AS Bosch stepped through the glass doors of Parker Center he saw the beginning of the manufacturing and packaging of a media event. Spread out across the front plaza were a half dozen television crews and reporters ready to transmit stand-up reports as lead-in on the footage from the press conference. Out at the curb was the microwave forest — a line of TV trucks with their microwave transmitters raised high and ready. It was a Saturday, normally the slowest news day of the week. But the murder of Howard Elias was big. The guaranteed lead story and then some. A Saturday morning assignment editor’s dream come true. The local stations were going to go live at noon. And then it would begin. The news of Elias’s murder would blow through the city like the hottest Santa Ana wind, setting nerves on edge and possibly turning silent frustrations into loud and malevolent actions. The department — and the city, for that matter — was relying on how these young and beautiful people interpreted and delivered the information they had been given.

The hope was that their reports would not fan the already smoldering tensions in the community. The hope was that they would show restraint and integrity and common sense, that they would simply report the known facts without any speculation or editorial twisting of the knife. But Bosch knew those hopes had about as much chance as Elias had when he stepped onto Angels Flight little more than twelve hours before.

Bosch took an immediate left and headed to the employee parking lot, careful not to walk into view of any of the cameras. He didn’t want to be on the news unless absolutely necessary.

He successfully avoided detection and got to his car. Ten minutes later he parked illegally in front of the Bradbury, pulling in behind yet another TV truck. He looked around as he got out but didn’t see the news crew. He guessed that they had walked over to the Angels Flight terminus to tape footage for the story.

After taking the old elevator up to the top floor Bosch pulled back the gate and stepped out onto the landing only to be met by Harvey Button, his producer and a cameraman. There was an uneasy silence as he tried to move around them. Then the producer spoke.

“Uh, Detective Bosch? I’m Tom Chainey from Channel Four.”

“Good for you.”

“I was wondering if we could talk for a few moments about the — ”

“No, we can’t talk. Have a nice day.”

Bosch managed to get around them and started toward Elias’s office. Chainey spoke to his back.

“You sure? We’re picking up a lot of information and it would probably do us both a lot of good if we could get it confirmed. We don’t want to cause you any problems. It would be better if we could work as a team. You know.”