City of Bones by Michael Connelly Page B

another shot from Mankiewicz.
    “What?”
    “Just stop fooling around and wrap up your case. I’m tired of my guys having to take all the calls.”
    There was a facetious tone in his voice. In his humor and sarcasm was a legitimate complaint about his officers on the desk being tied up by the tip calls.
    “Yeah, I know. Any good ones today?”
    “Not that I could tell, but you’ll get to slog through the reports and use your investigative wiles to decide that.”
    “Wiles?”
    “Yes, wiles. Like Wile E. Coyote. Oh, and CNN must’ve had a slow morning and picked up the story—good video, all you brave guys on the hill with your makeshift stairs and little boxes of bones. So now we’re getting the long-distance calls. Topeka and Providence so far this morning. It’s not going to end until you clear it, Harry. We’re all counting on you back here.”
    Again there was a smile—and a message—behind what he was saying.
    “All right, I’ll use all my wiles. I promise, Mank.”
    “That’s what we’re counting on.”
    Back at the table Bosch sipped his coffee and let the details of the case move through his mind. There were anomalies, contradictions. There were the conflicts between location choice and method of burial noticed by Kathy Kohl. But the conclusions made by Golliher added even more to the list of questions. Golliher saw it as a child abuse case. But the backpack full of clothes was an indication that the victim, the boy, was possibly a runaway.
    Bosch had spoken to Edgar about it the day before when they returned to the station from the SID lab. His partner was not as sure of the conflict as Bosch but offered a theory that perhaps the boy was the victim of child abuse both at the hands of his parents and then an unrelated killer. He rightfully pointed out that many victims of abuse run away only to be drawn into another form of abusive relationship. Bosch knew the theory was legitimate but tried not to let himself go down that road because he knew it was even more depressing than the scenario Golliher had spun.
    His direct line rang and Bosch answered, expecting it to be Edgar or Lt. Billets checking in. It was a reporter from the L.A. Times named Josh Meyer. Bosch barely knew him and was sure he’d never given him the direct line. He didn’t let on that he was annoyed, however. Though tempted to tell the reporter that the police were running down leads extending as far as Topeka and Providence, he simply said there was no further update on the investigation since Friday’s briefing from the Media Relations office.
    After he hung up he finished his first cup of coffee and got down to work. The part of an investigation Bosch enjoyed the least was the computer work. Whenever possible he gave it to his partners to handle. So he decided to put the computer runs at the end of his list and started with a quick look through the accumulated tip sheets from the watch office.
    There were about three dozen more sheets since he had last looked through the pile on Friday. None contained enough information to be helpful or worth pursuing at the moment. Each was from a parent or sibling or friend of someone who had disappeared. All of them permanently forlorn and seeking some kind of closure to the most pressing mystery of their lives.
    He thought of something and rolled his chair over to one of the old IBM Selectrics. He inserted a sheet of paper and typed out four questions.
     
Do you know if your missing loved one underwent any kind of surgical procedure in the months before his disappearance?
If so, what hospital was he treated at?
What was the injury?
What was the name of his physician?
     
    He rolled the page out and took it to the watch office. He gave it to Mankiewicz to be used as a template of questions to be asked of all callers about the bones.
    “That wily enough for you?” Bosch asked.
    “No, but it’s a start.”
    While he was there Bosch took a plastic cup and filled it with coffee and then