The newsman on the scene reported that two bodies had been found inside one of the train cars and that several members of the Robbery-Homicide squad were on the scene. But that was the extent of the reporter’s information, as he also noted that the police had placed an unusually wide cordon of yellow tape around the crime scene, prohibiting him from getting a closer look. At the station Bosch communicated this thin bit of information to Edgar and Rider while they signed three slickbacks out of the motor pool.

“So it looks like we’re gonna be playing sloppy seconds to RHD,” Edgar concluded, showing his annoyance at being rousted from sleep to spend probably the whole weekend doing gofer work for the RHD bulls. “Our guts, their glory. And we aren’t even on call this weekend. Why didn’t Irving call out Rice’s got-damned team if he needed a Hollywood team?”

Edgar had a point. Team One – Bosch, Edgar and Rider – wasn’t even up on call rotation this weekend. If Irving had followed proper call-out procedure he would have called Terry Rice, who headed up Team Three, which was currently on top of the rotation. But Bosch had already figured that Irving wasn’t following any procedures, not if the deputy chief had called him directly before checking with his supervisor, Lieutenant Grace Billets.

“Well, Jerry,” Bosch said, more than used to his partner’s whining, “you’ll get the chance to ask the deputy chief personally in a little while.”

“Yeah, right, I do that and I’ll find my ass down in Harbor the next ten years. Fuck that.”

“Hey, Harbor Division’s an easy gig,” Rider said, just to rag Edgar a bit. She knew Edgar lived in the Valley and that a transfer to Harbor Division would mean a miserable ninety-minute commute each way – the pure definition of freeway therapy, the brass’s method of unofficially punishing malcontents and problem cops. “They only pull six, seven homicides a year down there.”