the loan of Detective Edgar to the case and you, as soon as you are free from the trial. I want results quickly. This is already turning into a public relations nightmare with what I understand was revealed during testimony today in your trial.”
“Yeah, well, sorry about that. I was under oath.”
“I understand that. The problem was you were testifying to things only you knew about. I had my adjutant sit in and he informed us of your, uh, theory on what has happened with this new case. Last night, I made the decision to have RHD handle the matter. After hearing the sense of your testimony today, I want to task- force this and get it going.
“Now, I want you to bring us up to speed on exactly what is going on, what you think, what you know. Then, we will plan from there.”
They all looked at Bosch for a moment and he was unsure where to begin. Sheehan stepped in with a question. It was a signal that he believed Irving was playing on the level on this one, that Bosch could feel safe.
“Edgar says it’s a copycat. That there is no problem with Church?”
“That’s right,” Bosch answered. “Church was the man. But he was good for nine of the victims, not eleven. He spawned a follower halfway through his run and we didn’t see it.”
“Tell it,” Irving said.
He did. It took Bosch forty-five minutes to tell it. Sheehan and Opelt asked several questions as he went. The only thing or person he did not mention was Mora.
At the end, Irving said, “When you ran this follower theory by Locke, did he say it’s possible?”
“Yes. With him I think he thinks anything is possible. But he was useful. He made it pretty clear for me. I want to keep him informed. He’s good to bounce stuff off of.”
“I understand there’s a leak. Could it be Locke?”
Shaking his head, Bosch said, “I didn’t go to him until last night and Chandler has known things from the start. She knew I was out at the scene the first day. Today she seemed to know the direction we are going, that there is a follower. She’s got a good source keeping her informed. And Bremmer over at the
“Okay,” Irving said. “Well, aside from Dr. Locke being the exception, nothing in this room leaves this room. No one talks to anyone. You two”-he looked at Bosch and Edgar-“don’t even tell your supervisors at Hollywood what you’re doing.”
Without naming Pounds, Irving was postulating his suspicion that Pounds could be a leak. Edgar and Bosch nodded in agreement.
“Now”-Irving looked at Bosch-“where do we go from here?”
Without hesitation, Bosch said, “We have to retrace the investigation. Like I told you, Locke said it was someone who had intimate access to the case. Who knew every detail and then copied them. It was a perfect cover. For a while, at least.”
“You’re talking about a cop,” Rollenberger said, his first words since the briefing began.
“Maybe. But there are other possibilities. The suspect pool is actually pretty large. You got the cops, people who found the bodies, the coroner’s staff, passersby at the crime scenes, reporters, lot of people.”
“Shit,” Opelt said. “We’re going to need more people.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Irving said. “I’ll get more. How do we narrow it down?”
Bosch said, “When we look at the victims we learn things about the killer. The victims and the survivor generally fall into the same archetype. Blonde, well built, worked in porno and did outcall work on the side. Locke thinks that is how the follower picked his victims. He saw them in videos, then found the means of contacting them in the outcall ads in the local adult newspapers.”
“It’s like he went shopping for victims,” Sheehan said.
“Yeah.”
“What else?” Irving said.
“Not a lot. Locke said the follower is very smart, much more so than Church was. But that he could be disassembling, as he calls it. Coming apart. That’s why he sent the note. Nobody would’ve ever known but then he sent the note. He’s moved into a phase where he wants the attention that the Dollmaker had. He got jealous that this trial threw attention on Church.”
“What about other victims?” Sheehan asked. “Ones we don’t know about yet? It’s been four years.”
“Yeah, I’m working on that. Locke says there’s gotta be others.”
“Shit,” Opelt said. “We need more people.”
Everyone was quiet while they thought about this.
“What about the FBI, shouldn’t we contact their behavioral science people?” Rollenberger asked.
Everyone looked at Hans Off as if he were the kid who came to the sandlot football game wearing white pants.
“Fuck them,” Sheehan said.
“We seem to have a handle on this-initially, at least,” Irving said.
“What else do we know about the follower?” Rollenberger said, hoping to immediately deflect attention from his miscue. “Do we have any physical evidence that can give us any insight into him?”
“Well, we need to track down the survivor,” Bosch said. “She gave a composite drawing that everyone dismissed after I nailed Church. But now we know her drawing was probably of the follower. We need to find her and see if there is anything else that she has, that she can still remember, that will help.”
As he said this Sheehan dug through the stack of files on the table and found the composite. It was very generic and didn’t look like anyone Bosch recognized, least of all Mora.
“We have to assume he wore disguises, same as Church, so the composite might not help. But she might remember something else, something about the suspect’s manners that might let us know if it was a cop.
“Also, I’m having Amado at the coroner’s office compare the rape kits between the two victims we now attribute to the follower. There’s a good chance the follower may have made a mistake here.”
“Explain,” Irving said.
“The follower did everything the Dollmaker did, right?”
“Right,” Rollenberger said.
“Wrong. He only did what was known at the time about the Dollmaker. What we knew. What we didn’t know was that Church had been smart. He had shaved his body so he would not leave trace hair evidence behind. We didn’t know that until after he was dead, so neither did the follower. And by then he had already done two of the victims.”
“So there is a chance those two rape kits hold physical evidence to our guy,” Irving said.
“Right. I’m having Amado cross-check between the two kits. He should know something by Monday.”
“That’s very good, Detective Bosch.”
Irving looked at Bosch and their eyes met. It was as if the assistant chief was sending him a message and taking one at the same time.
“We’ll see,” Bosch said.
“Other than that, that’s all we’ve got, right?” Rollenberger said.
“Right.”
“No.”
It was Edgar, who up until now had been silent. Everyone looked at him.
“In the concrete we found-actually, Harry found it-a cigarette pack. It went in when the concrete was wet. So there’s a good chance they were the follower’s. Marlboro regulars. Soft pack.”
“They also could have been the vic’s, right?” Rollenberger asked.
“No,” Bosch said. “I talked to her manager last night. He said she didn’t smoke. The smokes
