The concrete blonde - By Michael Connelly Page 0,74

go in but he did not want to walk away from her.

“So that's why Tommy said justice happened,” she said. “That was justice for André Galton. Faraday referred all his cases to other lawyers after that. I took a few. And he never set foot in a courtroom again.”

She stubbed out what was left of her cigarette.

“End of story,” she said.

“I'm sure the civil rights lawyers tell that one a lot,” Bosch said. “And now you put me and Church into that, is that it? I'm like the guy who sent the dog down the hill after Galton?”

“There are degrees, Detective Bosch. Even if Church was the monster you claim, he didn't have to die. If the system turns away from the abuses inflicted on the guilty, then who can be next but the innocents? You see, that's why I have to do what I'm going to do to you in there. For the innocents.”

“Well, good luck,” he said.

He put his own cigarette out.

“I won't need it,” she said.

Bosch followed her gaze to the statue above the spot where Galton had killed himself. Chandler looked at it as if the blood were still there.

“That's justice,” she said, nodding at the statue. “She doesn't hear you. She doesn't see you. She can't feel you and won't speak to you. Justice, Detective Bosch, is just a concrete blonde.”

16

The courtroom seemed as silent as a dead man's heart while Bosch walked behind the plaintiff and defendant tables and in front of the jury box to get to the witness stand. After taking the oath he gave his full name and the clerk asked him to spell it.

“H-I-E-R-O-N-Y-M-U-S B-O-S-C-H.”

Then the judge turned it over to Belk.

“Tell us a little bit about yourself, Detective Bosch, about your career.”

“I've been a police officer nearly twenty years. I currently am assigned to the homicide table at Hollywood Division. Before that—”

“Why do they call it a table?”

Jesus, Bosch thought.

“Because it's like a table. It is six small desks pushed together to make a long table, three detectives on each side. It's always called a table.”

“Okay, go on.”

“Before this assignment I spent eight years in Robbery-Homicide Division's Homicide Special squad. Before that I was a detective on the homicide table in North Hollywood and robbery and burglary tables in Van Nuys. I was on patrol about five years, mostly in the Hollywood and Wilshire divisions.”

Belk slowly led him through his career up until the time he was on the Dollmaker task force. The questioning was slow and boring—even to Bosch, and it was his life. Every now and then he would look at the jurors when he answered a question and only a few seemed to be looking at him or paying attention. Bosch felt nervous and his palms were damp. He had testified in court at least a hundred times. But never like this, in his own defense. He felt hot though he knew the courtroom was overly cool.

“Now where was the task force physically located?”

“We used a second-floor storage room at the Hollywood station. It was an evidence and file storage room. We temporarily moved that stuff out into a rented trailer and used the room. We also had a room at Parker Center. The night shift, which I was on, generally worked out of Hollywood.”

“You were closer to the source, correct?”

“We thought so, yes. Most of the victims were taken from Hollywood streets. Many were later found in the area.”

“So you wanted to be able to act quickly on tips and leads and being right there in the center of things helped you do that, correct?”

“Correct.”

“On the night you got the call from the woman named Dixie McQueen, how did you get that call?”

“She called in on nine one one and when the dispatcher realized what she was talking about, the call was transferred out to the task force in Hollywood.”

“Who answered it?”

“I did.”

“Why is that? I thought you testified you were the supervisor of the night shift. Didn't they have people answering phones?”

“Yes, we had people, but this call came in late. Everybody had left for the night. I was only there because I was bringing the Chronological Investigation Record up to date—we had to turn it in at the end of each week. I was the only one there. I answered.”

“When you went to meet this woman, why didn't you call for a backup?”

“She hadn't told me enough over the phone to convince me there was anything to it. We were getting dozens of