The concrete blonde - By Michael Connelly Page 0,122

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What became immediately clear from the start was that the man Edgar had seen Georgia Stern go into the alley with earlier was not a john. He was a dealer and she had probably fixed in the alley. She might have paid for the shot with sex, but that still didn't make the dealer a john.

Regardless of who he was and what she did, she was on the nod when Bosch and Edgar brought her in and, therefore, was almost totally useless. Her eyes were droopy and dilated and would become fixed on objects in the distance. Even in the ten-by-ten interview room she looked as though she was staring at something a mile away.

Her hair was rumpled and the black roots were longer than in the photo Edgar had. She had a sore on the skin below her left ear, the kind of sore addicts get from nervously rubbing the same spot over and over. Her upper arms were as thin as the legs of the chair she sat on. Her deteriorated state was heightened by the T-shirt, which was several sizes too big. The neckline drooped to expose her upper chest and Bosch could see that she used the veins in her neck when she was banging heroin from a needle. Bosch could also see that despite her emaciated condition, she still had large, full breasts. Implants, he guessed, and for a moment a vision of the concrete blonde's desiccated body flashed to him.

“Miss Stern?” Bosch began. “Georgia? Do you know why you're here? Do you remember what I told you in the car?”

“I mem'er.”

“Now, do you remember the night the man tried to kill you? More than four years ago? A night like this? June seventeenth. Remember?”

She nodded dreamily and Bosch wondered if she knew what he was talking about.

“The Dollmaker, remember?”

“He's dead.”

“That's right, but we need to ask you some questions about the man anyway. You helped us draw this picture, remember?”

Bosch unfolded the composite drawing he had taken from the Dollmaker files. The drawing looked like neither Church nor Mora, but the Dollmaker was known to wear disguises so it was reasonable to believe the Follower did as well. Even so, there was always the chance a physical feature, like maybe Mora's penetrating eyes, would poke through the memory.

She looked at the composite for a long time.

“He was killed by the cops,” she said. “He deserved it.”

Even coming from her, it felt reassuring to Bosch to hear someone say the Dollmaker got what he deserved. But he knew what she didn't, that they weren't dealing with the Dollmaker here.

“We're going to show you some pictures. You got the six-pack, Jerry?”

She looked up abruptly and Bosch realized his mistake. She thought he was referring to beer, but a six-pack in cop terminology was a package of six mugshots which are shown to victims and witnesses. They usually contain photos of five cops and one suspect with the hope that the wit will point to the suspect and say that's the one. This time the six-pack contained photos of six cops. Mora's was the second one.

Bosch lined them up on the table in front of her and she looked for a long time. She laughed.

“What?” Bosch asked.

She pointed to the fourth photo.

“I think I fucked him once. But I thought he was a cop.”

Bosch saw Edgar shake his head. The photo she had pointed to was of an undercover Hollywood Division narcotics officer named Arb Danforth. If her memory was correct, then Danforth was probably venturing off his beat into the Valley to extort sex from prostitutes. Bosch guessed that he was probably paying them with heroin stolen from evidence envelopes or suspects. What she had just said should be forwarded in a report to Internal Affairs, but both Edgar and Bosch knew without saying a word that neither of them would do that. It would be like committing suicide in the department. No street cop would ever trust them again. Still, Bosch knew Danforth was married and that the prostitute carried the AIDS virus. He decided he would drop Danforth an anonymous note telling him to get a blood test.

“What about the others, Georgia?” Bosch said. “Look at their eyes. Eyes don't change when somebody's in a disguise. Look at the eyes.”

While she bent down to look closer at the pictures Bosch looked at Edgar, who shook his head. This was going nowhere, he was saying, and Bosch nodded that he knew. After a minute or