Short Stories

HOMICIDE SPECIAL

He started the drive north in darkness, to take the heat out of the journey. He wanted to get past the desert before sun up because he knew the car's air-conditioner produced little in the way of a cooling air current.

He got to Richmond and was in the front lobby of the state DOJ lab by 9 A.M. He asked the security guard if he could speak with Sarah Lowell from the DNA unit.

"Tell her it's Detective Bosch from the LAPD's Homicide Special Squad."

Bosch was pointed to a plastic chair in a row of plastic chairs. It was ten minutes before Sarah Lowell came out from the lab. Bosch was the only one waiting.

"Detective Bosch?"

Bosch stood up. They had never met, though they had solved several murders together. Harry smiled and put out his hand. Barely past thirty, she was far younger than he had expected. But what was more surprising was that she was black. Seeing her name on DNA cold hit forms over the years, Bosch had expected the name Sarah Lowell to be attached to a white person. Now he wasn't sure why.

"Very nice to finally meet you in person, Sarah," he said.

"Yes, nice to meet you," she said. "Are you on vacation? Why are you — "

"I'm working on a case."

"Then what are you doing here? Did you drive up last night?"

"No, actually I drove through the night. I brought a swab. I was hoping you could get the profile and run it through the computer."

Lowell was momentarily confused.

"You brought a swab? Detective Bosch, you know the protocol is to — "

"First of all, call me Harry. We've worked too many cases together to be so formal. And yes, I know about the protocol, but this is… this case… tell you what, can you sit down over here for a minute?"

He pointed to the row of plastic chairs and Lowell reluctantly nodded. They sat and Bosch moved his chair so that he could face her and hold her attention. He wasn't going to let her look off and away. He leaned forward and spoke in a low, urgent tone.

"Yesterday morning we get the call out. A sixteen-year-old found dead in her bed in Westwood. Her name was Brittany Gaston. She was beaten and strangled. Nice neighborhood, nice house, nice family. The air-conditioner went on the blink the day before so she had slept with the window open a crack. It's been hot as hell in L.A. this summer. The bedroom was in the back of the house. The killer removed the screen, leaned it against the outside of the house and then raised the window up and climbed in."

"Was there sexual assault?"

"No, it looks like she woke up and fought him. He straddled her and choked her out, killing her while trying to subdue her. Crushed trachea, a lot of bruising on the face and neck. We think that once he realized he'd killed her, he fled. Her sister slept through it in her room right across the hall."

"Then what do you have, blood?"

"No, saliva. He bit her."

From his pocket he took the two white medical evidence envelopes. One contained the swab from the bite wound, the other containing the swab from the victim's mouth. Lowell would use the exemplar from the mouth to isolate the killer's DNA from the wound. The envelopes were sealed with yellow and white tape from the coroner's office.

He handed the envelopes to Lowell but she didn't take them.

"Detective, you know this isn't how we do this. You have to follow the protocol."

"If I follow protocol it could take six months. Sarah, this isn't a killer who's going to wait six months. He — "

"Every detective who sends us DNA has an important case. They're all murders and rapes. They're all terrible crimes but we can only do what we can do. If I take yours and put it at the front of the line, who's to say the perpetrator of the case that gets bumped back won't strike again?"

"This girl's sister was sleeping right across the hall. Ten feet away. When I left the family last night, she still couldn't even speak to me. She was in shock because she knows it could've been her. She had her window open, too. These girls were very close and now one's dead."

He paused and then moved in for the kill.

"I made the family a promise, Sarah. I told them I would find this guy before he could do it again. I promised them."

"You're supposed to work the case, Detective. Not let the case work you."

"Well, sometimes it doesn't come out that way."

Bosch proffered the envelopes again and this time Lowell reluctantly took them.

"You have to understand something," she said. "I can't go back into the lab and shove everything aside. I will have to ask per — "

"Sometimes you just need to do what you know is right, Sarah. This girl died looking at her killer, probably wondering if he was going to do the same to her sister and the rest of her family."

Lowell held up her hand in a back-off gesture.

"Detective, you don't need to keep hitting me with this."

He held up his hands in surrender and leaned back and away from her. He felt the phone in his pocket start to buzz but he ignored it. He had driven seven hours to convince this woman to move his case to the front of the line. He wouldn't deviate from the effort to take a call.

"It's just that home intrusions like this are rare and all the evidence, all the indications, are that we are dealing with what we would call an apex predator. Like a shark moving through the water. This guy's going to keep on hunting and killing until we can stop him. I'm betting that the DNA you're holding there is going to link this one to other cases. You don't go through a window into a sixteen-year-old girl's room as a threshold offense. He's done this before. Get me the match, Sarah, and I'll get him."

Lowell looked down at the two envelopes. Bosch believed he had convinced her.

"Where was the bite wound?" she asked.

"On the left forearm. There is a photo in the envelope. We think it might have been a defensive wound, she tried to push the assailant away and he bit her."

She nodded.

"Detective, I'll — "

"Harry."

"Harry. I'll do my best."

"Thank you, Sarah. How long will it take?"

"I won't have anything until at least tomorrow. It will take the rest of the day just to do the sequencing. The profile will go into the computer after that. Probably tomorrow morning. I'll call you as soon as I know something."

Bosch reached into his pocket for a business card and handed it to her.

"My cell's on there. Try it first. And thank you again, Sarah."

Bosch stood up and pushed his chair back into the line. They shook hands and he left.

Once he was back in the car he checked his phone. The call he had ignored had come from Lieutenant Gandle. He waited until he was back on the freeway before returning the call.

"So?" Gandle said.

"We should know something by tomorrow."

"Good. You coming back now?"

"On my way. What's going on down there?"

"For one thing, we had a tech take a look at the AC unit. Your hunch was right on. The AC is fine, but somebody had gone into the garage and thrown the circuit breaker. That's why it wasn't working."

"Did anyone ask Mr. Gaston if — "

"Yes, we did. The side door to the garage was often left unlocked. The guy had access."

Bosch thought about this. The fact that the AC had been tampered with meant the perpetrator had not picked the Gaston house randomly in the night. The intrusion had been planned. He had probably seen Brittany or her sister somewhere, followed her home and then formulated a plan. Shut down the AC and then sit back and see if a window would be left open that night. It showed a certain amount of cunning and organization, but it also gave them a lead. Any public place where the victim and her sister could have crossed paths with a predator. There might be witnesses who saw the guy watching. There might be cameras.

"Any prints on the circuit switch?" he asked.

"Wiped clean. Just like the screen and the window. This guy's too smart to make that kind of mistake."

"If we get a match on the DNA we won't need prints."

They talked over a few other details of the investigation and then Bosch signed off. For the next five hours he worked the case in his head as he drove. The car's air-conditioner lost the battle against the heat of the day and Bosch stripped off his tie and his jacket. When his phone buzzed he almost missed the call trying to pull it out of the jacket on the seat next to him.

"Detective, it's Sarah Lowell at the DOJ lab."

"I didn't think I'd be hearing from you till tomorrow."

"Yes, well, I'm afraid I have bad news. I thought you should know right away."

"Go ahead."

"I did the preliminary screening and sequencing of the swabs you gave me. Histamine levels allowed me to isolate the saliva in the wound. I ran the sequence and it turned out to be her own DNA. It has all the same markers from the swab from her mouth. Is there any chance that you brought me the wrong swab?"

"No, I watched them collect it, seal it and mark it. It's right."

"Then the only thing I can think of is that she bit herself."

"Did you look at the photo of the wound, Sarah?"

"Yes, I did."

"Look at it again. The bite was deep. It was along the outside of her forearm, cresting the top and bottom. I guess it's possible to bite yourself there but hardly likely while fighting for your life."

"Then I don't know what to tell you, Detective. But those are my findings. I stopped the sequence."

Bosch's mind raced through the possibilities and hit something new head on.

"They were twins," he said. "Did I tell you that? The victim and her sister were twins. Does that mean they share the same DNA?"

There was a long pause before Lowell answered.

"No, they would not have the same DNA," she said. "That's urban myth."

Bosch shook his head in defeat. He couldn't explain this.

"But they would appear to in our profiling," Lowell said.

"What do you mean?"

"Twins do not share the exact same DNA. But it is very close. In terms of the DNA profiling we do in accordance with the FBI's CODIS database, we look for thirteen specific markers plus the Amel marker that shows us gender. These fourteen markers would not differentiate between twins. It would take a deeper profile. You'd have to go to several other markers."

"Can you do that?"

"Yes."

"Then do it, Sarah, and call me when you have the results."

Bosch ended the call and immediately called Lt. Gandle back.

"It was the sister," he said.

"What?"

"One twin killed the other. The DNA is going to prove it."

"Are you kidding me?"

"No, the sister did it and then the mother and father helped cover it. They made up the whole thing about the air-conditioner. They made it look like an intruder."

"Why would the sister do this? Why would the parents cover it up?"

"I don't know yet, Lieutenant. The parents said something about them sharing everything, even boyfriends sometimes. Maybe one of them got tired of sharing. And the parents? They were protecting the one kid they have left."

"And the DNA proves this?"

"Not yet, but it will. Get the interview rooms ready. We bring in mother, father and daughter and separate them. One of them will spill. I'll be there in an hour. I want the daughter. I'll talk to her."

"Okay, you got it. We'll set it up and bring them in."

Bosch closed the phone. He put his foot down on the pedal and picked up his speed. The barren land that fronted the freeway went by him in a blur. He was thinking about the reasons people kill each other.