“Right. He catches a nice piece of luck. Of all the prints collected in the girl’s room and the rest of the house, the computer spits out a match with Michael Harris, ex-convict and all-around dirtbag. RHD was off to the races then. Like they were wearing blinders. They dropped everything and Harris became the only focus. They picked him up and did their thing with him. Only a funny thing happened on the way to a conviction. Harris didn’t confess and there was no other evidence to go with those fingerprints. Meantime, Harris’s name was leaked to the media. It became known that the cops had a suspect. Kincaid found out where Harris lived — maybe he got it from a friendly cop who was just keeping the parents of the victim informed. However it happened, he knew where Harris lived. He went to the spot where he’d hidden the body and moved it. My guess is that it was in the trunk of a car all along. Probably on one of his car lots. Anyway, he took the body to Harris’s neighborhood and dumped it in a trash lot a couple blocks from the suspect’s apartment. When it was found the next morning, the cops finally had another piece of evidence — circumstantial as it was — to go with the fingerprints. But all Harris was was a patsy.”

“His prints had been left when he washed Mrs. Kincaid’s car,” Irving said.

“Right.”

“So what about Elias?” Lindell asked. “How did he get himself killed?”

“I think Mrs. Kincaid did that. By mistake. At some point since she put her daughter in the ground I think she started seeing ghosts. She was feeling guilty about her daughter and maybe tried to make it right. She knew what her husband was capable of, maybe he had even threatened her outright, so she tried to do it on the sly. She started sending anonymous letters to Elias, to help him along. It did. Elias was able to get to the secret web site, Charlotte’s Web. Once he saw those pictures of the girl, he knew who the real killer probably was. He was going about it very quietly. But he was going to subpoena Kincaid and spring it on him in court. Only he made a mistake and showed his hand. He left a trail on the web site. Kincaid or the operators of the site learned they had been compromised.”

“They sent out a gun,” Lindell said.

“I seriously doubt it was Kincaid himself. But probably somebody working for him. He’s got a security guy. We’re checking him out.”

They all sat silent for a long moment. Irving clasped his hands on the desk in front of him. There was nothing on top of it. It was just polished wood.

“You have to cut Sheehan loose,” Bosch said. “He didn’t do it.”