The Concrete Blonde (24 page)

“And like I said, this was in the old days. Civil rights lawyers call it BK, that's short for Before King. A jury listened to four days of evidence and found for the cops in thirty minutes. Galton got nothing but a dead leg and a dead dick out of the whole thing. He came out here afterward and went to that hedge right there. He had hidden a gun—wrapped it in plastic and buried it there. He came over to the statue here and put the gun in his mouth. Faraday was coming through the door just then and saw it happen. Blood all over the statue, everywhere.”

Bosch didn't say anything. He remembered the case very clearly now. He looked up at the City Hall tower and watched the gulls circling above it. He always wondered what drew them there. It was miles from the ocean but there were always seabirds on top of City Hall. Chandler kept talking.

“Two things I've always been curious about,” she said. “One, why did Galton run? And, two, why did he hide the gun? And I think the answers are both the same. He had no faith in justice, in the system. No hope. He had done nothing wrong but he ran because he was a black man in a white neighborhood and he had heard the stories all his life about what white cops do to black men in that position. His lawyer told him he had a dead-bang case, but he brought a gun to the courthouse because he had heard all his life about what jurors decide when it's a black man's word against the cops.”

Bosch looked at his watch. It was time to go in but he did not want to walk away from her.

“So that's why Tommy said justice happened,” she said. “That was justice for André Galton. Faraday referred all his cases to other lawyers after that. I took a few. And he never set foot in a courtroom again.”

She stubbed out what was left of her cigarette.

“End of story,” she said.

“I'm sure the civil rights lawyers tell that one a lot,” Bosch said. “And now you put me and Church into that, is that it? I'm like the guy who sent the dog down the hill after Galton?”

“There are degrees, Detective Bosch. Even if Church was the monster you claim, he didn't have to die. If the system turns away from the abuses inflicted on the guilty, then who can be next but the innocents? You see, that's why I have to do what I'm going to do to you in there. For the innocents.”

“Well, good luck,” he said.

He put his own cigarette out.

“I won't need it,” she said.

Bosch followed her gaze to the statue above the spot where Galton had killed himself. Chandler looked at it as if the blood were still there.

“That's justice,” she said, nodding at the statue. “She doesn't hear you. She doesn't see you. She can't feel you and won't speak to you. Justice, Detective Bosch, is just a concrete blonde.”

16

The courtroom seemed as silent as a dead man's heart while Bosch walked behind the plaintiff and defendant tables and in front of the jury box to get to the witness stand. After taking the oath he gave his full name and the clerk asked him to spell it.

“H-I-E-R-O-N-Y-M-U-S B-O-S-C-H.”

Then the judge turned it over to Belk.

“Tell us a little bit about yourself, Detective Bosch, about your career.”

“I've been a police officer nearly twenty years. I currently am assigned to the homicide table at Hollywood Division. Before that—”

“Why do they call it a table?”

Jesus, Bosch thought.

“Because it's like a table. It is six small desks pushed together to make a long table, three detectives on each side. It's always called a table.”

“Okay, go on.”

“Before this assignment I spent eight years in Robbery-Homicide Division's Homicide Special squad. Before that I was a detective on the homicide table in North Hollywood and robbery and burglary tables in Van Nuys. I was on patrol about five years, mostly in the Hollywood and Wilshire divisions.”

Belk slowly led him through his career up until the time he was on the Dollmaker task force. The questioning was slow and boring—even to Bosch, and it was his life. Every now and then he would look at the jurors when he answered a question and only a few seemed to be looking at him or paying attention. Bosch felt nervous and his palms were damp. He had testified in court at least a hundred times. But never like this, in his own defense. He felt hot though he knew the courtroom was overly cool.

“Now where was the task force physically located?”

“We used a second-floor storage room at the Hollywood station. It was an evidence and file storage room. We temporarily moved that stuff out into a rented trailer and used the room. We also had a room at Parker Center. The night shift, which I was on, generally worked out of Hollywood.”

“You were closer to the source, correct?”

“We thought so, yes. Most of the victims were taken from Hollywood streets. Many were later found in the area.”

“So you wanted to be able to act quickly on tips and leads and being right there in the center of things helped you do that, correct?”

“Correct.”

“On the night you got the call from the woman named Dixie McQueen, how did you get that call?”

“She called in on nine one one and when the dispatcher realized what she was talking about, the call was transferred out to the task force in Hollywood.”

“Who answered it?”

“I did.”

“Why is that? I thought you testified you were the supervisor of the night shift. Didn't they have people answering phones?”

“Yes, we had people, but this call came in late. Everybody had left for the night. I was only there because I was bringing the Chronological Investigation Record up to date—we had to turn it in at the end of each week. I was the only one there. I answered.”

“When you went to meet this woman, why didn't you call for a backup?”

“She hadn't told me enough over the phone to convince me there was anything to it. We were getting dozens of calls a day. None of them amounted to anything. I have to admit I went to take her report not believing it would amount to anything.”

“Well, if you thought that, Detective, why did you go to her? Why not just take her information over the phone?”

“The main reason was that she said she didn't know the address she had been to with this man, but could show me the place if I drove her down Hyperion. Also, there seemed to be something genuine about her complaint, you know? It seemed that something had definitely scared her. I was about to head home so I thought I would just check it out on the way.”

“Tell us what happened after you got to Hyperion.”

“When we got there we could see lights on in the apartment over the garage. We even saw a shadow pass across one of the windows. So we knew the guy was still there. That's when Miss McQueen told me about the makeup she saw in the cabinet under the sink.”

“What did that mean to you?”

“A lot. It immediately got my attention because we had never said in the press that the killer was keeping the victims' makeup. It had leaked that he was painting their faces but not that he also kept their makeup. So when she told me she had seen this collection of makeup, it all clicked. It gave what she said some immediate legitimacy.”

Bosch drank some water from a paper cup the marshal had filled for him earlier.

“Okay, what did you do next?” Belk said.

“It occurred to me that in the time it had taken her to call me and for me to pick her up and get back to Hyperion, he could have gone out and gotten another victim. So I knew there was a good chance there was another woman up there in danger. I went up. I ran up.”

“Why didn't you call for backup?”

“First of all, I did not believe there was time to wait even five minutes for backup. If he had another woman in there, five minutes could mean her life. Secondly, I did not have a rover with me. I couldn't make the call even if I wanted to—”

“A rover?”

“A portable radio. Detectives usually take them on assignment. Problem is, there are not enough of them to go around. And since I was going home I didn't want to take one because I wasn't coming back until the next evening shift. That would mean one less rover available during the next day.”

“So you couldn't radio for backup. What about a phone?”

“It was a residential neighborhood. I could drive out and find a pay phone or knock on somebody's door. It was about one
A.M.
and I didn't think people would open their doors quickly to a single man claiming to be a police officer. Everything was a question of time. I didn't believe I had any. I had to go up by myself.”

“What happened?”

“Believing someone was in imminent danger, I went through the door without knocking. I was holding my gun put.”

“Kicked it open?”

“Yes.”

“What did you see?”

“First of all, I announced myself. I yelled, ‘Police.’ I moved a few steps into the room—it was a studio apartment—and I saw the man later identified as Church standing next to the bed. It was a foldout bed from a couch.”

“What was he doing?”

“He was standing there naked, next to the bed.”

“Did you see anyone else?”

“No.”

“What next?”

“I yelled something along the lines of ‘Freeze’ or ‘Don't move’ and took another step into the room. At first he didn't move. Then he suddenly reached down to the bed and his hand swept under the pillow. I yelled, ‘No,’ but he continued the movement. I could see his arm move as if his hand had grasped something and he started bringing the hand out. I fired one time. It killed him.”

“How far away from him would you say you were?”

“I was twenty feet away. It was one big room. We were at opposite sides of it.”

“And did he die instantly?”

“Very quickly. He dropped across the bed. The autopsy later showed the bullet entered under the right arm—the one he was reaching under the pillow with—and crossed through the chest. It hit his heart and both lungs.”

“After he was down, what did you do?”

“I went to the bed and checked to see if he was alive. He was still alive at that point, so I handcuffed him. He died a few moments later. I lifted the pillow. There was no gun.”

“What was there?”

Looking directly at Chandler, Bosch said, “Great mystery of life, he had been reaching for a toupee.”

Chandler had her head down and was busy writing but she stopped and looked up at him and their eyes locked momentarily until she said, “Objection, Your Honor.”

The judge agreed to strike Bosch's comment about the mystery of life. Belk asked a few more questions about the shooting scene and then moved on to the investigation of Church.

“You were no longer part of that, correct?”

“No, as is routine I was assigned desk duty while my actions in the shooting were investigated.”

“Well, were you made aware of the results of the task force's investigation into Church's background?”

“Generally. Because I had a stake in the outcome, I was kept informed.”

“What did you learn?”

“That the makeup found in the bathroom cabinet was tied to nine of the victims.”

“Did you ever have any doubts yourself or hear of any doubts from other investigators as to whether Norman Church was responsible for the deaths of those women?”

“For those nine? No, no doubts at all. Ever.”

“Well, Detective Bosch, you heard Mr. Wieczorek testify about being with Mr. Church on the night the eleventh victim, Shirleen Kemp, was killed. You saw the videotape presented as evidence. Didn't that raise any doubts?”

“It does about that case. But Shirleen Kemp was not among the nine whose makeup was found in Church's apartment. There is no doubt in my mind or in anybody's on the task force that Church killed those nine women.”

Chandler objected to Bosch speaking for the rest of the task force and the judge sustained it. Belk changed the subject, not wanting to venture any further into the area of victims seven and eleven. His strategy was to avoid any reference to a second killer, leaving that to Chandler to take a swing at on cross-examination, if she wanted to.

“You were disciplined for not going in with backup. Do you feel the department handled the matter correctly?”

“No.”

“How so?”

“As I explained, I did not believe I had a choice in what I did. If I had to do it again—even knowing I would be transferred as a result—I would do the same thing. I would have to. If there had been another woman in there, another victim, and I had saved her, I probably would have been promoted.”

When Belk didn't immediately ask a follow-up question, Bosch continued.

“I believe the transfer was a political necessity. The bottom line was, I shot an unarmed man. It did not matter that the man I shot was a serial killer, a monster. Besides, I was carrying baggage from—”

“That will be fine—”

“Run-ins with—”

“Detective Bosch.”

Bosch stopped. He had made his point.

“So what you are saying is you don't have any regrets about what happened in the apartment, correct?”

“No, that's not correct.”

This apparently surprised Belk. He looked down at his notes. He had asked a question he expected a different reply to. But he realized he had to follow through.

“What do you regret?”

“That Church made that move. He drew the fire. There was nothing I could do but respond. I wanted to stop the killings. I didn't want to kill him to do that. But that's the way it turned out. It was his play.”

Belk showed his relief by breathing heavily into the microphone before saying he had no further questions.

Judge Keyes said there would be a ten-minute break before cross-examination began. Bosch returned to the defense table, where Belk whispered that he thought they had done well. Bosch didn't respond.

“I think everything is going to ride on her cross. If you can get through it without heavy damage I think we've got it.”

“What about when she brings up the follower, introduces the note?”

“I don't see how she can. If she does, she'll be flying blind.”

“No, she won't. She's got a source in the department. Someone fed her stuff about the note.”

“I'll ask for a sidebar conference if it gets to that point.”

That wasn't very encouraging. Bosch looked at the clock, trying to gauge whether he had time for a smoke. He didn't think so and got up and went back to the witness stand. He passed behind Chandler, who was writing on a legal pad.