name came up from time to time with his ex-wife, who also played poker for a living. Eleanor Wish, his ex, had always called the world of professional poker a men’s club and maintained that no woman would ever win the World Series. She said a woman named Tracey Blitz had the skills and reads to win poker’s greatest tournament but the men would simply never allow it. They would subconsciously pool their testosterone, if needed, and gang up and eliminate her if she ever got to the final table. It was about dominance of the species, Eleanor Wish said.
Now Tracey Blitz would never get the chance to win the big one. She had been eliminated from competition in a different and more permanent manner.
Bosch asked Gandle for the location of the crime scene and was given an address in Venice on the canals.
“What else, Lieutenant?” Bosch asked. “We got any witnesses?”
“Not yet-we’re not even an hour into this. I’m told the husband was home asleep. He woke up and came out and found her in the car. He saw no suspect or getaway vehicle.”
“Where is the husband?”
“I told them to take him downtown to Parker Center.”
“Who is he? You said he’s a player, too?”
“Yeah, just not at the same level as his wife. His name is David Blitzstein.”
Bosch thought about things, his mind becoming sharper as he left sleep behind and concentrated on what he was being told.
“Is it just going to be me and Ignacio?” he asked, referring to his partner.
“You guys are lead. I’ll bring in Reggie Sauer and he can coordinate from Parker Center and baby-sit the husband till you get in there. You also have the Pacific team for as long as you need them.”
Bosch nodded. That wouldn’t be much help. Usually when divisional detectives were replaced by Homicide Special, there was resentment. It was hard to get them to hang in and help.
“You got any names from Pacific?”
“Just one.”
Gandle gave him the name and cell number of the lead Pacific Division detective who had gotten the first callout at 5:01 that morning. Bosch was impressed that decisions were made quickly and he was now on the case less than an hour into it. That was a good sign. He told the lieutenant he would be in touch as the case progressed and then hung up. He immediately called Ignacio Ferras, woke him from a sound sleep and got him moving. Ferras lived more than an hour from Venice and Bosch told him to waste no time.
He then called the Pacific detective whose name Gandle had given him. Kimber Gunn picked up the call quickly and Bosch identified himself and explained he had just been tapped to take over her case. He apologized but said he was just following orders. The transfer of the case wasn’t news to Gunn but Bosch always liked to tread lightly in such situations. He had never worked with Gunn before and she surprised him. She offered her help and said she was awaiting his direction.
“I could use the help,” Bosch responded. “I’m probably a half hour from the crime scene and my partner lives out in Diamond Bar. He’ll be even longer.”
“Diamond Bar? You might want to redirect him. He’s closer to Commerce than to Venice.”
“Commerce? Why Commerce?”
“According to the vic’s husband, she spent the night playing poker at the card casino in Commerce. He said she called when she was leaving and told him she had won big.”
“Did he say how much?”
“He said she won more than six thousand dollars cash. My partner and I, well…”
“Well, what?”
“We don’t want to jump your case but we were thinking that it looks a lot like a follow home from the casino.”
Bosch thought about that for a few seconds before responding.
“Tell you what, let me call my partner and send him that way, then I’ll get right back to you.”
He closed the phone and called Ferras, who had not left his home yet. Bosch told him what he had just learned and instructed him to drive to the casino in Commerce and begin his part of the investigation there. He then called Gunn back.
“What else did the victim’s husband say, Detective Gunn?”
“He said he fell back asleep after she called. He then woke up when she pulled into the driveway-she’s got a tricked-out Mustang with glass pipes. It makes some noise. He was lying in bed and he heard her kill the engine but then she never came inside the house. He waited a few minutes and then went out to check. He found her in the car, dead. He didn’t see anybody and didn’t see any vehicles. That was it. You can call me Kim, by the way.”
“Okay, Kim. Anybody put the husband through the box?”
“My partner. No record.”
“What about ATF?”
“We checked that, too. He owns no firearms. Neither did she.”
Bosch was holding the phone in the crook of his neck while buttoning his shirt.
“Anybody swab him?”
“You mean GSR? We figured that was a call you should make. The husband’s cooperating. We didn’t want to mess with that.”
She was right in waiting for Bosch to make the call. Conducting a gunshot residue test to determine if a person had fired a weapon had become trickier and stickier in recent years. It was in a legal gray area and choices made now by detectives would be questioned and reviewed repeatedly down the line by supervisors, reporters, prosecutors, defense lawyers, judges and juries.
The issue at hand was that such testing put the subject on clear notice that he was a suspect. Therefore, he should be treated as a suspect-advised of his constitutional rights and given the opportunity to seek legal counsel. This put a chilling effect on cooperation.
Additionally, a recent directive from the District Attorney’s Office concluded that GSR testing was an invasive evidence-gathering technique that should only come voluntarily or after a search warrant had been approved by a judge, another move that would clearly put an individual on notice that he was a suspect. So gone were the days when a detective could casually tell an individual of interest to submit to GSR testing as a routine part of an investigation. A GSR test was now an indisputable means of tagging someone as it.
As Gunn had explained, David Blitzstein was cooperative at the moment. It was too early in the investigation to tag him as it.
“Okay, we’ll hold that till later,” Bosch said. “Where’s your partner?”
“He’s driving Blitzstein downtown. He’ll come back after.”
“What’s his name?”
“Glenn Simmons.”
Bosch didn’t know him. So far he didn’t know anybody on the case and that was a rub. So much of the work came down to personalities and relationships. It always helped to already know people.
“Forensics at the scene yet?” he asked.
“They just rolled in. I’ll keep an eye on things till you’re here.”
Bosch checked his watch. It was now 6 A.M. and he knew his promise of being there in a half hour was a stretch. He’d have to stop on the way to get coffee.
“Better yet,” he said, “why don’t you knock on doors before we start losing people to work and school and the day. See if anybody saw or heard anything.”
He almost heard her nod over the phone.
“I’ve got a number of the neighbors already standing in the street here watching,” Gunn said. “Shouldn’t be too hard to scare up some wits.”
“Good,” Bosch said. “I’ll see you soon.”
The crime scene was already a hive of activity by the time Bosch got there. He parked half a block down the street and as he approached on foot he got his bearings. He realized that the houses on the left side of the street backed up against one of the Venice canals, while those on the right, smaller and older, did not. This resulted in the houses on the left being quite a bit more valuable than those on the right. It created an economic division on the same street. The residents on the left had money, their houses newer, bigger and in better condition than those right across the street. The house where Tracey Blitzstein had lived was one of the canal houses. As he approached
