The Concrete Blonde Part 20

Bosch nodded, closed the binders and put them under his arm.

"There is one thing, though," Locke said. "Look at his pool of victims. Who are they? How does he get to them? The three who are dead and the survivor, they all were in the p.o.r.no industry, you said."

Bosch put the binders back down on the table. He lit another cigarette.

"Yes, they all did outcall work, too," he said.

"Yes. So while Church was the opportunistic killer, taking victims of any size, age or race, the follower was more specific in his tastes."

Bosch recalled the p.o.r.no victims quickly.

"Right, the follower's victims were white, young, blonde and large-breasted."

"That is a clear pattern. Did these women advertise their outcall services in the adult-related media?"

"I know two of them did, and the survivor. The latest victim did outcall but I'm not sure how she advertised."

"Did the three who did advertise include photographs of themselves in the copy?"

Bosch could specifically remember only Holly Lere's ad, and it did not include her photo. Just her stage name, a phone drop and a guarantee of lewd pleasure.

"I don't think so. The one I remember didn't. But her p.o.r.no name was in the ad. So anyone familiar with her work in video would know her physical appearance and attributes."

"Very good. We are already creating a profile of the follower. He is someone who uses adult videos to choose the women for his erotic program. He then contacts them through ads in the adult media by seeing either their names or photos in the advertis.e.m.e.nts. Have I helped you, Detective Bosch?"

"Absolutely. Thanks for the time. And keep this under your hat. I'm not sure we want to go public with this yet."

Bosch picked up the binders again and headed toward the door but Locke stopped him.

"We haven't finished, you know."

Bosch turned around.

"How do you mean?" he asked, though he knew.

"You haven't spoken about the aspect of this that is most troubling. The question of how our follower learned the killer's routine. The task force did not divulge every detail of the Dollmaker's program to the media. Not back then. Details were held back so the loonies who confessed would not know exactly what to confess to. It was a safeguard. The task force could quickly eliminate the bogus confessions."

"So?"

"So the question is, how did the follower know?"

"I don't-"

"Yes, you do. The book Mr. Bremmer wrote made those details available to the world. That, of course, could account for the concrete blonde... . But not, as I am sure you have realized, for victims seven and eleven."

Locke was right. It was what Bosch had realized earlier. He avoided thinking about it because he dreaded the implications.

Locke said, "The answer is that the follower was somehow privy to the details. The details are what triggered his action. You have to remember that what we are dealing with here is someone who very likely was already in the midst of some great internal struggle when he stumbled onto an erotic program that matched his own needs. This man already had problems, whether they had manifested in his committing crimes or not. He was a sick puppy, Harry, and he saw the Dollmaker's erotic mold and realized, That's me. That's what I want, what I need for fulfillment. He then adopted the Dollmaker's program and acted on it, to the very last detail. The question is, how did he stumble onto it? And the answer is, he was given access."

For a moment they just looked at each other, then Bosch spoke.

"You're talking about a cop. Someone on the task force. That can't be. I was there. We all wanted this guy to go down. n.o.body was ... getting off on this, man."

"Possibly a member of the task force, Harry, only possibly. But remember, the circle of those who knew about the program was much larger than just the task force. You have medical examiners, investigators, beat cops, photographers, reporters, paramedics, the pa.s.sersby who found the bodies-many people who had access to details the follower obviously knew about."

Bosch tried to pull together a quick profile in his mind. Locke read him.

"It would have to be someone in or around the investigation, Harry. Not necessarily a vital part or a continuous part. But someone who intersected with the investigation at a point that would allow him to gain knowledge of the full program. More than what was publicly known at the time."

Bosch said nothing until Locke prompted him.

"What else, Harry? Narrow it down."

"Left-handed."

"Possibly but not necessarily. Church was left-handed. The follower may only have used the left hand to make the perfect copy of Church's crimes."

"That's right but then there are the notes. Suspicious docs said they believed it was a left-handed writer. They weren't one hundred percent. They never are."

"Okay, then, possibly left-handed. What else?"

Bosch thought for a moment.

"Maybe a smoker. There was a package found in the concrete. Kaminski, the victim, didn't smoke."

"Okay, that's good. These are the things you need to think about to narrow it down. It's in the details, Harry, I'm sure of it."

A cool wind came down the hillside and in through the French doors and chilled Bosch. It was time to go, to be alone with this.

"Thanks again," he said as he started once more for the door.

"What will you do?" Locke called after him.

"I don't know yet."

"Harry?"

Bosch stopped at the threshold and looked back at Locke, the pool glowing eerily in the darkness behind him.

"The follower, he may be the smartest to come along in a long time."

"Because he's a cop?"

"Because he probably knows everything about the case that you know."

It was cold in the Caprice. At night the canyons always carried a dark chill. Bosch turned the car around and it floated quietly down Lookout Mountain to Laurel Canyon. He took a right and drove to the canyon market, where he bought a six-pack of Anchor Steam. Then he took his beer and his questions back up the hill to Mulholland.

He drove to Woodrow Wilson Drive and then down to his small house that stood on cantilevers and looked out across the Cahuenga Pa.s.s. He had left no lights on inside because with Sylvia in his life he never knew how long he would go without being here.

He opened the first beer as soon as the Caprice was parked at the curb in front. A car slowly went by and left him in the dark. He watched one of the beams from the spotlights at Universal City cut across the clouds over the house. Another one chased after it a few seconds later. The beer felt and tasted good going down his throat. But it felt heavy in his stomach and Bosch stopped drinking. He put the bottle back in its carton.

But it wasn't the beer, he knew, that was really bothering him. It was Ray Mora. Of all the people who were close enough to the case to know the details of the program, Mora was the one who jabbed at Bosch's gut. The follower's three victims were p.o.r.no actresses. And that was Mora's gig. He probably knew them all. The question that was now beginning to push its way into Bosch's mind was, did he kill them all? It bothered him to even think about it, but he knew he had to. Mora was a logical starting point when Bosch considered Locke's advice. The vice cop stood out in Bosch's mind as someone who easily intersected both worlds: the p.o.r.n trade and the Dollmaker's. Was it just coincidence or enough to cla.s.sify Mora as an actual suspect? Bosch wasn't sure. He knew he had to proceed as cautiously with an innocent man as he would with a guilty man.

Inside, the place smelled musty. He went directly to the rear sliding door and opened it. He stood there for a moment listening to the hissing sound of traffic coming up from the freeway at the bottom of the pa.s.s. The sound never died. No matter what time, what day, there was always traffic down there, blood coursing through the veins of the city.

The light on the answering machine was blinking the number three. Bosch hit rewind and lit a cigarette. The first voice was Sylvia's: "I just want to say good-night, sweetheart. I love you and be careful."

Jerry Edgar was next: "Harry, it's Edgar. Wanted to let you know, I'm off it. Irving called me at home and told me to turn everything I've got over to RHD in the morning. To a Lieutenant Rollenberger. Take care, buddy. And watch six."

Watch six, Bosch thought. Watch your back. He hadn't heard that one since Vietnam. And he knew Edgar had never been there.

"It's Ray," the last voice on the tape said. "I've been thinking about this concrete blonde job and have a few ideas you might be interested in. Call me in the morning and we'll talk."

15.

"I want a continuance."

"What?"

"You have to get the trial delayed. Tell the judge."

"What the f.u.c.k are you talking about, Bosch?"

Bosch and Belk were sitting at the defense table, waiting for the Thursday morning court session to begin. They were speaking in loud whispers and Bosch thought that when Belk cursed, it came off as sounding too contrived, as if he were a sixth-grader trying to fit in with the eighth-graders.

"I am talking about that witness yesterday, Wieczorek, he was right."

"About what?"

"The alibi, Belk. The alibi on the eleventh victim. It's legit. Church didn't-"

"Wait a minute," Belk yelped. Then in a low whisper he said, "If you are about to confess to me that you killed the wrong guy, I don't want to hear it, Bosch. Not now. It's too late."

He turned back to his legal tablet.

"Belk, listen G.o.ddammit, I'm not confessing anything. I got the right guy. But we missed something. Another guy. There were two killers. Church is good for nine-the nine we tied up on the makeup comparisons. The other two, and the one we found in the concrete this week, were done by somebody else. You have to stop this thing until we figure out what exactly is going on. If it comes out in court it will tip the second killer, the follower, to how close we are to him."

Belk threw his pen down on the pad and it bounced off the table. He didn't get up to get it.

"I'm going to tell you what's going on, Bosch. We are not stopping anything. Even if I wanted to, I probably couldn't-the judge is in her pants. All she needs to do is object and no sale, no delay. So I'm not even going to bring it up. You have to understand something, Bosch, this is a trial. This is the controlling factor of your universe right now. You don't control it. You can't expect the trial to recess every time you need to change your story ..."

"You finished?"

"Yes, I'm finished."

"Belk, I understand everything you just said. But we have to protect the investigation. There is another guy out there killing people. And if Chandler puts me or Edgar up there and starts asking questions, the killer is going to read about it and know everything we've got. We'll never get him then. You want that?"

"Bosch, my duty is to win this case. If in doing that, it compromises your-"

"Yeah, but don't you want to know the truth, Belk? I think we're close. Delay it until next week and by then we'll have it together. We'll be able to come in here and blow Money Chandler out of the water."

Bosch leaned back, away from him. He was tired of fighting him.

"Bosch, how long you been a cop?" Belk asked without looking at him. "Twenty years?"

That was close. But Bosch didn't answer. He knew what was coming.

"And you're going to sit there and talk to me about truth? When was the last time you saw a truthful police report? When was the last time that you put down the unadulterated truth in a search warrant application? Don't tell me about truth. You want truth, go see a priest or something. I don't know where to go, but don't come in here. After twenty on the job you should know, the truth has got nothing to do with what goes on in here. Neither does justice. Just words in a law book I read in my previous life."

Belk turned away and took another pen out of his s.h.i.+rt pocket.

"Okay, Belk, you're the man. But I'm going to tell you how it's going to look when it comes out. It's going to come out in bits and pieces and it will look bad. That's Chandler's specialty. It will look like I hit the wrong guy."

Belk was ignoring him, writing on his yellow pad.

"You fool, she is going to stick it into us so deep it's going to come out the other side. You keep writing her off as having the judge's hand on her a.s.s, but we both know that's how you deal with the fact that you couldn't carry her lunch. For the last time, get a delay."

Belk stood up and walked around the table to pick up the fallen pen. After straightening up, he adjusted his tie and his cuffs and sat back down. He leaned over his pad and without looking at Bosch said, "You're just afraid of her, aren't you, Bosch? Don't want to be on the stand with the c.u.n.t asking questions. Questions that might expose you for what you are: a cop who likes killing people."

Now he turned and looked at Bosch.

"Well, it's too late. Your time has come and there is no backing away. No delays. Show time."

Harry stood up and bent over the fat man.

"f.u.c.k you, Belk. I'm going outside."

"That's nice," Belk said. "You know, you guys are all the same. You blow some guy away and then come in here and think that just because you wear that badge that you have some kind of a divine right to do whatever you want. That badge is the biggest power trip going."

Bosch went out to the bank of phones and called Edgar. He picked up on the homicide table after one ring.

"I got your message last night."

"Yeah, well, that's all there is. I'm gone. RHD came up this morning and took my file. Saw them snoopin' around your spot, too, but they didn't take anything."

"Who came?"

"Sheehan and Opelt. You know 'em?"

"Yeah, they're okay. You coming over here on the subpoena?"

"Yeah, I gotta be there by ten."