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Глаза у нее были еще заспанными, но лицо добрым.

"This is my wife, Audrey," Blaylock said. "Do you take your coffee black? Every cop I ever knew took it black."

The husband and wife sat next to each other on the couch.

"Black's fine. Did you know a lot of cops?"

"When I was in L.A. I did. I worked thirty years for the city fire department. Quit as a station commander after the 'ninety-two riots.

That was enough for me. Came in right before Watts and left after 'ninety-two."

"What is it you want to talk to us about?" Audrey asked, seemingly impatient with her husband's small talk.

Bosch nodded. He had his coffee and the introductions were over.

"I work homicide. Out of Hollywood Division. I'm on a—"

"I worked six years out of fifty-eights," Blaylock said, referring to the fire station that was behind the Hollywood Division station house.

Bosch nodded again.

"Don, let the man tell us why he came all the way up here," Audrey said.

"Sorry, go ahead."

- Это моя жена, Одри, - сказал Блейлок. - Вы пьете кофе черным? Все полицейские, которых я знал, пили черный.

Муж с женой устроились на кушетке.

- Черный, пожалуйста. Вы знали полицейских?

- Когда жил в Лос-Анджелесе, многих. Я тридцать лет работал в пожарной охране. Уволился начальником депо после беспорядков девяносто второго года.

Решил, что с меня хватит. Поступил на работу как раз перед началом волнений в Уоттсе <Большой негритянский район Лос-Анджелеса, где в 1965 году происходили беспорядки.>, а ушел после случившихся в девяносто втором.

- О чем вы хотели поговорить с нами? - спросила Одри, видимо, раздраженная болтовней мужа.

Босх допил кофе и произнес:

- Я служу в группе расследования убийств. В голливудском отделении. Работаю над...

- Я шесть лет работал там в тысяча девятьсот пятьдесят восьмом году, - сказал Блейлок, имея в виду пожарное депо, расположенное позади голливудского отделения. Босх кивнул.

- Дон, дай человеку рассказать, зачем он приехал в такую даль, - промолвила Одри.

- Прошу прощения, продолжайте.

"I'm on a case. A homicide up in Laurel Canyon. Your old neighborhood, actually, and we're contacting people who lived on the street back in nineteen eighty."

"Why then?"

"Because that is when the homicide took place." They looked at him with puzzled faces.

"Is this one of those cold cases?" Blaylock said. "Because I don't remember anything like that happening in our neighborhood back then."

"In a way it's a cold case. Only the body wasn't discovered until a couple weeks ago. It had been buried up in the woods. In the hills."

Bosch studied their faces. No tells, just shock.

"Oh, my God," Audrey said. "You mean all that time we were living there, somebody was dead up there? Our kids used to play up there. Who was it who was killed?"

"It was a child. A boy twelve years old. His name was Arthur Delacroix. Does that name mean anything to either of you?" The husband and wife first searched their own memory banks and then looked at each other and confirmed the results, each shaking their head.