Echo Park by Michael Connelly

spelled R - e - y instead of R - a - y. ”
    Bosch shook his head. This was coming from left field. He hadn’t even been thinking about the name.
    “No, what is it?”
    “It’s a name for a young male fox. A young female is a vixen and the male is a reynard. I studied European folklore in college—back when I thought I wanted to be a diplomat. In medieval French folklore there is a character that is a fox named Reynard. He is a trickster. There are stories and epics about the scheming fox named Reynard. The character has appeared repeatedly through the centuries in books—children’s books mostly. You can Google it when you get back to the office and I am sure you will get many hits.”
    Bosch nodded. He wasn’t going to tell her he didn’t know how to Google. He barely knew how to e-mail his eight-year-old daughter. She tapped a finger on the stack of files.
    “A young fox would be a small fox,” she said. “In the description Mr. Waits is small in stature. You take it all in context of the full name and—”
    “The little fox waits,” Bosch said. “The young fox waits. The trickster waits.”
    “For the vixen. Maybe that’s how he saw it with his victims.”
    Bosch nodded. He was impressed.
    “We missed that. I can do some checking on the ID as soon as I get back.”
    “And hopefully I will have more for you tonight.”
    She went back to eating and Bosch went back to watching her.

6
    A S SOON AS BOSCH dropped Rachel Walling at her car he opened his phone and called his partner. Rider reported that she was finishing up the paperwork on the Matarese case and that they would soon be good to go on it and able to file charges at the DA’s office the following day.
    “Good. Anything else?”
    “I got the box on Fitzpatrick from Evidence Archives and it turned out to be two boxes.”
    “Containing what?”
    “Mostly old pawn records that I can tell were never even looked at. They were sopping wet back then from when the fire was put out. The guys from Riot Crimes put them in plastic tubs and they’ve been moldering in them ever since. And, man, do they stink.”
    Bosch nodded as he computed this. It was a dead end and it didn’t matter. Raynard Waits was about to confess to the killing of Daniel Fitzpatrick anyway. He could tell that Rider was looking at it the same way. An uncoerced confession is a royal flush. It beats everything.
    “Have you heard from Olivas or O’Shea?” Rider asked.
    “Not yet. I was going to call Olivas but wanted to talk to you first. Do you know anybody in city licensing?”
    “No, but if you want me to call over there I can in the morning. They’re closed now. What are you looking for?”
    Bosch checked his watch. He didn’t realize how late it had gotten. He guessed that the omelet at Duffy’s was going to count as breakfast, lunch and dinner.
    “I was thinking we should run Waits’s business and see how long he’s had it, whether there were ever any complaints, that sort of thing. Olivas and his partner should have done it but there is nothing in the files about it.”
    She was silent for a while before speaking.
    “You think that could have been the connection to the High Tower?”
    “Maybe. Or maybe to Marie. She had a nice big picture window in her apartment. It isn’t something I remember coming up back then. But maybe we missed it.”
    “Harry, you never miss a thing, but I’ll get on it right away.”
    “The other thing is the guy’s name. It could be phony.”
    “How so?”
    He told her about contacting Rachel Walling and asking her to look at the files. This was initially met with resounding silence because Bosch had crossed one of those invisible LAPD lines by inviting the FBI into the case without command approval, even if the invitation to Walling was unofficial. But when Bosch told Rider about Reynard the Fox she dropped her silence and became skeptical.
    “You think our window-washing serial killer was schooled in medieval folklore?”
    “I