there were dozens more discs and tapes and hundreds of photographs. Each would need to be viewed, described, catalogued and placed into evidence. It was going to be painful, soul-searing work, guaranteed to leave the kind of internal scars only homicide cops carry. Gandle said that he wanted everyone in the unit to be open to discussing the harrowing duty with therapists in the department’s Behavioral Sciences Unit. Every cop knew that quietly carrying the horrors of the job inside could be like carrying untreated cancer. Still, seeking help for dealing with the burden was seen by many as a weakness. No cop wanted to be weak, whether it was in the view of the bad guys or their fellow good guys.
Gandle next turned the meeting over to Bosch and Chu, the lead investigators, and they quickly summarized the steps that led them to Hardy and the side-by-side town houses.
They also discussed the dichotomy in the investigation that they now faced. There was a need for speed on one level but also a necessity to move deliberately and carefully to ensure that they conducted the most thorough investigation possible.
The department was under the legal obligation to file charges against Hardy within forty-eight hours of his arrest. He would be brought into court for his first appearance before a judge on Wednesday morning. If by then he was not charged with a crime, he would be released.
“What we’re going to do is file one case against him,” Bosch said. “One murder now and then we add on later when we’re ready with the rest. So on Wednesday we go with Lily Price. Right now, it’s a wobbler but it’s still our best bet. We have a DNA hit, and while it’s not Hardy’s, we think we can prove it puts him at the scene. What we’re hoping is that between now and Wednesday morning we find an image of Lily somewhere in this place.”
Chu held up a 5 ? 7 photo of Lily Price taken from the original murder book. It was her yearbook photo. She was smiling and innocent and beautiful. If they found her image anywhere among Hardy’s souvenirs, it wouldn’t look the same.
“We’re talking nineteen eighty-nine so she won’t be on any of the DVDs unless we find out that Hardy was transferring VHS to DVD,” Chu said. “But this is unlikely as there is no transfer machine here and this isn’t the kind of thing you send out to have done.”
“We’re going to take a quick run at the still photos,” Bosch said. “Those of you working the VHS, keep an eye out for her. If we find her on one of this guy’s tapes or photos, then we’re gold on Wednesday.”
When Bosch and Chu were finished, Gandle took back the lead to wrap things up with a final rally cry.
“Okay, people,” he said. “That’s it. We all know what we have to do. So let’s do it. Make it count.”
The group started to break up. Bosch could feel an air of urgency among the detectives. Gandle’s charge had worked.
“Oh, one other thing,” Gandle said. “No time limitations on the work on this. We have full overtime authorization and that comes directly from the chief’s office.”
If the lieutenant was expecting a cheer or even a round of applause, he was disappointed. There was little reaction to the good news that money would flow unabated into the investigation. OT was a good thing and it had been in short supply all year. But there was a reluctance to consider financial remuneration for the work this case would entail. Bosch knew that everyone in the room would work whatever hours were needed whether paid or not.
Bosch thought about what Kiz Rider had said to him earlier. It was all part of the mission and this case told that tale better than most.
38
It took the three teams of detectives assigned to the photographic and video evidence two hours to package all the materials from the second bedroom closet into evidence boxes. As if in a solemn funeral procession three unmarked cars then transported the boxes north to Los Angeles and the PAB. Bosch and Chu were in the last car, three boxes of still photos on the rear seat. There was little to talk about as they drove. They had a grim duty ahead of them and thoughts of preparing for it were all-consuming.
The media relations office had tipped the media to the arrival of the procession and as the detectives carried their boxes into the police headquarters, they were documented by photographers and videographers lined up outside the building’s entrance. This was not done simply to appease the media. Rather, it was part of what would be an ongoing effort to use the media to hammer home with the public—and the local jury pool—that Chilton Hardy was guilty of ghastly deeds. It was part of the subtle complicity that would always exist between the police and the media.
All three of the meeting rooms had been assigned to what was being known as the Hardy Task Force. Bosch and Chu took the smallest room because it did not have video equipment. They were going to sort through still photographs and didn’t need it.
Hardy had shown no apparent rhyme or reason in his cataloguing of the photos. Old and new, the photographs were tossed into several shoeboxes and placed on the shelves of the closet. There was no writing on the front or back of any of them. Several photos were taken of the same individuals but these might be spread across two or three different shoe boxes.
As Bosch and Chu began to go through them, they attempted to group the photos in a variety of ways. First and foremost they tried to put all photos of the same individual together. They then tried to estimate the age of the photos and organize them chronologically. Some of the photos had date stamps on them and these were helpful, though there was no way of knowing if the camera used had been set with the proper date.
In most of the photos the individual who was depicted alone or with Hardy or with a man’s body assumed to be Hardy’s was clearly alive in the photograph. He or she was either engaged in a sex act or in some cases smiling directly at the camera. In other cases the depiction was of a person looking in fear and sometimes pain at the camera.
Photos that had individual identifiers were placed in a priority category. These were victims who wore distinctive jewelry or had tattoos or facial moles. These markers would help the investigators seek identities later in the investigation.
Bosch could feel his insides being hollowed by the process. The eyes of the victims were the most difficult. So many of them looked at the camera with eyes showing that they knew they were not going to live. It tapped into a deep well of helpless rage in Bosch. For years Hardy had cut a bloody trail across the landscape and no one had seen it. Now they were left to make piles out of photographs.
At one point there was a knock on the door and Teddy Baker came in, holding a file.
“I thought you might want to see this,” she said. “They took it at MDC during booking.”
She opened the file and put an 8 ? 10 photo down on the table. It depicted a man’s back. Spread from shoulder blade to shoulder blade was a depiction of a cemetery with black crosses across the landscape. Some of the crosses were old and faded, the ink having spread with the skin. Some of the crosses were sharply drawn and looked new. In a black script beneath the image were the words
Bosch had seen RIP tattoos before, but usually they were on gangbangers trying to keep track of the body counts of their own homies. This was new and yet not surprising. It also didn’t come as a surprise that Hardy had found a tattoo artist who apparently didn’t think the cemetery image was suspicious enough to contact authorities.
“That’s your boy,” Baker said.
“And did you count the crosses?” Bosch asked.
“Yeah. There’s thirty-seven of them.”
Bosch had not told her or the others that Hardy had said his number was thirty-seven. He had only told Kiz Rider that. He ran his finger below the words on Hardy’s back.
“Yeah,” Baker said. “We Googled it. It’s Latin. Means ‘died well.’ Like they all died well.”
Bosch nodded.
“Sweet,” Chu said. “The guy’s fucked up.”
“Can we put the photo in the package?” Bosch asked.
“It’s all yours.”
Bosch put the photo to the side of the table. He would include it in the charging package he would take to the DA.
