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‘might’ve’ been a witness? Who is it, a neighbor?”
    “No, it’s sort of a screwy story. You know that house that was supposedly Madonna’s?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Yeah, well, she used to own it but doesn’t anymore. I go up there to knock on the door and the guy who lives there now says he didn’t see or hear anything-I’m getting the same thing at every door I knock on. So anyway, I’m leaving when I spot this guy hiding behind these big potted trees in the courtyard. I draw down on him and call backup, you know, thinking maybe he’s our shooter from the overlook. But that’s not what it is. Turns out it’s a kid-twenty years old and just off the bus from Canada -and he thinks Madonna’s still living in the house. He’s got a star map that still lists her as living there and he’s trying to see her or something-like a stalker. He climbed over a wall to get into the courtyard.”
    “Did he see the shooting?”
    “He claims he didn’t see or hear anything, but I don’t know, Harry. I’m thinking he might’ve been stalking Madonna’s place when the thing went down on the overlook. He then hides and tries to wait it out. Only I find him first.”
    Bosch was missing something in the story.
    “Why would he hide? Why wouldn’t he just get the hell out of there? We didn’t find the body till three hours after the shooting.”
    “Yeah, I know. That part doesn’t make sense. Maybe he was just scared or thought that if he was seen in the vicinity of the body he might get tagged as a suspect or something.”
    Bosch nodded. It was a possibility.
    “You holding him on the trespass?” he asked.
    “Yeah. I talked to the guy who bought the place from Madonna and he’ll work with us. He’ll press charges if we need him to. So don’t worry, we can hold him and work him with it.”
    “Good. Take him downtown, put him in a room and warm him up.”
    “You got it, Harry.”
    “And Ignacio, don’t tell anybody about the cesium.”
    “Right. I won’t.”
    Bosch closed the phone before Ferras could tell him to call him Iggy again. He listened to the end of Brenner’s conversation. It was obvious that he wasn’t talking to Walling. His manner and tone of voice was deferential. He was talking to a boss.
    “According to the log here, seven o’clock,” he said. “That puts the transfer at the overlook at around eight, so we’re talking about a six-and-a-half-hour lead at this point.”
    Brenner listened some and then started to speak several times but was repeatedly cut off by the person on the other end of the line.
    “Yes, sir,” he finally said. “Yes, sir. We’re on our way back in now.”
    He closed the phone and looked at Bosch.
    “I’m going back in on the chopper. I have to lead a teleconference debriefing with Washington. I’d take you with me but I think you’d be better off on the ground, chasing the case. I’ll have someone pick up my car later.”
    “No problem.”
    “Did your partner come up with a witness? Is that what I heard?”
    Bosch had to wonder how Brenner had picked that up while conducting his own phone conversation.
    “Maybe, but it sounds like a long shot. I’m going downtown to see about that right now.”
    Brenner nodded solemnly, then handed Bosch a business card.
    “If you get anything, give me a call. All my information is on that. Anything at all, call.”
    Bosch took the card and put it in his pocket. He and the agents then left the lab and a few minutes later he watched the federal chopper take off into the black sky. He got in his car and pulled out of the clinic’s parking lot to head south. Before hitting the freeway he gassed up at a station on San Fernando Road.
    Traffic coming down into the center of the city was light and he cruised at a steady eighty. He turned the stereo on and picked a CD from the center console without looking at what it was. Five notes into the first song he knew it was a Japanese import from bassist Ron Carter. It was good