“Yeah, I knew. It means nothing, Bosch. A lot of people knew.”
“Oh, it’s Bosch now. No more Harry? Have I suddenly become contemptible in your eyes? Or does the gun give you that sense that we are no longer equals?”
“Fuck you, Bosch. You’re stupid. You’ve got nothing. What else you got? You know, this is great. It will definitely be worth a chapter in the book I do on the Follower.”
“What else’ve I got? I’ve got the concrete blonde. And I’ve got the concrete. Did you know you dropped your cigarettes when you were pouring the concrete? Remember that? You were driving home, wanted a 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 losing.”
Bremmer raised the gun so that its muzzle pointed to Bosch’s heart. He pulled the trigger.
Bosch watched his eyes as th
e metallic click sounded. Bremmer pulled the trigger again and again. The same result, the growing terror in his eyes.
Bosch reached into his sock and pulled the extra clip, the one that was loaded with fifteen XTP bullets. He wrapped his fist around the cartridge and in one swift motion came off the couch and swung his fist into Bremmer’s jaw. The impact of the blow knocked the reporter backward in his chair. His weight made the chair crash backward and he spilled to the floor. He dropped the Smith and Bosch quickly gathered it up, ejected the empty clip and put in the live ammunition.
“Get up! Get the fuck up!”
Bremmer did as he was told.
“Are you going to kill me now? Is that it, another kill for the gunslinger?”
“That’s up to you, Bremmer.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about how I want to blow your head off, but for me to do that you have to make the first move, Bremmer. Just like with the Dollmaker. It was his play. Now it’s yours.”
“Look, Bosch, I don’t want to die. Everything I said — I was just playing a game. You’re making a mistake here. I just want to get it cleared up. Please, just take me to county and it will all get cleared up. Please.”
“Did they plead like that when you had the strap around their necks? Did they? Did you make them plead for their lives, or for their deaths? What about Chandler? At the end, did she beg you to kill her?”
“Take me to county. Arrest me and take me to county.”
“Then get against that wall, you fat fuck, and put your hands behind your back.”
Bremmer obeyed. Bosch dropped his cigarette into an ashtray on the table and followed Bremmer to the wall. When he closed the handcuffs over the reporter’s wrists, Bremmer’s shoulders dropped as he apparently felt safe. He started squirming his arms, chafing his wrists on the cuffs.
“See that?” he said. “You see that, Bosch? I’m making marks on my wrists. You kill me now, they’ll see the marks and know it was an execution. I’m not some dumb fuck like Church that you can slaughter like an animal.”
“No, that’s right, you know all the angles, don’t you?”
“All of them. Now take me down to county. I’ll be out before you wake up tomorrow. Know what all this is, what you’ve got? Just the wild speculation of a rogue cop. Even a federal jury agreed you go too far, Bosch. This won’t work. You’ve got no evidence.”
Bosch turned him away from the wall so that their faces were no more than two feet apart, their beer breath mixing.
“You did it, didn’t you? And you think you’re going to walk, don’t you?”
Bremmer stared at him and Bosch saw the gleam of pride in his eyes again. Locke had been right about him. He was gloating. And he couldn’t shut up even though he knew his life might depend on it.
“Yes,” he said in a low, strange voice. “I did it. I’m the man. And, yes, I will walk. You wait and see. And when I’m out there you’ll think of me every night for the rest of your life.”
Bosch nodded.
“But I never said that, Bosch. It will be your word against mine. A rogue cop — it will never get to court. They couldn’t afford to put you on the stand against me.”
Bosch leaned closer to him and smiled.
“Then I suppose it’s a good thing I taped it.”
Bosch walked over to the radiator and pulled the microrecorder from between two of the iron coils. He held it up on his palm for Bremmer to see. Bremmer’s eyes became enraged. He had been tricked. He had been cheated.
“Bosch, that tape is inadmissible. That’s entrapment. I have not been advised. I have not been advised!”
“I’m advising you of your rights now. You weren’t under arrest until now. I wasn’t going to advise you until I arrested you. You know police procedure.”
Bosch was smiling at him, digging it in.
“Let’s go, Bremmer,” he said when he got tired of the victory.
32
It was an irony that Bosch savored Tuesday morning when he read Bremmer’s above-the-fold story on the killing of Honey Chandler. He had booked the reporter into county jail on a no-bail hold shortly before midnight and had not alerted media relations. The word had not gotten out by the last deadline and now the paper had a front-page story about a murder that was written by the murderer. Bosch liked that. He smiled as he read it.
The one person Bosch had told was Irving. He had the com center patch him through on a phone line and in a half-hour-long conversation he told the assistant chief every step he had taken and described every building block of evidence that led to the arrest. Irving said nothing congratulatory, nor did he chastise Bosch for making the arrest alone. Either or both would come later, after it was seen whether the arrest would stick. Both men knew this.
• • •
At 9 A.M. Bosch was seated in front of a filing deputy’s desk at the district attorney’s office in the downtown criminal courts building. For the second time in eight hours he carefully went over the details of what happened and then played the tape of his conversation with Bremmer. The deputy DA, whose name was Chap Newell, made notations on a yellow pad while listening to the tape. He often furrowed his brow or shook his head because the sound was not good. The voices in Bremmer’s living room had bounced through the iron radiator coils and had a tinny echo on the tape. Still, the words that were most important were audible.
Bosch just watched without saying a word. Newell looked as if he could be no more than three years out of law school. Because the arrest had not made a splash in the papers or on TV yet, it had not received the attention of one of the senior attorneys in the filings division. It had gone to Newell on the routine rotation.
When the tape was done, Newell made a few more notes to look as if he knew what he was doing and then looked up at Bosch.
“You haven’t said anything about what was in his house.”
“I didn’t find anything on the quick search I made last night. There are others there now, with a warrant, doing a more thorough job.”
“Well, I hope they find something.”
“Why, you’ve got the case right there.”
“And it is a good case, Bosch. Really good work.”
“Coming from you, that means a lot.”
Newell looked at him and narrowed his eyes. He wasn’t sure what to make of that.
“But, uh…”
“But what?”
“Well, there’s no question we can file with this. There is a lot here.”
“But what?”
“I’m looking at it from a defense lawyer’s perspective. What really do we have here? A lot of coincidences. He’s left-handed, he smokes, he knew details about the Dollmaker. But those things are not hard evidence. They can apply to a lot of people.”
Bosch started lighting a cigarette.
“Please don’t do —”
He exhaled and blew the smoke across the desk.
“— never mind.”
“What about the note and the postmark?”
“That’s good but it is complicated and difficult to grasp. A good lawyer could make a jury see it as just another coincidence. He could confuse the issue, is what I’m trying to say.”
“What about the tape, Newell? We have him confessing on tape. What more do you —”
“But during the confession he disavows the confession.”
“Not at the end.”
“Look, I’m not planning on using the tape.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You know what I’m talking about. He confessed before you advised him. It brings up the specter of entrapment.”
“There is no entrapment. He knew I was a cop and he knew his rights whether I advised him or not. He had a fucking gun on me. He freely made those statements. When he was formally arrested, I advised him.”
“But he searched you for a wire. That is a clear indication of his desire not to be taped. Plus, he dropped the bomb — his most damagin
g statement — after you cuffed him but before you advised him. That could be dicey.”
“You’re going to use the tape.”
Newell looked at him a long time. A red blotchiness appeared on his young cheeks.
“You are not in a position to tell me what I’m going to use, Bosch. Besides, if that’s all we go with it will probably be up to the state court of appeals if we use it, because if Bremmer has any kind of a lawyer at all that’s where he’ll take it. We’ll win the question here in superior because half the judges on those benches worked in the DA’s office at one time or another. But when it gets up to appeals or to the state supreme court in San Francisco, it’s anybody’s guess. Is that what you want? To wait a couple years and have it blown out then? Or do you want to get it done correctly right from the get go?”
Bosch leaned forward and looked angrily at the young lawyer.
“Look, we’re still working other angles. We’re not done. There will be more evidence accumulated. But we have to charge this guy or let him go. We’ve got forty-eight hours from last night to file. But if we don’t file right now with no bail, he’ll grab a lawyer and get a bail hearing. The judge won’t honor the no-bail arrest if you haven’t even filed a single charge yet. So file on him now. We’ll get all the evidence you need to back it up.”
Newell nodded as if he agreed but said, “Thing is, I like to have the whole package, everything we can get, when I file a case. That way we know how we are going to work the prosecution, right from the start. We know if we are going to go with a plea bargain or go balls to the wall.”
Bosch got up and walked to the office’s open door. He stepped into the hall and looked at the plastic name plate affixed to the wall outside. Then he came back in.
“Bosch, what are you doing?”
“It’s funny. I thought you were a filing deputy. I didn’t know you were a trial deputy, too.”
Newell dropped his pencil on his pad. His face got redder, the blotches spreading to his forehead.