“Letterhead. Stationery. Sometimes people put their E-mail address on it. If we know Elias’s E-mail address we’re halfway there.”

Bosch understood now. He hadn’t seen any letterhead during his search.

“Hold on.”

He went out to the reception room and asked Chastain, who was sitting behind the secretary’s desk, if he’d seen any stationery. Chastain opened a drawer and pointed to an open box of letterhead stationery. Bosch grabbed a page off the top. Rider had been correct. Elias’s E-mail address was printed beneath his postal address on the top center of the page. [email protected] Bosch took the page with him back to Elias’s office. When he got there he saw Rider had closed the file that contained the printout of the blond woman. Bosch realized it must have been embarrassing to her.

“I got it,” he said.

She looked at the page Bosch placed on the desk next to the computer.

“Good. That’s the user name. Now we just need his password. He’s got the whole computer password protected.”

“Shit.”

“Well,” she said as she began typing, “most people choose something pretty easy — so even they won’t forget.”

She stopped typing and watched the screen. The cursor had turned into an hourglass as it worked. A message then printed across the screen informing Rider she had used an improper password.

“What did you use?” Bosch asked.

“His DOB. You did next of kin, right? What was his wife’s name?”

“Millie.”

Rider typed it in and after a few seconds got the same rejection message.

“What about his son?” Bosch asked. “His name’s Martin.”

Rider didn’t type anything.

“What’s the matter?”

“A lot of these password gates give you three strikes. If you don’t get in on the third one they go into automatic lockdown.”

“Forever?”

“No. For however long Elias would have set it at. Could be fifteen minutes or an hour or even longer. Let’s think about this for a — ”

“V-S-L-A-P-D.”

Rider and Bosch turned. Chastain was in the doorway.

“What?” Bosch asked.

“That’s the password. V-S-L-A-P-D. As in Elias versus the LAPD.”

“How do you know that?”

“The secretary wrote it down on the underside of her blotter. Guess she’s got to use the computer, too.”

Bosch studied Chastain for a moment.

“Harry?” Rider said. “Should I?”

“Give it a shot,” Bosch said, still looking at Chastain. He then turned and watched as his partner typed in the password. The hourglass blinked on and then the screen changed and icon symbols began appearing on a field of blue sky and white clouds.

“We’re in,” Rider said.

Bosch glanced back at Chastain.

“Good one.”

He then looked back at the screen and watched as Rider hit keys and maneuvered through the icons, files and programs, all of it meaning little to Bosch and reminding him that he was an anachronism.