Porter had scribbled a star on the top of one of the statements. It was from a fry cook who had reported to work at 1A.M. and had walked right past the east side of the Dumpster and through the kitchen door. He had seen no body on the ground and was sure he would have seen one if there had been one to see when he made his entrance.
That had helped Porter set the timing of the slaying to sometime during the forty-four-minute window between the arrivals of the fry cook and the police officer who found the body.
Next in the file were printouts from LAPD, National Crime Index, California Department of Justice, and Immigration and Naturalization Service computer runs on the victim’s fingerprints. All four were negative. No matches. Juan Doe #67 remained unidentified.
At the back of the binder were notes Porter had taken during the autopsy, which had not been conducted until Tuesday, Christmas Eve, because of the usual backlog of cases at the coroner’s office. Bosch realized that it might have been Porter’s last official duty to watch one more body be cut up. He didn’t come back to work after the holiday.
Perhaps Porter knew he would not return, for his notes were sparse, just a single page with a few thoughts jotted down. Some of them Bosch could not read. Other notes he could understand but they were meaningless. But near the bottom of the page Porter had circled a notation that said, “TOD-12 to 6P.M.”
Bosch knew the notation meant that, based on the rate of decrease in liver temperature and other appearances of the body, the time of death was likely to have been between noon and 6P.M., but no later than 6P.M.
This did not make sense, Bosch thought at first. That put the time of death at least seven and a half hours before the discovery of the body. It also did not jibe with the fry cook not seeing any body by the Dumpster at 1A.M.
These contradictions were the reason Porter had circled the notation. It meant Juan Doe #67 had not been killed behind the diner. It meant he was killed somewhere else, nearly half a day earlier, and then dumped behind the diner.
He took a notebook out of his pocket and began to make a list of people he wanted to talk to. First on the list was the doctor who had performed the autopsy; Harry needed to get the completed autopsy protocol. Then he noted Porter down for a more detailed interview. After that he wrote the fry cook’s name on the list because Porter’s notes only said the cook did not see a body on the ground while going to work. There was nothing about whether the cook saw anybody else or anything unusual in the alley. He also made a note to check with the waitresses who had been on duty that morning.
To complete his list, Bosch had to pick up the phone and call the watch commander’s office.
“I want to talk to eleven-oh-one,” Bosch said. “Can you look it up on the board there and tell me who that is?”
It was Kleinman again. He said, “Very funny, smart guy.”
“What?” Bosch said, but at that moment it struck him. “Is it Cal Moore?”
“Was Cal Moore. Was.”
Harry hung up the phone as several thoughts crowded into his brain at once. Juan Doe #67 had been found on the day before Moore checked into the Hideaway. He tried to piece out what this could mean. Moore stumbles onto a body in an alley early one morning. The next day he checks into a motel, turns up the air-conditioner and puts two barrels of double-ought buckshot into his face. The message he leaves behind is as simple as it is mysterious.
I found out who I was
Bosch lit a cigarette and crossed #1101 off his list, but he continued to center his thoughts on this latest piece of information. He felt impatient, bothered. He fidgeted in the chair, then stood up and began to walk in a circle around the table. He worked Porter into the framework this development provided and ran through it several times. Each time it was the same: Porter gets the call out on the Juan Doe #67 case. He obviously would have had to talk to Moore at the scene. The next day Moore disappears. The next week Moore is found dead, and then the next day Porter announces he is getting a doctor and is pulling the pin. Too many coincidences.
He picked up the phone and called the homicide table. Edgar answered and Harry asked him to reach across the table and check his Rolodex for Porter’s home number. Edgar gave it to him and said, “Harry, where you at?”
“Why, Ninety-eight looking for me?”
“Nah. One of the guys from Moore ’s unit called a few minutes ago. Said he was looking for you.”
“Yeah, why?”
“Hey, Harry, I’m only passing on the message, not doing your job for you.”
“Okay, okay. Which one called?”
“Rickard. He just asked me to tell you they had something for you. I gave him your pager number ’cause I didn’t know if you were coming back anytime soon. So, where you at?”
“Nowhere.”
He hung up and dialed Porter’s house. The phone rang ten times. Harry hung up and lit another cigarette. He didn’t know what to think about all of this. Could Moore have simply stumbled onto the body as it said in the report? Could he have dumped it there? Bosch had no clues.
“Nowhere,” he said aloud to the room full of storage boxes.
He picked up the phone again and dialed the medical examiner’s office. He gave his name and asked to be connected to Dr. Corazón, the acting chief. Harry refused to say what the call was about to the operator. The phone was dead for nearly a minute before Corazón picked up.
“I’m in the middle of something here,” she said.
“Merry Christmas to you, too.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s the Moore cut?”
“Yes, but I can’t talk about it. What do you need, Harry?”
“I just inherited a case and there’s no autopsy in the file. I’m trying to find out who did it so I can get a copy.”
“Harry, you don’t need to ask for the acting chief to track that. You could ask any of the investigators I have sitting around here on their asses.”
“Yeah, but they aren’t as sweet to me as you.”
“Okay, hurry up, what’s the name?”
“Juan Doe #67. Date of death was the eighteenth. The cut was the twenty-fourth.”
She said nothing and Bosch assumed she was checking a scheduling chart.
“Yeah,” she said after a half minute. “The twenty-fourth. That was Salazar and he’s gone now. Vacation. That was his last autopsy until next month. He went to Australia. It’s summer there.”
“Shit.”
“Don’t fret, Harry. I have the package right here. Sally expected Lou Porter would be by to pick it up today. But Lou never came. How’d you inherit it?”
“Lou pulled the pin.”
“Jeez, that was kind of quick. What’s his-hold on-”
She didn’t wait for him to say he would. This time she was gone more than a minute. When she came back, her voice had a higher pitch to it.
“Harry, I really’ve got to go. Tell you what, wanna meet me after work? By then I’ll’ve had some time to reach through this and I’ll tell you what we’ve got. I just remembered that there is something kind of interesting here. Salazar came to me for a referral approval.”
“Referral to what?”
“An entomologist-a bug doctor-over at UCLA. Sally found bugs.”
Bosch already knew that maggots would not have bred in a body dead twelve hours at the most. And Salazar would not have needed an entomologist to identify them anyway.
“Bugs,” he said.
“Yeah. In the stomach content analysis and nasal swabs. But I don’t have time at the moment to discuss this. I’ve got four impatient men in the autopsy suite waiting for me. And only one of ’em is dead.”
“I guess that would make the live ones Irving, Sheehan and Chastain, the three musketeers.”