“Thank you and thank you to Rachel Walling. I need to go now.”

He turned and headed back toward the doors of the PAB. Wingo called after him.

“What’s the black box?”

He didn’t answer. He kept moving.

Chapter 20

20

Bosch strode through the squad room to his desk. He saw Chu in the cubicle, turned sideways and hunched over his computer. Bosch entered the cubicle, grabbed his desk chair, and wheeled it right over next to Chu’s. He sat down on it backwards and started speaking in an urgent tone.

“What are you working on, David?”

“Um, just looking at travel options for Minnesota.”

“You going to go without me? It’s okay, I told you to.”

“I’m thinking I need to go, or start on something else while I’m waiting.”

“Then you’re right, you should go. Did you see who else can go?”

“Yeah, Trish the Dish is in. She has family in St. Paul, so she’s up for it, cold weather and all.”

“Yeah, tell her just to be careful with O’Toole looking over every travel voucher.”

“I already did. So, what do you need, Harry? I can tell you’re hot about something. You got one of your hunches?”

“Damn right. What I need you to do is get on the box and find out which California National Guard units were sent to Los Angeles during the ’ninety-two riots.”

“That should be easy enough.”

“And then find out which of those units were also deployed to the Persian Gulf for Desert Storm the year before. Understand?”

“Yes, you want to know which units were in both places.”

“Exactly. And once you have a list, I want to know where they were based in California and what they did in Desert Storm. Where they were assigned, that sort of thing. Can you do that?”

“I’m on it.”

“Good. And I’m guessing most of these units probably have archives online, websites, digital scrapbooks, things like that. I’m looking for names. Names of soldiers who were in Desert Storm in ’ninety-one and in L.A. a year later.”

“Got it.”

“Good. Thanks, David.”

“You know, Harry, you don’t have to call me by my first name if it makes you uncomfortable. I’m used to you calling me by my last name.”

Chu stared at his computer screen as he said it.

“It’s that obvious, huh?” Bosch said.

“It just sort of sticks out,” Chu said. “You know, after all this time of just calling me Chu.”

“Well, I’ll tell you what. You find me what I’m looking for and I’ll call you Mr. Chu from now on.”

“That won’t be necessary. But do you mind telling me why we’re doing these searches? What’s it have to do with Jespersen?”

“I’m hoping everything.”