The Concrete Blonde by Michael Connelly Page A

Judge Keyes interjected. “Don't go asking questions. That isn't your job here.”
    “Sorry, Your Honor,” Lloyd said. “Yes, he had a master's degree. I'm not sure exactly what it was for.”
    “You mentioned the makeup in your nonresponsive answer a moment ago,” Chandler said. “What did you mean?”
    “In the garage apartment where Church was killed. Makeup that belonged to nine of the victims was found in a cabinet in the bathroom. It tied him directly to those cases. Nine of eleven—it was convincing.”
    “Who found the makeup in there?”
    “Harry Bosch did.”
    “When he went there alone and killed him.”
    “Is that a question?”
    “No, Lieutenant. I withdraw it.”
    She paused to let the jury think about that while she flipped through her yellow pages.
    “Lieutenant Lloyd, tell us about that night. What happened?”
    Lloyd told the story as it had been described dozens of times before. On TV, in newspapers, in Bremmer's book. It was midnight, squad B was going off shift when the task force hot line rang and Bosch took the call, the last of the night. A street prostitute named Dixie McQueen said she had just escaped from the Dollmaker. Bosch went alone because the others on squad B had gone home and he figured it might be another dead end. He picked the woman up at Hollywood and Western and followed her directions into Silverlake. On Hyperion she convinced Bosch she had escaped from the Dollmaker and pointed to the lighted windows of an apartment over a garage. Bosch went up alone. A few moments later Norman Church was dead.
    “He kicked open the door?” Chandler asked.
    “Yes. There was the thought that maybe he had gone and gotten somebody to take the prostitute's place.”
    “Did he shout that he was police?”
    “Yes.”
    “How do you know?”
    “He said so.”
    “Any witnesses hear it?”
    “No.”
    “What about Miss McQueen, the prostitute?”
    “No. Bosch had kept her in the car parked on the street in case there was trouble.”
    “So what you're saying is we have Detective Bosch's word that he feared there might be another victim, that he identified himself and that Mr. Church made a threatening move toward the pillow.”
    “Yes,” Lloyd said reluctantly.
    “I notice, Lieutenant Lloyd, that you wear a toupee yourself.”
    There was some muffled laughter from the back. Bosch turned and saw that the media contingent was steadily growing. He saw Bremmer sitting in the gallery now.
    “Yes,” Lloyd said. His face had turned red to match his nose.
    “Have you ever put your toupee under your pillow? Is that the proper care for it?”
    “No.”
    “Nothing further, Your Honor.”
    Judge Keyes looked at the clock at the wall and then at Belk.
    “What do you think, Mr. Belk? Break for lunch now so you won't be interrupted?”
    “I only have one question.”
    “Oh, then by all means, ask it.”
    Belk took his pad to the lectern and leaned to the microphone.
    “Lieutenant Lloyd, from all of your knowledge about this case, do you have any doubt whatsoever that Norman Church was the Dollmaker?”
    “None at all. None … at … all.”
    After the jury filed out, Bosch leaned to Belk's ear and urgently whispered, “What was that? She tore him up and you asked only one question. What about all the other things that tied Church to the case?”
    Belk held up his hand to calm Bosch and then spoke calmly.
    “Because you are going to testify about all of that. This case is about you, Harry. We either win it or lose it with you.”

6
    The Code Seven had closed its dining room during the recession and somebody put a salad and pizza bar in the space to serve the office workers from the civic center. The Seven's barroom was still open but the dining room had been the last place within walking distance of Parker Center that Bosch had liked to eat at. So during the lunch break he got his car out of the lot at Parker and drove over to the garment district to eat at Gorky's. The Russian