Mora looked away from the book, first to Rollenberger and then to Bosch and then back to Rollenberger.
“You can make a deal?”
“I have to hear it first,” Rollenberger said.
“Okay, this is the deal. I walk and I give you the Follower. I know who it is.”
Bosch was immediately skeptical but said nothing. Rollenberger looked at him and Bosch shook his head once.
“I know,” Mora said. “The Peeping Tom I told you about. That was no bullshit. I got the ID today. It fits. I know who it is.”
Now Bosch took him more seriously. He folded his arms in front of his body, threw a quick glance at Rollenberger.
“Who?” Rollenberger said.
“What’s the deal first?”
Rollenberger stepped to the window and parted the curtains. He was turning it over to Bosch, who took a step forward and squatted like a baseball catcher in front of Mora.
“This is the deal. It is offered only this one time. Take it or let the chips fall where they may. You give the name to me and your badge to Lieutenant Rollenberger. You resign immediately from the department. You agree not to sue the department or any of us individually. In exchange, you walk.”
“How do I know you’ll-”
“You don’t. And how do we know that you’ll keep your end? I hang on to the phone book, Ray. You try to fuck us and it goes to IAD. Do we have a deal?”
Mora stared at him without speaking a long moment. Finally, Bosch got up and turned to the door. Rollenberger headed that way, too, and said, “Unhook him, Bosch. Take him to Parker and book him on assault on a police officer, unlawful sex with a minor, pandering, anything you can think-”
“We gotta deal,” Mora blurted. “But I’ve got no insurance.”
Bosch turned back to look at him.
“That’s right, you don’t. The name?”
Mora looked from Bosch to Rollenberger.
“Unhook me.”
“The name, Mora,” Rollenberger said. “This is it.”
“It’s Locke. The fucking shrink. You assholes, you put the finger on me and the whole time he’s the one pushing the buttons.”
Bosch was jolted but in that same moment he began immediately to see how it could be. Locke knew the Dollmaker’s program, he fit the Follower’s profile.
“He was the Tom?”
“Yeah, it was him. Got’m ID’d by a producer today. He went around saying he was writin’ a book so he could get close to the girls. Then he killed them, Bosch. The whole time he’s been playing doctor with you, Bosch, he’s been out there... killing.”
Rollenberger turned to Bosch and said, “What do you think?”
Bosch left the room without answering. He went down the stairs and trotted out the door to his car. Locke’s book was on the back seat where Bosch had left it the day he bought it. As he headed back into the house with it he noticed that the first etchings of dawn’s light were in the sky.
On Mora’s dining room table, Bosch opened the book and began leafing through it until he came to a page marked Author’s Note. In the second paragraph, Locke wrote, “The material for this book was gathered over the course of three years from interviews with countless adult film performers, many of whom requested that they remain anonymous or be identified only by their stage names. The author wishes to thank them and the film producers who granted him access to the sets and production offices at which these interviews were conducted.”
The mystery man. Bosch realized Mora could be right that Locke was the man whom the video performer Gallery had reported as a suspect when she called the original task force tip number four years earlier. Bosch next flipped to the index of the book and ran his fingers down the names. Velvet Box was listed. So were Holly Lere and Magna Cum Loudly.
Bosch quickly reviewed in his mind Locke’s involvement in the case. He would definitely fit as a suspect for the same reasons Mora had fit. He had had a foot in both camps, as Locke himself had described it. He had access to all information about the Dollmaker deaths and, at the same time, was conducting research for a book on the psychology of female performers in the pornography industry.
Bosch became excited, but more so he was angry. Mora had been right. Locke had punched his buttons, to the point that he had helped set the cops on the path to the wrong man. If Locke was the Follower, he had played Bosch perfectly.
* * *
Rollenberger dispatched Sheehan and Opelt to Locke’s house to put him under immediate surveillance. “This time don’t fuck it up,” he said as he recovered some of his command presence.
Next he announced there would be a meeting of the task force at noon Sunday, little more than six hours away. He said they would then discuss seeking a search warrant for Locke’s home and office and decide what moves to make. As he headed to the door, Rollenberger looked at Bosch and said, “Go cut him loose. Then, Bosch, you better go get some sleep. You’re going to need it.”
“What about you? How’re you going to handle Irving on this?”
Rollenberger was looking down at the gold detective’s shield he held in his hand. It was Mora’s. He closed his hand over it and put it in his sport coat pocket. Then he looked at Bosch.
“That’s my business, isn’t it, Bosch? Don’t worry about it.”
After the others had left, Bosch and Edgar went up the stairs to the gym room. Mora was silent and refused to look at them as they removed the handcuffs. They said nothing and left him there, the towel still around his neck like a noose, staring at his fractured image in the wall mirror.
* * *
Bosch lit a cigarette and looked at his watch when he got to his car. It was 6:20 and he was too wired to go home to sleep. He got in the car and pulled the rover from his pocket.
“Frankie, you up?”
“Yo,” Sheehan responded.
“Anything?”
“Just got here. No life showing. Don’t know whether he’s here or not. Garage door is down.”
“Okay, then.”
Bosch thought of an idea. He picked up Locke’s book and took the cover off it. He folded it and put it in his pocket, then he started the car.
After stopping for coffee at a Winchell’s, Bosch got to the Sybil Brand Institute by seven. Because of the early hour, he had to get the watch commander’s approval to interview Georgia Stern.
He could see she was sick as soon as she was brought into the interview room. She sat hunched over with her arms folded in front of her, as if she were carrying a bag of groceries that had broken and was guarding against losing anything.
“Remember me?” he asked.
“Man, you gotta get me out.”
“Can’t do that. But I can get them to take you into the clinic. You can get methadone in your orange juice.”
“I wanna get out.”
“I’ll get you in the clinic.”
She dropped her head in defeat. She started a slight rocking motion, back and forth. She seemed pitiful to Bosch. But he knew he had to let it go. There were more important things, and she couldn’t be saved.
“You remember me?” he asked again. “From the other night?”
She nodded.
“We showed you pictures? I’ve got another.”
He put the dust jacket from the book on the table. She looked at Locke’s photo for a long while.
“Well?”
“What? I seen him. He talked to me once.”
“About what?”
“Making movies. He was-I think he’s an interviewer.”
“Interviewer?”
“I mean like a writer. He said it was for a book. I told him don’t use any of my names but I never checked.”
“Georgia, think back. Hard. This is very important. Could he also be the one who attacked you?”
“You mean the Dollmaker? The Dollmaker’s dead.”
“I know that. I think it was someone else who attacked you. Look at the photo. Was it him?”
She looked at the ph
oto and shook her head.
“I don’t know. They told me it was the Dollmaker, so I forgot what he looked like after he was killed.”
Bosch leaned back in his chair. It was useless.
“You still going to get me in the clinic?” she asked timidly after seeing his change in mood.
“Yeah. You want for me to tell them you’ve got the virus?”
“What virus?”
“AIDS.”
“What for?”
“To get you whatever medicine you need.”
“I don’t have AIDS.”
“Look, I know the last time Van Nuys Vice put the bust on you you had AZT in your purse.”
“That’s for protection. I got that from a friend-a-mine who’s sick. He gave me the bottle and I put cornstarch in it.”
“Protection?”
“I don’t want to work for no pimp. Some asshole comes up and says he’s now your man, I show ‘em the shit and say I got the virus, you know, and he splits. They don’t want girls with AIDS. Bad for their business.”
She smiled slyly and Bosch changed his mind about her. She might be saved after all. She had the instincts of a survivor.
* * *
The Hollywood Station detective bureau was completely deserted, which was not unusual for nine on a Sunday morning. After stealing a cup of coffee from the watch office while the sergeant was busy at the wall map, Bosch went to the homicide table and called Sylvia but got no answer. He wondered if she was gardening out back and hadn’t heard the phone or had gone out, maybe to get the Sunday paper to read the story about Beatrice Fontenot.
Bosch leaned back in his chair. He didn’t know what his next move was. He used the rover to check with Sheehan and once again was told that there had been no movement at Locke’s house.
“Think we should go up and knock?” Sheehan asked.
He wasn’t expecting an answer and Bosch didn’t give one. But he started thinking about it. It gave him another idea. He decided he would go to Locke’s house to finesse him. To run the story about Mora by him and see how Locke reacted and if he would say the vice cop was probably the Follower.
He threw the empty coffee cup in the trash can and looked over at his slot in the memo and mail box on the wall. He saw he had something in there. He got up and took three pink phone message forms and a white envelope back to his desk. He looked at the messages and one by one dismissed them as unimportant and put them on his message spike to be considered later. Two were from TV reporters and one was from a prosecutor asking about evidence in one of his other cases. All the calls had come in Friday.
Then he looked at the envelope and felt a chill, like a cold steel ball rolling down the back of his neck. It had only his name on the outside but the distinctive printing style could mean it was from nobody else. He dropped the envelope on the table, opened his drawer and dug around in the notebooks, pens and paper clips until he found a pair of rubber gloves. Then he carefully opened the Follower’s message.
Long aft’ the body stops stinking
Of me you’ll be thinking
For taking your precious blonde
Oft’ your bloody hands
I’ll make her my dolly
Aft’ I’ve had my sweet jolly
And maybe to leave then
For other soft lands
No air for her to swallow
Aft’ me dare you not follow
Her last word, my gosh!
A sound like Boschhhhhh
As he left the station, he ran through the watch commander’s office, almost knocked down the startled duty sergeant and yelled: “Get hold of Detective Jerry Edgar! Tell’m to come up on the rover. He’ll know what I mean.”
Chapter 29
Getting to the freeway was so frustrating that Bosch believed he could actually feel his blood pressure rising. His skin began to feel tight around his eyes, his face grew warm. There was some kind of Sunday morning performance at the Hollywood Bowl and traffic on Highland was backed up to Fountain. Bosch tried taking some side streets but so were many of the people going to the Bowl. He was deep into this quagmire before he cursed himself for not remembering that he had the bubble and siren. Working homicide, it had been so long since he had to race to get anywhere that he had forgotten.
After he slid the bubble onto the roof and hit the siren, the cars began to part in front of him and he remembered how easy it could be. He had just gotten onto the Hollywood Freeway and was speeding north through the Cahuenga Pass when Jerry Edgar’s voice came up on the rover on the seat next to him.
“Harry Bosch?”
“Yeah, Edgar, listen. I want you to call the sheriff’s department, Valencia station, and tell them to get a car to Sylvia’s house code three. Tell them to make sure she’s okay.”
Code three meant lights and siren, an emergency. He gave Edgar her address.
“Make the call now and then come back up.”
“Okay, Harry. What’s going on?”
“Make the call now!”
Three minutes later Edgar was back on the radio.
“They’re on the way. What’ve you got?”
“I’m on my way, too. What I want you to do is go in to the division. I left a note on my desk. It’s from the Follower. Secure it and then call Rollenberger and Irving and tell ‘em what’s happening.”
“What is happening?”
Bosch had to swerve into the median to avoid hitting a car that pulled into the lane in front of him. The driver hadn’t seen Bosch coming and Bosch knew he was going too fast-a steady ninety-three-for the siren to give much of a warning to the cars ahead of him.
“The note’s another poem. He says he is going to take the blonde off my hands. Sylvia. There’s no answer at her house but there still may be time. I don’t think I was supposed to find the note until Monday, when I came in for work.”
“On my way. Be careful, buddy. Stay cool.”
Stay cool, Bosch thought. Right. He thought of what Locke had told him about the Follower being angry, wanting to get back at him for putting down the Dollmaker. Not Sylvia, he hoped. He wouldn’t be able to live with it.
He picked the radio back up.
“Team One?”
“Yo,” Sheehan replied.
“Go get him. If he’s there, bring him in.”
“You sure?”
“Bring him in.”
* * *
There was a lone sheriff’s car in front of Sylvia’s house. When Bosch pulled to a stop, he saw a uniform deputy standing on the front step, back to the door. It looked as if he was guarding the place. As if he was protecting a crime scene.
As he started to get out, Bosch felt a sharp stabbing pain on the left side of his chest. He held still for a moment and it eased. He ran around the car and across the lawn, working his badge out of his pocket as he went.
“LAPD, what’ve you got?”
“It’s locked. I walked around, all windows and doors secured. No answer. Looks like nobody’s-”
Bosch pushed past him and used his key to open the door. He ran from room to room, making a quick search for obvious signs of foul play. There were none. The deputy had been right. Nobody was home. Bosch looked in the garage and Sylvia’s Cherokee was not there.
Still, Bosch made a second sweep of the house, opening closets, looking under beds, looking for any indication that something was amiss. The deputy was standing in the living room when Bosch finally came out of the bedroom wing.
“Can I go now? I was pulled off a call that seems a little more important than this.”
Bosch noted the annoyance in the deputy’s voice and nodded for him to go. He followed him out and got the rover out of the Caprice.
“Edgar, you up?”
“What do you have there, Harry?”
There was the sound of genuine dread in his voice.
“Nothing here. No sign of her or anything else.”
“I’m at the station, you want me to put a BOLO out?”
&n
bsp; Bosch described Sylvia and her Cherokee for the Be On Look Out dispatch that would go out to all patrol cars.
“I’ll put it out. We got the task force coming in. Irving, too. We’ll be meeting here. There’s nothing else to do but wait.”
“I’m going to wait here a while. Keep me posted... Team One, you up?”
“Team One,” Sheehan said. “We went up to the door. Nobody home. We’re standing by. If he shows, we’ll bring him in.”
Bosch sat in the living room, his arms folded in front of him, for more than an hour. He now knew why Georgia Stern had held herself this way at Sybil Brand. There was comfort in it. Still, the silence of the house was nerve-racking. He was staring at the portable phone he had put on the coffee table, waiting for it to ring, when he heard a key hit the lock on the front door. He jumped up and was moving toward the entry when the door opened and a man stepped in. It wasn’t Locke. It wasn’t anyone Bosch knew, but he had a key.
Without hesitating Bosch moved into the entrance and slammed the man up against the door as he turned to close it.
“Where is she?” he shouted.
“What? What?” the man cried out.
“Where is she?”
“She couldn’t come. I’m going to watch it for her. She’s got another open in Newhall. Please!”
Bosch realized what was happening just as the pager on his belt sounded its shrill tone. He stepped away from the man.
“You’re the Realtor?”
“I work for her. What are you doing? Nobody’s supposed to be here.”
Bosch pulled the pager off his belt and saw the readout was his home phone number.
“I have to make a call.”
He went back to the living room. Over his shoulder he heard the real estate man say, “Yeah, you do that! What the hell is going on here?”
Bosch punched the number into the phone and Sylvia picked up after one ring.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes, Harry, where are you?”
“At your place. Where have you been?”
“I picked up a pie at Marie Callendar’s and took it and the flowers I cut to the Fontenots. I just felt like doing-”
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