Angle of Investigation

could produce a sound that echoed all the sadness and hope of humanity gave him pause. Again, he remembered the day on the ship. Sugar Ray bobbing and weaving through “The Sweet Spot” and a few other tunes. Bosch fell in love with the sound that day. It felt like it had come from somewhere deep within himself. He was not the same after that day.
    He came out of the memory and walked over to a shelf that ran above the row of file cabinets. He took down one of the forensics manuals and turned to the index. He found what he wanted and went to the page. He was sitting down, reading the manual, when his cell phone chirped and he dug it out of his pocket. It was Edgar.
    “Harry, they’re about to clear here. You want me to come in?”
    “Not yet.”
    “Well, what are we doing?”
    “There was nothing with the body, right? No tools, no picks?”
    “That’s right. I already told you.”
    “I just read through the reports from the three priors. That display case was hit each time. It was picked. Servan said it was always locked.”
    “Well, we got no lock picks here, Harry. I guess whoever moved the body took the picks.”
    “It was Servan.”
    Edgar was quiet and then said, “Why don’t you run it down for me, Harry.”
    Bosch thought for a moment before speaking.
    “He’d been hit three times in two years. Every time the high-end case was picked. It’s hard to work a set of picks with gloves on. Servan probably knew that the one time this guy took off his gloves was to work the picks. Steel picks going into a steel lock.”
    “If he put a hundred ten volts into that lock, it could’ve shut this guy’s heart down.”
    “Not necessarily. I’ve been sitting here reading one of the manuals. One-ten can stop your heart, but it all depends on the amps. There’s a formula. It has to do with resistance to the charge. You know, like dry skin versus moist skin, things like that.”
    “This guy just took his glove off. He probably had sweaty hands.”
    “Exactly. So if the resistance was low and Servan had somehow rigged a one-ten line going directly into that lock, then the initial jolt could have contracted the muscles and left our burglar unable to let go of the pick. The juice goes through him, hits the heart and the heart goes into V-fib.”
    “Ventricular fibrillation is a natural cause, Harry.”
    “Not when you use one-ten to get it.”
    “Then we’re talking more than just homicide. This is lying in wait.”
    “The DA can decide all of that. We just have to bring in the facts.”
    “By the way, how’d you know to take off his sock and look for the exit burn?”
    “The burns on his fingers. I saw them and just took a shot.”
    “Well, I’d say you hit the bull’s-eye, partner.”
    “Got lucky. So now you have to get into that case and find out how he wired it. Did SID leave?”
    “They’re still packing up.”
    “Tell them to take the case as evidence.”
    “The whole case? It’s ten feet long.”
    “Tell them to take it with them. You go with it. The case is the key. And tell them to be careful with it.”
    “They’re going to have to get a Special Services truck out here.”
    “Whatever. Call them now. Get it done.”
    Bosch closed the phone and got up from his desk. He went down the hallway past the watch office to the locker rooms. He bought two packages of peanut butter crackers from the vending machine. He opened one and ate all the squares while he was walking back to the detective bureau. He put the other package in his coat pocket for later. He stopped once on the way back to get a drink from the water fountain.
    Braxton was waiting for him at the homicide table with a sheet of paper in his hand.
    “You got lucky,” he told Bosch as he approached. “The guy pawned that saxophone two years ago but they still had the slip.”
    He gave the sheet of paper to Bosch. It was a photocopy of the pawn slip. It contained the name, address and phone numbers of the customer. The man who had pawned Quentin McKinzie’s saxophone was named Donald Teed. He lived in the Valley. Nikolai Servan had given him $200 for the instrument.
    Bosch sat down and noticed that Teed had listed his work phone number with a 323 area code and a Hollywood exchange. That might explain why a man who lived in the Valley had used a pawnshop in Hollywood. He picked up the phone and punched in Teed’s work number. It was answered immediately by a woman who said, “Splendid Age.”
    “Excuse me?” Bosch