Both envelopes were addressed to Elias at his office. No return addresses. Both were postmarked Hollywood, one mailed five weeks earlier and the other three weeks earlier.

“There’s a single page with a line in each. Nothing that makes sense to me.”

She started opening one of the envelopes.

“Uh . . . ,” Bosch began.

She stopped, holding the envelope in her hand.

“What?”

“I don’t know. I was thinking about prints.”

“I already handled these. I’m sorry.”

“Okay, go ahead, I guess.”

She finished opening the envelope, unfolded the page on the desk and turned it so Bosch could read it. There was one typed line at the top of the page. dot the i humbert humbert “Humbert humbert . . . ,” Bosch said.

“It’s the name of a character from literature — or what some people consider literature,” Entrenkin said. “Lolita, by Nabokov.”

“Right.”

Bosch noticed that a notation had been written in pencil at the bottom of the page.

#2 – 3/12

“That was probably Howard’s marking,” Entrenkin said. “Or someone in his office.”

She opened the next envelope, the more recently mailed of the two, and unfolded the letter. Bosch leaned over again. license plates prove his innocense “Looks to me like they’re obviously from the same person,” Entrenkin said. “Also, notice that innocence is spelled wrong.”

“Right.”

There was also a pencil notation at the bottom of the page.

#3 – 4/5

Bosch pulled his briefcase up onto his lap and opened it. He took out the evidence envelope that contained the letter Elias had been carrying in his inside suit pocket when gunned down.

“Elias was carrying this when he . . . when he got on Angels Flight. I forgot that the crime scene people gave it to me. It might be good if you are here observing when I open it. It’s got the same postmark as those two. It was mailed to him Wednesday. This one I want to preserve for prints.”

He took a pair of rubber gloves out of the cardboard dispenser in his case and put them on. He then carefully removed the letter and opened it. He unfolded a piece of paper similar to the first two. Again there was one line typed on the page. he knows you know As Bosch stared at the page he felt the slight flutter in his heart that he knew came with the surge of adrenaline.

“Detective Bosch, what does this mean?”

“I don’t know. But I sure wish I had opened it sooner.”

There was no pencil notation on the bottom of the third page. Elias hadn’t gotten around to it, apparently.

“It looks like we’re missing one,” Bosch said. “These are marked two and three and this one came after — this one would be four.”

“I know. But I haven’t found anything that would be number one. Nothing in the files. Maybe he threw it out, not realizing it meant something until the second one came.”

“Maybe.”