“The coroner’s guy just gave me all of this,” Edgar said. “They should be done with the body in about ten minutes.”

Bosch picked up the bag containing the ID tag and angled it toward the light. It said Saint Agatha’s Clinic for Women. On it was a photograph of a man with dark hair and dark eyes. It identified him as Dr. Stanley Kent. He was smiling at the camera. Bosch noticed that the ID tag was also a swipe key that could open locked doors.

“You talk to Kiz much?” Edgar asked.

It was a reference to Bosch’s former partner, who had transferred after Echo Park to a management job in the OCP-the office of the chief of police.

“Not too much. But she’s doing fine.”

Bosch moved on to the other evidence bags and wanted to move the conversation away from Kiz Rider and onto the case at hand.

“Why don’t you run down what you’ve got for me, Jerry?” he said.

“Happy to,” Edgar said. “The stiff was found about an hour ago. As you can see from the signs out on the street, there is no parking up here and no loitering after dark. Hollywood always has a patrol swing by here a few times a night to chase lookyloos away. Keeps the rich locals up here happy. I am told that house over there is Madonna’s. Or it was.”

He pointed to a sprawling mansion about a hundred yards from the clearing. The moonlight silhouetted a tower rising from the structure. The mansion’s exterior was striped in alternating hues of rust and yellow like a Tuscan church. It was on a promontory that afforded anyone looking through its windows a magnificent, sweeping view of the city below. Bosch imagined the pop star up in the tower looking down on the city that lay at her command.