Michael Connelly Read Online Free PDF Page B

The needle gets them all in the end.
     Just like this guy in the pipe.”
    Bosch turned and looked around to make sure none of the uniforms were watching and listening. Then he turned back to Sakai’s
     face.
    “Just tell him I’ll be by there later,” he said quietly. “If he doesn’t find anything on the prelim, then fine, you can stick
     the body at the end of the line in the hall, or you can park it down at the gas station on Lankershim. I won’t care then,
     Larry. But you tell him. It’s his decision, not yours.”
    Bosch dropped his hand from the door and stepped back. Sakai got in the van and slammed the door. He started the engine and
     looked at Bosch through the window for a long moment before rolling it down.
    “Bosch, you’re a pain in the ass. Tomorrow morning. It’s the best I can do. Today is no way.”
    “First cut of the day?”
    “Just leave us alone today, okay?”
    “First cut?”
    “Yeah. Yeah. First cut.”
    “Sure, I’ll leave you alone. See you tomorrow, then.”
    “Not me, man. I’ll be sleeping.”
    Sakai rolled the window back up and the van moved away. Bosch stepped back to let it pass, and when it was gone he was left
     staring at the pipe. It was really for the first time then that he noticed the graffiti. Not that he hadn’t seen that the
     exterior of the pipe was literally covered with painted messages, but this time he looked at the individual scrawls. Many
     were old, faded together — a tableau of letters spelling threats either long forgotten or since made good. There were slogans:
     Abandon LA. There were names: Ozone, Bomber, Stryker, many others. One of the fresher tags caught his eye. It was just three
     letters, about twelve feet from the end of the pipe —
Sha.
The three letters had been painted in one fluid motion. The top of the S was jagged and then contoured, giving the impression
     of a mouth. A gaping maw. There were no teeth but Bosch could sense them. It was as though the work wasn’t completed. Still,
     it was good work, original and clean. He aimed the Polaroid at it and took a photo.
    Bosch walked to the police van, putting the exposure in his pocket. Donovan was stowing his equipment on shelves and the evidence
     bags in wooden Napa Valley wine boxes.
    “Did you find any burned matches in there?”
    “Yeah, one fresh one,” Donovan said. “Burned to the end. It was about ten feet in. It’s there on the chart.”
    Bosch picked up a clipboard on which there was a piece of paper with a diagram of the pipe showing the body location and where
     the other material taken from the pipe had been. Bosch noticed that the match was found about fifteen feet from the body.
     Donovan then showed him the match, sitting at the bottom of its own plastic evidence bag. “I’ll let you know if it matches
     the book in the guy’s kit,” he said. “If that’s what you’re thinking.”
    Bosch said, “What about the uniforms? What’d they find?”
    “It’s all there,” Donovan said, pointing to a wooden bin in which there were still more plastic evidence bags. These contained
     debris picked up by patrol officers who had searched the area within a fifty-yard radius of the pipe. Each bag contained a
     description of the location where the object had been found. Bosch took each bag out and examined its contents. Most of it
     was junk that would have nothing to do with the body in the pipe. There were newspapers, clothing rags, a high-heeled shoe,
     a white sock with dried blue paint in it. A sniff rag.
    Bosch picked up a bag containing the top to a can of spray paint. The next bag contained the spray paint can. The Krylon label
     said it was Ocean Blue. Bosch hefted the bag and could tell there was still paint in the can. He carried the bag to the pipe,
     opened it and, touching the nozzle with a pen, sprayed a line of blue next to the letters
Sha.
He sprayed too much. The paint ran down the curved side of the pipe and dripped onto the gravel. But Bosch could