The concrete blonde - By Michael Connelly Page 0,44
known that somewhere down the line he'd need this tape and he'd have to've told me what date to set it on and so on and so forth. It's all pretty farfetched, especially because you can pull the newspapers from that year and find the wedding announcement that says my friend got married September thirtieth. That'll show you that his bachelor party had to have been the twenty-eighth or thereabouts. It's not a phony.”
Judge Keyes agreed with Belk's objection to the last sentence as being nonresponsive to the question and told the jury to disregard it. Bosch knew they didn't need to have heard it. They all knew the tape wasn't a phony. He did, too. He felt clammy and sick. Something had gone wrong but he didn't know what. He wanted to get up and walk out but he knew that to do so would be an admission of guilt so loud the walls would shake as if during an earthquake.
“One last question,” Chandler said. Her face had become flushed as she rode this one to victory. “Did you ever know Norman Church to wear a hairpiece of any kind?”
“Never. I knew him a lot of years and I never saw or heard of such a thing.”
Judge Keyes turned the witness back over to Belk, who lumbered to the lectern without his yellow pad. He was apparently too flustered by this turnabout to remember to say, “Just a few questions.” Instead he got right to his meager damage-control effort.
“You say you read a book about the Dollmaker case and then discovered this tape's date matched one of the killings, is that right?”
“That's right.”
“Did you look into finding alibis for the other ten murders?”
“No, I didn't.”
“So. Mr. Wieczorek, you have nothing to offer in terms of defending your longtime friend against these other cases a task force of numerous officers connected to him?”
“The tape put the lie to all of 'em. Your task—”
“You're not answering the question.”
“Yes I am, you show the lie on one of the cases, it puts a lie to the whole shooting match, you ask me.”
“We're not asking you, Mr. Wieczorek. Now, uh, you said you never saw Norman Church wear a hairpiece, correct?”
“That's what I said, yes.”
“Did you know he kept that apartment, using a false name?”
“No, I did not.”
“There was a lot you didn't know about your friend, wasn't there?”
“I suppose.”
“Do you suppose it is possible that just as he had that apartment without you knowing, that he occasionally wore a hairpiece without you knowing?”
“I suppose.”
“Now, if Mr. Church was the killer police claim him to be, and used disguises as police said the killer did, wouldn't it be—”
“Objection,” Chandler said.
“—expected that there would be something such—”
“Objection!”
“—as a toupee in the apartment?”
Judge Keyes sustained Chandler's objection to Belk's question as seeking a speculative answer, and chastised Belk for continuing the question after the objection was lodged. Belk took the berating and said he had no further questions. He sat down, sweat lines gliding out of his hairline and running down his temples.
“Best you could do,” Bosch whispered.
Belk ignored it, took out a handkerchief and wiped his face.
After accepting the videotape as evidence, the judge broke for lunch. After the jury was out of the courtroom a handful of reporters quickly moved up to Chandler. Bosch watched this and knew it was the final arbiter of how things were going. The media always gravitated to the winners, the perceived winners, the eventual winners. It's always easier to ask them questions.
“Better start thinking of something, Bosch,” Belk said. “We could have settled this six months ago for fifty grand. Way things are going, that would have been nothing.”
Bosch turned and looked at him. They were at the railing behind the defense table.
“You believe it, don't you? The whole thing. I killed him, then we planted everything that connected him to it.”
“Doesn't matter what I believe, Bosch.”
“Fuck you, Belk.”
“Like I said, you better start thinking of something.”
He pushed his wide girth through the gate and headed out of the courtroom. Bremmer and another reporter approached him but he waved them away. Bosch followed him out a few moments later and also brushed the reporters off. But Bremmer kept stride with him as he took the hallway to the escalator.
“Listen, man, my ass is on the line here, too. I wrote a book about the guy and if it was the wrong guy, I want to know.”
Bosch stopped and Bremmer almost bumped into him. He looked closely at