The Overlook

several times but was repeatedly cut off by the person on the other end of the line.
    “Yes, sir,” he finally said. “Yes, sir. We’re on our way back in now.”
    He closed the phone and looked at Bosch.
    “I’m going back in on the chopper. I have to lead a teleconference debriefing with Washington. I’d take you with me but I think you’d be better off on the ground, chasing the case. I’ll have someone pick up my car later.”
    “No problem.”
    “Did your partner come up with a witness? Is that what I heard?”
    Bosch had to wonder how Brenner had picked that up while conducting his own phone conversation.
    “Maybe, but it sounds like a long shot. I’m going downtown to see about that right now.”
    Brenner nodded solemnly, then handed Bosch a business card.
    “If you get anything, give me a call. All my information is on that. Anything at all, call.”
    Bosch took the card and put it in his pocket. He and the agents then left the lab and a few minutes later he watched the federal chopper take off into the black sky. He got in his car and pulled out of the clinic’s parking lot to head south. Before hitting the freeway he gassed up at a station on San Fernando Road.
    Traffic coming down into the center of the city was light and he cruised at a steady eighty. He turned the stereo on and picked a CD from the center console without looking at what it was. Five notes into the first song he knew it was a Japanese import from bassist Ron Carter. It was good driving music and he turned it up.
    The music helped Bosch smooth out his thoughts. He realized the case was shifting. The feds, at least, were chasing the missing cesium instead of the killers. There was a subtle difference there that Bosch thought was important. He knew that he needed to keep his focus on the overlook and not lose sight at any time of the fact that this was a murder investigation.
    “Find the killers, you find the cesium,” he said out loud.
    When he got downtown he took the Los Angeles Street exit and parked in the front lot at police headquarters. At this hour nobody would care that he wasn’t a VIP or a member of command staff.
    Parker Center was on its last legs. For nearly a decade a new police headquarters had been approved for construction but because of repeated budgetary and political delays the project had only inched toward realization. In the meantime, little had been done to keep the current headquarters from sliding into decrepitude. Now the new building was under way but it was an estimated four years from completion. Many who worked in Parker Center wondered if it could last that long.
    The RHD squad room on the third floor was deserted when Bosch got there. He opened his cell phone and called his partner.
    “Where are you?”
    “Hey, Harry. I’m at SID. I’m getting what I can so I can start putting the murder book together. Are you in the office?”
    “I just got here. Where’d you put the wit?”
    “I’ve got him cooking in room two. You want to start with him?”
    “Might be good to hit him with somebody he hasn’t seen before. Somebody older.”
    It was a delicate suggestion. The potential witness was Ferras’s find. Bosch wouldn’t move in on him without his partner’s at least tacit approval. But the situation dictated that someone with Bosch’s experience would be better conducting such an important interview.
    “Have at him, Harry. When I get back I’ll watch in the media room. If you need me to come in, just give me the signal.”
    “Right.”
    “I made fresh coffee in the captain’s office if you want it.”
    “Good. I need it. But first tell me about the witness.”
    “His name is Jesse Mitford. From Halifax. He’s kind of a drifter. He told me he hitchhiked down here and has been staying in shelters and sometimes up in the hills-when it’s warm enough. That’s about it.”
    It was pretty thin but it was a start.
    “Maybe he was going to sleep up there in Madonna’s courtyard. That’s why he didn’t split.”
    “I didn’t think about that, Harry. You might be right.”
    “I’ll be sure to ask him.”
    Bosch ended the call, got his coffee mug out of his desk drawer and headed to the RHD captain’s office. There was an anteroom where the secretary’s desk was located as well as a table with a coffeemaker. The smell of fresh-brewed coffee hit Bosch as he entered and that alone almost gave him the caffeine charge he needed. He poured a cup, dropped a buck in the basket