mistake. Bosch knew that night. He still knew it in his guts today. Church was the Dollmaker.
“So this note just appeared at the desk?”
“Desk sergeant found it on the front counter about four hours ago. Nobody saw anybody leave it. You know, a lot of people come through the front in the mornings. Plus we had change of shift. I had Meehan go up and talk to the desk uniforms. 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 the motions. 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 we see what is out there. No reason to worry yet. Might be some stunt cooked up by that lawyer, Chandler. Wouldn’t put it past her. She’s the type, she’d do anything to nail another LAPD scalp to the wall. Likes seeing her name in the paper.”
“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 off the coroner’s dispatch freek. We’ve been staying off the air. Anyway, nobody knows about the note or the Dollmaker tie-in. They just know there’s a body. The idea of it being found under the floor of one of the riot burnouts is sexy, I guess.
“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 did that, 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 got the owner out there. The killer must’ve had one of the rooms, broke through the existing slab and put this girl’s body in there. Anyway, it all got burned down in the riots. But the fire didn’t hurt the slab. This poor girl’s body has been down in there through all of that. Edgar said it looks like a mummy or something.”
Bosch saw the door to courtroom 4 open and members of the Church family came out followed by their lawyer. They were breaking for lunch. Deborah Church and her two teenaged daughters did not look at him. But Honey Chandler, known by most cops and others in the federal courts building as Money Chandler, stared at him with killer eyes as she passed. They were as dark as burnt mahogany and set against a tanned face with a strong jawline. She was an attractive woman with smooth 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 actually saying this, but I hope it’s just another wacko. For your sake, it might be best.”
“Right.”
As Bosch was hanging up he heard Pounds’s voice and brought the phone back to his ear.
“One more thing. If the media shows up out there, leave them to me. However this turns out, you shouldn’t be formally involved in this new case because of the litigation stemming from the old. We are just having you out there as an expert witness, so to speak.”
“Right.”
“See you there.”
Chapter 2
Bosch took Wilshire out of downtown and cut up to Third after he made it through what was left of MacArthur Park. Turning north on Western he could see up on the left the grouping of patrol cars, detective cars and the crime-scene and coroner’s vans. In the distance the HOLLYWOOD sign hung over the northern view, its letters barely legible in the smog.
Bing’s was three blackened walls cradling a pile of charred debris. No roof, but the uniforms had hung a blue plastic tarp over the top of the rear wall and strung it to the chain-link fence that ran along the front of the property. Bosch knew it hadn’t been done because the investigators wanted shade where they worked. He leaned forward and looked up through