Harry walked back to the living room and sat on the couch, in front of the unfinished solitaire hand. Edgar came in.

“Meadows rented the place last July first,” he said. “The landlady’s back. It was supposed to be a month-to-month lease but he paid for eleven months up front. Four bills a month. That’s nearly five grand in cash he put down. Said she didn’t ask him for references. She just took the money. He lived-”

“She said he paid for eleven months?” Bosch interrupted. “Was it a deal, pay for eleven, get the twelfth free?”

“Nah, I asked her about that and she said no, it was him. That’s just the way he wanted to pay. Said he’d move out June first, this year. That’s-what-ten days from now? She said he told her he moved out here on some kind of job, she thinks from Phoenix. Said he was some kind of shift supervisor for the tunnel dig on the subway project downtown. She got the impression that’s all his job would take, eleven months, and then he’d go back to Phoenix.”

Edgar was looking in his notebook, reviewing his conversation with the landlady.

“That’s about it. She ID’d him off the Polaroid, too. She also knew him as Fields. Bill Fields. Said he kept odd hours, like he was on a night shift or something. Said she saw him last week coming home one morning, getting dropped off from a beige or tan Jeep. No license number because she wasn’t looking. But she said he was all dirty, that’s how she knew he was coming home from work.”

They were silent for a few moments, both thinking.

Bosch finally said, “J. Edgar, I have a deal for you.”

“You got a deal for me? Okay, let me hear it.”

“You go home now or back to your open house or whatever. I’ll take this from here. I’ll go pull the tape at the com center, go back to the office and start the paper going. I’ll see if Sakai made next-of-kin notification. I think, if I remember right, that Meadows was from Louisiana. Anyway, I’ve got the autopsy skedded for tomorrow at eight. I’ll take that, too, on my way in.