Moore nodded silently once more. Harry put down two twenty-dollar bills that he hoped would cover the tab and still leave something for the bartender. Then he walked out.
He never saw Moore again.
Bosch connected with the Antelope Valley Freeway and headed northeast. On the Sand Canyon overpass he looked across the freeway and saw a white TV van heading south. There was a large9 painted on its side. It meant Moore ’s wife would already know by the time Bosch arrived. And Bosch felt a slight twinge of guilt at that, mixed with relief that he would not be the one breaking the news.
The thought made him realize that he did not know the widow’s name. Irving had given him only an address, apparently assuming Bosch knew her name. As he turned off the freeway onto the Sierra Highway, he tried to recall the newspaper stories he had read during the week. They had carried her name.
But it didn’t come to him. He remembered that she was a teacher-an English teacher, he thought-at a high school in the Valley. He remembered that the reports said they had no children. And he remembered that she had been separated a few months from her husband. But the name, her name, eluded him.
He turned on to Del Prado, watched the numbers painted on the curbs and then finally pulled to a stop in front of the house that had once been Cal Moore’s home.
It was a common ranch-style home, the kind minted by the hundreds in the planned communities that fed the freeways to overflow each morning. It looked large, like maybe four bedrooms, and Bosch thought that was odd for a childless couple. Maybe there had been plans at one time.
The light above the front door was not on. No one was expected. No one was wanted. Still, in the moonlight and shadow, Bosch could see the front lawn and knew that the mower was at least a month past due. The tall grass surrounded the post of the white Ritenbaugh Realty sign that was planted near the sidewalk.
There were no cars in the driveway and the garage door was closed, its two windows dark empty sockets. A single dim light shone from behind the curtained picture window next to the front door. He wondered what she would be like and if she would feel guilt or anger. Or both.
He threw his cigarette into the street and then got out and stepped on it. Then he headed past the sad-looking For Sale sign to the door.
4
The mat on the porch below the front door saidWELCOME but it was worn and nobody had bothered to shake the dust off it in some time. Bosch noticed all of this because he kept his head down after knocking. He knew that looking at anything would be better than looking at this woman.
Her voice answered after his second knock.
“Go away. No comment.”
Bosch had to smile, thinking how he had used that one himself tonight.
“Hello, Mrs. Moore? I’m not a reporter. I’m with the L.A. police.”
The door came open a few inches and her face was there, backlit and hidden in shadow. Bosch could see the chain lock stretching across the opening. Harry was ready with his badge case already out and opened.
“Yes?”
“Mrs. Moore?”
“Yes?”
“I am Harry Bosch. Um, I’m a detective, LAPD. And I’ve been sent out-could I come in? I need… to ask you a few questions and inform you of some, uh, developments in-”
“You’re late. I’ve had Channel 4 and 5 and 9 already out here. When you knocked I figured you were somebody else. Two or seven. I can’t think who else.”
“Can I come in, Mrs. Moore?”
He put his badge wallet away. She closed the door and he heard the chain slide out of its track. The door came open and she signaled him in with her arm. He stepped into an entryway of rust-colored Mexican tile. There was a round mirror on the wall and he saw her in it, closing and locking the door. He saw she held tissue in one hand.
“Will this take long?” she asked.
He said no and she led him to the living room, where she took a seat on an overstuffed chair covered in brown leather. It looked very comfortable and it was next to the fireplace. She motioned him toward a couch that faced the fireplace. This was where the guests always sat. The fireplace had the glowing remnants of a dying fire. On the table next to where she sat he saw a box of tissues and a stack of papers. More like reports or maybe scripts; some were in plastic covers.
“Book reports,” she said, having noticed his gaze. “I assigned books to my students with the reports due before the Christmas vacation. It was going to be my first Christmas alone and I guess I wanted to make sure I had something to keep me busy.”
Bosch nodded. He looked around the rest of the room. In his job, he learned a lot about people from their rooms, the way they lived. Often the people could no longer tell him themselves. So he learned from his observations and believed that he was good at it.
The room in which they sat was sparse. Not much furniture. It didn’t look like a lot of entertaining of friends or family happened here. There was a large bookshelf at one end of the room that was filled by hardback novels and oversized art books. No TV. No sign of children. It was a place for quiet work or fireside talks.
But no more.
In the corner opposite the fireplace was a five-foot Christmas tree with white lights and red balls, a few homemade ornaments that looked as if they might have been passed down through generations. He liked the idea that she had put up the tree by herself. She had continued her life and its routines amidst the ruins of her marriage. She had put the tree up for herself. It made him feel her strength. She had a hard shell of hurt and maybe loneliness but there was a sense of strength, too. The tree said she was the kind of woman who would survive this, would make it through. On her own. He wished he could remember her name.
“Before you start,” she said, “can I ask you something?”
The light from the reading lamp next to her chair was low wattage but he could clearly see the intensity of her brown eyes.
“Sure.”
“Did you do that on purpose? Let the reporters come up here first so you wouldn’t have to do the dirty work? That’s what my husband used to call it. Telling families. He called it the dirty work and he said the detectives always tried to get out of it.”
Bosch felt his face grow warm. There was a clock on the fireplace mantel that now seemed to be ticking very loudly in the silence. He managed to say, “I was told only a short time ago to come here. I had a little trouble finding it. I-”
He stopped. She knew.
“I’m sorry. I guess you’re right. I took my time.”
“It’s okay. I shouldn’t put you on the spot. It must be a terrible job.”
Bosch wished he had a fedora like the ones the detectives in the old movies always had; that way he could hold it in his hands and fiddle with it and let his fingers trace its brim, give him something to do. He looked at her closely now and saw the quality of damaged beauty about her. Mid-thirties, he guessed, with brown hair and blonde highlights, she seemed agile, like a runner. Clearly defined jawline above the taut muscles of her neck. She had not used makeup to try to hide the lightly etched lines that curved under her eyes. She wore blue jeans and a baggy white sweatshirt that he thought might have been her husband’s once. Bosch wondered how much of Calexico Moore she still carried in her heart.
Harry actually admired her for taking the shot at him about the dirty work. He knew he deserved it. In the three minutes he had known her he thought she reminded him of someone but he wasn’t sure who. Someone from his past maybe. There was a quiet tenderness there beside her strength. He kept bringing his eyes back to hers. They were magnets.
“Anyway, I’m Detective Harry Bosch,” he began again, hoping she might introduce herself.
“Yes, I’ve heard of you. I remember the newspaper articles. And I’m sure my husband spoke of you-I think it was when they sent you out to Hollywood Division. Couple years ago. He said before that one of the studios had paid you a lot of money to use your name and do a TV movie about a case. He said you bought one of those houses on stilts up in the hills.”