“You guys can clear if you have other calls,” Bosch said. “I can take it from here.”

Edgewood nodded and signaled his partner out.

“Thank you, Doctor,” he said as he went.

“Don’t mention it.”

Bosch thought of something.

“Hey, guys?”

Edgewood and Brasher turned back.

“Let’s keep this off the air, okay?”

“You got it,” said Brasher, her eyes holding on Bosch’s until he looked away.

After the officers left, Bosch looked back at the doctor and noticed that the facial tremor was slightly more pronounced now.

“They didn’t believe me at first either,” he said.

“It’s just that we get a lot of calls like this. But I believe you, Doctor, so why don’t you continue with the story?”

Guyot nodded.

“Well, I was up on the circle and I took off the leash. She went up into the woods like she likes to do. She’s well trained. When I whistle she comes back. Trouble is, I can’t whistle very loud anymore. So if she goes where she can’t hear me, then I have to wait, you see.”

“What happened today when she found the bone?”

“I whistled and she didn’t come back.”

“So she was pretty far up there.”

“Yes, exactly. I waited. I whistled a few more times, and then finally she came down out of the woods next to Mr. Ulrich’s house. She had the bone. In her mouth. At first I thought it was a stick, you see, and that she wanted to play fetch with it. But as she came to me I recognized the shape. I took it from her-had a fight over that- and then I called you people after I examined it here and was sure.”

You people, Bosch thought. It was always said like that, as if the police were another species. The blue species which carried armor that the horrors of the world could not pierce.

“When you called you told the sergeant that the bone had a fracture.”

“Absolutely.”

Guyot picked up the bone again, handling it gently. He turned it and ran his finger along a vertical striation along the bone’s surface.