Earlier, the aerial unit had locked in on the sagebrush Bosch had wrapped in yellow crime scene tape and used it as a base point to determine that Wonderland offered the closest access to the spot where Bosch had found the bones. The Special Services unit then swung into action. Following the trail of crime scene tape up the hillside, the six-man team hammered and strung together a series of wooden ramps and steps with rope guidelines that led up the hillside to the bones. Accessing and exiting the site would now be much easier than it had been for Bosch the evening before.

It was impossible to keep such a nest of police activity quiet. Also by 9 A.M. the neighborhood had become a media encampment. The media trucks were stacked behind the roadblocks set a half block from the turnaround circle. The reporters were gathering into press conference-sized groups. And no fewer than five news helicopters were circling at an altitude above the department’s chopper. It all created a background cacophony that had already resulted in numerous complaints from residents on the street to police administrators at Parker Center downtown.

Bosch was getting ready to lead the first group up to the crime scene. He first conferred with Jerry Edgar, who had been apprised of the case the night before.

“All right, we’re going to take the ME and SID up first,” he said, pronouncing the acronyms as Emmy and Sid. “Then we’ll take the cadets and the dogs up. I want you to oversee that part of it.”

“No problem. You see your pal the ME’s got her damn cameraman with her?”

“Nothing we can do about it at the moment. Let’s just hope she gets bored and goes back downtown, where she belongs.”