Angle of Investigation

asked.
    Bosch held up the saxophone.
    “This was his. It says inside here, ‘Custom made for Quentin McKinzie.’ That’s Sugar Ray McK.”
    “You ever see him play?”
    Bosch nodded.
    “One time. Nineteen sixty-nine.”
    Braxton whistled.
    “Long time ago. You think he’s still alive?”
    “I don’t know. He’s not recording. Last disc he put out was Man with an Ax. That was at least ten years ago. Maybe longer. It was a compilation.”
    Bosch looked at the saxophone.
    “Can’t record without this anyway, I suppose.”
    Bosch’s cell phone chirped. It was Edgar.
    “Harry, whereyat?”
    “On the way back to the station. We just checked out Kelman’s apartment.”
    “Anything?”
    “Not really. A junkie and a saxophone. What have you got?”
    “First off, we’ve got lividity issues. This guy was moved.”
    “And what’s the ME say about cause?”
    “He’s going with your theory at the moment. Electrocution. The burns on the hand and foot—where the juice went in and out.”
    “You find the source?Kelm sasource?
    “I looked around. Can’t find it.”
    Bosch thought about all of this. Postmortem lividity was the settling of the blood in a dead body. It was a purple gravity line. If a body is moved after the blood has settled, then a new gravity line will appear. It is an easy tip-off that most people outside of homicide investigation don’t know about.
    “You looked around the case where the glove was?”
    “Yeah, I looked. I can’t find any electrical source that can explain this. The case you’re talking about has internal lighting but there’s no malfunction.”
    Braxton pulled into the parking lot behind the station and into a spot reserved for investigators’ cars.
    “You do a property inventory on the guy yet?”
    “Yeah, nothing. Pockets empty. No ID or anything else.”
    “All right, we’re at the cop shop. Let me think about it and call you back.”
    “Whatever, Harry. I just want to get out of here on time tonight and I don’t like the looks of this.”
    “I know, I know.”
    Bosch closed the phone and got out of the car with the saxophone.
    “What has he got?” Braxton asked.
    “Nothing much,” Bosch said over the top of the car. “It looks like an electrocution.”
    “You called it.”
    “When we get in, can you pull the reports on the three prior B and Es at Three Kings?”
    “You got it. What about Servan?”
    “I’ll check on him but I’m going to let him sit for a while.”
    They went into the station and down to the detective bureau, where they split up, Braxton going to the burglary corral to get the reports, and Bosch to the rear hallway that led to the interview rooms. Servan was in interview room 3, pacing in the small space when Bosch opened the door.
    “Mr. Servan, are you okay? It shouldn’t be too much longer.”
    “Yeah, okay, okay. You find?”
    He pointed to the saxophone. Bosch nodded.
    “Did this come from your store?”
    Servan studied the instrument and nodded vigorously.
    “I think so, yes.”
    “Okay, well, we’ll find out for sure. We’ve got a few things to do and then we’ll get back to you. You want some coffee or to use the bathroom?”
    Servan declined both and Bosch left him there. When he got to the homicide table he started looking for Quentin McKinzie, running searches on the DMV, voter registration and crime index computers. He came up with a record of drug arrests in Los Angeles in the 1970s and 1980s but no address and nothing that gave a clue to his current whereabouts.
    Braxton came over and dropped three thin files on his desk. Bosch told him to take the photo of Monty Kelman they had pulled off the computer and show it to Servan to see if he recognized Kelman as ever coming into the shop as a customer.
    After Braxton was gone Bosch started looking through the burglary reports, beginning with the first break-in at Three Kings. He quickly flipped through the pages until he got to the stolen-property inventory. There was no saxophone on the list. He scanned the items listed and determined they were all small pieces taken from the lighted display cabinet.
    He flipped back to the summary, which had been written by Braxton. It reported that the unknown suspect or suspects had broken through the rear door to enter the establishment, then had emptied the display case containing the highest-value items in the shop. Braxton noted that the display case had a key lock that had either been left unlocked or was expertly