Once more he wondered why he was sticking his neck out for people who didn’t deserve it. He tried to dismiss the thought, knowing that it was too late to do anything about it, but he couldn’t. He was a coconspirator now. Bosch shook his head in disgust with himself, then put the watch and wallet into separate plastic evidence bags after labeling each one with a white sticker on which he wrote the case number, the date and a time of 6:45 A.M. He then wrote a brief description of each item and the drawer of Elias’s desk in which it was found, initialed the corner of each sticker and put the bags into his briefcase.

Bosch looked at his watch before starting the car. He had ten minutes to make it to the press conference room. No sweat.

There were so many members of the media attending the press conference that several were standing outside the door to the police chief’s press room, unable to find space inside. Bosch pushed and excused and squeezed his way through them. Inside, he saw the back stage was lined wall to wall with television cameras on tripods, their operators standing behind them. He quickly counted twelve cameras and knew that the story would soon go national. There were eight television stations carrying local news in Los Angeles, including the Spanish-language channel. Every cop knew that if you saw more than eight camera crews at a scene or a press conference then you were talking network attention. You were working something huge, something dangerous.

In the middle of the room, every folding chair was taken by a reporter. There were close to forty, with the TV people clearly identifiable in their nice suits and makeup and the print and radio people just as recognizable as the ones wearing jeans and with ties pulled loose at the neck.

Bosch looked to the front stage and saw a flurry of activity around the podium, which had the LAPD chief’s badge affixed. Sound men were taping their equipment to the ever-widening tree of microphones on the podium. One of them was standing directly behind the podium and giving a voice check. Behind and to the side of the podium stood Irving, conferring in whispers with two men in uniform, both wearing lieutenant’s stripes. Bosch recognized one of them as Tom O’Rourke, who worked in the media relations unit. The other Bosch did not recognize but assumed he was Irving’s adjutant, Michael Tulin, whose call had awakened Bosch just hours earlier. A fourth man stood on the other side of the podium by himself. He wore a gray suit and Bosch had no idea who he was. There was no sign of the police chief. Not yet. The police chief did not wait for the media to get ready. The media waited for him.