The Closers

system. No matches.”
    “What about the FBI?”
    “That’s next but that won’t be so fast. They have to process it. I will send it through with an expedite request but you know how that goes.”
    “I do, Raj. Let me know when you know, and thanks for the effort.”
    Bosch closed the phone. He felt a steep letdown and his face showed it. He could already tell the others knew the score before he delivered the news.
    “No match on the DOJ database,” he said. “He’ll try the bureau’s base but that will take a while.”
    “Shit!” said Renner.
    “Speaking of Raj Patel,” Pratt said, “his brother scheduled the autopsy for two o’clock today. I want one team there. Who wants to take it?”
    Renner weakly raised his hand. He and Robleto would take it. It was an easy assignment if you didn’t mind the visuals.
    The meeting soon broke up after Pratt assigned Robinson and Nord the service station and the interviews of the people Mackey worked with there. Marcia and Jackson would work on pulling reports together and into a murder book. They were still the lead investigators and would coordinate things from room 503.
    Pratt looked at the bill, divided it by nine and told everyone to put in ten. This meant Bosch had to throw in a ten even though he hadn’t even had a cup of coffee. He didn’t protest. It was the price of being late and being the guy who put them on this path.
    As everyone stood Bosch caught Rider’s eye.
    “Did you come directly here or did you ride with somebody?”
    “Abel gave me a lift.”
    “Want to ride back together?”
    “Sure.”
    Outside the restaurant she gave Bosch the silent treatment while they waited for his car from the valet. She stared at the large plastic steer that was atop the restaurant’s sign. Under her arm was a file containing the printouts from the pen registers.
    Finally the car came and they got in. Before pulling out of the lot Bosch turned and looked at her.
    “All right, say it,” he said.
    “Say what?”
    “Whatever it is you want to say so you can feel better.”
    “You should’ve called me, Harry, that’s all.”
    “Look, Kiz, I called you yesterday and you chewed me out. I was just working off of recent experience.”
    “This was different and you know it. You called me yesterday because you were excited about something. Today you were following a lead. I should have been with you. And then to not find out what you came up with until you went in there and told everybody. That was embarrassing, Harry. Thanks for that.”
    Bosch nodded his contrition.
    “You’re right about that part. I’m sorry. I should’ve called you when I was coming in. I just forgot. I knew I was late and I had both hands on the wheel and was just trying to get here.”
    She didn’t say anything, so he finally did.
    “Can we get back to solving this case now?”
    She shrugged and he finally put the car in drive. On the way to Parker Center he tried to fill her in on all the details he hadn’t mentioned during the breakfast meeting. He told her about McClellan’s visit to his house and how that led him to the discovery of the prints under the bed.
    Twenty minutes later they were in their alcove in room 503. Bosch finally had a cup of coffee in front of him. They sat across from each other and had the pen register printouts spread between them.
    Bosch was concentrating on the reports on the service station phones. The listing was at least a couple hundred entries-calls going in or out on the station’s two phones-between 6 a.m., when the surveillance started, and 4 p.m., when Mackey reported for work and Renner and Robleto started live-monitoring the line.
    Bosch scanned down the list. Nothing looked immediately familiar. Many of the calls were to or from business listings with some automobile connection clearly apparent in the name. Many others came in from the AAA dispatch center and these were likely tow calls.
    There were also several calls that came from personal phones. Bosch looked closely at these names but saw nothing that jumped out at him. No one listed was an already established player in the case.
    There were four entries on the list that were attributed to Visa, all the same number. Bosch picked up the phone and called it. He never heard it ring. He just got the loud screeching sound of a computer hookup. It was so loud that even Rider heard it.
    “What is that?”
    Bosch hung up.
    “I’m trying to run down that note I saw on the desk in the