The Overlook by Michael Connelly Page B

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 left-handed.”
    “How?”
    “Because the print on the wall was a right palm. They figured a guy holds his tool with his preferred hand while taking a leak.”
    Ferras nodded in agreement.
    “So they matched the palm to a suspect?”
    “Yeah, but only after thirty years. We cleared it last year in Open-Unsolved. Not a lot of palms in the data banks back then. My partner and I came across the case and sent the palm through the box. We got a hit. We traced the guy to Ten Thousand Palms in the desert and went out there to get him. He pulled a gun and killed himself before we could make the arrest.”
    “Wow.”
    “Yeah. I always thought it was weird, you know?”
    “What? Him killing himself?”
    “No, not that. I thought it was kind of weird that we traced his palm to Ten Thousand Palms.”
    “Oh, yeah. Ironic. So you didn’t get a chance to talk to him?”
    “Not really. But we were sure it was him. And I sort of took his killing himself in front of us as an admission of guilt.”
    “No, yeah, of course. I just mean I would’ve liked to talk to the guy and ask him why he killed the dog, that’s all.”
    Bosch stared at his partner for a moment.
    “I think if we had talked, we would have been more interested in why he killed the woman.”
    “Yeah, I know. I was just wondering, why the dog, you know?”
    “I think he thought the dog might be able to identify him. Like the dog knew him and would react in his presence. He didn’t want to risk it.”
    Ferras nodded like he accepted the explanation. Bosch had just made it up. The question about the dog had never come up during the investigation.
    Ferras went back to his work, and Bosch leaned back in his chair and considered things about the case at hand. At the moment, it was a jumble of thoughts and questions. And once again most prominent in his mind was the basic question of why Stanley Kent was killed. Alicia Kent said the two men who held her captive had worn ski masks. Jesse Mitford said he thought the man he saw kill Kent on the overlook was wearing a ski mask. To Bosch this begged the questions why shoot Stanley Kent if he couldn’t even identify you? and why wear the mask if the plan all along was to kill him? He supposed that wearing the mask could have been a ploy to falsely reassure Kent and to make him cooperative. But that conclusion didn’t feel right to him either.
    Once more he put the questions aside, deciding that he didn’t have enough information yet to properly go at them. He drank some coffee and got ready to take another shot at Jesse Mitford in the interview room. But first he pulled out his phone. He still had Rachel Walling’s number from the Echo Park case. He had decided never to delete it.
    He pushed the button and called the number, preparing for it to have been disconnected by her. The number was still good but when he heard her voice it was a recording telling him to leave a message after the beep.
    “It’s Harry Bosch,” he said. “I need to talk to you about things and I want my cigarette ashes back. That crime scene was mine.”
    He hung up. He knew the message would annoy her, maybe even make her mad. He knew that he was inextricably heading toward a confrontation with Rachel and the bureau that probably wasn’t necessary and could easily be avoided.
    But Bosch couldn’t bring himself to roll over. Not even for Rachel and the memory of what they once had. Not even for the hope of a future