The concrete blonde - By Michael Connelly Page 0,90

center of the table.

“Shit, every cop smokes Marlboros or Camels,” Opelt said.

“It's a dirty habit,” Irving said.

“I agree,” said Rollenberger, a little too quickly.

It brought silence back to the table.

“Who's your suspect?”

It was Irving who asked it. He was looking at Bosch again with those eyes Harry couldn't decipher. The question shocked Bosch. Irving knew. Somehow he knew. Harry didn't answer.

“Detective, it is clear you've had a handle on what's going on for a day. You've also been on this case from the start. I think you've got someone in mind. Tell us. We need to start somewhere.”

Bosch hesitated again but finally said, “I'm not sure … and I don't want …”

“To ruin someone's career if you're wrong? To set the dogs on a possibly innocent man? That's understood. But we can't have you pursuing this on your own. Haven't you learned anything from this trial? I believe ‘cowboying’ was the term Money Chandler used to describe it.”

They were all looking at him. He was thinking of Mora. The vice cop was strange but was he that strange? Over the years Bosch had often been investigated by the department and did not want to bring that kind of weight down on the wrong person.

“Detective?” Irving prompted. “Even if all you have is a hunch, then you must tell us. Investigations start with hunches. You want to protect one person but what are we going to do? We are about to go out and investigate cops. What difference is it if we start with this person or come to him in time? Either way we will get to him. Give us the name.”

Bosch thought about everything Irving had said. He wondered what his own motive was. Was he protecting Mora or simply keeping him for himself? He thought a few more moments and finally said, “Give me five minutes alone in here with the files. If there is something there that I think is there, then I'll tell you.”

“Gentlemen,” Irving said, “let's go get some coffee.”

After the room was cleared, Bosch looked at the files for nearly a minute without moving. He felt confused. He wasn't sure whether he wanted to find something that would convince him Mora was the follower or convince him he was not. He thought about what Chandler had said to the jury about monsters and the black abyss where they dwell. Whoever fights monsters, he thought, should not think too hard about it.

He lit a cigarette and pulled the stack close to him and began looking for two files. The chronologies file was near the top. It was thin. It was basically a quick guide to important dates in the investigation. He found the task force personnel file at the bottom of the stack. It was thicker than the first he pulled out because it contained the weekly shifts schedule for the detectives assigned to the task force and the overtime approval forms. As the detective-three in charge of the B squad, Bosch had been in charge of keeping the personnel file up to date.

From the chronologies file, Bosch quickly looked up the times and dates that the first two porno actresses were murdered and other pertinent information about the way they were lured to their death. Then he looked up the same information about the lone survivor. He wrote it all down in order on a page of his pocket notebook.

—June 17, 11 P.M.

Georgia Stern aka Velvet Box

survivor

—July 6, 11:30 P.M.

Nicole Knapp aka Holly Lere

W. Hollywood

—Sept. 28, 4 A.M.

Shirleen Kemp aka Heather Cumhither

Malibu

Bosch opened the personnel file and pulled the shift schedules for the weeks the women were attacked or murdered. June seventeenth, the night Georgia Stern was attacked, was a Sunday, which was the B squad's night off. Mora could've done it, but so could anyone else who was on the squad.

On the Knapp case, Bosch got a hit and his fingers trembled a little as he held the schedule for the week of July 1. His adrenaline was moving faster now. July sixth, the day Knapp was sent on an outcall request at 9 P.M. and was found dead on the sidewalk on Sweetzer in West Hollywood at 11:30 P.M., was a Friday. Mora was on the schedule to be working the three-to-midnight shift with the B squad, but there next to his name in Bosch's own writing was the word “sick.”

Bosch quickly pulled out the schedule for the week of September twenty-second. The nude body of Shirleen Kemp had been found at