stopped to put a cigarette in his mouth. He had bought a pack from a machine in the lobby. He lit it with the lighter.
"You know," she said, "this would be a good time to quit those. Make a new start."
He ignored the suggestion and breathed the smoke in deeply.
"Eleanor, tell me about your brother."
"My brother? I told you."
"I know. I want to hear again. About what happened to him and what happened when you visited the wall in Washington. You said it changed things for you. Why did it change things for you?"
They were at Wilshire. Bosch pointed across the street and they crossed toward the cemetery. "I left my car over here. I'll drive you back."
"I don't like cemeteries. I told you."
"Who does?"
They walked through the opening in the hedge and the sound of traffic was quieted. Before them was the expanse of green lawn, white stones and American flags.
"My story's the same as a thousand others," she said. "My brother went over there and didn't come back. That's all. And then, you know, going to the memorial, well, it filled me with a lot of different feelings."
"Anger?"
"Yes, there was that."
"Outrage?"
"Yes, I guess. I don't know. It was very personal. What's going on, Harry? What has this got to do with . . . with anything?"
They were on the gravel drive that ran alongside the rows of white stone. Bosch was leading her toward the replica.
"You said your father was career military. Did you get the details of what happened to your brother?"
"He did, but he and my mother never really said anything to me. About details. I mean, they just said he was coming home soon, and I had gotten a letter from him saying he was coming. Then, like the next week, you know, they said he had been killed. He didn't make it home after all. Harry, you are making me feel . . . What do you want? I don't understand this."
"Sure you do, Eleanor."
She stopped and just looked down at the ground. Bosch saw the color in her face change to a lighter shade of pale. And her expression became one of resignation. It was subtle, but it was there. Like the faces of mothers and wives he had seen while making next-of-kin notification. You didn't have to tell them somebody was dead. They opened the door; they knew the score. And now Eleanor's face showed that she knew Bosch had her secret. She lifted her eyes and looked off, away from him. Her gaze settled on the black memorial gleaming in the sun at the top of the rise.
"That's it, isn't it? You brought me here to see that."
"I guess I could ask you to show me where your brother's name is. But we both know it's not on there."
"No . . . it's not."
She was transfixed by the sight of the memorial. Bosch could see in her face that the hard-shell resistance was gone. The secret wanted to come out.
"So, tell me about it," he said.
"I did have a brother, and he died. I never lied to you, Harry. I never actually said he was killed over there. I said he never came back, and he didn't. That is true. But he died here in L.A. On his way home. It was 1973."
She seemed to go off on a memory. Then she came back.
"Amazing. I mean, to make it through that war and then to not make the trip home. It doesn't make sense. He had a two-day layover in L.A. on the way back to D.C. to the hero's welcome we were going to have for him. There was a nice safe job, arranged through Father at the Pentagon. Only they found him in a brothel in Hollywood. The spike was still in his arm. Heroin."
She looked up at Bosch's face and then looked away.
"That's the way it looked, but that wasn't the way it was. It was ruled an OD, but he was murdered. Just like Meadows so many years later. But my brother was written off the way Meadows was supposed to have been written off."
Bosch thought she might be beginning to cry. He needed to keep her on track, telling the story.
"What's going on, Eleanor? What's it got to do with Meadows?"
"Nothing," she said, and looked back along the trail they had walked.
Now she was lying. He knew there was something. He had the dreadful feeling in his gut that the whole thing revolved around her. He