Michael Connelly - The Concrete Blonde

“Now, let’s clear something up first,” Belk said. “Mr. Amado, you said you found pubic hairs on all of the eleven victims. Were these hairs all from the same man?”

“No. We found a multitude of samples. In most cases, what looked like hair from possibly two or three men on each victim.”

“What did you attribute this to?”

“Their lifestyle. We knew these were women with multiple sexual partners.”

“Did you analyze these samples to determine if there were common hairs? In other words, whether hair from one man was found on each of the victims.”

“No, we did not. There was a huge amount of evidence collected in these cases and manpower dictated that we focus on evidence that would help identify a killer. Because we had so many different samples, it was determined that this was evidence that would be held and then used to link or clear a suspect, once that suspect was in custody.”

“I see, well, then once Norman Church had been killed and was identified as the Dollmaker, did you then match any of the hairs from the victims to him?”

“We did not.”

“And why is that?”

“Because Mr. Church had shaved his body hair. There was no pubic hair to match.”

“Why would he have done that?”

Chandler objected on the grounds that Amado could not answer for Church and the judge sustained it. But Bosch knew it didn’t matter. Everybody in the courtroom knew why Church had shaved himself-so he wouldn’t leave pubic hairs behind as evidence.

Bosch looked at the jury and he saw two of the women writing in the notebooks the marshals had given them to help them keep track of important testimony. He wanted to buy Belk-and Amado-a beer.

It looked like a cake in a box, one of those novelty things custom-made to look like Marilyn Monroe or something. The anthropologist had painted on a beige skin tone and red lipstick to go with blue eyes. It looked like frosting to Bosch. A wavy blonde wig was added. He stood in the squad room looking down at the plaster image, wondering if it really looked like anybody at all.

“Five minutes till show time,” Edgar said.

He was sitting in his chair, which was turned toward the TV on the file cabinets. He was holding the channel changer. His blue suit coat was hung neatly on a hanger, which was hooked on the coatrack at the end of the table. Bosch took his jacket off and hung it on one of the coatrack pegs. He checked his slot in the message box and sat down at his spot at the homicide table. There had been a call from Sylvia, nothing else important. He dialed her number as the Channel 4 news began. He knew enough about the news priorities in this town to know the report on the concrete blonde wouldn’t be a lead story.

“Harry, we’re gonna need that line clear once they show it,” Edgar said.

“I’ll only be a minute. They won’t show it for a while. If they show it at all.”

“They’ll show it. I made secret deals with all of them. They all think they’ll be getting the exclusive if we get an ID. They all want to get a boo-hoo story with the parents.”

“You’re playing with fire, man. You make a promise like that and then they find out you fucked them around-”

Sylvia picked up the phone.

“Hey, it’s me.”

“Hi, where are you?”

“The office. We have to watch the phones a while. They’re putting the face of the victim from yesterday’s case on TV tonight.”

“How was court?”

“It’s the plaintiff’s case at the moment. But I think we scored a couple punches.”

“I read the Times today at lunch.”

“Yeah, well, they got about half of it right.”

“Are you coming out? Like you said.”

“Well, eventually. Not right now. I’ve got to help answer phones on this and then it’s depending on what we get. If we’re skunked I’ll be out early.”

He noticed he had lowered his voice so Edgar wouldn’t hear his conversation.

“And if you get something good?”

“We’ll see.”

An indrawn breath, then silence. Harry waited.

“You’ve been saying ‘we’ll see’ too much, Harry. We’ve talked about this. Sometimes-”

“I know that.”

“-I think that you just want to be left alone. Stay in your little house on the hill and keep the whole world out. Including me.”

“Not you. You know that.”

“Sometimes, I don’t. I don’t feel like I know it right now. You push me away just at the time when you need me-somebody-to be close.”

He had no answer. He thought of her there on the other end. She was probably sitting on the stool in the kitchen. She had probably already begun making a dinner for both of them. Or maybe she was getting used to his ways and had waited for the call.

“Look, I’m sorry,” he said. “You know how it is. What are you doing about dinner?”

“Nothing, and I’m not going to do anything, either,”

Edgar made a low, quick whistle. Harry looked up at the TV and saw it was showing the painted face of the victim. The TV was on Channel 7 now. The camera showed a long close-up of the face. It looked all right on the tube. At least, it didn’t look much like a cake. The screen flashed the detective bureau’s two public numbers.

“They’re showing it now,” Bosch said to Sylvia. “I need to keep this line clear. Let me call you back later, when I know something.”

“Sure,” she said coldly and hung up.

Edgar had the TV on 4 now and they were showing the face. He then flipped to 2 and caught the last few seconds of their report on it. They had even interviewed the anthropologist.

“Slow news day,” Bosch said.

“Shit,” Edgar replied. “We’re banging on all cylinders now. All we-”

The phone rang and he grabbed it up.

“No, it just went out,” he said after listening for a few moments. “Yeah, yeah, I will. Okay.”

He hung up and shook his head.

“Pounds?” Bosch asked.

“Yeah. Thinks we’re going to have her name ten seconds after the broadcast went out. Christ, whadda nitwit.”

The next three calls were pranks, all testifying to the glaring lack of originality and the mental health of the TV viewing audience. All three callers said “Your mother!” or words to that effect and hung up laughing. About twenty minutes later Edgar got a call and started taking notes. The phone rang again and Bosch took it.

“This is Detective Bosch, who am I speaking with?”

“Is this being taped?”

“No, it’s not. Who is this?”

“Never mind, just thought you’d like to know the girl’s name is Maggie. Maggie something or other. It’s Latin. I seen her on videos.”

“What videos? MTV?”

“No, Sherlock. Adult videos. She fucked on film. She was good. She could put a rubber on a prick with her mouth.”

The line went dead. Bosch wrote a couple of notes down on the pad he had in front of him. Latin? He didn’t think the way the face had been painted gave any indication that the victim was a Latina.

Edgar hung up then and said his caller had said her name was Becky, that she had lived in Studio City a few years back.

“What’d you get?”

“I got a Maggie. No last name. Possibly a Latin last name. He said she was in porno.”

“That would fit, except she don’t look Mexican to me.”

“I know.”

The phone rang again. Edgar picked up and listened a few moments and then hung up.

“Another one that recognizes my mom.”

Bosch took the next one.

“I just wanted to tell you that the girl they were showing on TV was in porno,” the voice said.

“How do you know she was in porno?”

“I can tell by that thing they showed on TV. I rented a tape. Only once. She was in it.”