His pager sounded and he grabbed it off his belt with the urgency of a man who has had one go off in a movie theater. He recognized the number on the display but couldn’t remember where he had seen it before. He took the phone out of his briefcase and punched it in. It was the home of Deputy Chief Irvin Irving.

“I spoke with the chief,” he said. “He will handle Reverend Tuggins. He is not to be your concern.”

Irving put a sneer into the word Reverend.

“Okay. He isn’t.”

“So where are we?”

“We’re still at the scene, just finishing up. We need to canvass the building over here for witnesses, then we’ll clear out. Elias kept an apartment downtown. That was where he was headed. We need to search that and his office as soon as the search warrants are signed.”

“What about next of kin on the woman?”

“Perez should be done by now, too.”

“Tell me how it went at the Elias home.”

Since Irving had not asked before, Bosch assumed he was asking now because the chief of police wanted to know. Bosch quickly went over what had happened and Irving asked several questions about the reaction of Elias’s wife and son. Bosch could tell he asked them from the standpoint of public relations management. He knew that, just as with Preston Tuggins, the way in which Elias’s family reacted to his murder would have a direct bearing on how the community reacted.

“So it does not at this time sound as though we can enlist the widow or the son in helping us contain things, correct?”

“As of now, that’s correct. But once they get over the initial shock, maybe. You also might want to talk to the chief about calling the widow personally. I saw his picture on the wall in the house with Elias. If he’s talking to Tuggins, maybe he could also talk to the widow about helping us out.”

“Maybe.”

Irving switched gears and told Bosch that his office’s conference room on the sixth floor of Parker Center was ready for the investigators. He said that the room was unlocked at the moment but in the morning Bosch would be given keys. Once the investigators moved in, the room was to remain locked at all times. He said that he would be in by ten and was looking forward to a more expanded rundown of the investigation at the team meeting.

“Sure thing, Chief,” Bosch said. “We should be in from the canvass and the searches by then.”

“Make sure you are. I will be waiting.”

“Right.”

Bosch was about to disconnect when he heard Irving’s voice.

“Excuse me, Chief?”