The Harry Bosch Novels Vol I Part 90

"Yes, that is correct."

"When did the book come out?"

"Just last year."

"That would be three years after the end of the Dollmaker case?"

"Yes."

"Well, having been part of the Dollmaker task force and obviously becoming familiar with the crimes, why didn't you include Norman Church in your study? It would seem to be an obvious choice."

"It would seem that way but it wasn't. First of all, Norman Church was dead. I wanted subjects that were alive and cooperative. But incarcerated, of course. I wanted people that I could interview."

"But of the five subjects you wrote about, only four are alive. What about the fifth, a man named Alan Karps, who was executed in Texas before you even began your book? Why not Norman Church?"

"Because, Ms. Chandler, Karps had spent much of his adult life in inst.i.tutions. There were voluminous public records on his treatment and psychiatric study. With Church there was nothing. He had never been in trouble before. He was an anomaly."

Chandler looked down at her yellow pad and flipped a page, letting the point she just scored hang in the quiet courtroom like a cloud of cigarette smoke.

"But you did at least make preliminary inquiries about Church, didn't you?"

Locke hesitated before answering.

"Yes, I made a very preliminary inquiry. It amounted to contacting his family and asking his wife if she would grant me an interview. She turned me down. Since the man himself was dead and there were no records about him - other than the actual details of the murders, which I was already familiar with - I didn't pursue it. I went with Karps in Texas."

Bosch watched Chandler cross several questions off on her legal pad and then flip several pages to a new set. He guessed that she was changing tack.

She said, "While you were working with the task force you drew up a psychological profile of the killer, correct?"

"Yes," Locke said slowly. He adjusted himself in the chair, straightening up for what he knew was coming.

"What was that based on?"

"An a.n.a.lysis of the crime scenes and method of homicide filtered through what little we know about the deviant mind. I came up with common attributes that I thought might be part of our suspect's makeup - no pun intended."

No one in the courtroom laughed. Bosch looked around and saw that the spectator rows were becoming crowded. This must be the best show in the building, he thought. Maybe all of downtown.

"You were not very successful, were you? If Norman Church was the Doll-maker, that is."

"No, not very successful. But that happens. It's a lot of guesswork. Rather than a testimonial to my failure, it is more a testimonial to how little we know about people. This man's behavior did not make so much as a blip on anybody's radar screen - not counting, of course, the women he killed - until the night he was shot."

"You speak as if it is a given that Norman Church was the killer, the Doll-maker. Do you know that to be true based on indisputable facts?"

"Well, I know it to be true because it is what the police told me."

"If you take it backwards, doctor. If you start with what you know about Norman Church now and leave out what the police have told you about the supposed evidence, would you ever believe him capable of what he has been accused of?"

Belk was about to stand up to object but Bosch strongly put his hand on his arm and held him down. Belk turned and looked angrily at him but by then Locke was answering.

"I wouldn't be able to count him in or out as a suspect. We don't know enough about him. We don't know enough about the human mind in general. All I know is, anybody is capable of anything. I could be a s.e.xual killer. Even you, Ms. Chandler. We all have an erotic mold and for most of us, it is quite normal. For some it may be a bit unusual but still only playful. For the others, on the extreme, who find they can only reach erotic excitement and fulfillment through administering pain, even killing their partners, it is buried deep and dark."

Chandler was looking down at her pad and writing when he finished. When she didn't ask another question immediately, he continued unbidden.

"Unfortunately, the black heart is not worn on the sleeve. The victims who see it usually don't live to talk about it."

"Thank you, Doctor," Chandler said. "I have nothing further."

Belk plowed in without any preliminary softball questions, a look of concentration on his wide florid face that Bosch had not seen previously.

"Doctor, these men with these so-called paraphilia, what do they look like?"

"Like anybody. There is no look that gives them away."

"Yes, and are they always on the prowl? You know, looking to indulge their aberrant fantasies by acting them out?"

"No, actually, studies have shown that these people obviously know they have aberrant tastes and they work to keep them in check. Those brave enough to come forward with their problems often lead completely normal lives with the aid of chemical and psychological therapy. Those that don't are periodically overcome by the compulsion to act out, and they may follow these urges and commit a crime.

"Psychos.e.xually motivated serial killers often exhibit patterns that are quite repet.i.tive, so that police tracking them can almost predict within a few days or a week when they will strike. This is because the buildup of stress, the compulsion to act, will follow a pattern. Often, what you have are decreasing intervals - the overpowering urge comes back sooner and sooner each time."

Belk was leaning over the lectern, his weight firmly against it.

"I see, but between these moments of compulsion when the acts take place, does this man seem to have a normal life or, you know, is he standing in the corner, s...o...b..ring? Or whatever?"

"No, nothing like that - at least, until the intervals become so short that they literally don't exist. Then you might have someone out there always on the prowl, as you said. But between the intervals there is normalcy. The aberrant s.e.xual act - rape, strangulation, voyeurism, anything - will provide the subject with the memory to construct fantasy. He will be able to use the act to fantasize and stimulate arousal during masturbation or normal s.e.x."

"Do you mean that he will sort of replay the murder in his mind so that he can become s.e.xually aroused for having normal s.e.xual intercourse with, say, his wife?"

Chandler objected and Belk had to rephrase the question so it was not leading Locke.

"Yes, he will replay the aberrant act in his mind so that he can accomplish the act that is socially acceptable."

"So in doing so, a wife, for example, might not even know of her husband's real desires, correct?"

"That is correct. It has happened often."

"And a person such as this could carry on at work and with friends and not reveal this side of himself, correct?"

"Again, that is correct. There is ample evidence of this in the case histories of s.e.xual s.a.d.i.s.ts who kill. Ted Bundy led a well-doc.u.mented double life. Randy Kraft, killer of dozens of hitchhikers here in Southern California. I could name many, many more. You see, this is the very reason they kill so many victims before being caught, and then it is usually only because of a small mistake."

"Like with Norman Church?"

"Yes."

"As you testified earlier, you could not find or gather enough information about Norman Church's early development and behavior to include him in your book. Does that fact dissuade you from belief that he was the killer police claim him to be?"

"Not in the least. As I said, these desires can be easily cloaked in normal behavior. These people know they have desires that are not accepted by society. Believe me, they take pains to hide them. Mr. Church was not the only subject I considered for the book and then discarded for lack of valuable information. I did preliminary studies of at least three other serial killers who were either dead or uncooperative and dropped them as well because of the lack of public record or background on them."

"You mentioned earlier that the roots of these problems are planted in childhood. How?"

"I should have said 'may,' the roots may be planted in childhood. It is a difficult science and nothing is known for sure. Getting to your question, if I had a definite answer I guess I wouldn't have a job. But what psychoa.n.a.lysts such as myself believe is that the paraphilia can come through emotional or physical trauma or both. It basically is a synthesis of these, possibly some biological determinants and social learning. It is hard to pinpoint, but we believe it happens very early, generally five to eight years of age. One of the fellows in my book was molested by an uncle at age three. My thesis, or belief or whatever you want to call it, is that this trauma set him on the trail toward becoming a murderer of h.o.m.os.e.xuals. In most of these killings he emasculated his victims."

The courtroom had become so quiet during Locke's testimony that Bosch heard the slight b.u.mp of one of the rear doors opening. He glanced back and saw Jerry Edgar taking a seat in the rear row. Edgar nodded at Harry, who looked up at the clock. It was 4:15; the trial would be recessed for the day in fifteen minutes. Bosch figured Edgar was on his way back from the autopsy.

"Would the childhood trauma that's at the root of a person's criminal activities as an adult need to be so overt? In other words, as traumatic as molestation?"

"Not necessarily. It could be rooted in more traditional emotional stress placed on a child. The awesome pressure to succeed in a parent's eyes, coupled with other things. It is hard to discuss this in a hypothetical context because there are so many dimensions of human s.e.xuality."

Belk followed up with a few more general questions about Locke's studies before ending. Chandler asked a couple more questions on redirect but Bosch had lost interest. He knew that Edgar would not have come to the courtroom unless he had something important. Twice he glanced back at the clock on the wall and twice he looked at his watch. Finally, when Belk said he had nothing further on cross, Judge Keyes called it a day.

Bosch watched Locke step down and head out through the gate and toward the door. A couple of the reporters followed him. Then the jury stood and filed out.

Belk turned to Bosch as they watched and said, "Better be ready tomorrow. My guess is that it's going to be your turn in the sun."

"What've you got, Jerry?" Bosch asked when he caught up with Edgar in the hallway leading to the escalator.

"Your car over at Parker Center?"

"Yeah."

"I'm there, too. Let's walk that way."

They got on the escalator but didn't talk because it was crowded with spectators from the courtroom. Out on the sidewalk, when they were alone, Edgar pulled a folded white form out of his coat pocket and handed it to Bosch.

"All right, we got it confirmed. The prints Mora dug up on Rebecca Kaminski match the hand mold we made on the concrete blonde. I also just came from the autopsy and the tattoo is there, above the a.s.s. Yosemite Sam."

Bosch unfolded the paper. It was a photocopy of a standard missing person report.

"That's a copy of the report on Rebecca Kaminski, also known as Magna c.u.m Loudly. Missing twenty-two months and three days."

Bosch was looking at the report.

"Doesn't look like any doubt to me," he said.

"Nope, no doubt. It was her. The autopsy also confirms manual strangulation as the cause. The knot pulled tight on the right side. Most likely a lefty."

They walked without talking for half a block. Bosch was surprised by how warm it was for so late in the day. Finally, Edgar spoke.

"So, obviously, we've got it confirmed; this may look like one of Church's dolls but there's no way in the world he did it unless he came back from the dead...

"So I did some checking at the bookstore over by Union Station. Bremmer's book, The Dollmaker, The Dollmaker, with all the details a copycat would need, was published in hardback seventeen months after you put Church in the dirt. Becky Kaminski goes missing about four months after the book came out. So our killer could've bought the book and then used it as a sort of blueprint on what to do to make it look like that Dollmaker." with all the details a copycat would need, was published in hardback seventeen months after you put Church in the dirt. Becky Kaminski goes missing about four months after the book came out. So our killer could've bought the book and then used it as a sort of blueprint on what to do to make it look like that Dollmaker."

Edgar looked over at him and smiled.

"You're in the clear, Harry."

Bosch nodded, but didn't smile. Edgar didn't know about the videotape.

They walked down Temple to Los Angeles Street. Bosch didn't notice the people around him, the homeless shaking their cups on the corners. He almost crossed Los Angeles in front of traffic until Edgar put a hand on his arm. While waiting for the walk sign, he looked down and scanned the report again. It was bare bones. Rebecca Kaminski had simply gone out on a "date" and not returned. She was meeting the unnamed man at the Hyatt on Sunset. That was it. No follow-up, no additional information. The report had been made by a man named Tom Cerrone, who was identified in the report as Kaminski's roommate in Studio City. The light changed and they walked across Los Angeles Street and then right toward Parker Center.

"You going to talk to this Cerrone guy, the roommate?" he asked Edgar.

"I don't know. Probably get around to it. I'm more interested in what you think about all of this, Harry. Where do we go from here? Bremmer's book was a f.u.c.kin' bestseller. Anybody who read it is a suspect."

Bosch said nothing until they got to the parking lot and stopped near the entrance booth before separating. Bosch looked down at the report in his hands and then up at Edgar.

"Can I keep this? I might take a run by the guy."

"Be my guest. ... Another thing you should know, Harry."

Edgar reached in his inside coat pocket and pulled out another piece of paper. This one was yellow and Bosch knew it was a subpoena.

"I got served at the coroner's office. I don't know how she knew I was there."

"When d'you have to be in court?"

"Tomorrow at ten. I had nothing to do with the Dollmaker task force so we both know what she's going to ask about. The concrete blonde."

12

Bosch threw his cigarette into the fountain that was part of the memorial to officers killed in the line of duty and walked through the gla.s.s doors into Parker Center. He badged one of the cops behind the front desk and walked around to the elevators. There was a red line painted on the black tile floor. That was the route visitors were told to take if they were going to the Police Commission hearing room. There was also a yellow line for Internal Affairs and a blue for applicants who wanted to become cops. It was a tradition for cops standing around waiting for elevators to stand on the yellow line, thereby making any citizens who were going to IAD - usually to file complaints - walk around them. This maneuver was usually accompanied by a baleful stare from cop to citizen.

Every time Bosch waited for an elevator he remembered the prank he had been partially responsible for while still in the academy. He and another cadet had come into Parker Center at four one morning, drunk and hiding paint brushes and cans of black and yellow paint in their windbreakers. In a quick and daring operation, his partner had used the black paint to obliterate the yellow line on the tile floor while Bosch painted a new yellow line which went past the elevators, down the hall, into a men's room and right to a urinal. The prank had given them near legendary status in their cla.s.s, even among the instructors.

He got off the elevator on the third floor and walked back to the Robbery-Homicide Division. The place was empty. Most RHD cops worked a strict seven-to-three s.h.i.+ft. That way the job didn't get in the way of all the moonlighting gigs they had lined up. RHD d.i.c.ks were the cream of the department. They got all the best gigs. Chauffeuring visiting Saudi princes, security work for studio bosses, body-guarding Vegas high rollers - LVPD did not allow its people to moonlight, so the high-paying jobs fell to LAPD.

When Bosch had first been promoted to RHD there were still a few detective-threes around who had worked bodyguard duty for Howard Hughes. They had spoken of the experience as if that was what the RHD job was all about, a means to an end, a way to get a job working for some deranged billionaire who didn't need any bodyguards because he never went anywhere.

Bosch walked to the rear of the room and turned on one of the computers. He lit a cigarette while the tube warmed up and took the report Edgar had given him out of his coat pocket. The report was nothing. It had never been looked at, acted on, cared about.

He noticed it was a walk-in - Tom Cerrone had come into the North Hollywood Division station and made the report at the front desk. That meant it had probably been written up by a probationary rookie or a burned-out vet who didn't give a s.h.i.+t. In either case, it was not taken for what it was: a cover-your-a.s.s report.

Cerrone said he was Kaminski's roommate. According to the brief summary, two days before the report was made she had told Cerrone she was going on a blind date, meeting an unnamed man at the Hyatt on the Sunset Strip and that she hoped the guy wasn't a creep. She never came back. Cerrone got worried and went to the cops. The report was taken, pa.s.sed through North Hollywood detectives where it didn't make a blip on anyone's screen and then sent to Missing Persons in downtown where four detectives are charged with finding the sixty people reported missing on average each week in the city.

In reality, the report was put in a stack of others like it and was not looked at again until Edgar and his pal, Morg, found it. None of this bothered Bosch, though anyone who spent two minutes reading the report should have known that Cerrone wasn't what he said he was. But Bosch figured Kaminski was dead and in the concrete long before the report was made. So there was nothing anyone could have done anyway.

He punched the name Thomas Cerrone into the computer and ran a search on the California Department of Justice information network. As he expected, he got a hit. The computer file on Cerrone, who was forty years old, showed he had been popped nine times in as many years for soliciting for prost.i.tution and twice for pandering.

He was a pimp, Bosch knew. Kaminski's pimp. Harry noticed that Cerrone was on thirty-six months' probation for his last conviction. He got out his black telephone book and rolled his chair over to a desk with a phone. He dialed the after-hours number for the county probation department and gave the clerk who answered Cerrone's name and DOJ number. She gave back Cerrone's current address. The pimp had come down in the world, from Studio City to Van Nuys, since Kaminski had gone to the Hyatt and not come back.

After hanging up, he thought of calling Sylvia and wondered if he should tell her it was likely he would be called by Chandler to testify the next day. He was unsure if he wanted her to be there, to see him cornered on the witness stand by Money Chandler. He decided not to call.