Echo Park by Michael Connelly Page B

over with Rick.”
    Bosch let that float out there without a response.
    “Anything else?” Olivas asked.
    “Yeah, I have a question,” Bosch said. “Where’s your partner in all of this, Olivas? What happened to Colbert?”
    “He’s in Hawaii. He’ll be back next week. If this thing carries over till then he’ll be part of it.”
    Bosch wondered if Colbert even knew what was happening or that he was missing out on a potentially career-making case while he was off on vacation. From everything Bosch knew about Olivas, there would be no surprise if he was scheming to ace out his own partner on a glory case.
    “Ten o’clock, then?” Bosch asked.
    “Ten.”
    “Anything else I should know, Olivas?”
    He was curious about why Olivas was at the DA’s office but didn’t want to directly ask why.
    “Matter of fact, there is one more thing. Sort of a delicate thing, you could say. I’ve been talking to Rick about it.”
    “What’s that?”
    “Well, take a guess at what I’m looking at here.”
    Bosch blew out his breath. Olivas was going to string it out. Bosch had known him less than one day and already knew without a doubt that he didn’t like the man and never would.
    “I have no idea, Olivas. What?”
    “Your fifty-ones from Gesto.”
    He was referring to the Investigative Chronology, a master listing kept by date and time of all aspects of a case, ranging from an accounting of detectives’ time and movements to notations on routine phone calls and messages to media inquiries and tips from citizens. Usually, these were handwritten with all manner of shorthand and abbreviations employed as they were updated throughout each day, sometimes hourly. Then, when a page became full, it was typed up on a form called a 51, which would be complete and legible when and if the case ever moved into the courts, and lawyers, judges and juries needed to review the investigative files. The original handwritten pages were then discarded.
    “What about them?” Bosch asked.
    “I’m looking at the last line on page fourteen. The listing is for September twenty-ninth, nineteen ninety-three, at six-forty p.m. Must’ve been quitting time. The initials on the entry are JE.”
    Bosch felt the bile rising in his throat. Whatever it was Olivas was getting at, he was enjoying milking it.
    “Obviously,” he said impatiently, “that would’ve been my partner at the time, Jerry Edgar. What’s the entry say, Olivas?”
    “It says . . . I’ll just read it. It says, ‘Robert Saxon DOB eleven/three/’seventy-one. Saw Times story. Was at Mayfair and saw MG alone. Nobody following.’ It gives Saxon’s phone number and that’s all it says. But that’s enough, Hotshot. You know what it means?”
    Bosch did. He had just given the name Robert Saxon to Kiz Rider to background. It was either an alias or perhaps the real name of the man known currently as Raynard Waits. That name on the 51s now connected Waits to the Gesto case. It also meant that thirteen years ago Bosch and Edgar had at least a shot at Waits/Saxon. But for reasons he didn’t recall or didn’t know about they never took it. He did not recall the specific entry in the 51s. There were dozens of pages in the Investigative Chronology filled with one- and two-line entries. Remembering them all—even with his frequent returns to the investigation over the years—would have been impossible.
    It took him a long moment to find his voice.
    “That’s the only mention in the murder book?” he asked.
    “That I’ve seen,” Olivas said. “I’ve been through everything twice. I even missed it the first time through. Then the second time I said, ‘Hey, I know that name.’ It’s an alias Waits used back in the early nineties. It should be in the files you have.”
    “I know. I saw it.”
    “It meant he called you guys, Bosch. The killer called you, and you and your partner blew it. Looks like nobody ever followed up with him or ran his name through the box. You had