The Black Ice (hb-2)

don’t think so.”
    “Ever see them before?”
    “I think some of them. At least, some of them seemed familiar. Some of them I know I never saw.”
    “Why do you think that is? A man keeps photographs his whole life and never shows some of them to his wife?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Strange.” He opened the bag and while he was looking through the photos said, “What happened to his mother, do you know?”
    “She died. Before I knew him. Had a tumor in her head. He was about twenty, he said.”
    “What about his father?”
    “He told me he was dead. But I told you, I don’t know if that was true. Because he never said how or when. When I asked, he said he didn’t want to talk about it. We never did.”
    Bosch held up the photo of the two boys on the picnic table.
    “Who’s this?”
    She stepped close to him and looked at the photo. He studied her face. He saw flecks of green in her brown eyes. There was a light scent of perfume.
    “I don’t know who it is. A friend, I guess.”
    “He didn’t have a brother?”
    “Not one he ever told me about. He told me when we got married, he said I was his only family. He said… said he was alone except for me.”
    Now Bosch looked at the photo.
    “Kinda looks like him to me.”
    She didn’t say anything.
    “What about the tattoo?”
    “What about it?”
    “He ever tell you where he got it, what it means?”
    “He told me he got it in the village he grew up in. He was a boy. Actually, it was a barrio. I guess. They called it Saints and Sinners. That’s what the tattoo means. Saints and Sinners. He said that was because the people that lived there didn’t know which they were, which they would be.”
    He thought of the note found in Cal Moore’s back pocket.
I found out who I was
. He wondered if she realized the significance of this in terms of the place he grew up. Where each young boy had to find out who he was. A saint or a sinner.
    Sylvia interrupted his thoughts.
    “You know, you didn’t really say why you were already here. Sitting in the dark thinking. You had to come here to do that?”
    “I came to look around, I guess. I was trying to shake something loose, get a feel for your husband. That sound stupid?”
    “Not to me.”
    “Good.”
    “And did you? Did you shake something loose?”
    “I don’t know yet. Sometimes it takes a little while.”
    “You know, I asked Irving about you. He said you weren’t on the case. He said you only came out the other night because the other detectives had their hands full with the reporters and… and the body.”
    Like a schoolboy, Bosch felt a tingling of excitement. She had asked about him. It didn’t matter that now she knew he was freelancing on the case, she had made inquiries about him.
    “Well,” he said, “that’s true, to a degree. Technically, I am not on the case. But I have other cases that are believed to be tied in with the death of your husband.”
    Her eyes never left his. He could see she wanted to ask what cases but she was a cop’s wife. She knew the rules. In that moment he was sure she did not deserve what she had been handed. None of it.
    He said, “It really wasn’t you, was it? The tip to IAD. The letter.”
    She shook her head no.
    “But they won’t believe you. They think you started the whole thing.”
    “I didn’t.”
    “What did Irving say? When he gave you the key to this place.”
    “Told me that if I wanted the money, the pension, I should let it go. Not get any ideas. As if I did. As if I cared anymore. I don’t. I knew that Cal went wrong. I don’t know what he did, I just knew he did it. A wife knows without being told. And that as much as anything else ended it between us. But I didn’t send any letter like that. I was a cop’s wife to the end. I told Irving and the guy who came before him that they had it wrong. But they didn’t care. They just wanted Cal.”
    “You told me before it was Chastain who came?”
    “It was him.”
    “What exactly did he want? You said something about he wanted to look inside the house.”
    “He held up the letter and said he knew I wrote it. He said I might as well tell him everything. Well, I told him I didn’t write it and I told him to get out. But at first he wouldn’t leave.”
    “What did he say he wanted, specifically?”
    “He– I don’t really remember it all. He wanted bank account statements and he wanted to know what properties we had. He thought I was sitting there waiting for him to