Michael Connelly - The Concrete Blonde

“I remember.”

“Okay, well, he is going to need to satisfy that erotic mold. To fulfill it. How does he do it? How does he last six or seven or eight months? The answer is, he has trophies. These are reminders of past conquests. By conquests I mean kills. He has things that remind him and help bring the fantasy alive. It’s not the real thing by a long shot but he can still use the reminders to widen the cycle, to stave off the impulse to act. He knows the less he kills, the less chance there is that he will be caught.

“If you’re right about him, he is now nearly eight months into a cycle. It means he is pushing the edge of the envelope, all the while trying to maintain his control. Yet at the same time we have this note and his strange compulsion to not be overlooked. To stand up and say, I’m better than the Dollmaker. I go on! And if you don’t believe me, check out what I left in the concrete at such and such a place. The note shows severe disassembling at the same time he is locked in this tremendous battle to control the impulses. He has gone seven months plus!”

Bosch pressed his cigarette against the side of the trash can and dropped it in. He took out his notebook. He said, “The clothing of the victims, both the Dollmaker’s and the Follower’s, was never found. These could be the trophies he uses?”

“They could be, but put the notebook away, Harry. It’s easier than that. Remember, what you have here is a man who chose his victims after seeing them in videos. So what better way to keep his fantasies alive than through videos. If you get free of him in the house, look for videos, Harry. And a camera.”

“He videotaped the killings,” Bosch said.

It wasn’t a question. He was just repeating Locke, preparing himself for what was ahead with Mora.

“Of course, we can’t say for sure,” Locke said. “Who knows? But I’d put my money on it. You remember Westley Dodd?”

Bosch shook his head no.

“He was the one they executed a couple of years ago in Washington. Hanged him-a perfect example of what goes around comes around. He was a child-killer. Liked to hang kids in his closet, on coat hangers. And he also had a Polaroid camera he liked to use. After his arrest the police found a carefully kept photo album, complete with Polaroids of the little boys he killed-hanging in the closet. He had taken the time to carefully label each picture with a caption. Very sick stuff. But as sick as it was, I guarantee you that that photo album saved the lives of other little boys. Absolutely. Because he could use it to indulge his fantasy and not act it out.”

Bosch nodded his understanding. Somewhere in Mora’s house he would find a video or maybe a photographic gallery that would turn most people’s stomachs. But for Mora it was what kept him out of the black place for as long as eight months at a time.

“What about Jeffrey Dahmer?” Locke said. “Remember him, in Milwaukee? He was a cameraman, too. Liked taking pictures of corpses, parts of corpses. Helped him go undetected by the police for years and years. Then he started keeping the corpses. That was his mistake.”

They were silent for a few moments after that. Bosch’s head filled with horrible images of the dead he had seen. He rubbed his eyes as if that might erase them.

“What’s that they say about photos?” Locke asked then. “On the TV commercials? Something like ‘the gift that keeps on giving.’ Then what’s that make videotape to a serial killer?”

Before leaving campus, Bosch dropped by the student union and went into the bookstore. He found a stack of copies of Locke’s book on the porno business in the section on psychology and social studies. The top one on the stack was well worn around the edges from being thumbed through. Bosch took the one below it.

When the girl at the register opened the book to get the price it flopped open to a black-and-white photo of a woman performing fellatio on a man. The girl’s face turned red but not as scarlet as Bosch’s.

“Sorry,” was all he could think to say.

“That’s okay, I’ve seen it before. The book, I mean.”

“Yeah.”

“Are you teaching a class with it next semester?”

Bosch realized that since he was too old to look like a student, seemingly the only valid reason for him to be buying the book was if he was a teacher. He thought that explaining that his interest was as a police officer would sound phony and get him more attention than he wanted.

“Yes,” he lied.

“Really, what’s it called? Maybe I’ll take it.”

“Uh, well, I haven’t decided yet. I’m still formulating a-”

“Well, what’s your name? I’ll look for it in the catalog.”

“Uh… Locke. Dr. John Locke, psychology.”

“Oh, you wrote the book. Yeah, I’ve heard of you. I’ll look the class up. Thanks and have a good day.”

She gave him his change. He thanked her and left with the book in a bag.

Bosch was back in the federal courthouse shortly after four. While they waited for Judge Keyes to come out and dismiss the jury for the weekend, Belk whispered that he had called Chandler’s office during the afternoon and offered the plaintiff fifty grand to walk away from the case.

“She told you to shove it.”

“She wasn’t that polite, actually.”

Bosch smiled and looked over at Chandler. She was whispering something to Church’s wife but must have felt Bosch’s stare. She stopped speaking and looked over at him. For nearly half a minute they engaged in an adolescent stare-down contest, with neither backing down until the door to the judge’s chambers opened and Judge Keyes bounded out and up to his place on the bench.

He had the clerk buzz in the jury. He asked if there was anything anybody needed to talk about and, when there wasn’t, he instructed the jurors to avoid reading newspaper accounts of the case or watching the local TV news. He then ordered the jurors and all other parties to the case to be back by 9:30A.M., Monday, when deliberations would begin again.

Bosch stepped on the escalator right behind Chandler to go down to the lobby exit. She was standing about two steps up from Deborah Church.

“Counselor?” he said in a low voice so the widow would not hear. Chandler turned around on the step, grabbing the handrail for balance.

“The jury is out, there is nothing that can change the case now,” he said. “Norman Church himself could be waiting for us in the lobby and we wouldn’t be able to tell the jury. So, why don’t you give me the note? This case might be over, but there is still an investigation.”

Chandler said nothing the rest of the way down. But in the lobby she told Deborah Church to go on out to the sidewalk and she’d be along soon. Then she turned to Bosch.

“Again, I deny there is a note, okay?”

Bosch smiled.

“We’re already past that, remember? You slipped up yesterday. You said-”

“I don’t care what I said or you said. Look, if the guy sent me a note, it would’ve just been a copy of what you already got. He wouldn’t waste his time writing a new one.”

“I appreciate you at least telling me that, but even a copy could be helpful. There could be fingerprints. The copy paper might be traceable.”

“Detective Bosch, how many times did you pull prints from the other letters he sent?”

Bosch didn’t answer.

“That’s what I figured,” she said. “Have a good weekend.”

She turned and pushed her way through the exit door. Bosch waited a few seconds, put a cigarette in his mouth and went out himself.

Sheehan and Opelt were in the conference room filling in Rollenberger on their surveillance shift. Edgar was also sitting at the round table listening. Bosch saw he had a photo of Mora on the table in front of him. It was a face shot, like the one the department takes of every cop every year when they reissue ID cards.