He pulled the car to the curb and they scanned the lot. It was about an acre and bordered on both sides by apartment buildings with banners announcing move-in bonuses and financing. They didn’t look like places where people would want to live unless they had no choice. The whole neighborhood had a rundown and desperate feel.

Bosch noticed two old black men sitting on crates in the corner of the lot, under a sprawling and shade-giving eucalyptus tree. He opened the file he’d brought with him and studied the map that charted the location of the body. He estimated that it was less than fifty feet from where the two men were now sitting. He turned pages in the file until he found the incident report which named the two witnesses who reported finding the body.

“I’m getting out,” he said. “I’m going to go talk to those guys.”

He got out and Edgar did, too. They crossed the lot nonchalantly and approached the two men. As they got closer, Bosch saw sleeping bags and an old Coleman camp stove. Parked against the trunk of the eucalyptus were two supermarket carts filled with clothing, bags of aluminum cans and assorted junk.

“Are you men Rufus Gundy and Andy Mercer?”

“Depends on who’s doin’ the askin’.”

Bosch showed his badge.

“I wanted to ask a few questions about the body you guys found here last year.”

“Yeah, what took you so long?”

“Are you Mr. Gundy or Mr. Mercer?”

“I’m Mercer.”

Bosch nodded.

“Why do you say we took so long? Weren’t you interviewed by detectives when you found the body?”

“We was interviewed, but not by no detectives. Some wet-eared patrol boy akst us what we knew.”

Bosch nodded. He pointed to the sleeping bags and the camp stove.

“You guys live here?”

“We runnin’ a piece of bad luck. We just stayin’ till we on our feet again.”

Bosch knew there was nothing in the incident report about the two men living on the lot. The report said they were passing through the lot, looking for cans, when they came across her body. He thought about this and realized what had happened.

“You were living here then, weren’t you?”

Neither of them answered.

“You didn’t tell the cops that because you thought you might get run off.”

Still no reply.

“So you hid your sleeping bags and your stove and called it in. You told that patrol officer that you were just passing through.”

Finally, Mercer spoke.

“If’n you’re so smart, how come you ain’t chief yet?”

Bosch laughed.

“Because they’re smart enough not to make me chief. So, tell me something, Mr. Mercer and Mr. Gundy. If you two were sleeping here during nights back then, you probably would’ve found that body a lot sooner if it had been here the whole time she was missing, right?”

“Most likely,” Gundy said.