The Concrete Blonde hb-3

by Michael Connelly

  “Those are the women?”

  He nodded.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m not sure. Trying to make something happen, I guess. I thought if I looked at them all again I might get an idea, figure out what’s happening.”

  “But how can you look at those? You were just standing there looking.”

  “Because I have to.”

  She looked down at the paper in her hand.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Nothing. Uh, one of my students wrote something. I was going to read it to you.”

  “Go ahead.”

  He stepped over to the wall and turned off the light that hung over the table. The photos and Bosch became shrouded in darkness. Sylvia stood in the light cast from the dining room through the kitchen entrance.

  “Go ahead.”

  She held up the paper and said, “It’s a girl. She wrote, ‘West foreshadowed the end of Los Angeles’s halcyon moment. He saw the city of angels becoming a city of despair, a place where hopes get crushed under the weight of the mad crowd. His book was the warning.’“

  She looked up.

  “She goes on but that was the part I wanted to read. She’s only a tenth-grader taking advanced classes but she seemed to grasp something so strong there.”

  He admired her lack of cynicism. Bosch’s first thought was that the kid had plagiarized-where’d she get a word like halcyon? But Sylvia saw past that. She saw the beauty in things. He saw the darkness.

  “It’s good,” he said.

  “She’s African-American. She comes up on the bus. She’s one of the smartest I have and I worry about her on the bus. She said the trip is seventy-five minutes each way and that is the time when she reads the assignments I give. But I worry about her. She seems so sensitive. Maybe too much so.”

  “Give her time and she’ll grow a callous on her heart. Everybody does.”

  “No, not everybody, Harry. That’s what I worry about with her.”

  She looked at him there in the darkness for a long moment.

  “I’m sorry I intruded.”

  “You never intrude on me, Sylvia. I am sorry I brought this home. I can leave if you want, take it to my place.”

  “No, Harry, I want you here. You want me to put on some coffee?”

  “No, I’m fine.”

  She went back to the living room and he turned the light back on. He looked over the gallery again. Though they looked the same in death because of the makeup applied by each one’s killer, the women fell into numerous physical categories according to race, size, coloring, and so on.

  Locke had told the task force that this meant that the killer was simply an opportunistic predator. Not concerned with body type, only the acquisition of a victim which he could then place into his erotic program. He did not care if they were black or white as long as he could snatch them with as little notice as possible. He was a bottom feeder. He moved on a level where the women he encountered were victims long before he got to them. They were women who had already given up their bodies to the unloving hands and eyes of strangers. They were out there waiting for him. The question, Bosch now knew, was whether the Dollmaker was still out there, too.

  He sat down and from the pocket of the binder he pulled a map of West L.A. Its creases cracked and split in some sections as he unfolded it and put it down on top of the photos. The round black stickers that represented locations where bodies had been found were still in place. The victim’s name and date of discovery were written next to each black dot. Geographically, the task force had found no significance until after Church was dead. The bodies were found in locations stretching from Silverlake to Malibu. The Dollmaker littered the entire Westside. Still, for the most part, the bodies were clustered in Silverlake and Hollywood, with only one found in Malibu and one in West Hollywood.

  The concrete blonde was found farther south in Hollywood than any of the previous bodies. She was also the only one that had been buried. Locke had said location of disposal was probably a choice of convenience. After Church was dead this seemed true. Four of the bodies had been dumped within a mile of his Silverlake apartment. Another four were in eastern Hollywood, not a long drive, either.

  The dates had done nothing for the investigation. No pattern. Initially there was a decreasing-interval pattern between discoveries of victims, then it began to vary widely. The Dollmaker would go five weeks between strikes, then two weeks, then three. Nothing to make of this; the detectives on the task force simply let it go.

  Bosch moved on. He began reading the background packets that had been drawn up on each victim. Most of these were short-two to three pages about their sad lives. One of the women who worked Hollywood Boulevard at night was going to beautician school by day. Another had been sending money to Chihuahua, Mexico, where her parents believed she had a good job as a tour guide at the famous Disneyland. There were odd matches between some of the victims, but nothing that ever amounted to anything.

  Three of the Boulevard whores went to the same doctor for weekly clap shots. Members of the task force put him under surveillance for three weeks. But one night while they were watching him, the real Dollmaker picked up a prostitute on Sunset and her body was found in Silverlake the next morning.

  Two of the other women also shared a doctor. The same Beverly Hills plastic surgeon had performed breast-implant surgery on them. The task force had rallied on this discovery, for a plastic surgeon remakes images, similarly after a fashion to the way the Dollmaker used makeup. The plastic man, as he was called by the cops, was also placed under surveillance. But he never made a suspicious move and seemed to be the picture of domestic bliss with a wife whose physical features he had sculpted to his own liking. They were still watching him when Bosch took the telephone tip that led to the shooting of Norman Church.

  As far as Bosch knew, neither doctor ever knew he had been watched. In the book Bremmer wrote, they were identified by pseudonyms.

  Nearly two-thirds through the background packets, as he read about Nicole Knapp, the seventh victim, Bosch saw the pattern within the pattern. He had somehow missed it before. All of them had. The task force, Locke, the media. They had put all the victims into the same classification. A whore is a whore is a whore. But there were differences. Some were streetwalkers, some were higher up the scale as escorts. Within these two groups, some were also dancers; one was a telegram stripper. And two made livings in the pornography trade-as had the latest victim, Becky Kaminski-while taking outcall hooking assignments on the side.

  Bosch took the packets and photos of Nicole Knapp, the seventh victim, and Shirleen Kemp, the eleventh victim, off the table. These were the two porn actresses, known on video as Holly Lere and Heather Cumhither, respectively.

  He then paged through one of the binders until he found the package on the lone survivor, the woman who had gotten away. She, too, was a porn actress who took outcall sex jobs. Her name was Georgia Stern. Her video name was Velvet Box. She had gone to the Hollywood Star Motel to meet a date arranged through the outcall service she advertised in the local sex tabloids. After she arrived, her client asked her to undress. She turned her back to do this, offering a show of modesty in case that was a turn-on for the client. She then saw the leather strap of her purse come over her head and he began choking her from behind. She fought, as probably all the victims had, but she was able to get free by driving an elbow into her attacker’s ribs, then turning and delivering a kick to his genitals.

  She ran naked from the room, all thought of modesty long gone. By the time police went back in, the attacker was gone. It was three days before the reports on the incident filtered their way to the task force. By then the hotel room had been used dozens of times-the Hollywood Star offered hourly rates-and it was useless as far as gathering physical evidence went.

  Reading the reports on it now, Bosch realized why the composite drawing that Georgia Stern had helped a police artist sketch was so different from the appearance of
Norman Church.

  It had been a different man.

  * * *

  An hour later, he turned one of the binders to the last page, where he had kept a listing of phone numbers and addresses of the principals involved in the investigation. He went to the wall phone and dialed the home of Dr. John Locke. He hoped the psychologist had not changed his number in four years.

  Locke picked up after five rings.

  “Sorry, Dr. Locke, I know it’s getting late. It’s Harry Bosch.”

  “Harry, how are you? I am sorry we didn’t get to talk today. It was not the best circumstance for you, I’m sure, but I-”

  “Yes, Doctor, listen, something’s come up. It’s related to the Dollmaker. I have some things I want to show you and talk about. Would it be possible for me to come there?”

  There was a lengthy silence before Locke answered.

  “Would that be about this new case I’ve read about in the paper?”

  “Yes, that and some other things.”

  “Well, let’s see, it’s nearly ten o’clock. Are you sure this can’t wait until tomorrow morning?”

  “I am in court tomorrow morning, Doctor. All day. It’s important. I’d really appreciate your time. I’ll be there before eleven and be out before twelve.”

  When Locke didn’t say anything, Harry wondered if the soft-spoken doctor was afraid of him or just didn’t want a killer cop in his home.

  “Besides,” Bosch said into the silence, “I think you’ll find it interesting.”

  “Very well,” Locke said.

  After getting the address, Harry packed all the paperwork back into the two binders. Sylvia came into the kitchen after hesitating at the doorway until she was sure the photos were packed away.

  “I heard you talking. Are you going to his place tonight?”

  “Yeah, right now. In Laurel Canyon.”

  “What’s going on?”

  He stopped his hurried movement. He had both binders stacked under his right arm.

  “I... well, we missed something. The task force. We messed up. I think all along there were two, but I didn’t see it until now.”

  “Two killers?”

  “I think so. I want to ask Locke about it.”

  “Are you coming back tonight?”

  “I don’t know. It will be late. I was thinking about just going to my place. Check my messages, get some fresh clothes.”

  “This weekend is not looking good, is it?”

  “What—oh, yeah, Lone Pine, yeah. Well, uh, I-”

  “Don’t worry about it. But I may want to hang out at your place while they have the open house here.”

  “Sure.”

  She walked him to the door and opened it. She told him to be careful and to call her the next day. He said he would. At the threshold he hesitated. He said, “You know, you were right.”

  “About what?”

  “What you said about men.”

  Chapter 14

  Laurel Canyon is a winding cut through the Santa Monica Mountains that connects Studio City with Hollywood and the Sunset Strip. On the south side, where the road drops below Mulholland Drive and the fast four lanes thin to two crumbling invitations to a head-on collision, the canyon becomes funky L.A., where forty-year-old Hollywood bungalows sit next to multilevel glass contemporaries that sit next to gingerbread houses. Harry Houdini built a castle in here among the steep hillsides. Jim Morrison lived in a clapboard house near the little market that still serves as the canyon’s only commercial outpost.

  The canyon was a place where the new rich-rock stars, writers, film actors and drug dealers-came to live. They braved the mudslides and the monumental traffic tie-ups just to call Laurel Canyon home. Locke lived on Lookout Mountain Drive, a steep upward grade off Laurel Canyon Boulevard that made Bosch’s department-issue Caprice work extra hard. The address he was looking for could not be missed because it blinked in blue neon from the front wall of Locke’s house. Harry pulled to the curb behind a multicolor Volkswagen van that was at least twenty-five years old. Laurel Canyon was like that, a time warp.

  Bosch got out, dropped his cigarette in the street and stepped on it. It was very quiet and dark. He heard the Caprice’s engine ticking away its heat, the smell of burning oil wafting from the undercarriage. He reached in through the open window and grabbed the two binders.

  It had taken most of an hour to get to Locke’s and during that time Bosch had been able to refine his thoughts on the discovery of the pattern within a pattern. He also realized along the way that there was a key way of attempting to confirm it.

  Locke answered with a glass of red wine in his hand. He was barefoot and wearing blue jeans and a surgeon’s green shirt. Hanging from a leather thong around his neck was a large pink crystal.

  “Good evening, Detective Bosch. Please come in.”

  He led the way through an entry hall to a large living room/dining room area with a wall of French doors that opened onto a brick patio surrounding a lighted blue pool. Bosch noticed the pinkish carpet was dirty and worn but otherwise the place was not bad for a college sex professor and author. He noticed the water of the pool was choppy, as if someone had been swimming recently. He thought he smelled a trace of stale marijuana smoke.

  “Beautiful place,” Bosch said. “You know we’re almost neighbors. I live on the other side of the hill. On Woodrow Wilson.”

  “Oh, really? How come it took you so long to get here?”

  “Well, actually, I didn’t come from home. I was at a friend’s place up in Bouquet Canyon.”

  “Ah, a girlfriend, that explains the forty-five-minute wait.”

  “Sorry to hold you up, Doctor. Why don’t we get on with this so I don’t keep you any longer than necessary.”

  “Yes, please.”

  He signaled Bosch to put the binders down on the dining room table. He didn’t ask if Harry wanted a glass of wine, an ashtray or even a pair of swimming trunks.

  “I’m sorry to intrude,” Harry offered. “I’ll be quick.”

  “Yes, you said that. I’m sorry this came up now myself. Testifying put me back a day on my research and writing schedule and I was trying to recoup tonight.”

  Bosch noticed his hair wasn’t wet. Maybe he had been working while someone else had been in the pool.

  Locke took a seat at the dining room table and Bosch told the story of the concrete blonde investigation in exact chronological order after starting by showing him the copy of the new note left at the station on Monday.

  While telling the details of the latest death, Bosch saw Locke’s eyes brighten with interest. When he was done, the psychologist folded his arms and closed his eyes and said, “Let me think about this before we go on.”

  He sat perfectly still. Bosch wasn’t sure what to make of it. After twenty seconds went by, he finally said, “If you’re going to think, I’m going to borrow your phone.”

  “In the kitchen,” Locke said without opening his eyes.

  Bosch got Amado’s phone number from the task force list in the binder and called him. He could tell he had awakened the coroner’s analyst.

  After identifying himself, Bosch said, “Sorry to wake you. But things are happening very quickly on this new Dollmaker case. Did you read about it in the paper?”

  “Yeah. But they said it wasn’t known for sure if it was the Dollmaker.”

  “Right. That’s what I’m working on. I have a question.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “You testified yesterday about the rape kits taken from each victim. Where are they now? The evidence, I mean.”

  There was a long silence before Amado said, “They’re probably still in evidence storage. The coroner’s policy is to keep evidence seven years after resolution of a case. You know, in case of appeals or something. Now, since your perp is dead, there would be no reason to keep the stuff even that long. But it takes an order from the medical examiner to clear out an evidence locker. The chances are the ME at the time would not have th
ought or remembered to do this after you, uh, killed Church. It’s too big of a bureaucracy to run that well. My guess is the kits would still be there. The evidence custodian would only request a disposal order after seven years.”

  “Okay,” Bosch said, excitement evident in his voice. “What about the condition? Would it still be usable as evidence? And for analysis?”

  “Should be no deterioration, I would think.”

  “How full’s your plate?”

  “It’s always full. But you’ve got me hooked here. What’s up?”

  “I need someone to pull the kits from victims seven and eleven. That’s Nicole Knapp and Shirleen Kemp. Got it? Seven and eleven, like the store.”

  “I got it. Seven eleven. Then what?”

  “Cross—reference the pubic combs. Look for the same foreign hair in both places, on both women. How long will it take?”

  “Three, four days. We have to send that to the DOJ lab. I can put a rush on it, maybe get it sooner. Can I ask you something? Why are we doing this?”

  “I think there was someone else besides Church. A copycat. He did seven, eleven and the one this week. And I’m thinking he might not have been smart enough to shave himself like Church. If you find similar hair in the combs, I think that will clinch it.”

  “Well, I can tell you something right off that is interesting about those two. Seven and eleven.”

  Bosch waited.

  “I reviewed everything before I testified, so it’s still fresh, you know? Remember I testified that two of the victims had extreme damage, vaginal tears? Well, it was those two, seven and eleven.”

  Bosch thought about this for a few moments. From out in the dining room he heard Locke say, “Harry?”

  “Be right there,” he called out. To Amado, he said, “That’s interesting.”

  “It means this second guy, whoever he is, he’s rougher trade than Church. Those two women were hurt the most.”

  Something came together in Bosch’s mind then. Something that had not seemed right about Amado’s testimony the day before. Now it was clear.

  “The condoms,” he said.