The Black Ice (hb-2)

detective named John Chastain. Harry hesitated a moment before following them in.
    One of the ME techs was standing in the hallway near the bathroom door with the others gathered around him. Bosch wished he hadn’t thrown away his handkerchief. He kept the cigarette in his mouth and breathed in deeply.
    “Right rear pocket,” the tech said. “There’s putrefaction but you can make it out. It was folded over twice so the inside surface is pretty clean.”
    Irving backed out of the hallway holding a plastic evidence bag up and looking at the small piece of paper inside it. The others crowded around him. Except for Bosch.
    The paper was gray like Moore’s skin. Bosch thought he could see one line of blue writing on the paper. Irving looked over at him as if seeing him for the first time.
    “Bosch, you will have to go.”
    Harry wanted to ask what the note said but knew he would be rejected. He saw a satisfied smirk on Chastain’s face.
    At the yellow tape he stopped to light another cigarette. He heard the clicking of high heels and turned to see one of the reporters, a blonde he recognized from Channel 2, coming at him with a wireless microphone in her hand and a model’s phoney smile on her face. She moved in on him in a well-practiced and quick maneuver. But before she could speak Harry said, “No comment. I’m not on the case.”
    “Can’t you just-”
    “No comment.”
    The smile dropped off her face as quick as a guillotine’s blade. She turned away angrily. But within a moment her heels were clicking sharply again as she moved with her cameraman into position for the A-shot, the one her report would lead with. The body was coming out. The strobes flared and the six cameramen formed a gauntlet. The two medical examiner’s men, pushing the covered body on a gurney, passed through it on the way to the waiting blue van. Harry noticed that a grim-faced Irving, walking stoically erect, trailed behind-but not far enough behind to be left out of the video frame. After all, any appearance on the nightly news was better than none, especially for a man with an eye on the chief’s office.
    After that, the crime scene began to break up. Everybody was leaving. The reporters, cops, everybody. Bosch ducked under the yellow tape and was looking around for Donovan or Sheehan when Irving came up on him.
    “Detective, on second thought, there is something I need you to do that will help expedite matters. Detective Sheehan has to finish securing the scene here. But I want to beat the media to Moore’s wife. Can you handle next-of-kin notification? Of course, nothing is definite but I want his wife to know what is happening.”
    Bosch had made such a show of indignation earlier, he couldn’t back away now. He wanted part of the case; he got it.
    “Give me the address,” he said.
    A few minutes later Irving was gone and the uniforms were pulling down the yellow tape. Bosch saw Donovan heading to his van, carrying the shotgun, which was wrapped in plastic, and several smaller evidence bags.
    Harry used the van’s bumper to tie his shoe while Donovan stowed the evidence bags in a wooden box that had once carried Napa Valley wine.
    “What do you want, Harry? I just found out you weren’t supposed to be here.”
    “That was before. This is now. I just got put on the case. I got next-of-kin duty.”
    “Some case to be put on.”
    “Yeah, well, you take what they give. What did he say?”
    “Who?”
    “Moore.”
    “Look, Harry, this is-”
    “Look, Donnie, Irving gave me next of kin. I think that cuts me in. I just want to know what he said. I knew this guy, okay? It won’t go anywhere else.”
    Donovan exhaled heavily, reached into the box and began sorting through the evidence bags.
    “Really didn’t say much at all. Nothing that profound.”
    He turned on a flashlight and put the beam on the bag with the note in it. Just one line.
    I found out who I was.

Chapter 3
    The address Irving had given him was in Canyon Country, nearly an hour’s drive north of Hollywood. Bosch took the Hollywood Freeway north, then connected with the Golden State and took it through the dark cleft of the Santa Susanna Mountains. Traffic was sparse. Most people were inside their homes eating roasted turkey and dressing, he guessed. Bosch thought of Cal Moore and what he did and what he left behind.
    I found out who I was.
    Bosch had no clue to what the dead cop had meant by the one line scratched on a small piece of paper and