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someone that their loved one was dead. He had done it hundreds of times but it wasn’t something you ever got used to or even good at. It had also been done to him. When his own mother was murdered more than forty years before, he got the news from a cop just after he climbed out of a swimming pool at a youth hall. His response was to jump back in and try to never come back up.
    Brenner delivered the water, and the brand-new widow drank half of it down. Before anyone could ask a question there was a knock on the door and Bosch stepped over and let in two paramedics carrying big equipment boxes. Bosch moved out of the way while they came forward to assess the woman’s physical condition. He signaled Walling and Brenner into the kitchen, where they could confer in whispers. He realized that they should have talked about this earlier.
    “So how do you want to handle her?” Bosch asked.
    Brenner spread his hands wide again as though he was open to suggestions. It appeared to be his signature gesture.
    “I think you keep the lead,” the agent said. “We’ll step in when needed. If you don’t like that we could—”
    “No, that’s good. I’ll keep the lead.”
    He looked at Walling, waiting for an objection, but she was fine with it, too. He turned to leave the kitchen but Brenner stopped him.
    “Bosch, I want to be up front with you,” Brenner said.
    Bosch turned back.
    “Meaning?”
    “Meaning I had you checked out. The word is you—”
    “What do you mean you checked me out? You asked questions about me?”
    “I needed to know who we’re working with. All I knew about you prior to this is what I’d heard about Echo Park. I wanted—”
    “If you have any questions you can ask me.”
    Brenner raised his hands, palms out.
    “Fair enough.”
    Bosch left the kitchen and stood in the living room, waiting for the paramedics to finish with Alicia Kent. One of the medical men was putting some sort of cream on the chafe marks on her wrists and ankles. The other was taking a blood-pressure reading. Bosch saw that bandages had been placed on her neck and one wrist, apparently covering wounds that he hadn’t noticed before.
    His phone buzzed and Bosch went back into the kitchen to take the call. He noticed that Walling and Brenner were gone, apparently having slipped into another part of the house. It made Bosch anxious. He didn’t know what they were looking for or up to.
    The call was from his partner. Ferras had finally made it to the crime scene.
    “Is the body still there?” Bosch asked.
    “No, the ME just cleared the scene,” Ferras said. “I think Forensics is finishing up, too.”
    Bosch updated him on the direction the case appeared to be going, telling him about the federal involvement and the potentially dangerous materials Stanley Kent had had access to. He then directed him to start knocking on doors and looking for witnesses who might have seen or heard something relating to the killing of Stanley Kent. He knew it was a long shot, because no one had called 9-1-1 after the shooting.
    “Should I do that now, Harry? It’s the middle of the night and people are slee—”
    “Yes, Ignacio, you should do it now.”
    Bosch wasn’t worried about waking people up. There was a good chance that the generator that powered the crime scene lights had awakened the neighborhood anyway. But the canvassing of the neighborhood had to be done and it was always better to find witnesses sooner rather than later.
    When Bosch came out of the kitchen the paramedics had packed up and were leaving. They told Bosch that Alicia Kent was physically fine, with minor wounds and skin abrasions. They also said they had given her a pill to help calm her and a tube of the cream to continue to apply to the chafe marks on her wrists and ankles.
    Walling was sitting on the couch next to her again and Brenner was back in his seat by the fireplace.
    Bosch sat down on the chair directly across the glass coffee table from Alicia