The Concrete Blonde

14

Laurel Canyon is a winding cut through the Santa Monica Mountains that connects Studio City with Hollywood and the Sunset Strip. On the south side, where the road drops below Mulholland Drive and the fast four lanes thin to two crumbling invitations to a head-on collision, the canyon becomes funky L.A., where forty-year-old Hollywood bungalows sit next to multilevel glass contemporaries that sit next to gingerbread houses. Harry Houdini built a castle in here among the steep hillsides. Jim Morrison lived in a clapboard house near the little market that still serves as the canyon’s only commercial outpost.

The canyon was a place where the new rich-rock stars, writers, film actors and drug dealers-came to live. They braved the mudslides and the monumental traffic tie-ups just to call Laurel Canyon home. Locke lived on Lookout Mountain Drive, a steep upward grade off Laurel Canyon Boulevard that made Bosch’s department-issue Caprice work extra hard. The address he was looking for could not be missed because it blinked in blue neon from the front wall of Locke’s house. Harry pulled to the curb behind a multicolor Volkswagen van that was at least twenty-five years old. Laurel Canyon was like that, a time warp.

Bosch got out, dropped his cigarette in the street and stepped on it. It was very quiet and dark. He heard the Caprice’s engine ticking away its heat, the smell of burning oil wafting from the undercarriage. He reached in through the open window and grabbed the two binders.

It had taken most of an hour to get to Locke’s and during that time Bosch had been able to refine his thoughts on the discovery of the pattern within a pattern. He also realized along the way that there was a key way of attempting to confirm it.

Locke answered with a glass of red wine in his hand. He was barefoot and wearing blue jeans and a surgeon’s green shirt. Hanging from a leather thong around his neck was a large pink crystal.

“Good evening, Detective Bosch. Please come in.”

He led the way through an entry hall to a large living room/dining room area with a wall of French doors that opened onto a brick patio surrounding a lighted blue pool. Bosch noticed the pinkish carpet was dirty and worn but otherwise the place was not bad for a college sex professor and author. He noticed the water of the pool was choppy, as if someone had been swimming recently. He thought he smelled a trace of stale marijuana smoke.

“Beautiful place,” Bosch said. “You know we’re almost neighbors. I live on the other side of the hill. On Woodrow Wilson.”

“Oh, really? How come it took you so long to get here?”

“Well, actually, I didn’t come from home. I was at a friend’s place up in Bouquet Canyon.”

“Ah, a girlfriend, that explains the forty-five-minute wait.”

“Sorry to hold you up, Doctor. Why don’t we get on with this so I don’t keep you any longer than necessary.”

“Yes, please.”

He signaled Bosch to put the binders down on the dining room table. He didn’t ask if Harry wanted a glass of wine, an ashtray or even a pair of swimming trunks.

“I’m sorry to intrude,” Harry offered. “I’ll be quick.”

“Yes, you said that. I’m sorry this came up now myself. Testifying put me back a day on my research and writing schedule and I was trying to recoup tonight.”

Bosch noticed his hair wasn’t wet. Maybe he had been working while someone else had been in the pool.

Locke took a seat at the dining room table and Bosch told the story of the concrete blonde investigation in exact chronological order after starting by showing him the copy of the new note left at the station on Monday.

While telling the details of the latest death, Bosch saw Locke’s eyes brighten with interest. When he was done, the psychologist folded his arms and closed his eyes and said, “Let me think about this before we go on.”

He sat perfectly still. Bosch wasn’t sure what to make of it. After twenty seconds went by, he finally said, “If you’re going to think, I’m going to borrow your phone.”

“In the kitchen,” Locke said without opening his eyes.

Bosch got Amado’s phone number from the task force list in the binder and called him. He could tell he had awakened the coroner’s analyst.

After identifying himself, Bosch said, “Sorry to wake you. But things are happening very quickly on this new Dollmaker case. Did you read about it in the paper?”

“Yeah. But they said it wasn’t known for sure if it was the Dollmaker.”

“Right. That’s what I’m working on. I have a question.”

“Go ahead.”

“You testified yesterday about the rape kits taken from each victim. Where are they now? The evidence, I mean.”

There was a long silence before Amado said, “They’re probably still in evidence storage. The coroner’s policy is to keep evidence seven years after resolution of a case. You know, in case of appeals or something. Now, since your perp is dead, there would be no reason to keep the stuff even that long. But it takes an order from the medical examiner to clear out an evidence locker. The chances are the ME at the time would not have thought or remembered to do this after you, uh, killed Church. It’s too big of a bureaucracy to run that well. My guess is the kits would still be there. The evidence custodian would only request a disposal order after seven years.”

“Okay,” Bosch said, excitement evident in his voice. “What about the condition? Would it still be usable as evidence? And for analysis?”

“Should be no deterioration, I would think.”

“How full’s your plate?”

“It’s always full. But you’ve got me hooked here. What’s up?”

“I need someone to pull the kits from victims seven and eleven. That’s Nicole Knapp and Shirleen Kemp. Got it? Seven and eleven, like the store.”

“I got it. Seven eleven. Then what?”

“Cross-reference the pubic combs. Look for the same foreign hair in both places, on both women. How long will it take?”

“Three, four days. We have to send that to the DOJ lab. I can put a rush on it, maybe get it sooner. Can I ask you something? Why are we doing this?”

“I think there was someone else besides Church. A copycat. He did seven, eleven and the one this week. And I’m thinking he might not have been smart enough to shave himself like Church. If you find similar hair in the combs, I think that will clinch it.”

“Well, I can tell you something right off that is interesting about those two. Seven and eleven.”

Bosch waited.

“I reviewed everything before I testified, so it’s still fresh, you know? Remember I testified that two of the victims had extreme damage, vaginal tears? Well, it was those two, seven and eleven.”

Bosch thought about this for a few moments. From out in the dining room he heard Locke say, “Harry?”

“Be right there,” he called out. To Amado, he said, “That’s interesting.”

“It means this second guy, whoever he is, he’s rougher trade than Church. Those two women were hurt the most.”

Something came together in Bosch’s mind then. Something that had not seemed right about Amado’s testimony the day before. Now it was clear.

“The condoms,” he said.

“What about them?”

“You testified that it was a box of twelve, only three left.”

“That’s right! Nine used. You subtract victims seven and eleven from the list and you have nine victims. It fits, Harry. Okay, first thing tomorrow, I’m on this. Give me three days, max.”

They hung up and Bosch wondered if Amado would get any sleep tonight.

Locke had replenished his wineglass but still did not ask Bosch if he wanted a glass when he returned to the dining room. Bosch sat down across the table from him.

“I’m ready to go on,” Locke said.

“Let’s do it.”

“You’re saying that the body found this week exhibited every known detail ascribed to the Dollmaker?”

“Right.”

“Except now we have a new method of disposal. A private disposal as opposed to the public challenge of the others. It’s all very interesting. What else?”

“Well, from trial testimony I think we can eliminate Church as the perp in the eleventh killing. A wit produced a tape in-”

“A wit?”

“A witness. In court. He was a friend of Church’s. He came in with a video that showed Church at a party at the time number eleven got abducted. The tape is convincing.”

Locke nodded his head and was silent. At least he didn’t close his eyes, Bosch thought. The psychologist thoughtfully rubbed the graying whiskers on his chin, which made Bosch do the same thing.

“Then there is number seven,” Bosch said.

He told Locke about the information he got from Cerrone, about the voice the pimp had recognized.

“Voice identification wouldn’t pass as evidence but say for the sake of argument he is right. That connects the concrete blonde to our seventh victim. The videotape eliminates Church from the eleventh case. Amado, the guy from the coroner’s office, I don’t know if you remember him, he says numbers seven and eleven had similar injuries, injuries that stood out if compared with those of the others.

“Another thing I just remembered is the makeup. After Church was dead they found the makeup in the Hyperion apartment, remember? They matched it to nine of the victims. The two victims there was no makeup for were-”

“Seven and eleven.”

“Right. So what we have are multiple ties between these two cases-seven and eleven. Then you have a tangential connection to number twelve, this week’s victim, based on the pimp recognizing the customer’s voice. The connection gets stronger if you look at the lifestyles of the three women. All were in porno, all worked outcall.”

“I see the pattern within the pattern,” Locke said.

“Gets better. Now, we add in our lone survivor, she was also in porno and did outcall work.”

“And she described an attacker who looked nothing like Church.”

“Exactly. That’s because I don’t think it was Church. I think the three, plus the survivor, make up one set of victims of one killer. The remaining nine are another set with another killer. Church.”

Locke got up and began pacing back and forth on one side of the dining room table. He kept his hand to his chin.

“Anything else?”

Bosch opened one of the binders and took out the map and a folded piece of paper on which he had earlier written a series of dates. He carefully unfolded the map and spread it on the table. He leaned in and over it.

“Okay, look. Let’s call the nine Group A and the three Group B. On the map I have circled the locations where Group A victims were found. You see, if you take the Group B victims out of the picture, you have a nice geographic concentration. Group B vics were found in Malibu, West Hollywood, South Hollywood. But the A list was concentrated here in eastern Hollywood and Silverlake.”

Bosch ran his finger in a circle on the map, showing the dumping zone Church had used.

“And here in almost the center of this zone is Hyperion Street-Church’s killing pad.”

He straightened up and dropped the folded paper on the map.

“Now here is a list of dates of the eleven killings originally attributed to Church. You see there is an interval pattern at the start-thirty days, thirty-two days, twenty-eight, thirty-one, thirty-one. But then the pattern goes to hell. Remember that? How it confused us back then?

“Yes, I do.”

“We have twelve days, then sixteen, then twenty-seven, thirty and eleven. The pattern disintegrates into no pattern. But now separate the dates of Group A and Group B.”

Bosch unfolded the paper. There were two columns of dates. Locke leaned over the table into the light to study the columns. Bosch could see a thin line, a scar, on the top of his bald and freckled crown.

“On Group A we now have a pattern,” Bosch continued. “A clearly discernable pattern of intervals. We have thirty days, thirty-two, twenty-eight, thirty-one, thirty-one, twenty-eight, twenty-seven and thirty. On Group B we have eighty-four days between the two killings.”

“Better stress management.”

“What?”

“The intervals between the acting out of these fantasies is dictated by the buildup of stress. I testified about this. The better the actor handles it, the longer the interval between killings. The second killer has better stress management. Or, at least, had it back then.”

Bosch watched him pace the room. He took out a cigarette and lit it. Locke said nothing.

“What I want to know is, is this possible?” Bosch asked. “I mean, is there any precedent for this that you know of?”

“Of course, it’s possible. The black heart does not beat alone. You don’t even have to look outside the boundaries of your own jurisdiction to find ample evidence it is possible. Look at the Hillside Stranglers. There was even a book written about them calledTwo of a Kind.

“Look at the similarities in the method of operation employed by the Nightstalker and the Sunset Strip Strangler in the early eighties. The short answer is, yes, it’s possible.”

“I know about those cases but this is different. I worked some of those and I know this is different. The Hillside Stranglers worked together. They were cousins. The other two were similar but there were major differences. Here, someone came along and copied the other exactly. So closely that we missed it and he got away.”

“Two killers working independently of each other but using exactly the same methodology.”

“Right.”

“Again, I say anything is possible. Another example: remember in the eighties there was the Freeway Killer in Orange and LA counties?”

Bosch nodded. He had never worked those cases so he knew little about them.

“Well, one day they got lucky and caught a Vietnam vet named William Bonin. They tied him to a handful of the cases and believed he was good for the rest. He went to death row but the killings kept happening. They kept right on happening until a highway patrol officer pulled over a guy named Randy Kraft who was driving down the freeway with a body in his car. Kraft and Bonin didn’t know each other but for a while they secretly shared the nom de plume ‘The Freeway Killer’. Each working independently of the other, out there killing. And being mistaken for the same person.”

That sounded close to the theory Bosch was working with. Locke continued talking, no longer bothered by the late-night intrusion.

“Do you know, there is a guard on death row at San Quentin whom I know from doing research up there. He told me there are four serial killers, including Kraft and Bonin, waiting for the gas. And, well, the four of them play cards every day. Bridge. Among them, they’ve got fifty-nine convictions for murder. And they play bridge. Anyway, the point is, he says Kraft and Bonin think so much alike that as a team they are almost never beaten.”

Bosch started refolding the map. Without looking up, he said, “Kraft and Bonin, did they kill their victims the same way? The exact same way?”

“Not exactly. But my point is that there could be two. But the follower in this case is smarter. He knew exactly what to do to have all the police go the other way, to put it on Church. Then, when Church was dead and no longer available for use as camouflage, the follower went underground, so to speak.”

Bosch looked up at him and a thought suddenly struck him that spun everything he knew into a new light. It was like the cue ball hitting a rack of eight, colors shooting off in all directions. But he didn’t say anything. This new thought was too dangerous to bring up. Instead he asked Locke a question.

“But even when this follower went underground, he kept the same program as the Dollmaker,” Bosch said. “Why do it, if no one was going to see it? Remember, with the Dollmaker we believed his leaving of the bodies in public locations, their faces painted, was part of the erotic program. Part of his turn-on. But why did the second killer do it-follow the same program-if the body was never intended to be found?”

Locke put both hands on the table to brace his weight and thought a moment. Bosch thought he heard a sound from the patio. He looked through the open French doors and saw only the darkness of the steep hillside rising above the illuminated pool. Its kidney-shaped surface was calm now. He looked at his watch. It was midnight.

“It’s a good question,” Locke said. “I don’t know the answer. Maybe the acolyte knew that eventually the body would be revealed, that he himself might want to reveal it. You see, we probably have to assume now that it was the follower who sent the notes to you and the newspaper four years ago. It shows the exhibitionistic portion of his program. Church apparently didn’t find the same need to torment his hunters.”

“The follower got off on tweaking us.”

“Exactly. What he was doing was having his fun, taunting his trackers and all the while the blame for the murders he committed went to the real Dollmaker. Follow?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, so what happened? The real Dollmaker, Mr. Church, is killed by you. The follower no longer has a cover. So what he does is, he continues his work-his killing-but now he buries the victim, hides her under concrete.”

“You’re saying he still follows the whole erotic program with the makeup and everything but then buries her so no one will see her?”

“So no one will know. Yes, he follows the program because that is what turned him on in the first place. But he can no longer afford to discard the bodies publicly because that would reveal his secret.”

“So then, why the note? Why send a note to the police this week that opens him to exposure?”

Locke paced around the dining room table thinking.

“Confidence,” he finally said. “The follower has become strong over the past four years. He thinks he is invincible. It is a common trait in the disassembling phase of a psychopath. A state of confidence and invulnerability rises as, in actuality, the psychopath is making more and more mistakes. Disassembling. Becoming vulnerable to discovery.”

“So because he has gotten away with his actions for four years, he thinks he is clear and is so untouchable that he sends another note to tweak us?”

“Exactly, but that is only one factor. Another is pride, authorship. This big trial on the Dollmaker has begun and he wants to steal some of the attention. You must understand, he craves attention for his acts. After all, it was the follower, not Church who sent the letters earlier. So being prideful and feeling above the reach of the police-I guess, godlike is the way to describe his sense of himself-he writes the note this week.”

“Catch me if you can.”

“Yes, one of the oldest games around… And lastly, he might have sent the note because he is still angry with you.”

“Me?”

Bosch was surprised. He had never considered this.

“Yes, you took Church away. You ruined his perfect cover. I don’t imagine the note and its mention in the press has helped your court case any, has it?”

“No. It might sink me.”

“Yes, so maybe this is the follower’s way of repaying you. His revenge.”

Bosch thought about all of this for a moment. He could almost feel the adrenaline surging through his body. It was after midnight but he wasn’t the least bit tired. He had a focus now. He was no longer lost in the void.

“You think there are more out there, don’t you?” he asked.

“You mean women in concrete, or similar confinement? Yes, unfortunately, I do. Four years is a long time. Many others are out there, I’m afraid.”

“How do I find him?”

“I’m not sure. My work has usually come at the end. After they’re caught. After they’re dead.”

Bosch nodded, closed the binders and put them under his arm.

“There is one thing, though,” Locke said. “Look at his pool of victims. Who are they? How does he get to them? The three who are dead and the survivor, they all were in the porno industry, you said.”

Bosch put the binders back down on the table. He lit another cigarette.

“Yes, they all did outcall work, too,” he said.

“Yes. So while Church was the opportunistic killer, taking victims of any size, age or race, the follower was more specific in his tastes.”

Bosch recalled the porno victims quickly.

“Right, the follower’s victims were white, young, blonde and large-breasted.”

“That is a clear pattern. Did these women advertise their outcall services in the adult-related media?”

“I know two of them did, and the survivor. The latest victim did outcall but I’m not sure how she advertised.”

“Did the three who did advertise include photographs of themselves in the copy?”

Bosch could specifically remember only Holly Lere’s ad, and it did not include her photo. Just her stage name, a phone drop and a guarantee of lewd pleasure.

“I don’t think so. The one I remember didn’t. But her porno name was in the ad. So anyone familiar with her work in video would know her physical appearance and attributes.”

“Very good. We are already creating a profile of the follower. He is someone who uses adult videos to choose the women for his erotic program. He then contacts them through ads in the adult media by seeing either their names or photos in the advertisements. Have I helped you, Detective Bosch?”

“Absolutely. Thanks for the time. And keep this under your hat. I’m not sure we want to go public with this yet.”

Bosch picked up the binders again and headed toward the door but Locke stopped him.

“We haven’t finished, you know.”

Bosch turned around.

“How do you mean?” he asked, though he knew.

“You haven’t spoken about the aspect of this that is most troubling. The question of how our follower learned the killer’s routine. The task force did not divulge every detail of the Dollmaker’s program to the media. Not back then. Details were held back so the loonies who confessed would not know exactly what to confess to. It was a safeguard. The task force could quickly eliminate the bogus confessions.”

“So?”

“So the question is, how did the follower know?”

“I don’t-”

“Yes, you do. The book Mr. Bremmer wrote made those details available to the world. That, of course, could account for the concrete blonde… But not, as I am sure you have realized, for victims seven and eleven.”

Locke was right. It was what Bosch had realized earlier. He avoided thinking about it because he dreaded the implications.

Locke said, “The answer is that the follower was somehow privy to the details. The details are what triggered his action. You have to remember that what we are dealing with here is someone who very likely was already in the midst of some great internal struggle when he stumbled onto an erotic program that matched his own needs. This man already had problems, whether they had manifested in his committing crimes or not. He was a sick puppy, Harry, and he saw the Dollmaker’s erotic mold and realized, That’s me. That’s what I want, what I need for fulfillment. He then adopted the Dollmaker’s program and acted on it, to the very last detail. The question is, how did he stumble onto it? And the answer is, he was given access.”

For a moment they just looked at each other, then Bosch spoke.

“You’re talking about a cop. Someone on the task force. That can’t be. I was there. We all wanted this guy to go down. Nobody was… getting off on this, man.”

“Possibly a member of the task force, Harry, only possibly. But remember, the circle of those who knew about the program was much larger than just the task force. You have medical examiners, investigators, beat cops, photographers, reporters, paramedics, the passersby who found the bodies-many people who had access to details the follower obviously knew about.”

Bosch tried to pull together a quick profile in his mind. Locke read him.

“It would have to be someone in or around the investigation, Harry. Not necessarily a vital part or a continuous part. But someone who intersected with the investigation at a point that would allow him to gain knowledge of the full program. More than what was publicly known at the time.”

Bosch said nothing until Locke prompted him.

“What else, Harry? Narrow it down.”

“Left-handed.”

“Possibly but not necessarily. Church was left-handed. The follower may only have used the left hand to make the perfect copy of Church’s crimes.”

“That’s right but then there are the notes. Suspicious docs said they believed it was a left-handed writer. They weren’t one hundred percent. They never are.”

“Okay, then, possibly left-handed. What else?”

Bosch thought for a moment.

“Maybe a smoker. There was a package found in the concrete. Kaminski, the victim, didn’t smoke.”

“Okay, that’s good. These are the things you need to think about to narrow it down. It’s in the details, Harry, I’m sure of it.”

A cool wind came down the hillside and in through the French doors and chilled Bosch. It was time to go, to be alone with this.

“Thanks again,” he said as he started once more for the door.

“What will you do?” Locke called after him.

“I don’t know yet.”

“Harry?”

Bosch stopped at the threshold and looked back at Locke, the pool glowing eerily in the darkness behind him.

“The follower, he may be the smartest to come along in a long time.”

“Because he’s a cop?”

“Because he probably knows everything about the case that you know.”

It was cold in the Caprice. At night the canyons always carried a dark chill. Bosch turned the car around and it floated quietly down Lookout Mountain to Laurel Canyon. He took a right and drove to the canyon market, where he bought a six-pack of Anchor Steam. Then he took his beer and his questions back up the hill to Mulholland.

He drove to Woodrow Wilson Drive and then down to his small house that stood on cantilevers and looked out across the Cahuenga Pass. He had left no lights on inside because with Sylvia in his life he never knew how long he would go without being here.

He opened the first beer as soon as the Caprice was parked at the curb in front. A car slowly went by and left him in the dark. He watched one of the beams from the spotlights at Universal City cut across the clouds over the house. Another one chased after it a few seconds later. The beer felt and tasted good going down his throat. But it felt heavy in his stomach and Bosch stopped drinking. He put the bottle back in its carton.

But it wasn’t the beer, he knew, that was really bothering him. It was Ray Mora. Of all the people who were close enough to the case to know the details of the program, Mora was the one who jabbed at Bosch’s gut. The follower’s three victims were porno actresses. And that was Mora’s gig. He probably knew them all. The question that was now beginning to push its way into Bosch’s mind was, did he kill them all? It bothered him to even think about it, but he knew he had to. Mora was a logical starting point when Bosch considered Locke’s advice. The vice cop stood out in Bosch’s mind as someone who easily intersected both worlds: the porn trade and the Dollmaker’s. Was it just coincidence or enough to classify Mora as an actual suspect? Bosch wasn’t sure. He knew he had to proceed as cautiously with an innocent man as he would with a guilty man.

Inside, the place smelled musty. He went directly to the rear sliding door and opened it. He stood there for a moment listening to the hissing sound of traffic coming up from the freeway at the bottom of the pass. The sound never died. No matter what time, what day, there was always traffic down there, blood coursing through the veins of the city.

The light on the answering machine was blinking the number three. Bosch hit rewind and lit a cigarette. The first voice was Sylvia’s: “I just want to say good-night, sweetheart. I love you and be careful.”

Jerry Edgar was next: “Harry, it’s Edgar. Wanted to let you know, I’m off it. Irving called me at home and told me to turn everything I’ve got over to RHD in the morning. To a Lieutenant Rollenberger. Take care, buddy. And watch six.”

Watch six, Bosch thought. Watch your back. He hadn’t heard that one since Vietnam. And he knew Edgar had never been there.

“It’s Ray,” the last voice on the tape said. “I’ve been thinking about this concrete blonde job and have a few ideas you might be interested in. Call me in the morning and we’ll talk.”