“Okay. Anybody go to the victim’s house on Arrowhead?”

“No on that, too.”

“Anybody knock on any doors?”

“Not yet. We were working the scene first.”

Edgar obviously had decided early that the case would be passed to RHD. It bothered Bosch that nothing had been done but at the same time, he knew it would be his and Ferras’s to work fresh from the start, and that wasn’t a bad thing. There was a long history in the department of cases getting damaged or bungled while in transition from divisional to downtown detective teams.

He looked at the lighted clearing and counted a total of five men working on or near the body for the forensics and coroner’s teams.

“Well,” he said, “since you’re working the crime scene first, did anybody look for foot impressions around the body before you let the techs approach?”

Bosch couldn’t keep the tone of annoyance out of his voice.

“Harry,” Edgar said, his tone now showing annoyance with Bosch’s annoyance, “a couple hundred people stand around on this overlook every damn day. We coulda been looking at footprints till Christmas if we’d wanted to take the time. I didn’t think we did. We had a body lying out here in a public place and needed to get to it. Besides that, it looks like a professional hit. That means the shoes, the gun, the car, everything’s already long gone by now.”

Bosch nodded. He wanted to dismiss this and move on.

“Okay,” he said evenly, “then I guess you’re clear.”

Edgar nodded and Bosch thought he might be embarrassed.

“Like I said, Harry, I didn’t expect it to be you.”

Meaning he would not have dogged it for Harry, only for somebody else from RHD.

“Sure,” Bosch said. “I understand.”

After Edgar left, Bosch went back to his car and got the Maglite out of the trunk. He walked back to the Porsche, put on gloves and opened the driver-side door. He leaned into the car and looked around. On the passenger seat was a briefcase. It was unlocked and when he popped the snaps it opened to reveal several files, a calculator and various pads, pens and papers. He closed it and left it in its place. Its position on the seat told him that the victim had likely arrived at the overlook by himself. He had met his killer here. He had not brought his killer with him. This, Bosch thought, might be significant.