“Maybe. But when I saw you with the box today, it hit me. That box could have easily fit in the back with the suitcase or on the passenger seat next to him. Why’d he put it in the trunk?”

“Does it matter? It’s one of those things we’re never going to be able to nail down and know. A known unknown. Every case has them.”

“Yeah, but what if the trunk was open because he was taking things out? What if he was getting rid of stuff? Evidence, other souvenirs. He took it all from his house or his storage unit, wherever he had it, put it in the trunk, then drove to the shop, where the back alley was lined with dumpsters behind the businesses. Maybe I didn’t see him in the alley because my view was blocked by the dumpsters.”

“The hauling schedule. Have those dumpsters been emptied this week?”

“Not till tomorrow.”

“So you’re going to go dumpster diving.”

“It’s going to bother me if I don’t.”

“Let me finish this email and I’ll go with you. I don’t think you should be climbing into dumpsters with those ribs and that knee. And I have CSOs in my car.”

Bosch knew she meant crime scene overalls. Most detectives kept work boots and overalls in their trunk for working messy crime scenes.

“My ribs and the knee are fine,” he said. “But we’re going to need a step stool or a ladder—no matter who goes in.”

“Go check with building maintenance to see what we can borrow,” Ballard said. “I’ll send this email and meet you at my car.”

“On it.”

43

THEY WERE SEARCHING the fourth of five dumpsters in the alley behind Montana Shoppes & Suites. They had started at the west end of the alley and worked their way east. Nothing relating to Rawls or the case had been found in the first three searches. Ballard, wearing rubber boots and navy blue overalls, was standing waist-deep in a green dumpster located behind a women’s apparel shop. It meant the refuse was largely innocuous and dry. The first dumpster they searched had been filled with coffee grounds and other garbage from the breakfast café that anchored the west end of the plaza.

Each dumpster search required the excavation of three days’ worth of refuse, since they were looking for something that Rawls might have dumped on Sunday.

“There’s nothing here,” Ballard said.

She was using the long handle from a push broom to poke around in the bottom layer of the dumpster. Bosch had borrowed it from the maintenance department along with a stepladder.

“All right, then come on out of there,” Bosch said.

He held his hand up to her. She took off a work glove, grabbed his hand, hoisted her hips onto the steel rim, and swung her legs over to the ladder. Bosch helped her down.