Suicide Run

lookin’ like that.”
    No one answered. Bosch just stared at the woman on the bed while pulling on a pair of latex gloves. He knew that the knee-jerk reaction was to think that beauty solved all other problems. Same thing with money. But he had seen enough suicides to know that neither was true. Not even close.
    “Lizbeth Grayson,” Sergeant Fulton said. “Twenty-four. Hasn’t been here in the City of Angels long. Still has an Oregon driver’s license in her purse.”
    Fulton had come up next to Bosch and spoke while they both stared at the body. There was no embarrassment about the dead woman being naked and exposed. It was police work.
    Fulton held up a clipboard. Lizbeth Grayson’s driver’s license was clipped to it. Bosch noted that she was from Portland.
    “What else?” he asked.
    “She’s an actress—aren’t they all. She’s got a drawer full of headshots over there. Looks like she did a walk-on bit on
Seinfeld
last year. You know they film that here, even though it’s supposed to be New York. Anyway, the résumé is on the back of the latest headshot. She hasn’t worked a lot—at least not the kind of jobs that she wanted to put on the résumé.”
    Bosch could almost feel Fulton’s eyes drop to the small, perfect triangle of pubic hair. He knew what she was thinking. The silicone and the trim job might indicate a certain lifestyle and other means of income. Bosch looked back up at the face. Lizbeth Grayson hadn’t needed anything in life but that face. He wondered if anybody besides her mother had ever told her that.
    “Anyway,” Fulton said, “on the side table we’ve got an empty bottle of Percodan left over from breast enhancement surgery last year and a ‘good-bye, cruel world’ note. It’s looking pretty cut-and-dried, Detective. We won’t be wasting your time on this.”
    Bosch moved his focus to the table next to the bed and stepped over.
    “Thank you, Sergeant.”
    On the table was an empty glass with a white residue at the bottom, a plastic pill bottle and a notepad. Nothing else. Bosch bent down to study the pill vial, which was standing up on the table. It was a painkiller prescribed to Lizbeth Grayson eight months earlier. Take as needed for the pain. He wondered if that pain included the need to end it all. He took out a notebook and wrote down the name of the physician who prescribed the drug and presumably performed the breast enhancement surgery.
    He next looked at an open spiral notebook that was on the table next to the pill bottle. There were four lines written in pencil on the page.
    bq.
bq.
bq.
bq.
bq.
bq. There’s no
use
anymore

    bq.
bq.
bq.
bq.
bq.
bq.
I
give up

    bq.
bq.
bq.
bq.
bq.
bq. I
give
up

    bq.
bq.
bq.
bq.
bq.
bq. I give
up
!

    He studied it for a moment, paying attention to the words that were underlined and understanding that she was putting the emphasis on a different word in each sentence. He reached down to the notebook so that he could see if there was writing on any of the other pages.
    “Not yet, Detective.”
    Bosch turned and saw the SID photographer standing behind him. It was Mark Baron. They had worked many crime scenes together. Baron gestured toward his camera.
    “I haven’t shot any of that yet,” he said. “I don’t want it moved.”
    “Okay, hold on a second.”
    Bosch stooped down so he could look beneath the table. It had no drawers but there was a single shelf and it held a stack of
People
magazines. There was nothing on the rug beneath the table. He got down on his knees and lifted the bed skirt. There was a pair of slippers under the bed but nothing else.
    Bosch got up and stepped back to let Baron get close to take his shots. He walked back to Fulton.
    “Who found her?”
    “The landlord. He said he got a call from her agent and then another call from her acting coach. They were worried about her. She missed a big audition or something today. The landlord has a passkey and came in. He said the coach was very convincing.”
    “Was she on display like that or covered?”
    “She was covered. The coroner’s people did that.”
    Bosch nodded.
    “Where’s the landlord?”
    “He went back to his place. He lives on-site. He was looking pretty pale.”
    “Get him.”
    “This is pretty simple, right? We’re all going to get out of here in a few minutes, right?”
    Bosch looked at Fulton. Even she wanted to turn pumpkin at midnight.
    “Just get the landlord, please.”
    Fulton left and Bosch went over to the