The Concrete Blonde

24

Bosch knew he was stretching his leash by going down to USC, but it was two o’clock and his choice was to hang around the conference room with Rollenberger and wait for a verdict or do something useful with his time. He decided on the latter and got on the Harbor Freeway going south. Depending on how northbound traffic on the freeway was, he could conceivably get back to downtown in fifteen minutes if a verdict came in. Getting a parking space at Parker Center and walking over to the courthouse would be another matter.

The University of Southern California was located in the tough neighborhoods that surround the Coliseum. But once through the gate and into the general campus, it seemed as bucolic as Catalina, though Bosch knew this peace had been interrupted with a quickening frequency in recent years, to the point that even Trojan football practice could be dangerous. A couple of seasons back a stray bullet from one of the daily drive-by shootings in the nearby neighborhoods had struck a gifted freshman linebacker while he stood with teammates on the practice field. It was incidents like that that had administrators complaining on a routine basis to the LAPD and students longingly thinking about UCLA, which was cheaper and located in the relatively crime-free suburban milieu of Westwood.

Bosch easily found the psychology building with a map given to him at the entry gate, but once he was inside the four-story brick building there was no directory to help him find Dr. John Locke or the psychohormonal studies lab. He walked down one lengthy hallway and then took stairs to the second floor. The first female student he asked for directions to the lab laughed, apparently believing his question was a come-on, and walked away without answering. He finally was directed to the basement of the building.

He read the signs on the doors as he walked along the dimly lit corridor and finally found the lab at the second-to-last doorway at the end of the hall. A blonde student sat behind a desk in the entry. She was reading a thick textbook. She looked up and smiled and Bosch asked for Locke.

“I’ll call. Does he expect you?”

“You never know with a shrink.”

He smiled but she didn’t get it, then he wondered if it was even a joke.

“No, I didn’t say I was coming.”

“Well, Dr. Locke has student labs running all day. I shouldn’t disturb him if-”

She finally looked up and saw the badge he was holding.

“I’ll call right away.”

“Just tell him it’s Bosch and I need a few minutes if he can spare them.”

She spoke briefly on the phone to someone, reiterating what Bosch had just said. She then waited silently for a few moments, said “Okay” and hung up.

“The grad assistant said Dr. Locke said he will come get you. It should only be a few minutes.”

He thanked her and sat in one of the chairs by the door. He looked around the entry room. There was a bulletin board with handprinted announcements pinned to the cork. Mostly they were the roommate-wanted type of posting. There was an announcement of a party for psych undergrads this coming Saturday.

There was one other desk in the room in addition to the one the student occupied. But this one was empty at the moment.

“This part of the curriculum?” he asked. “You have to put in time here as the receptionist?”

She looked up from the textbook.

“No, it’s just a job. I’m in child psych but jobs in the lab there are hard to come by. Nobody likes working down here in the basement. So this was open.”

“How come?”

“All the creepy psychology is down here. Psychohormonal at this end. There is-”

The door opened on the other side of the room and Locke stepped through. He was wearing blue jeans and a tie-dyed T-shirt. He stuck his hand out to Bosch and Harry noticed the leather thong tied around his wrist.

“Harry, how goes it?”

“Fine. I’m fine. How’re you? I’m sorry to barge in on you like this but I was wondering if you have a few minutes. I have some new information on that thing I bothered you with the other night.”

“No bother at all. Believe me, it’s great to get my fingers on a real case. Student labs can be boring.”

He told Bosch to follow him and they went back through the door, down a hallway and into a suite of offices. Locke led him to the room in the back which was his office. Rows of textbooks and what Bosch guessed were collected theses lined shelves on the wall behind his desk. Locke dropped into a padded chair and put a foot up on the desk. A green banker’s light on the table was lit, and the only other light came from a small casement window set high on the wall to the right. Every now and then the light from the window would flicker as someone up on the ground level walked by and briefly blocked its path, a human eclipse.

Looking up at the window, Locke said, “Sometimes I feel like I’m working in a dungeon down here.”

“I think the student out front thinks so, too.”

“Melissa? Well, what do you expect? She’s chosen child psychology as her major and I can’t seem to convince her to cross to my side of the road. Anyway, I doubt you came to campus to hear stories about pretty young students, though I don’t suppose it could hurt.”

“Maybe some other time.”

Bosch could smell that someone had smoked in the room, though he saw no ashtray. He took his cigarettes out without asking.

“You know, Harry, I could hypnotize you and alleviate that problem for you.”

“No thanks, Doc, I hypnotized myself once and it didn’t work.”

“Really, are you one of the last of the dying breed of LAPD hypnotists? I heard about that experiment. Courts shot it down, right?”

“Yeah, wouldn’t accept hypnotized witnesses in court. I’m the last one they taught who’s still in the department. I think.”

“Interesting.”

“Anyway, there’ve been some developments since we last talked and I thought it would be good to touch base with you, see what you think. I think you steered us right with that porno angle and maybe you’ll come up with something now.”

“What have you got?”

“We have-”

“First off, do you want some coffee?”

“Are you having any?”

“Never touch it.”

“Then I’m fine. We’ve come up with a suspect.”

“Really?”

He dropped his foot off the desk and leaned forward. He seemed genuinely interested.

“And he had a foot in both camps, like you said. He was on the task force and his beat, uh, his area of expertise is the pornography business. I don’t think I should identify him at this time because-”

“Of course not. I understand. He’s a suspect, hasn’t been charged with anything. Detective, don’t worry, this entire conversation is off the record. Speak freely.”

Bosch used a trash can next to Locke’s desk as an ashtray.

“I appreciate it. So, we are watching him, seeing what he is doing. But it gets tricky here. See, because he is probably the department’s top man on the porno industry, it is natural we go to him for advice and information.”

“Naturally, if you didn’t, he would most assuredly become suspicious of the fact that you are suspicious of him. Oh what a wonderful web we weave, Harry.”

“Tangled.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Locke got up and started pacing around the room. He put his hands in his pockets and then took them out. He was staring at nothing, just thinking the whole time.

“Go on, this is great. What’d I tell you? Two independent actors playing the same role. The black heart does not beat alone. Go on.”

“Well, like I said, it was natural to go to him and we did. We suspected that, with the discovery of the body this week and what you said, that there might be others. Other women who disappeared who were in that business.”

“So you asked him to check it out? Excellent.”

“Yes, I asked him yesterday. And today he gave me four more names. We already had the name of the concrete blonde found this week and one other that the suspect provided the other day. So you add the first two-Dollmaker victims seven and eleven-and now we have a total of eight. The suspect was under surveillance all day so we know he did the legwork needed to come up with these new names. He didn’t just give me four names. He went through the motions.”

“Of course he would do that. He would keep up the appearance of normal routine life whether he knew he was being followed or not. He would already know these names, you understand, but he would still go out and get them by doing the routine legwork. It’s one of the signs of how smart he-”

He stopped, put his hands in his pockets and frowned while seemingly staring at the floor between his feet.

“You said six new names plus the first two?”

“Right.”

“Eight kills in almost five years. Any chance there are others?”

“I was going to ask you that. This information comes from the suspect. Would he lie? Would he tell us less, give us fewer names than there actually were to screw with us, to mess up the investigation?”

“Ah.” He continued pacing but didn’t continue speaking for a half minute. “My gut instinct is to say no. No, he would not screw with you, as you say. He would do his job in earnest. I think if all he has given you are five new names, then that’s all there are. You have to remember that this man thinks he is superior to you, the police, in every aspect. It would not be unusual for him to be perfectly honest with you about some aspects of the case.”

“We have a rough idea of the times. The times of the killings. What it looks like is that he slowed his pace after the Dollmaker was killed. When he started hiding them, burying them, because he couldn’t blend in any longer with the Dollmaker, the intervals lengthened. It looks like he went from less than two months between kills during the Dollmaker period to seven months. Maybe even longer. The last disappearance was almost eight months ago.”

Locke looked up from the floor at Bosch.

“And all this recent activity,” he said. “The trial in the papers. His sending the note. His involvement as a detective in the case. The high activity will speed the end of the cycle. Don’t lose him, Harry. It could be time.”

He turned and looked at the calendar that hung on the wall next to the door. There was some kind of maze-like design above the chart of the month’s days. Locke started laughing. Bosch didn’t get it.

“What?” he asked.

“Jeez, this weekend is a full moon, too.” He spun around to look at Bosch. “Can you take me on the surveillance?”

“What?”

“Take me along. It would be the rarest of opportunities in the field of psychosexual studies. To observe the stalking pattern of a sexual sadist as it is actually taking place. Unbelievable. Harry, this could get me a grant from Hopkins. It could… it could”-his eyes lit up as he looked at the casement window-“get me out of this fucking dungeon!”

Bosch stood up. He was thinking he had made a mistake. Locke’s vision of his own future was obscuring everything else. He had come for help, not to make Locke shrink of the year.

“Look, we’re talking about a killer here. Real people. Real blood. I’m not going to do anything that might compromise the investigation. A surveillance is a delicate operation. When you add that it is a cop we are watching, then it makes it even harder. I can’t bring you along. Don’t even ask. I can tell you things here and fill you in whenever I can but there is no way I or my commander on this would approve bringing a civilian along for the ride.”

Locke’s eyes dropped and he looked like a chastised boy. He took a quick glance at the window again and walked around behind the desk. He sat down and his shoulders dropped.

“Yes, of course,” he said quietly. “I completely understand, Harry. I got carried away there. The important thing is that we stop this man. We’ll worry about studying him later. Now, a seven-month cycle. Wow, that’s impressive.”

Bosch flicked his ashes and sat back down.

“Well, we don’t know for sure, considering the source. There still could be others.”

“I doubt it.”

Locke pinched the bridge of his nose and leaned back in his chair. He closed his eyes. He did not move for several seconds.

“Harry, I’m not sleeping. Just concentrating. Just thinking.”

Bosch watched him for a few moments. It was weird. He then noticed that lined on a shelf just above Locke’s head were the books the psychologist had written. There were several, all with his name on the spine. There were several duplicates, too. Maybe, Bosch thought, so he could give them away. He saw five copies ofBlack Hearts, the book Locke had mentioned during his testimony, and three copies of a book calledThe Private Sex Life of the Public Porn Princess.

“You wrote about the porno business?”

He opened his eyes.

“Why, yes. That was the book I did beforeBlack Hearts. Did you read it?”

“Uh, no.”

He closed his eyes again.

“Of course not. Despite the sexy title it really is a textbook. Used at the university level. Last I checked with my publisher, it was being sold in the bookstores at a hundred and forty-six universities, including Hopkins. It’s been out two years, fourth printing, still haven’t seen a royalty check. Would you like to read it?”

“I would.”

“Well, if you go by the student union on your way out of here, they sell it there. It’s steep, I should warn you. Thirty bucks. But I’m sure you can expense it. I should also warn you, it’s quite explicit.”

Bosch was annoyed that Locke didn’t give him one of the extra copies on the shelf. Perhaps, it was Locke’s childlike way of getting back at him for nixing the surveillance ride-along. He wondered what Melissa, the child-psych major, would make of such behavior.

“There is something else about this suspect. I don’t know what it means.”

Locke opened his eyes but didn’t move.

“He was divorced about a year before the Dollmaker killings began. In the divorce record there’s mention by the wife that there was a loss of consortium. Would that still fit?”

“They stopped doing it, huh?”

“I guess. It was in the court file.”

“It could fit. But to be honest, we shrinks could find a way to make any activity fit into any prognosis we make. That’s the field for you. But it could be a case where your suspect simply became impotent with his wife. He was moving toward the erotic mold, and she had no part in it. In effect, he was leaving her behind.”

“So it is not seen by you to be a cause for rethinking our suspicions of this man?”

“On the contrary. My view is that it is more evidence that he has gone through major psychological changes. His sexual persona is evolving.”

Bosch gave this some thought while trying to envision Mora. The vice cop spent every day in the tawdry milieu of pornography. After a while, he couldn’t get it up for his own wife.

“Is there anything else you can tell me? Anything about this suspect that might help us? We don’t have anything on him. No probable cause. We can’t arrest him. All we can do is watch. And that gets dangerous. If we lose him-”

“He could kill.”

“Right.”

“And then you are still left with no probable cause, no evidence.”

“What about trophies? What do I look for?”

“Where?”

“In his home.”

“Ah, I see. You plan to continue your professional interaction with him, to visit him at home. On a ruse, perhaps. But you won’t be able to move about freely.”

“I might be able to, if someone else keeps him occupied. I’ll go with somebody else.”

Locke leaned forward in his chair, his eyes wide. It was starting again, his excitement.

“What if you kept him busy and I had a look around? I am the expert on this, Harry. You would be better at keeping him busy. You could talk detective talk, I’d ask to use the bathroom. I would have a better grasp of-”

“Forget it, Dr. Locke. Listen to me, there is no way it’s going to happen that way. Okay? It’s too dangerous. Now, do you want to help me here or not?”

“Okay, okay. Again, I’m sorry. The reason I am so excited by the prospect of being inside this man’s house and mind is that I think that this man, who is on a killing cycle of seven months plus, would almost certainly have trophies that would help him feed into his fantasy and recreate his kills, thereby dulling urges to physically act out.”

“I understand.”

“You’ve got a man with an unusually long cycle. Believe me, during those seven months the impulses to act out, to go out and kill, do not lie dormant. They are there. They are always there. Remember the erotic mold? I testified about it?”

“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.