The Concrete Blonde (hb-3)

Monica gave them a sweeping view of the ocean across a wide beach. It was the kind of room that came with two full-length terrycloth robes and gold foil-wrapped chocolates left on the pillow. The suite’s front door was off the fourth landing of a five-story atrium with a wall of glass that faced the ocean and would capture the entire arc of the sunset.
    There was a porch with two chaise lounges and a table and they had lunch delivered by room service there. Bosch had brought the rover in with him but it was turned off. He would keep in touch as the search for Locke went on, but he was out of it for the day.
    He had called in and talked to Edgar and then Irving. He told them he would stay with Sylvia, though it seemed unlikely that the Follower would make a move now. He was not needed anyway because the task force was in a holding pattern, waiting for Locke to turn up or something else to break.
    Irving had said the presidents had contacted the dean of the psychology department at USC who, in turn, contacted one of Locke’s graduate assistants. She reported that Locke had mentioned on Friday that he would be in Las Vegas for the weekend, staying at the Stardust. He taught no classes on Mondays, so he would not be back at the school until Tuesday.
    “But we checked the Stardust,” Irving said. “Locke had a reservation but never checked in.”
    “What about the warrant?”
    “We’ve had three turn-downs from three judges. You know it’s pretty weak when a judge won’t rubber-stamp a search warrant for us. We’re going to have to let that jell for a while. In the meantime, we’ll be watching his house and his office. I’d like to leave it that way until he surfaces and we can talk to him.”
    Bosch heard the doubt in Irving’s voice. He wondered how Rollenberger had explained the leap in the investigation from Mora to Locke as the suspect.
    “You think we’re wrong?”
    He realized there was a quiver of doubt in his own voice.
    “I don’t know. We traced the note. Partially. It was left at the front desk sometime Saturday night. The deskman went back for coffee about nine, got sidetracked by the watch commander and when he came back out it was there on the counter. He had an Explorer put it in your slot. The only thing it means for sure is that we were wrong about Mora. Anyway, the point is, we could be wrong again. Right now all we have are hunches. Good hunches, mind you, but that’s all. I want to proceed a little more carefully this time.”
    The translation was, you screwed us up with your hunch on Mora. We are going to be more skeptical this time. Bosch understood this.
    “What if the Vegas trip was a cover? The note says something about moving on. Maybe Locke’s running.”
    “Maybe.”
    “Should we put out a BOLO, get an arrest warrant?”
    “I think we’re going to wait until at least Tuesday, Detective. Give him a chance to come back. Just two more days.”
    It was clear Irving wanted to sit tight. He was going to wait for events to control what he would do next.
    “Okay, I’ll check in later.”

    * * *

    They napped in the king-size bed until it was dark and then Bosch turned on the news to see if any of what had happened in the last twenty-four hours had leaked.
    It hadn’t, but midway through the newscast on 2, Bosch stopped flipping through the channels with the selector. The story that stopped him was an update on the Beatrice Fontenot killing. A photo of the girl, her hair in corn-rows, appeared on the right side of the screen.
    The blonde anchor said, “Police announced today that they have identified a suspected gunman in the death of sixteen-year-old Beatrice Fontenot. The man they are looking for is an alleged drug dealer who was a rival of Beatrice’s older brothers, Detective Stanley Hanks said. He said the shots fired at the Fontenot house were in all probability meant for the brothers. Instead, a bullet struck Beatrice, an honor student at Grant High in the Valley, in the head. Her funeral is scheduled for later this week.”
    Bosch turned off the television and looked back at Sylvia, who was propped up on two pillows against the wall. They didn’t say anything.
    After a room service dinner, which they ate with almost no conversation in the front room of the suite, they took turns in the shower. Bosch went second and as the coarse water stung his scalp, he decided that it was time for him to lose all his baggage, to come clean. He trusted his faith in her, in her