Trunk Music

maybe forty, attractive, with dark straight hair and a trim build. She wore a lot of makeup on a face Bosch guessed had been sculpted at times by the surgeon’s knife. Still, through the makeup she looked tired, worn. He could see her face was flushed pink, as though she might have been drinking. She wore a light blue dress that showed off her legs. They were tan and the muscles still taut. Bosch could see she had been considered very beautiful at one time but was sliding into that stage when a woman believes her beauty may be leaving-even if it isn’t. Maybe that was why she had all the makeup on, Bosch guessed. Or maybe it was because she was still expecting her husband to show up.
    Bosch closed the door after they entered and they followed the woman into a large living room with an incongruous mix of modern prints on the walls and French antiques on the thick white carpet. The phone was still ringing. She told Bosch and Rider to sit down and then walked through the living room into another hallway, which she crossed to what looked like a den. He heard her answer the phone, tell Nash that the delay was all right and hang up.
    She came back into the living room then and sat on a couch with a muted flower print. Bosch and Rider took nearby chairs with a matching pattern. Bosch took a quick look around and saw no photographs in frames. Only the artwork. It was always one of the first things he looked for when he had to quickly judge a relationship.
    “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t get your name.”
    “Veronica Aliso. What about my husband, Detective? Is he hurt?”
    Bosch leaned forward in his chair. No matter how many times he did this, he never got used to it and he was never sure he was doing it the right way.
    “Mrs. Aliso…I am very sorry, but your husband is dead. He was the victim of a homicide. I am sorry to have to tell you this.”
    He watched her closely and she said nothing at first. She instinctively crossed her arms in front of her and brought her face down in a pained grimace. There were no tears. Not yet. In his experience, Bosch had seen them come either right away-as soon as they opened the door and saw him and knew-or much later, when it sank in that the nightmare was reality.
    “I don’t…How did this happen?” she asked, her eyes staring down at the floor.
    “He was found in his car. He’d been shot.”
    “In Las Vegas?”
    “No. Here. Not far. It looks like he was coming home from the airport when…when he was somehow stopped by somebody. We’re not sure yet. His car was found off Mulholland Drive. Down by the Bowl.”
    He watched her a little more. She still had not looked up. Bosch felt a sense of guilt pass over him. Guilt because he was not watching this woman with sympathy. He had been in this place too many times for that. Instead, he watched her with an eye for false mannerisms. In these situations his suspicion outweighed his compassion. It had to.
    “Can I get you anything, Mrs. Aliso?” Rider asked. “Water? Do you have coffee? Do you want something stronger?”
    “No. I’m fine. Thank you. It’s just a terrible shock.”
    “Do you have any children in the house?” Rider asked.
    “No, we…no children. Do you know what happened? Was he robbed?”
    “That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Bosch said.
    “Of course…Can you tell me, was there much pain?”
    “No, there was no pain,” Bosch said.
    He thought of the tears welled in Tony Aliso’s eyes. He decided not to tell her about that.
    “It must be hard, your job,” she said. “Telling people this sort of thing.”
    He nodded and looked away. For a moment he thought of the old squad room joke about the easiest way to do next-of-kin notification. When Mrs. Brown opens the door, you say, “Are you the widow Brown?”
    He looked back at the widow Aliso.
    “Why did you ask if it happened in Las Vegas?”
    “Because that was where he was.”
    “How long was he supposed to be there?”
    “I don’t know. He never scheduled it with a return. He always bought open-ended tickets so he could come back when he wanted to. He always said he’d be back when his luck changed. For the worse.”
    “We have reason to believe he came back to Los Angeles on Friday night. His car wasn’t found until this evening. That’s two days, Mrs. Aliso. Did you try to call him in Las Vegas during that time?”
    “No. We usually didn’t speak when he was over there.”
    “And how often was it that he