The Overlook by Michael Connelly

and evidence from the Kent house. Because he and Brenner had quickly left the house for Saint Agatha’s, Bosch had not been there when the SID techs searched for evidence left behind by the intruders. He was anxious to see what, if anything, had been found.
    But there was only one evidence bag and it contained the black plastic snap ties that had been used to bind Alicia Kent’s wrists and ankles and that Rachel Walling had cut in order to free her.
    “Wait a minute,” Bosch said, holding up the clear plastic bag. “Is this the only evidence they bagged at the Kent house?”
    Ferras looked up.
    “It’s the only bag they gave me. Did you check the evidence log? It should be in there. Maybe they’re still processing some stuff.”
    Bosch looked through the documents Ferras had obtained until he found the forensic evidence log. Every item removed from a crime scene by the technicians was always entered on the log. It helped track the chain of evidence.
    He found the log and noticed that it included several items removed by technicians from the Kent house, most of them tiny hair and fiber specimens. This was to be expected, though there was no telling if any of the specimens was related to the suspects. But in all his years working cases Bosch had yet to come across the immaculate crime scene. Plain and simple, it was a basic law of nature that when a crime takes place it always leaves its mark—no matter how small—on the environment. There is always a transfer. It is just a matter of finding it.
    On the list each snap tie had been individually entered and these were followed by numerous hair and fiber specimens extracted from locations ranging from the master bedroom carpet to the sink trap in the guest bathroom. The mouse pad from the office computer was on the list as well as a Nikon camera’s lens cap which had been found beneath the bed in the master bedroom. The last entry on the list was the most interesting to Bosch. The evidence was simply described as a cigarette ash.
    Bosch could not think what value as evidence a cigarette ash could be.
    “Is anybody still up there in SID from the Kent house search?” he asked Ferras.
    “There was a half hour ago,” Ferras answered. “Buzz Yates and the latents woman whose name I always forget.”
    Bosch picked up the phone and called the SID office.
    “Scientific Investigation Division, Yates.”
    “Buzz, just the guy I wanted to talk to.”
    “Who’s this?”
    “Harry Bosch. On the search of the Kent house, tell me about this cigarette ash you collected.”
    “Oh, yeah, that was a cigarette that had burned down to just the ash. The FBI agent who was there asked me to collect it.”
    “Where was it?”
    “She found it on top of the toilet tank in the guest bedroom. Like somebody had put their smoke down while they took a leak and then forgot about it. It burned all the way through and then out.”
    “So it was just ashes when she found it?”
    “Right. A gray caterpillar. But she wanted us to collect it for her. She said their lab might be able to do something with—”
    “Wait a minute, Buzz. You gave her the evidence?”
    “Well, sort of. Yeah. She—”
    “What do you mean ‘sort of’? You either did or you didn’t. Did you give Agent Walling the cigarette ashes you collected from my crime scene?”
    “Yes,” Yates conceded. “But not without a lot of discussion and assurances, Harry. She said the bureau’s science lab could analyze the ashes and determine the type of tobacco, which would then allow them to determine country of origin. We can’t do anything like that, Harry. We can’t even touch that. She said it would be important to the investigation because they might be dealing with terrorists from outside the country. So I went along with it. She told me that once she worked an arson case where they found a single ash from the cigarette that lit the fire. They were able to tell what brand and that tied it to a specific