The Closers

think that maybe if she had come to us things would have been different.”
    “You mean the pregnancy?”
    Muriel nodded.
    “What makes you think that played into what happened to her?”
    “Just a mother’s instinct. I have no proof. I just think it started with that.”
    Bosch nodded. But he couldn’t blame the daughter for her secrets. By the time he had been her age Bosch had been on his own, without real parents. He had no idea what that relationship would have been like.
    “We spoke to Commander Garcia,” Rider said. “He told us that several years ago he returned your daughter’s journal to you. Do you still have that?”
    Muriel looked alarmed.
    “I read part of it every night. You’re not going to take that away from me are you? It’s my bible!”
    “We need to borrow it and make a copy of it. Commander Garcia should have made a copy back then but he didn’t.”
    “I don’t want to lose it.”
    “You won’t, Mrs. Verloren. I promise. We’ll copy it and get it right back to you.”
    “Do you want it now? It’s by my bed.”
    “Yes, if you could get it.”
    Muriel Verloren left them and disappeared down a hallway that led toward the left side of the house. Bosch looked at Rider and raised his eyebrows in a what-do-you-think sort of way. Rider shrugged, meaning that they would talk about it later.
    “Once my daughter wanted to get another cat,” Bosch whispered. “My ex said no, one was enough. Now I know why.”
    Rider was smiling inappropriately when Muriel came back in, carrying a small book with a flowery cover and the words
My Journal
embossed in gold on it. The gold was flaking off. The book had been handled a lot. She gave it to Rider, who went out of her way to handle it reverently.
    “If you don’t mind, Mrs. Verloren, we’d like to look around,” Bosch said. “To sort of connect what we’ve seen and read in the book with the actual layout of the house.”
    “What book?”
    “Oh, I’m sorry. That’s copspeak. All the investigative records from the case are kept in a large binder. We call it a book.”
    “A murder book?”
    “Yes, that’s right. Is it all right if we look around? I would like to look at the back door and look around out back, too.”
    She signaled with a raised arm which way they should go. Bosch and Rider got up.
    “It’s changed,” Muriel said. “It used to be there were no houses up there. You’d go out our door and walk straight up the mountain. But they terraced it. Now there are houses. Millions of dollars. They built a mansion on the spot where my baby was found. I hate it.”
    There was nothing to say to that. Bosch just nodded and followed her down a short hallway and into the kitchen. There was a door with a glass window in it. It led to the backyard. Muriel unlocked the door and they all stepped out. The yard was on a steep incline that led to a grove of eucalyptus trees. Through the trees Bosch could see the Spanish-tiled roofline of a large house.
    “It used to be all open up there,” Muriel said. “Just trees. Now there are houses. It’s got a gate. They don’t let me walk up there like I used to. They think I’m a bag lady or something because I liked to go up there sometimes and have a picnic at Becky’s spot.”
    Bosch nodded and thought for a moment about a mother having a picnic at the spot where her daughter was murdered. He tried to drop the idea and instead study the terrain of the hillside. The autopsy had said Becky Verloren weighed ninety-six pounds. Even as light as that, it would have been a struggle taking her up that incline. He wondered about the possibility that there had been more than one killer. He thought of Bailey Sable saying
they
.
    He looked at Muriel Verloren, who was standing still and silent, her eyes closed. She had canted her head so that the late afternoon sun warmed her face. Bosch wondered if this was some form of communion with her lost daughter. As if sensing that they were looking at her, she spoke, keeping her eyes closed.
    “I love this place. I’ll never leave.”
    “Can we look at your daughter’s bedroom?” Bosch asked.
    She opened her eyes.
    “Just wipe your feet when we go back inside.”
    She led them back through the kitchen and into the hallway. The stairway up began next to the door that led to the garage. The door was open and Bosch caught a glimpse of a battered minivan surrounded by stacks of boxes and things Muriel Verloren had apparently collected on her rounds. He