“What is it you think it might be?” he asked.

“I’ll tell you when I can tell you. Can I please see the scene?”

Reluctantly, Bosch lifted the crime scene tape and returned her perfunctory attitude with his standard sarcasm.

“Come on in, then, Agent Walling,” he said. “Why don’t you just make yourself at home?”

She stepped under and stopped, at least respecting his right to lead her to his crime scene.

“I actually might be able to help you here,” she said. “If I can see the body I might be able to make a formal identification for you.”

She held up a file that she had been carrying down at her side.

“This way, then,” Bosch said.

He led her to the clearing, where the victim was cast in the sterilizing fluorescent light from the mobile units. The dead man was lying on the orange dirt about five feet from the drop-off at the edge of the overlook. Beyond the body and over the edge the moonlight reflected off the reservoir below. Past the dam the city spread out in a blanket of a million lights. The cool evening air made the lights shimmer like floating dreams.

Bosch put out his arm to stop Walling at the edge of the light circle. The victim had been rolled over by the medical examiner and was now faceup. There were abrasions on the dead man’s face and forehead but Bosch thought he could recognize the man in the photos on the hospital tags in the glove box. Stanley Kent. His shirt was open, exposing a hairless chest of pale white skin. There was an incision mark on one side of the torso where the medical examiner had pushed a temperature probe into the liver.

“Evening, Harry,” said Joe Felton, the medical examiner. “Or I guess I should say, good morning. Who’s your friend there? I thought they teamed you with Iggy Ferras.”