“I’ll walk it,” he said. “What about Lieutenant Billets?”

“Not here yet.”

Bosch went back to his car and reached in through the open window for his briefcase. He then walked back to Powers.

“You the one who found it?”

“That was me.”

Powers was proud of himself.

“How’d you open it?”

“Keep a slim jim in the car. Opened the door, then popped the trunk.”

“Why?”

“The smell. It was obvious.”

“Wear gloves?”

“Nope. Didn’t have any.”

“What did you touch?”

Powers had to think about it for a moment.

“Door handle, the trunk pull. That’d be about it.”

“Did Edgar or Rider take a statement? You write something up?”

“Nothing yet.”

Bosch nodded.

“Listen, Powers, I know you’re all proud of yourself, but next time don’t open the car, okay? We all want to be detectives but not all of us are. That’s how crime scenes get fucked up. And I think you know that.”

Bosch watched the cop’s face turn a dark shade of crimson and the skin go tight around his jaw.

“Listen, Bosch,” he said. “What I know is that if I just called this in as a suspicious vehicle that smells like there’s a stiff in the trunk, then you people would’ve said, ‘What the fuck does Powers know?’ and left it there to rot in the sun until there was nothing left of your goddamn crime scene.”

“That might be true but, see, then that would be our fuckup to make. Instead, we’ve got you fucking us up before we start.”

Powers remained angry but mute. Bosch waited a beat, ready to continue the debate, before dismissing it.

“Can you lift the tape now, please?”

Powers stepped back to the tape. He was about thirty-five, Bosch guessed, and had the long-practiced swagger of a street veteran. In L.A. that swagger came to you quickly, as it had in Vietnam. Powers held the yellow tape up and Bosch walked under. As he passed, the cop said, “Don’t get lost.”