The Concrete Blonde (A Harry Bosch Novel, 3)

"Crackling authenticity"― Los Angeles Times Book Review "Turbo-charged...a darkly gripping tale."― Kirkus Reviews "Michael Connelly is a splendid storyteller...a gritty, gripping thriller."― San Diego Tribune Michael Connelly is the author of thirty-eightxa0previous novels, including #1 New York Times bestsellers Desert Star, The Dark Hours, and The Law of Innocence. His books, which include the Harry Bosch series, the Lincoln Lawyer series, and the Renée Ballard series, have sold more than eighty million copies worldwide. Connelly is a former newspaper reporter who has won numerous awards for his journalism and his novels. He is the executive producer of three television series: Bosch, Bosch: Legacy, and The Lincoln Lawyer. He spends his time in California and Florida. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. The Concrete Blonde By Michael Connelly Grand Central Publishing Copyright © 2013 Michael ConnellyAll rights reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4555-5063-0 CHAPTER 1 There are no benches in the hallways of the U.S. District Courthouse in downtownLos Angeles. No place to sit. Anybody who slides down the wall to sit on thecold marble floor will get rousted by the first deputy marshal who walks by. Andthe marshals are always out in the halls, walking by. The lack of hospitality exists because the federal government does not want itscourthouse to give even the appearance that justice may be slow, or nonexistent.It does not want people lining the halls on benches, or on the floor, waitingwith weary eyes for the courtroom doors to open and their cases or the cases oftheir jailed loved ones to be called. There is enough of that going on acrossSpring Street in the County Criminal Courts building. Every day the benches inthe hallways of every floor are clogged with those who wait. Mostly they arewomen and children, their husbands or fathers or lovers held in lockup. Mostlythey are black or brown. Mostly the benches look like crowded liferafts—women and children first—with people pressed together and castadrift, waiting, always waiting, to be found. Boat people, the courthousesmartasses call them. Harry Bosch thought about these differences as he smoked a cigarette and stoodon the front steps of the federal courthouse. That was another thing. No smokingin the hallways inside. So he had to take the escalator down and come outsideduring the trial's breaks. Outside there was a sand-filled ash can behind theconcrete base of the statue of the blindfolded woman holding up the scales ofjustice. Bosch looked up at the statue; he could never remember her name. TheLady of Justice. Something Greek, he thought but wasn't sure. He went back tothe folded newspaper in his hands and reread the story. Lately, in the mornings, he would read only the Sports section, concentratinghis full attention on the pages in the back where box scores and statistics werecarefully charted and updated each day. He somehow found the columns of numbersand percentages comforting. They were clear and concise, an absolute order in adisordered world. Having knowledge of who had hit the most home runs for theDodgers made him feel that he was still connected in some way to the city, andto his life. But today he had left the Sports section folded and tucked into his briefcase,which was under his chair in the courtroom. The Los Angeles Times 'sMetro section was in his hands now. He had carefully folded the section intoquarters, the way he had seen drivers on the freeway do it so they could readwhile they drove, and the story on the trial was on the bottom corner of thesection's front page. He once again read the story and once again felt his facegrow hot as he read about himself. TRIAL ON POLICE "TOUPEE" SHOOTING TO BEGIN BY JOEL BREMMER, TIMES STAFFWRITER As an unusual civil rights trial gets under way today, a Los Angeles policedetective stands accused of having used excessive force four years ago when heshot and killed a purported serial killer he believed was reaching for a gun.The alleged killer was actually reaching for his toupee. Los Angeles Police Detective Harry Bosch, 43, is being sued in U.S. DistrictCourt by the widow of Norman Church, an aerospace worker Bosch shot to death atthe climax of the investigation into the so-called Dollmaker killings. For nearly a year before the shooting, police had sought a serial killer sonamed by the media because he used makeup to paint the faces of his 11 victims.The highly publicized manhunt was marked by the killer's sending of poems andnotes to Bosch and the Times . After Church was killed, police announced they had unequivocal evidence provingthat the mechanical engineer was the killer. Bosch was suspended and later transferred from the homicide special unit of theLAPD Robbery-Homicide Division to the Hollywood Division homicide squad. Inmaking the demotion, police stressed that Bosch was disciplined for proceduralerrors, such as his failure to call for a backup to the Silverlake apartmentwhere the fatal shooting took place. Police administrators maintained that the Church killing was a "good"shooting—department terminology meaning not improper. Since Church's death precluded a trial, much of the evidence gathered by policehas never been provided publicly under oath. That will likely change with thefederal trial. A week-long jury selection process is expected to be completedtoday with the opening statements of the attorneys to follow. Bosch had to refold the paper to continue reading the story on an inside page.He was momentarily distracted by seeing his own picture, which was on the insidepage. It was an old photo and looked not unlike a mug shot. It was the same onethat was on his department ID card. Bosch was more annoyed by the photo than thestory. It was an invasion of his privacy to put his picture out like that. Hetried to concentrate on the story. Bosch is being defended by the City Attorney's Office because he was acting inthe line of duty when the shooting occurred. If any judgment is won by theplaintiff, the city taxpayers, not Bosch, will pay. Church's wife, Deborah, is being represented by civil rights attorney HoneyChandler, who specializes in police abuse cases. In an interview last week,Chandler said she will seek to prove to the jury that Bosch acted in such areckless manner that a fatal shooting of Church was inevitable. "Detective Bosch was cowboying and a man ended up dead," Chandler said. "I don'tknow if he was merely reckless or if there is something more sinister here, butwe will find out in the trial." That was the line that Bosch had read and reread at least six times sincegetting the paper during the first break. Sinister. What did she mean by that?He had tried not to let it bother him, knowing that Chandler would not be aboveusing a newspaper interview for a psych-ops outing but, still, it felt like awarning shot. It let him know more was to come. Chandler said she also plans to question the police evidence that Church was theDollmaker. She said Church, the father of two daughters, was not the serialkiller police sought and that they labeled him as such to cover up Bosch'smisdeed. "Detective Bosch killed an innocent man in cold blood," Chandler said. "What weare doing with this civil rights suit is what the police department and thedistrict attorney's office refused to do: bring forward the truth and providejustice for Norman Church's family." Bosch and Asst. City Atty. Rodney Belk, who is defending him, declined commentfor this story. Along with Bosch, those expected to testify in the one-to two-week case include— "Spare change, pal?" Bosch looked up from the paper into the grimy but familiar face of the homelessman who had staked out the front of the courthouse as his turf. Bosch had seenhim out here every day during the week of jury selection, making his change-and-cigarette rounds. The man wore a threadbare tweed jacket over two sweaters andcorduroy pants. He carried a plastic bag of belongings and a Big Gulp cup toshake in front of people when he asked for change. He also always carried withhim a yellow legal pad with scribbling all over it. Bosch instinctively patted his pockets and shrugged. He had no change. "I'd take a dollar, you know." "Don't have a spare dollar." The homeless man dismissed him and looked into the ash can. Yellowed cigarettebutts grew from the sand like a crop of cancer. He put his yellow pad under hisarm and began to pick through the offerings, taking those that still had aquarter inch or more of tobacco to smoke. Every now and then he would find anearly whole cigarette and make a clicking sound with his mouth to show hisapproval. He put the harvest from the ash can in the Big Gulp cup. Happy with his findings, the man stepped back from the ash can and looked up atthe statue. He looked back at Bosch and winked, then began to rock his hips in alewd mimicry of a sexual act. "How 'bout my girl here?" he said. The man then kissed his hand and reached up and patted the statue. Before Bosch could think of something to say, the pager on his belt began tochirp. The homeless man stepped back another two steps and raised his free handas if to ward off some unknown evil. Bosch saw the look of deranged panic spreadon his face. It was the look of a man whose brain synapses were spread too farapart, the connections dulled. The man turned and scurried away, out towardSpring Street, with his cup of used cigarettes. Bosch watched him until he was gone and then pulled the pager off his belt. Herecognized the number on the display. It was Lieutenant Harvey "Ninety-eight"Pounds's direct line at the Hollywood station. He put what was left of hiscigarette into the sand and went back into the courthouse. There was a bank ofpay phones at the top of the escalator, near the second-floor courtrooms. "Harry, what's happening there?" Pounds asked. "The usual. Just waiting around. We got a jury, so now the lawyers are in withthe judge, talking about openers. Belk said I didn't have to sit in on that, soI'm just hanging around." He looked at his watch. It was ten to twelve. "They'll be breaking for lunch soon," he added. "Good. I need you." Bosch didn't reply. Pounds had promised he would be off the case rotation untilthe trial was over. A week more, maybe two, at the most. It was a promise Poundshad no choice but to make. He knew that Bosch couldn't handle catching ahomicide investigation while in federal court four days a week. "What's going on? I thought I was off the list." "You are. But we may have a problem. It concerns you." Bosch hesitated again. Dealing with Pounds was like that. Harry would trust astreet snitch before he'd trust Pounds. There was always the spoken motive andthe hidden motive. It seemed that this time the lieutenant was doing one of hisroutine dances. Speaking in elliptical phrases, trying to get Bosch to bite onthe hook. "A problem?" Bosch finally asked. A good noncommittal reply. "Well, I take it you saw the paper today—the Times story aboutyour case?" "Yeah, I was just reading it." "Well, we got another note." "A note? What are you talking about?" "I'm talking about somebody dropping a note at the front desk. Addressed to you.And damn if it doesn't sound like those notes you got from the Dollmaker backwhen all of that was going on." Bosch could tell Pounds was enjoying this, the stretching it out. "If it was addressed to me, how do you know about it?" "It wasn't mailed. No envelope. It was just one page, folded over. Had your nameon the fold. Somebody left it at the front desk. Somebody there read it, you canfigure it from there." "What does it say?" "Well, you're not going to like this, Harry, the timing is god-awful, but thenote says, it says basically that you got the wrong guy. That the Dollmaker isstill out there. The writer says he's the real Dollmaker and that the body countcontinues. Says you killed the wrong guy." "It's bullshit. The Dollmaker's letters were carried in the paper, in Bremmer'sbook on the case. Anybody could pick up the style and write a note. You—" "You take me for a moron, Bosch? I know anybody could've written this. But sodid the writer know that. So to prove his point he included a little treasuremap, I'd guess you'd call it. Directions to another victim's body." A long silence filled the line while Bosch thought and Pounds waited. "And so?" Bosch finally said. "And so I sent Edgar out to the location this morning. You remember Bing's, onWestern?" "Bing's? Yeah, south of the Boulevard. Bing's. A pool hall. Didn't that place godown in the riots last year?" "Right," Pounds said. "Complete burnout. They looted and torched the place. Justthe slab and three walls left standing. There's a city demolition order againstit but the owner hasn't acted yet. Anyway, that's the spot, according to thisnote we got. Note says she was buried under the floor slab. Edgar went out therewith a city crew, jackhammers, the works...." Pounds was dragging it out. What a petty asshole, Bosch thought. This time hewould wait longer. And when the silence grew nervously long, Pounds finallyspoke. "He found a body. Just like the note said he would. Beneath the concrete. Hefound a body. That's—" "How old is it?" "Don't know yet. But it's old. That's why I'm calling. I need you to go outthere during the lunch break and see what you can make of this. You know, is itlegit as a Dollmaker victim or is some other wacko jerking us off? You're theexpert. You could go out there when the judge breaks for lunch. I'll meet youthere. And you'll be back in time for openers." Bosch felt numb. He already needed another cigarette. He tried to place all ofwhat Pounds had just said into some semblance of order. TheDollmaker—Norman Church—had been dead four years now. There had beenno mistake. Bosch knew that night. He still knew it in his guts today. Churchwas the Dollmaker. "So this note just appeared at the desk?" "Desk sergeant found it on the front counter about four hours ago. Nobody sawanybody leave it. You know, a lot of people come through the front in themornings. Plus we had change of shift. I had Meehan go up and talk to the deskuniforms. Nobody remembers jack shit about it until they found it." "Shit. Read it to me." "Can't. SID has it. Doubt there will be any lifts, but we have to go through themotions. I'll get a copy and have it with me at the scene, okay?" Bosch didn't answer. "I know what you're thinking," Pounds said. "But let's hold our horses till wesee what is out there. No reason to worry yet. Might be some stunt cooked up bythat lawyer, Chandler. Wouldn't put it past her. She's the type, she'd doanything to nail another LAPD scalp to the wall. Likes seeing her name in thepaper." "What about the media? They heard about this yet?" "We've gotten a few calls about a body being found. They must've gotten it offthe coroner's dispatch freek. We've been staying off the air. Anyway, nobodyknows about the note or the Dollmaker tie-in. They just know there's a body. Theidea of it being found under the floor of one of the riot burnouts is sexy, Iguess. "Anyway, we have to keep the Dollmaker part under our hat for the time being.Unless, of course, whoever wrote it also sent copies out to the media. If he didthat, we'll hear about it by the end of the day." "How could he bury her under the slab of a pool hall?" "The whole building wasn't a pool hall. There were storage rooms in the back.Before it was Bing's it was a studio prop house. After Bing's took the front,they rented out sections in the back for storage. This is all from Edgar, he gotthe owner out there. The killer must've had one of the rooms, broke through theexisting slab and put this girl's body in there. Anyway, it all got burned downin the riots. But the fire didn't hurt the slab. This poor girl's body has beendown in there through all of that. Edgar said it looks like a mummy orsomething." Bosch saw the door to courtroom 4 open and members of the Church family came outfollowed by their lawyer. They were breaking for lunch. Deborah Church and hertwo teenaged daughters did not look at him. But Honey Chandler, known by mostcops and others in the federal courts building as Money Chandler, stared at himwith killer eyes as she passed. They were as dark as burnt mahogany and setagainst a tanned face with a strong jawline. She was an attractive woman withsmooth gold hair. Her figure was hidden in the stiff lines of her blue suit.Bosch could feel the animosity from the group wash over him like a wave. "Bosch, you still there?" Pounds asked. "Yeah. It looks like we just broke for lunch." "Good. Then head over there and I'll meet you. I can't believe I'm actuallysaying this, but I hope it's just another wacko. For your sake, it might bebest." "Right." As Bosch was hanging up he heard Pounds's voice and brought the phone back tohis ear. "One more thing. If the media shows up out there, leave them to me. However thisturns out, you shouldn't be formally involved in this new case because of thelitigation stemming from the old. We are just having you out there as an expertwitness, so to speak." "Right." "See you there." (Continues...) Excerpted from The Concrete Blonde by Michael Connelly . Copyright © 2013 Michael Connelly. Excerpted by permission of Grand Central Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site. Read more