The Black Box

then looked around the squad room to make sure he was still alone.
    What else was missing? What should she have been carrying? Bosch carried out a mental exercise. He envisioned himself in a motel room. He was leaving, pulling the door locked behind him. What would he have in his pockets?
    He thought about this for a while and then something came to him. He quickly turned pages in the file until he found the coroner’s property list. It was a handwritten list of all items found on the body or in the victim’s clothing. It listed the clothing items as well as a wallet, loose money, and jewelry consisting of a watch and a modest silver neck chain.
    “No room key,” he said aloud.
    This meant one of two things to Bosch. One was that she had left her room key in her rental car and it had been taken when the car was broken into. The other, more likely conclusion was that someone had murdered Jespersen and taken her motel room key from her pocket.
    He double-checked the list and then went to the plastic sleeves containing the Polaroid photos he had taken himself twenty years before. The faded photos showed various angles of the crime scene, the body as it had been found. Two of the shots were close-ups of the torso and clearly showed the victim’s pants. The top of the left pocket showed the white lining. Bosch had no doubt that the pocket had been pulled out when someone had rifled the victim’s pockets and taken her motel-room key while leaving behind jewelry and cash.
    The motel room had then most likely been searched. Forwhat was not clear. But not a single notebook or even a piece of paper had been found among the belongings turned over by the motel staff to the police.
    Bosch stood up because he was too tense to keep sitting. He felt he was onto something but he had no idea what and whether it ultimately had anything to do with Anneke Jespersen’s murder.
    “Hey, Harry.”
    Bosch turned from his desk and saw his partner arriving at the cubicle.
    “Morning.”
    “You’re in early.”
    “No, the usual time. You’re in late.”
    “Hey, did I miss your birthday or something?”
    Bosch looked at Chu for a moment before answering.
    “Yeah, yesterday. How’d you know that?”
    Chu shrugged.
    “Your tie. Looks brand-new and I know you’d never have gone for bright colors like that.”
    Bosch looked down at his tie and smoothed it on his chest.
    “My daughter,” he said.
    “She’s got good taste, then. Too bad you don’t.”
    Chu laughed and said he was going to the cafeteria to get a cup of coffee. It was his routine to report to the squad room each morning and then immediately take a coffee break.
    “You want anything, Harry?”
    “Yeah, I need you to run a name for me on the box.”
    “I mean, do you want a coffee or something?”
    “No, I’m good.”
    “I’ll run the name when I get back.”
    Bosch waved him off and sat back down at his desk. He decided not to wait. He went on the computer and started with the DMV database. Using two fingers to type, he plugged in the name Alex White and learned there were nearly four hundred licensed drivers with the name Alex, Alexander, or Alexandra White in California. Only three of them were in Modesto, and they were all men ranging in age from twenty-eight to fifty-four. He copied down the information and ran those three through the NCIC data bank, but none of them carried criminal records.
    Bosch checked the clock on the wall of the squad and saw it was only eight-thirty. The John Deere franchise where the Alex White call had originated ten years earlier didn’t open for a half hour. He called directory assistance for the 209 area code but there were no listed numbers for an Alex White.
    Chu came back and, entering the cubicle, placed his coffee cup on the same spot where Lieutenant O’Toole had sat the day before.
    “Okay, Harry, what’s the name?” he asked.
    “I already ran it,” Bosch said. “But you could run it through TLO and maybe get me phone numbers.”
    “No problem. Give it to me.”
    Bosch rolled his chair over to Chu’s side and gave him the page where he had written down the info on the three Alex Whites. TLO was a database the department subscribed to that collated information from numerous public and private sources. It was a useful tool and often provided unlisted phone numbers, even cell numbers, that had been provided on loan and employment applications. There was an expertise involved in using the database, knowing just