The Concrete Blonde (hb-3)

man. He put a yellow Post-it on the page and closed it.
    “Lord, I gotta look through all this shit. Got a tip that this publisher is using underage models. You know how I check?”
    Bosch shook his head.
    “It’s not the face or the tits. It’s ankles, Harry.”
    “Ankles.”
    “Yeah, ankles. Something about them. They are just smoother on younger chicks. I can usually tell, over or under eighteen, by the ankles. Then, of course, I go out and confirm with birth certificates, DLs, etc. It’s crazy but it works.”
    “Good for you. What did you tell Edgar?”
    The phone rang. Mora picked up, said his name and listened a few moments.
    “I can’t talk now. I have to get back to you. Whereyat?”
    He hung up after making a note.
    “Sorry. I gave Edgar the ID. Maggie Cum Loudly. I had prints, photos, the whole thing. I got some stills of her in action, if you want to see.”
    He pushed his chair back toward a file cabinet but Bosch told him never mind with the stills.
    “Whatever. Anyway, Edgar has it all. Took prints to the coroner’s I think, to confirm the ID. Chick’s name was Rebecca Kaminski. Becky Kaminski. Be twenty-three if she were alive today. Formerly of Chicago before she came on out to sin city for fame and fortune. What a waste, huh? She was a fine young piece, God bless her.”
    Bosch felt uncomfortable with Mora. But this was not new. When they had worked the task force together, Harry had never had the feeling that the killings meant much to the vice detective. Didn’t make much of a dent. Mora was just putting in his time, lending his help where it was needed. He definitely was good in his area of expertise, but it didn’t seem to matter to him whether the Dollmaker was stopped or not.
    Mora had a strange way of mingling gutter talk and Jesus talk. At first Bosch had thought he was simply playing the born-again line that was popular in the department a few years earlier, but he was never sure. He once saw Mora cross himself and say a silent prayer at one of the Dollmaker murder scenes. Because of the uneasiness Bosch felt, he had had little contact with Mora since the Norman Church shooting and the breakup of the task force. Mora went back to Ad-Vice and Bosch was shipped to Hollywood. Occasionally the two would see each other in the courthouse or at the Seven or the Red Wind. But even at the bars, they were usually with different groups and sat apart, taking turns sending beers back and forth.
    “Harry, she was definitely among the living until at least two years ago. That flick you came across,
Tails from the Crypt,
it was made two years ago. Means Church definitely didn’t do her... Probably whoever sent the note did. I don’t know if that is good or bad news for you.”
    “I don’t either.”
    Church had a rock-solid alibi for the Kaminski killing; he was dead. With that added to the apparent alibi Wieczorek’s video-tape provided Church for the eleventh killing, Bosch’s sense of paranoia was turning to panic. For four years there had been no doubt for him about what he had done.
    “So how’s the trial going, anyway?” Mora asked.
    “Don’t ask. Can I use your phone?”
    Bosch dialed Edgar’s pager number and then punched in Mora’s phone number. After he hung up to wait for the call back, he didn’t know what else to say.
    “The trial’s a trial. You still supposed to testify?”
    “I guess. I’m on for tomorrow. I don’t know what she wants from me. I wasn’t even there the night you took that bastard down.”
    “Well, you were on the task force with me. That’s good enough to drag you into it.”
    “Well, we’ll-”
    The phone rang and Mora picked it up. He then passed it to Bosch.
    “Whereyat, Harry?”
    “I’m here with Mora. He filled me in. Anything on the prints?”
    “Not yet. I missed my man at SID. Musta gone to lunch. So I left the prints there. Should have a confirmation later today. But I’m not waiting on it.”
    “Where are you now?”
    “Missing Persons. Trying to see if this girl ever got reported missing, now that I have a name to go with the body.”
    “You gonna be there a while?”
    “Just started. We’re looking through hard copies. They only went to computer eighteen months ago.”
    “I’ll be over.”
    “You got your trial, man.”
    “I have some time.”
    Bosch felt that he had to keep moving, to keep thinking. It was the only way to keep from examining the horror building in his mind, the possibility he had taken down