The Drop

again to look at the ligature pattern. There was a noticeable indentation in the skin.
    “I see it but what does it mean?”
    “The angle is different on this photo and it shows the top line of the ligature. The first shot shows the lower line.”
    He flipped the sleeve back and used his finger to outline the differences between the two shots.
    “You see it?”
    “Yes. But I’m not following. You have two lines. What do they mean?”
    “Well, the lines don’t match. They’re on different levels of her neck. So it means that they are the top and bottom edges of the ligature. Take them together and we get an idea of how wide the ligature was and, more important, what it was.”
    Spacing his thumb and forefinger he traced two lines on one of the photos, outlining a ligature that would have been almost two inches wide.
    “It’s all we have after so long,” he said. “The autopsy photos weren’t in the archives file. So these photos are it, and they show that the ligature was at least an inch and a half wide on the neck.”
    “Like a belt?”
    “Exactly. And then look at this. Right under the ear we have another indentation, another pattern.”
    He went to another photo in the second sleeve.
    “It looks like a square.”
    “Right. Like a square belt buckle. Now let’s go to the blood.”
    He flipped to the first sleeve and zeroed in on the first three Polaroids. They all showed shots of the blood smear on the victim’s neck.
    “Just one drop of blood that was smeared on her neck. It’s right in the middle of the ligature pattern, meaning it could have been transferred from the ligature. Twenty-two years ago their theory was that the guy was cut and was bleeding and a drop fell on her. He wiped it away but left the smear.”
    “But you think it was a transfer.”
    “Right. And that’s where Pell comes in. It was his blood—his eight-year-old blood on her. How did it get there? Well, if we go with the transfer theory, it came off the belt. So the real question is not how did it get on Lily, it’s how did it get on the belt?”
    Bosch closed the binder and returned it to his briefcase. He pulled out the thick file from the Department of Probation and Parole. He held it up with two hands and shook it.
    “Right here. I told you last night when you said you could not reveal client confidences that I already had his PSI evaluations. Well, I read them last night after I got home and there’s something here and it ties in with your whole thing about repetitive behavior and—”
    “He was whipped with a belt.”
    Bosch smiled.
    “Careful, Doctor, you don’t want to be revealing confidences. Especially because you don’t have to. It’s all right here. Every time Pell got a psych evaluation, he told the same story. When he was eight years old, he and his mother lived with a guy who abused him physically and eventually sexually. It was probably what sent him down the path he’s been on. But the physical abuse included being whipped with a belt.”
    Bosch opened the file and handed her the first evaluation report.
    “He was whipped so hard he must’ve bled,” he said. “That report says he had scars on his backside from the abuse. To leave a scar you have to break the skin. You break the skin and you get blood.”
    He watched her as she scanned the report, her eyes fixed in concentration. He felt his phone vibrate but ignored it. He knew it was probably his partner reporting that he had completed the DNA lab visit.
    “Johnny,” she said as she handed the report back.
    Bosch nodded.
    “I think he’s our man and I need to talk to Pell to get a line on him. Has he ever told you his full name? In the PSIs he only calls him Johnny.”
    “No, he just called him Johnny in our sessions, too.”
    “That’s why I need to talk to him.”
    She paused as she considered something Bosch apparently hadn’t thought of. He thought she would be as excited about the lead as he was.
    “What?”
    “Harry, I have to consider what this will do to him, dredging all of this up. I’m sorry but I have to consider his well-being before the well-being of your investigation.”
    Bosch wished she hadn’t said that.
    “Wait a minute,” he said. “What do you mean ‘dredging it up’? It’s in all three of his psych reports here. He has to have talked to you about this guy. I’m not asking you to break that confidence. I want to talk directly to him.”
    “I know and I can’t stop you from talking to him.