16
The courtroom seemed as silent as a dead man’s heart while Bosch walked behind the plaintiff and defendant tables and in front of the jury box to get to the witness stand. After taking the oath he gave his full name and the clerk asked him to spell it.
“H-I-E-R-O-N-Y-M-U-S B-O-S-C-H.”
Then the judge turned it over to Belk.
“Tell us a little bit about yourself, Detective Bosch, about your career.”
“I’ve been a police officer nearly twenty years. I currently am assigned to the homicide table at Hollywood Division. Before that-”
“Why do they call it a table?”
Jesus, Bosch thought.
“Because it’s like a table. It is six small desks pushed together to make a long table, three detectives on each side. It’s always called a table.”
“Okay, go on.”
“Before this assignment I spent eight years in Robbery-Homicide Division’s Homicide Special squad. Before that I was a detective on the homicide table in North Hollywood and robbery and burglary tables in Van Nuys. I was on patrol about five years, mostly in the Hollywood and Wilshire divisions.”
Belk slowly led him through his career up until the time he was on the Dollmaker task force. The questioning was slow and boring-even to Bosch, and it was his life. Every now and then he would look at the jurors when he answered a question and only a few seemed to be looking at him or paying attention. Bosch felt nervous and his palms were damp. He had testified in court at least a hundred times. But never like this, in his own defense. He felt hot though he knew the courtroom was overly cool.
“Now where was the task force physically located?”
“We used a second-floor storage room at the Hollywood station. It was an evidence and file storage room. We temporarily moved that stuff out into a rented trailer and used the room. We also had a room at Parker Center. The night shift, which I was on, generally worked out of Hollywood.”
“You were closer to the source, correct?”
“We thought so, yes. Most of the victims were taken from Hollywood streets. Many were later found in the area.”
“So you wanted to be able to act quickly on tips and leads and being right there in the center of things helped you do that, correct?”
“Correct.”
“On the night you got the call from the woman named Dixie McQueen, how did you get that call?”
“She called in on nine one one and when the dispatcher realized what she was talking about, the call was transferred out to the task force in Hollywood.”
“Who answered it?”
“I did.”
“Why is that? I thought you testified you were the supervisor of the night shift. Didn’t they have people answering phones?”
“Yes, we had people, but this call came in late. Everybody had left for the night. I was only there because I was bringing the Chronological Investigation Record up to date-we had to turn it in at the end of each week. I was the only one there. I answered.”
“When you went to meet this woman, why didn’t you call for a backup?”
“She hadn’t told me enough over the phone to convince me there was anything to it. We were getting dozens of calls a day. None of them amounted to anything. I have to admit I went to take her report not believing it would amount to anything.”
“Well, if you thought that, Detective, why did you go to her? Why not just take her information over the phone?”
“The main reason was that she said she didn’t know the address she had been to with this man, but could show me the place if I drove her down Hyperion. Also, there seemed to be something genuine about her complaint, you know? It seemed that something had definitely scared her. I was about to head home so I thought I would just check it out on the way.”
“Tell us what happened after you got to Hyperion.”
“When we got there we could see lights on in the apartment over the garage. We even saw a shadow pass across one of the windows. So we knew the guy was still there. That’s when Miss McQueen told me about the makeup she saw in the cabinet under the sink.”
“What did that mean to you?”
“A lot. It immediately got my attention because we had never said in the press that the killer was keeping the victims’ makeup. It had leaked that he was painting their faces but not that he also kept their makeup. So when she told me she had seen this collection of makeup, it all clicked. It gave what she said some immediate legitimacy.”
Bosch drank some water from a paper cup the marshal had filled for him earlier.
“Okay, what did you do next?” Belk said.
“It occurred to me that in the time it had taken her to call me and for me to pick her up and get back to Hyperion, he could have gone out and gotten another victim. So I knew there was a good chance there was another woman up there in danger. I went up. I ran up.”
“Why didn’t you call for backup?”
“First of all, I did not believe there was time to wait even five minutes for backup. If he had another woman in there, five minutes could mean her life. Secondly, I did not have a rover with me. I couldn’t make the call even if I wanted to-”
“A rover?”
“A portable radio. Detectives usually take them on assignment. Problem is, there are not enough of them to go around. And since I was going home I didn’t want to take one because I wasn’t coming back until the next evening shift. That would mean one less rover available during the next day.”
“So you couldn’t radio for backup. What about a phone?”
“It was a residential neighborhood. I could drive out and find a pay phone or knock on somebody’s door. It was about oneA.M. and I didn’t think people would open their doors quickly to a single man claiming to be a police officer. Everything was a question of time. I didn’t believe I had any. I had to go up by myself.”
“What happened?”
“Believing someone was in imminent danger, I went through the door without knocking. I was holding my gun out.”
“Kicked it open?”
“Yes.”
“What did you see?”
“First of all, I announced myself. I yelled, ‘Police.’ I moved a few steps into the room-it was a studio apartment-and I saw the man later identified as Church standing next to the bed. It was a foldout bed from a couch.”
“What was he doing?”
“He was standing there naked, next to the bed.”
“Did you see anyone else?”
“No.”
“What next?”
“I yelled something along the lines of ‘Freeze’ or ‘Don’t move’ and took another step into the room. At first he didn’t move. Then he suddenly reached down to the bed and his hand swept under the pillow. I yelled, ‘No,’ but he continued the movement. I could see his arm move as if his hand had grasped something and he
