Free Trunk Music by Michael Connelly Page A

it?”
    “We just want to know where you were the last few days and nights. It’s a routine question, nothing else.”
    “Well, I hate to bore you with my life’s details, because I’m afraid that’s what they are, boring. But other than a trip to the mall and supermarket Saturday afternoon, I haven’t left the house since I had dinner with my husband Wednesday night.”
    “You’ve been here alone?”
    “Yes…but I think you can verify this with Captain Nash at the gate. They keep records of who comes in as well as out of Hidden Highlands. Even the residents. Also, on Friday our pool man was here in the afternoon. I gave him his check. I can get you his name and number.”
    “That won’t be necessary right now. Thank you. And again, I’m sorry for your loss. Is there anything we can do for you right now?”
    She seemed to be withdrawing into herself. He was not sure she had heard his question.
    “I’m fine,” she finally said.
    He picked up his briefcase and headed down the hallway with Rider. It ran behind the living room and took them directly to the front door. All the way along the hallway there were no photographs on the wall. It didn’t seem right to him, but he guessed nothing had been right in this house for a while. Bosch studied dead people’s rooms the way scholars studied dead people’s paintings at the Getty. He looked for the hidden meanings, the secrets of lives and deaths.
    At the door Rider went out first. Bosch then stepped out and looked back down the hall. Veronica Aliso was framed at the other end in the light. He hesitated for a beat. He nodded and walked out.
    They drove in silence, digesting the conversation, until they got to the gatehouse and Nash came out.
    “How’d it go?”
    “It went.”
    “He’s dead, isn’t he? Mr. Aliso.”
    “Yeah.”
    Nash whistled quietly.
    “Captain Nash, you keep records here of when cars come in and out?” Rider asked.
    “Yes. But this is private property. You’d need a-”
    “Search warrant,” Bosch said. “Yes, we know. But before we go to all that trouble, tell me something. Say I come back with a warrant, are your gate records going to tell me when exactly Mrs. Aliso came in and out of here the last few days?”
    “Nope. It’ll only tell you when her car did.”
    “Gotcha.”
    Bosch dropped off Rider at her car and they drove separately down out of the hills to the Hollywood Division station on Wilcox. On the way Bosch thought about Veronica Aliso and the fury she seemed to hold in her eyes for her dead husband. He didn’t know how it fit or if it even fit at all. But he knew they would be coming back to her.
    Rider and Bosch stopped briefly in the station to update Edgar and pick up cups of coffee. Bosch then called Archway and arranged for the security office to call in Chuckie Meachum from home. Bosch did not tell the duty officer who took the call what it was about or what office inside the studio they would be going to. He just told the officer to get Meachum there.
    At midnight they went out the rear door of the station house, past the fenced windows of the drunk tank and to Bosch’s car.
    “So what did you think of her?” Bosch finally asked as he pulled out of the station lot.
    “The embittered widow? I think there wasn’t much to their marriage. At least at the end. Whether that makes her a killer or not, I don’t know.”
    “No pictures.”
    “On the walls? Yeah, I noticed that.”
    Bosch lit a cigarette and Rider didn’t say anything about it, although it was a violation of department policy to smoke in the detective car.
    “What do you think?” Rider asked.
    “I’m not sure yet. There’s what you said. The bitterness you could almost put in a glass if you ever ran out of ice. Couple other things I’m still thinking about.”
    “Like what?”
    “Like all the makeup she had on and the way she took my badge out of my hand. Nobody’s ever done that before. It’s like…I don’t know, like maybe she was