There was a pool in the center courtyard but it had long been filled in with sand and dirt. Now the courtyard consisted of a kidney-shaped plot of brown grass surrounded by dirty concrete. Meadows had lived in an upstairs corner apartment. Bosch could hear the steady drone of the freeway as he climbed the stairs and moved along the walkway that fronted the apartments. The door to 7B was unlocked and it opened into a small living room-dining room-kitchen. Edgar was leaning against a counter, writing in his notebook. He said, “Nice place, huh?”

“Yeah,” Bosch said and looked around. “Nobody home?”

“Nah. I checked with a neighbor next door and she hadn’t seen anybody around since the day before yesterday. Said the guy that lived here told her his name was Fields, not Meadows. Cute, huh? She said he lived all by himself. Been here about a year, kept to himself, mostly. That’s all she knew.”

“You show her the picture?”

“Yeah, she made him. Didn’t like looking at a picture of a dead guy, though.”

Bosch walked into a short hallway that led to a bathroom and a bedroom. He said, “You pick the door?”

“Nah-it was unlocked. No shit, I knock a couple times and I’m fixing to get my pouch outta the car and finesse the lock when, for the hell of it, I try the door.”

“And it opens.”

“It opens.”

“You talk to the landlord?”

“Landlady’s not around. Supposed to be, but maybe she went out to eat lunch or score some horse. I think everybody I seen around here is a spiker.”

Bosch came back into the living room and looked around. There wasn’t much. A couch covered with green vinyl was pushed against one wall, a stuffed chair was against the opposite wall with a small color television on the carpet next to it. There was a Formica-topped table with three chairs around it in the dining room.