Michael Connelly - The Concrete Blonde

He was eight years older and knew he looked it, but he was not ashamed of his physical appearance. At forty-three, he still had a flat stomach and his body was still ropey with muscles-muscles not created on machines but by lifting the day-to-day weight of his life, his mission. His body hair was curiously going to gray at a much faster pace than the hair on his head. Sylvia often would kid him about this, accusing him of having dyed his hair, of having a vanity they both knew he did not have.

When he climbed onto the bed next to her she ran her fingers over his Vietnam tattoo and the scars a bullet had left on his right shoulder a few years earlier. She traced the surgery zipper the way she did every time they were together here.

“I love you, Harry,” she said.

He rolled onto her and kissed her deeply, letting her taste of red wine and the feel of her warm skin take him away from worry and the images of violent ends. He was in the temple of home, he thought but did not say. I love you, he thought but did not say.

For everything that had gone well for Bosch on Tuesday, the following morning provided a fresh undoing. The first disaster occurred in Judge Keyes’s chambers, where he convened lawyers and clients after studying the note from the alleged Dollmaker in private for a half hour. His private reading had come after Belk had argued for an hour against the inclusion of the note in the trial.

“I have read the note and considered the arguments,” he said. “I cannot see how this letter, note, poem, whatever, can possibly be withheld from this jury. It is so on point to the thrust of Ms. Chandler’s case that it is the point. I’m not making any judgment on whether it’s for real or from some crackpot, that will be for the jury to figure out. If they can. But because the investigation is still underway is no reason to withhold this. I am granting the subpoena and, Ms. Chandler, you can introduce this at the appropriate time, provided you’ve put down the proper foundation. No pun intended. Mr. Belk, your exception to this ruling will be noted for the record.”

“Your Honor?” Belk tried.

“No, we’ll have no more argument on it. Let’s move on out to court.”

“Your Honor! We don’t know who wrote this. How can you allow it into evidence when we don’t have the slightest idea where it came from or who sent it?”

“I know the ruling is a disappointment, so I’m allowing you some leeway as far as not coming down on you for that showing of your apparent disrespect for the wishes of this court. I said no more argument, Mr. Belk, so I’ll go over this only one time. The fact that this note of unknown origin led directly to the discovery of a body bearing all the similarities of a Dollmaker victim is in itself a verification of some authenticity. This is no prank, Mr. Belk. No joke. There is something here. And the jury is going to see it. Let’s go. Everybody out.”

Court had no sooner been called into session than the next debacle occurred. Belk, perhaps dazed by his defeat in chambers, waltzed into a trap Chandler had deftly set for him.

Her first witness of the day was a man named Wieczorek, who testified that he knew Norman Church quite well and was sure he had not committed the eleven murders attributed to him. Wieczorek and Church had worked together for twelve years in the design lab, he said. Wieczorek was in his fifties, with white hair trimmed so short his pink scalp showed through.

“What makes you so confident in your belief that Norman was not a killer?” Chandler asked.

“Well, for one thing, I know for a fact he didn’t kill one of those girls, the eleventh, because he was with me the whole time she was getting… whatever. He was with me. Then the police kill him and pin eleven murders on him. Well, I figure, if I know he didn’t kill one of those girls, then they are probably lying about the rest. The whole thing is a cover-up for them killing-”

“Thank you, Mr. Wieczorek,” Chandler said.

“Just saying what I think.”

Belk stood and objected anyway, going to the lectern and whining that the entire answer was speculation. The judge agreed but the damage was done. Belk strode back to his chair and Bosch watched him leaf through a thick transcript of a deposition taken of Wieczorek a few months earlier.

Chandler asked a few more questions about where the witness and Church were on the night the eleventh victim was murdered and Wieczorek answered that they were at his own apartment with seven other men holding a bachelor party for a fellow employee from the lab.

“How long was Norman Church at your apartment?”

“The whole time of the party. I’d say from nine o’clock on. We finished up after two in the morning. The police said that girl, the eleventh one, went to some hotel at one and got herself killed. Norman was with me at one o’clock in the morning.”

“Could he have slipped away for an hour or so without you realizing it?”

“No way. You’re in a room with eight guys and you know if one mysteriously disappears for a half hour.”

Chandler thanked him and sat down. Belk leaned to Bosch and whispered, “I wonder what he’s going to do with the new asshole I’m going to tear him.”

He got up armed with the deposition transcript and lumbered to the lectern as if he were lugging an elephant rifle. Wieczorek, who wore thick glasses that magnified his eyes, watched him suspiciously.

“Mr. Wieczorek, do you remember me? Remember the deposition I took of you a few months back?”

Belk held the transcript up, as a reminder.

“I remember you,” Wieczorek said.

“Ninety-five pages, Mr. Wieczorek. Nowhere in this transcript is there any mention of any bachelor party. Why is that?”

“I guess because you didn’t ask.”

“But you didn’t bring it up, did you? The police are saying your best buddy murdered eleven women, you supposedly know that’s a lie, but you don’t say a thing, is that right?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“Care to tell us why?”

“Far as I was concerned, you were part of it. I only answered what I was asked. I wasn’t volunteering shi-uh, nothing.”

“Let me ask you, did you ever tell the police this? Back then, back when Church was killed and all the headlines said he killed eleven women? Ever pick up the phone one time and tell them they got the wrong guy?”

“No. At the time I didn’t know. It was only when I read a book that came out on the case a couple years ago and there were details in there about when that last girl got killed. Then I knew he was with me during that whole time. I called the police and asked for the task force and they said it was disbanded long ago. I left a message for that fellow the book said was in charge, Lloyd, I think it was, and he never called me.”

Belk exhaled into the lectern’s microphone, creating a loud sigh that indicated his weariness in dealing with this moron.

“So, if I can recap, you are telling this jury that two years after the murders, when this book came out, you read it and immediately realized you had an ironclad alibi for your dead friend. Am I missing anything, Mr. Wieczorek?”

“Uh, just the part about suddenly realizing. It wasn’t sudden.”

“Then what was it?”

“Well, when I read the date-September 28-it set me to thinking and I just remembered that the bachelor party was on September 28 that year and Norman was there at my house all that time. So then I verified it and called Norman’s wife to tell her he wasn’t what they said he was.”

“You verified it? With the others at the party?”

“No, didn’t have to.”

“Then how, Mr. Wieczorek?” Belk asked in an exasperated tone.

“I looked at the video I had of that night. It had the date and time down in the corner of the frame.”