smoke and you reached into your pocket and there was nothing there.
“See, just like Becky Kaminski, they were in there waiting for us. Marlboro soft pack. That’s your brand, Bremmer. That’s mistake number one.”
“A lot of people smoke them. Good luck taking this to the DA.”
“A lot of people are left-handed, too, like you and the Follower. And me. But there’s more. You want to hear it?”
Bremmer looked away from him, toward the window, and said nothing. Maybe it was a trick, Bosch thought, that he wanted Bosch to go for the gun.
“Hey, Bremmer!” he almost yelled. “There’s more.”
Bremmer’s face snapped back into a stare at Bosch.
“Today after the verdict you said I should be happy because the verdict would leave the city only two bucks light. But when we had a drink the other night, remember, you gave me the big rundown on how Chandler would be able to charge the city a hundred grand or so if she won even a dollar judgment from the jury. Remember? So it makes me think that when you told me this morning the verdict was only going to cost two dollars, you knew it was only going to cost two dollars because you knew Chandler was dead and couldn’t collect. You knew that because you killed her. Mistake number two.”
Bremmer shook his head as if he were dealing with a child. His aim with the gun drooped to Bosch’s midsection.
“Look, man, I was trying to make you feel good when I said that today, okay? I didn’t know if she was alive or dead. No jury is going to make that leap of faith.”
Bosch smiled brilliantly at him.
“So now at least you have me past the DA’s office and to a jury. I guess my story is improving, isn’t it?”
Bremmer coldly smiled back, raised the gun.
“Is that it, Bosch? Is that all you have?”
“I saved the best stuff for last.”
He lit a cigarette, never taking his eyes off Bremmer.
“You remember before you killed Chandler, how you tortured her? You must remember that. You bit her. And burned her. Well, everyone was standing around in that house today wondering why the Follower was changing, doing all this new stuff-changing the mold. Locke, the shrink, he was the most puzzled of all. You really fucked with his mind, man. I kinda like that about you, Bremmer. But, you see, he didn’t know what I knew.”
He let that sit out there for a while. He knew Bremmer would bite.
“And what did you know, Sherlock?”
Bosch smiled. He was in complete control now.
“I knew why you did that to her. It was simple. You wanted your note back, didn’t you? But she wouldn’t tell you where it was. See, she knew she was dead whether she gave it to you or not, so she took it- everything you did to her, she took-and she didn’t tell you. That woman had a lot of guts and in the end she beat you, Bremmer. She’s the one who got you. Not me.”
“What note?” Bremmer said weakly after a long moment.
“The one you fucked up with. You missed it. It’s a big house to search, especially when you’ve got a dead woman lying in the bed. That’d be hard to explain if somebody happened to drop by. But don’t worry, I found it. I’ve got it. Too bad you don’t read Hawthorne. It was sitting there in his book. Too bad. But like I said, she beat you. Maybe there is justice sometimes.”
Bremmer had no snappy comeback. Bosch looked at him and thought that he was doing well. He was almost there.
“She kept the envelope, too, in case you were wondering. I found that, too. And so I started wondering, why would he torture her for this note when it was the same one he dropped off for me? It was just a photocopy. Then I figured it out. You didn’t want the note. You wanted the envelope.”
Bremmer looked down at his hands.
“How am I doing? Am I losing you?”
“I have no idea,” Bremmer said, looking back up. “You’re fucking delirious as far as I’m concerned.”
“Well, I only have to worry about making sense to the DA, don’t I? And what I’m going to explain to him is that the poem on the note was in response to the story you wrote that appeared in the paper on Monday, the day the trial started. But the postmark on the envelope was the Saturday before. See, there’s the puzzle. How would the Follower know to write a poem making reference to the newspaper article two days before it was in the newspaper? The answer is, of course, that he, the Follower, had prior knowledge of the article. He wrote that article. That also explains how you knew about the note in the next day’s story. You were your own source, Bremmer. And that is mistake number three. Three strikes and you’re out.”
The silence that followed was so complete that Bosch could hear the low hiss coming from Bremmer’s bottle of beer.
“You’re forgetting something, Bosch,” Bremmer finally said. “I’m holding the gun. Now, who else have you told this crazy story to?”
“Just to finish the housekeeping,” Bosch said, “the new poem you dropped off for me this past weekend was just a front. You wanted the shrink and everybody else to make it look like you killed Chandler as a favor to me or some psycho bullshit, right?”
Bremmer said nothing.
“That way nobody would see the true reason you went after her. To get the note and the envelope back… Shit, you being a reporter she was familiar with, she probably invited you in when you knocked on her door. Kind of like you inviting me in here. Familiarity breeds danger, Bremmer.”
Bremmer said nothing.
“Answer a question for me, Bremmer. I’m curious why you dropped one note off and mailed the other. I know, being a reporter, you could blend in at the station, drop it on the desk and nobody would remember. But why mail it to her? Obviously, it was a mistake-that’s why you went back and killed her. But why’d you make it?”
The reporter looked at Bosch for a long moment. Then he glanced down at the gun as if to reassure himself that he was in control and would get out of this. The gun was powerful bait. Bosch knew he had him.
“The story was supposed to run that Saturday, that’s what it was scheduled for. But some dumb-ass editor held it, ran it Monday. I had mailed the letter before I looked at the paper that Saturday. That was my only mistake. But you’re the one who made the big mistake.”
“Oh, yeah? What’s that?”
“Coming here alone…”
Now it was Bosch who was silent.
“Why come here alone, Bosch? Is this how you did it with the Dollmaker? You went alone so you could kill him in cold blood?”
Bosch thought a moment.
“That’s a good question.”
“Well, that was your second mistake. Thinking I was as unworthy an opponent as him. He was nothing. You killed him and therefore he deserved to die. But now it is you who deserve to die.”
“Give me the gun, Bremmer.”
He laughed as if Bosch had asked a crazy question.
“You think-”
“How many were there? How many women are buried out there?”
Bremmer’s eyes lit with pride.
“Enough. Enough to fulfill my special needs.”
“How many? Where are they?”
“You’ll never know, Bosch. That will be your pain, your last pain. Never knowing. And
