The Concrete Blonde (hb-3)

guilty because he had never been totally open with her about all the things that concerned them. He had been the one who held back.
    “You still haven’t said how it went in court today or why you aren’t coming out here like you said you would.”
    “It’s this new case they found today. I am involved... and I want to do some thinking on it.”
    “You can think anywhere, Harry.”
    “You know what I mean.”
    “Yes, I do. And court?”
    “It went fine, I guess. We only had openers. Testimony starts tomorrow. But this new case... It’s sort of hanging over everything.”
    He switched the channels as he spoke but he had missed reports on the new body discovery on the other channels.
    “Well, what’s your lawyer say about it?”
    “Nothing. He doesn’t want to know about it.”
    “What a shit.”
    “He just wants to get through the case quickly, hope that if the Dollmaker or a partner is still running around out there, that we don’t confirm it until the trial is over.”
    “But, Harry, that is unethical. Even if it is evidence in the plaintiff’s favor, doesn’t he have to bring it forward?”
    “Yes, if he knows about it. That’s just it. He doesn’t want to know about it. That makes him safe.”
    “When will it be your turn to testify? I want to be there. I can take a personal day and be there.”
    “No. Don’t worry. It’s all a formality. I don’t want you to know any more about this story than you do already.”
    “Why? It’s your story.”
    “No it’s not. It’s his.”
    He hung up after telling her he’d call her the next day. Afterward, he looked at the phone on the table in front of him for a long time. He and Sylvia Moore had been spending three or four nights a week together for nearly a year. Though Sylvia had been the one who spoke of changing the arrangement and even had her house for sale, Bosch had never wanted to touch the question for fear that it might disturb the fragile balance and comfort he felt with her.
    He wondered now if he was doing just that, disturbing the balance. He had lied to her. He was involved in the new case to some degree, but he was done for the day and was going home. He had lied because he felt the need to be alone. With his thoughts. With the Dollmaker.
    He flipped through the second binder to the back where there were clear plastic Ziploc pouches for holding documentary evidence. In these were copies of the Dollmaker’s previous letters. There were three of them. The killer had begun sending them after the media firestorm started and he had been christened with the name Dollmaker. One had gone to Bosch, prior to the eleventh killing-the last. The other two had gone to Bremmer at the
Times
after the seventh and eleventh killings. Harry now studied the photocopy of the envelope that was addressed to him in a printed script of block letters. Then he looked at the poem on the folded page. It also had been printed in the same oddly slanted block script. He read the words he already knew by heart.
    I feel compelled to forewarn and forsake.
    T’night I’m out for a snack-my lust partake.
    Another doll for the shelf, as it were’t.
    She breathes her last-just as I squirt.
    A little late mommy and daddy weeple
    A fine young miss ‘neath my steeple.
    As I tight the purse strings ‘fore preparing the wash.
    I hear the last gasp-a sound like Boschhhhh!
    Bosch closed the binders and put them in his briefcase. He turned off the TV and headed out to the back parking lot. He held the station door for two uniform cops who were wrestling with a handcuffed drunk. The drunk threw a kick out at him but Harry stepped outside of its reach.
    He pointed the Caprice north and took Outpost Road up to Mulholland, which he then took to Woodrow Wilson. After pulling into the carport, he sat with his hands on the wheel for a long time. He thought about the letters and the signature the Dollmaker had left on each victim’s body, the cross painted on the toenail. After Church was dead they figured out what it had meant. The cross had been the steeple. The steeple of a Church.

Chapter 5
    In the morning, Bosch sat on the rear deck of his house and watched the sun come up over the Cahuenga Pass. It burned away the morning fog and bathed the wildflowers on the hillside that had burned the winter before. He watched and smoked and drank coffee until the sound of traffic on the Hollywood Freeway became one uninterrupted hiss from the pass below.
    He dressed in his dark