“Yeah, some guy that was born over there and grew up here and knew the language. I don’t remember the name. Personnel found him for us. But look, if there are no reports in the book, then it didn’t add up to anything, Harry. I would’ve put it in.”

Bosch nodded. He knew Harrod was right. But it always bothered him when he heard about an investigative move that was not chronicled in the official record, the murder book.

“Okay, Gary, I’ll let you go. I just wanted to check that out with you.”

“You sure? Nothing else? Since you called me I’ve been thinking about the case all the time. That one and another one that still sticks, you know?”

“Which one was that? Maybe I can take a look if nobody’s gotten to it yet.”

Harrod paused again as his memory jumped from one case to another.

“I don’t remember the name,” he said. “It was a guy up in Pacoima. He was from Utah, staying in a shitty motel up there. He was part of a construction crew that traveled around the west, building strip malls. He was a tile setter, I remember that.”

“What happened?”

“We never knew. He was found head shot in the middle of the street about a block from his motel. I remember the TV was on in his room. He must have been watching on TV. You know, the city coming apart like that. And for whatever reason, he went outside to look. And that’s what always bothered me about that one.”

“That he went outside?”

“Yeah, that he went out. Why? The city was burning. There were no rules, just anarchy, and he left safety to go see it. As far as we could ever tell, somebody just drove by and popped him from a car. No witnesses, no motive, no evidence. It was a loser the day I got the case and I knew it. I remember talking to his parents on the phone. They were up in Salt Lake City. They couldn’t understand how this could’ve happened to their boy. They viewed L.A. like it was some other planet that he had gone to. It was beyond their concept.”

“Yeah,” Bosch said.

There was nothing else to say.

“Anyway,” Harrod said, shaking off the memory. “I better wash up, Harry. My wife’s making pasta tonight.”

“Sounds good, Gary. Thanks for your help.”

“What help?”

“You helped. Let me know if you think of anything else.”

“You got it.”

Bosch hung up and tried to think if he knew anybody who would have worked in Devonshire twenty years ago. Back then it was the quietest yet geographically largest police division, covering the entire northwest corner of the city in the San Fernando Valley. It was known as Club Dev because the station was new and the workload light.

Bosch realized that Larry Gandle, a former Open-Unsolved Unit lieutenant, had spent time in Devonshire in the nineties and might know who the Danish-speaking patrol officer was. Bosch called Gandle’s office. He was now the captain in charge of RHD.