The Overlook

believed her.”
    “So you gave her my evidence.”
    Bosch said it in a resigned tone.
    “Harry, it’s not
your
evidence. We all work and play on the same team, don’t we?”
    “Yeah, Buzz, we do.”
    Bosch hung up the phone and cursed. Ferras asked him what was wrong but Bosch waved the question away.
    “Just typical bureau bullshit.”
    “Harry, did you get any sleep at all before the call out?”
    Bosch looked across the desks at his partner. He knew exactly where Ferras was headed with that question.
    “No,” Bosch answered. “I was awake. But lack of sleep has nothing to do with my frustration with the FBI. I’ve been doing this for more years than you’ve been alive. I know how to handle sleep deprivation.”
    He held his mug of coffee up.
    “Cheers,” he said.
    “It’s still not good, partner,” Ferras responded. “Your ass is going to be dragging in a while.”
    “Don’t worry about me.”
    “Okay, Harry.”
    Bosch went back to thoughts about the cigarette ash.
    “What about photos?” he asked Ferras. “Did you pick up photos from the Kent house?”
    “Yeah, they’re here somewhere.”
    Ferras looked through the files on his desk and came up with the folder containing the photos and passed it across. Bosch looked through them and found three shots from the guest bathroom. A full shot, an angled shot of the toilet that showed the line of ash on the tank lid, and a close-up of the gray caterpillar, as Buzz Yates had called it.
    He spread the three shots out and used his magnifier once again to study them. In the close-up shot of the ash the photographer had put a six-inch ruler down on the tank lid to give the shot scale. The ash was almost two inches long, almost a full cigarette.
    “See anything yet, Sherlock?” Ferras asked.
    Bosch looked up at him. His partner was smiling. Bosch didn’t smile back, deciding that now he couldn’t even use the magnifying glass in front of his own partner without getting ripped.
    “Not yet, Watson,” he said.
    He thought that might keep Ferras quiet. Nobody wanted to be Watson.
    He studied the shot of the toilet and noted the seat had been left up. The indication was that a male had used the bathroom to urinate. The cigarette ash would further indicate that it had been one of the two intruders’. Bosch looked at the wall above the toilet. There was a small framed photograph of a winter scene. The leafless trees and steel-gray sky made Bosch think of New York or somewhere else in the East.
    The photo prompted Bosch to remember a case he had closed a year ago while he was still in the Open-Unsolved Unit. He picked up the phone and called SID again. When Yates answered, Bosch asked for the person who checked the Kent house for latent fingerprints.
    “Hold on,” Yates said.
    Apparently still annoyed with Bosch from the earlier phone call, Yates took his time getting the latents tech to the phone. Bosch ended up holding for about four minutes, using his glass to go over the photos from the Kent house the whole time.
    “This is Wittig,” a voice finally said.
    Bosch knew her from prior cases.
    “Andrea, it’s Harry Bosch. I want to ask you about the Kent house.”
    “What do you need?”
    “Did you laser the guest bathroom?”
    “Of course. Where they found the ash and the seat was up? Yes, I did that.”
    “Anything?”
    “No, nothing. It was wiped.”
    “How about the wall up above the toilet?”
    “Yes, I checked there, too. There was nothing.”
    “That’s all I wanted to know. Thanks, Andrea.”
    “Have a good one.”
    Bosch hung up and looked at the photo of the ash. Something about it bugged him but he wasn’t sure what.
    “Harry, what were you asking about the wall over the toilet?”
    Bosch looked at Ferras. Part of the reason the young detective was partnered with Bosch was so that the experienced detective could mentor the inexperienced detective. Bosch decided to put the Sherlock Holmes crack aside and tell him the story.
    “About thirty years ago there was a case in Wilshire. This woman and her dog found drowned in her bathtub. The whole place had been wiped clean but the lid was left up on the toilet. That told them they were looking for a man. The toilet had been wiped but on the wall up behind it they found a palm print. The guy had taken a leak and leaned on the wall while doing it. By measuring the height of the palm they were able to figure out the guy’s height. They also knew he was