The Black Echo

He went into the walk-in closet. He found only a quarter of the available space used. On the floor were two pairs of shoes, a pair of black Reebok running shoes that were dirty with sand and gray dust, and a pair of laced work boots that looked as though they had been recently cleaned and oiled. There was more of the gray dust from the shoes in the carpet. He crouched down and pinched some between his fingers. It seemed like concrete dust. He took a small evidence bag from his pocket and put some of the granules into it. Then he put the bag away and stood up. There were five shirts on hangers, a single white button-down oxford and four long-sleeved black pullovers, like the one Meadows had been wearing. On hangers next to the shirts were two pairs of well-faded jeans and two pairs of black pajamas or karate-style pants. The pockets on all four pairs of pants had been turned inside out. A plastic laundry basket on the floor contained dirty black pants, T-shirts, socks and a pair of boxer shorts.

Bosch walked out of the closet and left the bedroom. He stopped in the hallway bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet. There was a half-used tube of toothpaste, a bottle of aspirin and a single, empty insulin syringe box. When he closed the cabinet, he looked at himself and saw weariness in his eyes. He smoothed his hair.

Harry walked back to the living room and sat on the couch, in front of the unfinished solitaire hand. Edgar came in.

“Meadows rented the place last July first,” he said. “The landlady’s back. It was supposed to be a month-to-month lease but he paid for eleven months up front. Four bills a month. That’s nearly five grand in cash he put down. Said she didn’t ask him for references. She just took the money. He lived-”

“She said he paid for eleven months?” Bosch interrupted. “Was it a deal, pay for eleven, get the twelfth free?”

“Nah, I asked her about that and she said no, it was him. That’s just the way he wanted to pay. Said he’d move out June first, this year. That’s-what-ten days from now? She said he told her he moved out here on some kind of job, she thinks from Phoenix. Said he was some kind of shift supervisor for the tunnel dig on the subway project downtown. She got the impression that’s all his job would take, eleven months, and then he’d go back to Phoenix.”

Edgar was looking in his notebook, reviewing his conversation with the landlady.

“That’s about it. She ID’d him off the Polaroid, too. She also knew him as Fields. Bill Fields. Said he kept odd hours, like he was on a night shift or something. Said she saw him last week coming home one morning, getting dropped off from a beige or tan Jeep. No license number because she wasn’t looking. But she said he was all dirty, that’s how she knew he was coming home from work.”

They were silent for a few moments, both thinking.

Bosch finally said, “J. Edgar, I have a deal for you.”

“You got a deal for me? Okay, let me hear it.”

“You go home now or back to your open house or whatever. I’ll take this from here. I’ll go pull the tape at the com center, go back to the office and start the paper going. I’ll see if Sakai made next-of-kin notification. I think, if I remember right, that Meadows was from Louisiana. Anyway, I’ve got the autopsy skedded for tomorrow at eight. I’ll take that, too, on my way in.

“Now, your end is tomorrow you finish up last night’s TV thing and take it over to the DA. Shouldn’t be any problems with it.”

“So you’re taking the end that’s dipped in shit and letting me skate. The transvestite-offs-transvestite case is as cut and dried as they come. No pun intended.”

“Yeah. There’s one thing I’d also want. On your way in from the Valley tomorrow, stop by the VA in Sepulveda and see if you can talk them into letting you see Meadows’s file. Might have some names that could help. Like I said before, he was supposedly talking to a shrink in the outpatient care unit and in one of those circle jerks. Maybe one of those guys was spiking with him, knows what happened here. It’s a long shot, I know. If they give you a hard time, give me a call and I’ll work on a search warrant.”

“Sounds like a deal. But I’m worried about you, Harry. I mean, you and I haven’t been partners too long, and I know you probably want to work your way back downtown to Robbery-Homicide, but I don’t see the percentage in busting your balls on this one. Yeah, this place has been turned over, but that isn’t the question. The question is why. And on the face of things, nothing really stirs me. It looks to me like somebody dumped Meadows down at the reservoir after he croaked and searched his place to find his stash. If he had one.”

“Probably that’s the way it was,” Bosch said after a few moments. “But a couple things still bother me. I want to puzzle with it a little more until I’m sure.”

“Well, like I said, no problem with me. You’re giving me the clean end of the stick.”