bracelet and typed in its description for a stolen property records search. This in itself was an art. He had to describe the bracelet the way he believed other cops would, cops who might be typing in descriptions of a whole inventory of jewelry taken in a robbery or burglary. He described the bracelet simply as “antique gold bracelet with carved jade dolphin design.” He pressed the search key and in thirty seconds the computer screen said “No hit.” He tried it again, typing “gold-and-jade bracelet” and then punching the search key. This time there were 436 hits. Too many. He needed to thin the herd. He typed “gold bracelet with jade fish” and pressed search. Six hits. That was more like it.
The computer said a gold bracelet with carved jade fish had turned up on four crime reports and two departmental bulletins that had been entered into the computer system since its development in 1983. Bosch knew that because of the immense duplication of records in any police department, all six entries could be and probably were from the same case or report of a missing or stolen bracelet. He called the abbreviated crime reports up on the computer screen and found that his suspicion was correct. The reports were generated by a single burglary in September at Sixth and Hill downtown. The victim was a woman named Harriet Beecham, age seventy-one, of Silver Lake. Bosch tried to place the location in his mind but could not think of what building or business was there. There was no summary of the crime on the computer; he would have to go to records and pull a hard copy. But there was a limited description of the gold-and-jade bracelet, and several other pieces of jewelry taken from Beecham. The bracelet Beecham reported lost could or could not have been the one that Meadows had pawned-the description was too vague. There were several supplementary report numbers given on the computer report and Bosch wrote them all down in his notebook. It seemed to him as he did this that Harriet Beecham’s loss had generated an unusual amount of paper.
He next called up the information on the two bulletins. Both had come from the FBI, the first issued two weeks after Beecham had been burglarized. It was then reissued three months later when Beecham’s jewelry had still not turned up. Bosch wrote down the bulletin number and turned off the computer. He went across the room to the robbery/commercial burglary section. On a steel shelf that ran along the back wall were dozens of black binders that held the bulletins and BOLOs from past years. Bosch took down the one marked September and began looking through it. He quickly realized that the bulletins were not in chronological order and weren’t all issued in September. In fact, there was no order. He might have to look through all ten months since Beecham’s burglary to find the bulletin he needed. He pulled an armful of the binders off the shelf and sat down at the burglary table. A few moments later he felt the presence of someone across the table from him.
“What do you want?” he said without looking up.
“What do I want?” the duty detective said. “I want to know what the fuck you are doing, Bosch. This isn’t your place anymore. You can’t just come in here like you’re running the crew. Put that shit back on the shelf, and if you want to look through it come back down here tomorrow and ask, goddammit. And don’t give me any bullshit about an autopsy. You’ve already been here a half hour.”
Bosch looked up at him. He put his age at twenty-eight, maybe twenty-nine, even younger than Bosch had been when he had made it to Robbery-Homicide. Either standards had dropped or RHD wasn’t what it was. Bosch knew it was actually both. He looked back down at the bulletin binder.
“I’m talking to you, asshole!” the detective boomed.
Bosch reached his foot up under the table and kicked the chair that was across from him. The chair shot out from the table and its backrest hit the detective in the crotch. He doubled over and made anoomph sound, grabbing the chair for support. Bosch knew he had his reputation going for him now. Harry Bosch: a loner, a fighter, a killer. C’mon kid, he was saying, do something.
But the young detective just stared at Bosch, his anger and humiliation in check. He was a cop