While Edgar asked Pelfry to show him the time card, Bosch withdrew and tried to think about this latest information. He remembered what Sheehan had said the night before about the fingerprints being so good because the person who had left them had probably been sweating. He understood now that that was not because of nervousness over the crime being committed, but because he was working at the car wash, vacuuming a car when those prints were left on that book. Michael Harris. He was innocent. Truly innocent. Bosch had not been convinced until that moment. And it was astounding to him. He wasn’t a dreamer. He knew cops made mistakes and innocent people went to prison. But the mistake here was colossal. An innocent man tortured as cops tried to bully him into confessing to something he had clearly not done. Satisfied they had their man, the police had dropped their investigation and let the real killer slip away — until a civil rights lawyer’s investigation found him, a discovery that got the lawyer killed. The chain reaction went even further, pushing the city once more to the brink of self-destruction.

“So then, Mr. Pelfry,” Bosch said, “who killed Stacey Kincaid?”

“It’s Jenks. And I don’t know. I know it wasn’t Michael Harris — ain’t no doubt about that. But Eli didn’t tell me the other part — if he knew before they got him.”

“They?” Bosch asked.

“Whatever.”

“Tell us about Mistress Regina,” Edgar said.

“What’s to tell? Eli got a tip, he passed it to me. I checked the broad out and couldn’t see any connection. She’s just a freak — a dead end. If you guys were there, you know what I mean. I think Eli dropped it after I told him about her.”

Bosch thought a moment and shook his head.

“I don’t think so. There’s something there.”

“Well, if there is, he didn’t tell me about it.”

In the car Bosch called Rider to check in. She said she had completed a review of the files without anything that needed immediate follow-up catching her eye.

“We’re going to see the Kincaids,” Bosch said.

“How come so soon?”

“Turns out one of them was Harris’s alibi.”

“What?”

Bosch explained the license plate discovery Pelfry and Elias had made.

“One out of four,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“We now know what one out of four of the mystery notes means.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“I was thinking about the first two. I think they’re connected and I’ve got an idea about ‘dot the i.’ I’m going to go online and check it out. You know what a hypertext link is?”

“I don’t speak that language, Kiz. I still type with two fingers.”

“I know. I’ll explain it when you get back here. Maybe I’ll know if I have something.”

“Okay. Good luck.”