The concrete blonde - By Michael Connelly Page 0,23
would like to ask for sanctions against Miss Chandler. She has defamed me by alleging this cover-up of the evidence and I—”
“Mr. Belk, sit down. I'll tell you both right now; quit with the extracurricular sparring because it doesn't get you anywhere with me. No sanctions either way. One last time, any other matters?”
“Yes, Your Honor,” Chandler said.
She had one more card. From beneath her legal pad she pulled out a document and walked it up to the clerk, who handed it to the judge. Chandler then returned to the lectern.
“Your Honor, that is a subpoena I have prepared for the police department that I would like reflected in the record. I am asking that a copy of the note referred to in the Times article, the note written by the Dollmaker and received yesterday, be released to me as part of discovery.”
Belk jumped to his feet.
“Hold on, Mr. Belk,” the judge admonished. “Let her finish.”
“Your Honor, it is evidence in this case. It should be turned over immediately.”
Judge Keyes gave Belk the nod and the deputy city attorney lumbered to the lectern, Chandler having to back up to give him room.
“Your Honor, this note is in no way evidence in this case. It has not been verified as having come from anybody. However, it is evidence in a murder case unattached to this proceeding. And it is not the LAPD's practice to parade its evidence out in an open court while there is a suspect still at large. I ask that you deny her request.”
Judge Keyes clasped his hands together and thought a moment.
“Tell you what, Mr. Belk. You get a copy of the note and bring it in here. I'll take a look and then decide if it will be entered in evidence. That's all. Ms. Rivera, call in the jury please, we're losing the morning.”
After the jury was in the box and everybody in court sat down, Judge Keyes asked who had seen any news stories relating to the case. No one in the box raised a hand. Bosch knew that if any one of them had seen the story, they wouldn't admit to it anyway. To do so would be to invite certain dismissal from the jury—a ticket straight back to the jury assembly room where the minutes tick by like hours.
“Very well,” the judge said. “Call your first witness, Ms. Chandler.”
Terry Lloyd took the witness stand like a man who was as familiar with it as the recliner chair he got drunk in every night in front of the TV set. He even adjusted the microphone in front of him without any help from the clerk. Lloyd had a drinker's badge of a nose and unusually dark brown hair for a man of his age, which was pushing sixty. That was because it was obvious to everyone who looked at him, except maybe himself, that he wore a rug. Chandler went through some preliminary questions, establishing that he was a lieutenant in the LAPD's elite Robbery-Homicide Division.
“During a period beginning four and a half years ago were you placed in charge of a task force of detectives attempting to identify a serial killer?”
“Yes I was.”
“Can you tell the jury how that came about and functioned?”
“It was put together after the same killer was identified as the perpetrator in five killings. We were unofficially known in the department as the Westside Strangler Task Force. After the media got wind of it, the killer became known as the Dollmaker—because he used the victims' own makeup to paint their faces like dolls. I had eighteen detectives assigned to the task force. We broke them up into two squads, A and B. Squad A worked a day shift, B took the nights. We investigated the killings as they occurred and followed the call-in leads. After it hit the media, we were getting maybe a hundred calls a week—people saying this guy or that guy was the Dollmaker. We had to check them all out.”
“The task force, no matter what it was called, was not successful, is that correct?”
“No, ma'am, that is wrong. We were successful. We got the killer.”
“And who was that?”
“Norman Church was the killer.”
“Was he identified as such before or after he was killed?”
“After. He was good for all of them.”
“And good for the department, too?”
“I don't follow.”
“It was good for the department that you were able to connect him to the murders. Otherwise you'd—”
“Ask questions, Ms. Chandler,” the judge interrupted.