It seemed clear to Bosch that Chu knew what he was doing. He didn’t need Bosch to prompt him with questions.

“Okay, we’re going back up front. You deal with her and after her son arrives it might be better to take everybody downtown. You okay with that?”

“I’m fine with it,” Chu said.

“Good. Tell me if you need anything.”

Bosch and Ferras went down the hall and to the front of the store. Bosch already knew everybody on the forensics team. A team from the medical examiner’s office had also arrived to document the death scene and collect the body.

Bosch and Ferras decided to split up at that point. Bosch would stay on scene. As lead detective he would monitor the collection of forensic evidence and the removal of the body. Ferras would leave the store and go knock on doors. The liquor store was located in a commercial area of small businesses. He would go door-to-door in an effort to find someone who had heard or seen something related to the killing. Both investigators knew this would likely be a fruitless effort but it was one that needed to be made. A description of a car or a suspicious person could be the piece of the puzzle that would eventually break the case. It was basic homicide work.

“All right if I take one of the patrol guys?” Ferras asked. “They know the neighborhood.”

“Sure.”

Bosch thought that knowing the lay of the land was not Ferras’s true reason for taking a patrol officer with him. His partner thought he needed backup to knock on doors and visit stores in the neighborhood.

Two minutes after Ferras left, Bosch heard loud voices and a commotion coming from outside at the front of the store. He stepped out and saw two of Lucas’s patrol officers trying to physically detain a man at the yellow tape. The struggling man was Asian and in his midtwenties. He wore a tight-fitting T-shirt that displayed his lean build. Bosch quickly stepped toward the problem.