The Concrete Blonde (hb-3) by Michael Connelly Page A

There were blondes and brunettes. Heavy-set women and frail drug addicts. There were six white women, two Latinas, two Asians and a black woman. No pattern. The Dollmaker had been indiscriminate in that respect, his only identifiable pattern being that he sought only women on the edge-that place where choices are limited and they go easily with a stranger. The psychologist had said each of the women was like an injured fish, sending off an invisible signal that inevitably drew the shark.
    “She was white, right?” he asked Edgar.
    Edgar stopped typing.
    “Yeah, that’s what the coroner said.”
    “They already did the cut? Who?”
    “No, the autopsy’s tomorrow or the next day but Corazon took a look when we brought it in. She guessed that the stiff had been white. Why?”
    “Nothing. Blonde?”
    “Yeah, at least when she died. Bleached. If you’re going to ask if I checked missing persons on a white blonde chick who went into the wind four years ago, fuck you, Harry. I can use the OT but that description wouldn’t narrow it down to but three, four hundred. I ain’t going to wade into that when I’ll probably pull a name on the prints tomorrow. Waste of time.”
    “Yeah, I know. I just wish...”
    “You just wish you had some answers. We all do. But things take time sometimes, my man.”
    Edgar started typing again and Harry looked down into the binder. But he couldn’t help but think about the face in the box. No name, no occupation. They knew nothing about her. But something about the plaster cast told him she had somehow fit into the Dollmaker’s pattern. There was a hardness there that had nothing to do with the plaster. She had come from the edge.
    “Anything else found in the concrete after I left?”
    Edgar stopped typing, exhaled loudly and shook his head.
    “How do you mean, like the cigarette package?”
    “With the other ones the Dollmaker left their purses. He’d cut the straps off to strangle them, but when he dumped the bodies we always found the purses and clothes nearby. Only thing missing was their makeup. He always kept their makeup.”
    “Not this time-at least in the concrete. Pounds left a uniform on the site while they finished tearing it up. Nothing else was found. That stuff might’ve been stashed in the storage room and got burned up or looted. Harry, what’re you thinking, copycat?”
    “I guess.”
    “Yeah, me too.”
    Bosch nodded and told Edgar he was sorry he kept interrupting. He went back to studying the reports. After a few minutes Edgar rolled the form out of the typewriter and brought it back to the homicide table. He snapped it into a new binder with the thin stack of paperwork from the day’s case and put it into a file cabinet behind his chair. He then went through his daily ritual of calling his wife while straightening up the blotter, the message spike and the message pad at his place. He told her he had to make a quick stop on his way home. Listening to the conversation made Bosch think of Sylvia Moore and some of the domestic rituals that had become ingrained for them.
    “I’m outta here, Harry,” Edgar said after hanging up.
    Bosch nodded.
    “So how come you’re hanging around?”
    “I don’t know. I’m just reading through this stuff so I’ll know what I’m saying when I testify.”
    That was a lie. He didn’t need the murder books to refresh his memory of the Dollmaker.
    “I hope you tear Money Chandler up.”
    “She’ll probably rip me. She’s good.”
    “Well, I gotta hit it. I’ll see you.”
    “Hey, remember, if you get a name tomorrow, give me a beep or something.”
    After Edgar was gone Bosch looked at his watch-it was five-and turned on the TV that sat on top of the file cabinet next to the box with the face in it. While he was waiting for the story on the body he picked up his phone and dialed Sylvia’s house.
    “I’m not going to make it out there tonight.”
    “Harry, what’s wrong? How did the opening statements