The Black Ice (hb-2)

smart guy.”
    “What?” Bosch said, but at that moment it struck him. “Is it Cal Moore?”
    “Was Cal Moore. Was.”
    Harry hung up the phone as several thoughts crowded into his brain at once. Juan Doe #67 had been found on the day before Moore checked into the Hideaway. He tried to piece out what this could mean. Moore stumbles onto a body in an alley early one morning. The next day he checks into a motel, turns up the air-conditioner and puts two barrels of double-ought buckshot into his face. The message he leaves behind is as simple as it is mysterious.
    I found out who I was
    Bosch lit a cigarette and crossed #1101 off his list, but he continued to center his thoughts on this latest piece of information. He felt impatient, bothered. He fidgeted in the chair, then stood up and began to walk in a circle around the table. He worked Porter into the framework this development provided and ran through it several times. Each time it was the same: Porter gets the call out on the Juan Doe #67 case. He obviously would have had to talk to Moore at the scene. The next day Moore disappears. The next week Moore is found dead, and then the next day Porter announces he is getting a doctor and is pulling the pin. Too many coincidences.
    He picked up the phone and called the homicide table. Edgar answered and Harry asked him to reach across the table and check his Rolodex for Porter’s home number. Edgar gave it to him and said, “Harry, where you at?”
    “Why, Ninety-eight looking for me?”
    “Nah. One of the guys from Moore’s unit called a few minutes ago. Said he was looking for you.”
    “Yeah, why?”
    “Hey, Harry, I’m only passing on the message, not doing your job for you.”
    “Okay, okay. Which one called?”
    “Rickard. He just asked me to tell you they had something for you. I gave him your pager number ’cause I didn’t know if you were coming back anytime soon. So, where you at?”
    “Nowhere.”
    He hung up and dialed Porter’s house. The phone rang ten times. Harry hung up and lit another cigarette. He didn’t know what to think about all of this. Could Moore have simply stumbled onto the body as it said in the report? Could he have dumped it there? Bosch had no clues.
    “Nowhere,” he said aloud to the room full of storage boxes.
    He picked up the phone again and dialed the medical examiner’s office. He gave his name and asked to be connected to Dr. Corazon, the acting chief. Harry refused to say what the call was about to the operator. The phone was dead for nearly a minute before Corazon picked up.
    “I’m in the middle of something here,” she said.
    “Merry Christmas to you, too.”
    “Sorry.”
    “It’s the Moore cut?”
    “Yes, but I can’t talk about it. What do you need, Harry?”
    “I just inherited a case and there’s no autopsy in the file. I’m trying to find out who did it so I can get a copy.”
    “Harry, you don’t need to ask for the acting chief to track that. You could ask any of the investigators I have sitting around here on their asses.”
    “Yeah, but they aren’t as sweet to me as you.”
    “Okay, hurry up, what’s the name?”
    “Juan Doe #67. Date of death was the eighteenth. The cut was the twenty-fourth.”
    She said nothing and Bosch assumed she was checking a scheduling chart.
    “Yeah,” she said after a half minute. “The twenty-fourth. That was Salazar and he’s gone now. Vacation. That was his last autopsy until next month. He went to Australia. It’s summer there.”
    “Shit.”
    “Don’t fret, Harry. I have the package right here. Sally expected Lou Porter would be by to pick it up today. But Lou never came. How’d you inherit it?”
    “Lou pulled the pin.”
    “Jeez, that was kind of quick. What’s his-hold on-”
    She didn’t wait for him to say he would. This time she was gone more than a minute. When she came back, her voice had a higher pitch to it.
    “Harry, I really’ve got to go. Tell you what, wanna meet me after work? By then I’ll’ve had some time to reach through this and I’ll tell you what we’ve got. I just remembered that there is something kind of interesting here. Salazar came to me for a referral approval.”
    “Referral to what?”
    “An entomologist-a bug doctor-over at UCLA. Sally found bugs.”
    Bosch already knew that maggots would not have bred in a body dead twelve hours at the most. And Salazar would not have needed an entomologist to identify them anyway.
    “Bugs,” he