“Got it, sir.”
Bosch pointed to the end opposite the patrol car.
“Good. I want to create a cross-hatching of light here, okay? It’s probably going to be the best we can do.”
“Yes, sir.”
He started to trot away.
“Hey, Drummer.”
Drummond turned around once more and came back.
“Yes, sir.”
Bosch whispered now.
“All your guys are watching me. Shouldn’t they be turned around, eyes out?”
Drummond stepped back and twirled his finger over his head.
“Hey! Turn it around, eyes out. We’ve got a job here. Keep the watch.”
He pointed down the alley toward the gathering of onlookers.
“And make sure we keep those people back.”
The guardsmen did as they were told and Drummond headed out of the alley to radio Dowler and get the light truck.
Bosch’s pager buzzed on his hip. He reached to his belt and snapped the device out of its holder. The number on the screen was the command post, and he knew he and Edgar were about to be given another call. They hadn’t even started here and they were going to be yanked. He didn’t want that. He put the pager back on his belt.
Bosch walked over to the first fence that started from the back corner of the appliance shop. It was a wood-slat barrier that was too tall for him to look over. But he noticed it had been freshly painted. There was no graffiti, not even on the alley side of it. He noted this because it indicated that there was a homeowner on the other side who cared enough to whitewash the graffiti. Maybe it was the kind of person who kept their own watch and might have heard or even seen something.
From there he crossed the alley and dropped to a squatting position at the far corner of the crime scene. Like a fighter in his corner, waiting to come out. He started playing the beam of his flashlight across the broken concrete-and-dirt surface of the alley. At the oblique angle, the light refracted off the myriad surface planes, giving him a unique view. Soon enough he saw the glint of something shiny and held the beam on it. He moved in on the spot and found a brass bullet casing lying in the gravel.
He got down on his hands and knees so he could look closely at the casing without moving it. He moved the light in close and saw that it was a 9mm brass casing with the familiar Remington brand mark stamped on the flat base. There was an indentation from the firing pin on the primer. Bosch also noted that the casing was lying on top of the gravel bed. It had not been stepped on or run over in what he assumed was a busy alleyway. That told him that the casing had not been there long.
Bosch was looking around for something to mark the casing’s location with when Edgar stepped back into the crime scene. He was carrying a toolbox and that told Bosch that they weren’t going to get any help.
“Harry, what’d you find?”
“Nine-millimeter Remington. Looks fresh.”
“Well, at least we found something useful.”
“Maybe. You get the CP?”
Edgar put down the toolbox. It was heavy. It contained the equipment they had quickly gathered in the kit room at Hollywood Station once they heard they could not count on any forensic backup in the field.
“Yeah, I got through but it’s no-can-do from the command post. Everybody’s otherwise engaged. We’re on our own out here, brother.”
“No coroner, either?”
“No coroner. The National Guard’s coming with a truck for her. A troop transporter.”
“You gotta be kidding me. They’re going to move her in a fucking flatbed?”
“Not only that, we got our next call already. A crispy critter. Fire Department found him in a burned-out taco shop on MLK.”
“Goddamnit, we just got here.”
“Yeah, well, we’re up again and we’re closest to MLK. So they want us to clear and steer.”
“Yeah, well, we’re not done here. Not by a long shot.”
“Nothing we can do about it, Harry.”
Bosch was obstinate.
“I’m not leaving yet. There’s too much to do here and if we leave it till next week or whenever, then we’ve lost the crime scene. We can’t do that.”
“We don’t have a choice, partner. We don’t make the rules.”
“Bullshit.”
“Okay, tell you what. We give it fifteen minutes. We take a few pictures, bag the casing, put the body on the truck, and then we shuffle on down the road. Come Monday, or whenever this is over, it isn’t even going to be our case anymore. We go back to Hollywood after everything calms down and this thing stays right here. Somebody else’s case then. This is Seventy-seventh’s turf. It’ll be their problem.”
It didn’t matter to Bosch what came later, whether the case went to detectives at 77th Street Division or not. What mattered was what was in front of him. A woman named Anneke from someplace far away lay dead and he wanted to know who did it and why.
“Doesn’t matter that it’s not going to be our case,” he said. “That’s not the point.”
“Harry, there is no point,” Edgar said. “Not now, not with complete chaos all around us. Nothing matters right now, man. The city is out of control. You can’t expect—”
The sudden rip of automatic gunfire split the air. Edgar dove to the ground and Bosch instinctively threw himself toward the wall of the appliance shop. His helmet went flying off. Bursts of gunfire from several of the guardsmen followed until finally the shooting was quelled by shouting.
“Hold your fire! Hold your fire! Hold your fire!”
The gunshots ended and Burstin, the sergeant from the barricade, came running up the alley. Bosch saw Edgar slowly getting up. He appeared to be unharmed but he was looking at Bosch with an odd expression.
“Who opened first?” the sergeant yelled. “Who fired?”
“Me,” said one of the men in the alley. “I thought I saw a weapon on the roofline.”
“Where, soldier? What roofline? Where was the sniper?”
“Over there.”
The shooter pointed to the roofline of the rims store.
“Goddamnit!” the sergeant yelled. “Hold your fucking fire. We cleared that roof. There’s nobody up there but us! Our people!”
“Sorry, sir. I saw the—”
“Son, I don’t give a flying fuck what you saw. You get any of my people killed and I will personally frag your ass myself.”
“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”
Bosch stood up. His ears were ringing and his nerves jangling. The sudden spit of automatic fire wasn’t new to him. But it had been almost twenty-five years since it was a routine part of his life. He went over and picked up his helmet and put it back on.
Sergeant Burstin walked up to him.
“Continue your work, Detectives. If you need me I’ll be on the north perimeter. We have a truck coming in for the remains. I understand that we are to provide a team to escort your car to another location and another body.”
He then charged out of the alley.
“Jesus Christ, you believe that?” Edgar asked. “Like Desert Storm or something. Vietnam. What the hell are we doing here, man?”
“Let’s just go to work,” Bosch said. “You draw the crime scene, I’ll work the body, take pictures. Let’s move.”
Bosch squatted down and opened the toolbox. He wanted to get a photograph of the bullet casing in place before he bagged it as evidence. Edgar kept talking. The adrenaline rush from the shooting was not dissipating. He talked a lot when he was hyper. Sometimes too much.
“Harry, did you see what you did when that yahoo opened up with the gun?”
“Yeah, I ducked like everybody else.”
“No, Harry, you covered the body. I saw it. You shielded Snow White over there like she was still alive or something.”
Bosch didn’t respond. He lifted the top tray out of the toolbox and reached in for the Polaroid camera. He noted that they only had two packs of film left. Sixteen shots plus whatever was left in the camera. Maybe twenty shots total, and they had this scene and the one waiting on MLK. It was not enough. His frustration was peaking.