone without another word. He felt the pace of his breathing increase. Soon he was close to hyperventilating. His back felt hot against the car seat and he was starting to sweat. He opened the windows and tried to slow the measure of each breath. He was close to Parker Center but pulled to a stop at the curb.
    It was every detective’s nightmare. The worst-case scenario. A lead ignored or bungled, allowing something awful to be loose in the world. Something dark and evil, destroying life after life as it moved through the shadows. It was true that all detectives made mistakes and had to live with the regrets. But Bosch instinctively knew that this one was malignant. It would grow and grow inside until it darkened everything and he became the last victim, the last life destroyed.
    He pulled out from the curb and into traffic to get air moving through the windows. He made a screeching U-turn and headed home.

7

    FROM THE REAR DECK OF HIS HOUSE Bosch watched the sky start to dim. He lived up on Woodrow Wilson Drive in a cantilevered house that clung to the side of the hill like a cartoon character hanging on to the edge of a cliff. Sometimes Bosch felt like that character. Like on this night. He was drinking vodka sprinkled liberally over ice, the first time he’d gone with hard liquor since coming back on the job the year before. The vodka made his throat feel as though he had swallowed a torch, but that was okay. He was trying to burn away his thoughts and cauterize his nerve endings.
    Bosch considered himself a true detective, one who took it all inside and cared. Everybody counts or nobody