A Darkness More Than Night

draw on the sketch pad. He’d been doing it since jury selection began. Bosch’s eyes traveled to the defendant’s attorney and locked on those of J. Reason Fowkkes. Bosch held the stare until Langwiser asked her next question.
    “This was the murder of Donatella Speers?”
    Bosch looked back over at Langwiser.
    “Correct. That was the name she used.”
    “It was not her real name?”
    “It was her stage name, I guess you would call it. She was an actress. She changed her name. Her real name was Jody Krementz.”
    The judge interrupted and asked Bosch to spell the names for the court reporter, then Langwiser continued.
    “Tell us the circumstances of the call out. Walk us through it, Detective Bosch. Where were you, what were you doing, how did this become your case?”
    Bosch cleared his throat and had reached to the microphone to pull it closer when he remembered what happened the last time. He left the microphone where it was and leaned forward to it.
    “My two partners and I were eating lunch at a restaurant called Musso and Frank’s on Hollywood Boulevard. It was Friday and we usually eat there if we have the time. At eleven forty-eight my pager went off. I recognized the number as belonging to my supervisor, Lieutenant Grace Billets. While I was calling her, the pagers of my partners, Jerry Edgar and Kizmin Rider, also went off. At that point we knew we had probably drawn a case. I got ahold of Lieutenant Billets and she directed my team to one-thousand-one Nichols Canyon Road, where patrol officers had earlier responded along with paramedics to an emergency call at that location. They reported a young woman was found dead in her bed under suspicious circumstances.”
    “You then went to the address?”
    “No. I had driven all three of us to Musso’s. So I drove back to the Hollywood station, which is a few blocks away, and dropped off my partners so they could get their own vehicles. Then all three of us proceeded separately to the address. You never know where you might have to go from a crime scene. It’s good procedure for each detective to have his or her own car.”
    “At this time did you know who the victim was or what the suspicious circumstances of her death were?”
    “No, I did not.”
    “What did you find when you got there?”
    “It was a small two-bedroom house overlooking the canyon. Two patrol cars were on the scene. The paramedics had already left once it was determined the victim was dead. Inside the house were two patrol officers and a patrol sergeant. In the living room there was a woman seated on the couch. She was crying. She was introduced to me as Jane Gilley. She shared the house with Ms. Krementz.”
    Bosch stopped there and waited for a question. Langwiser was bent over the prosecution table whispering to her co-prosecutor, Roger Kretzler.
    “Ms. Langwiser, does that conclude your questioning of Detective Bosch?” Judge Houghton asked.
    Langwiser jerked upright, not having noticed that Bosch had stopped.
    “No, Your Honor.”
    She moved back to the lectern.
    “Go on, Detective Bosch, tell us what happened after you entered the house.”
    “I spoke to Sergeant Kim and he informed me that there was a young woman who was deceased in her bed in the bedroom to the right rear of the house. He introduced the woman on the couch and he said that his people had backed out of the bedroom without disturbing anything once the paramedics determined that the victim was dead. I then went down the short hallway to the bedroom and entered.”
    “What did you find in there?”
    “I saw the victim in the bed. She was a white female of slim build and blond hair. Her identification would later be confirmed as Jody Krementz, age twenty-three.”
    Langwiser asked permission to show a set of photographs to Bosch. Houghton allowed it and Bosch identified the police evidence photos as being that of the victim in situ – as the body had been seen at first by police. The body was face up. The bedclothes were pulled to the side to reveal the body to be nude with the legs spread about two feet apart at the knees. The large breasts held their full shape despite the body being in a horizontal position, an indication of breast implants. The left arm was extended over the stomach. The palm of the left hand covered the pubic region. Two fingers of the left hand penetrated the vagina.
    The victim’s eyes were closed and her head rested on a pillow but at a sharp angle to her neck. Wrapped