A Darkness More Than Night

by Michael Connelly

  “What about that, Ms. Langwiser?”

  “Your Honor, I can make a proffer.”

  “Proceed.”

  “Detective Bosch, you said you have worked hundreds of homicides. Have you investigated deaths that turned out not to be caused by homicide?”

  “Yes, probably hundreds of those as well. Accidental deaths, suicides, even deaths by natural causes. It is routine for a homicide detective to be called out to a death scene by patrol officers to help in making a determination as to whether a death should be investigated as a homicide. This is what happened in this case. The patrol officers and their sergeant weren’t sure what they had. They called it in as suspicious and my team got the call out.”

  “Have you ever been called out or investigated a death that was ruled, either by you or the medical examiner’s office, an accidental death by autoerotic asphyxia?”

  “Yes.”

  Fowkkes stood up again.

  “Same objection, Y’Honor. This is leading to an area where Detective Bosch is not an expert.”

  “Your Honor,” Langwiser said. “It has clearly been established that Detective Bosch is an expert in the investigation of death — that would include all kinds. He has seen this before. He can testify to it.”

  There was a note of exasperation in her voice. Bosch thought it was intended for the jury, not Houghton. It was a subliminal way of communicating to the twelve that she wanted to get at the truth, while others wanted to block the way.

  “I tend to agree, Mr. Fowkkes,” Houghton said after a slight pause. “Objections to this line of questioning are overruled. Proceed, Ms. Langwiser.”

  “Thank you, Your Honor. So then, Detective Bosch, you are familiar with cases of autoerotic asphyxia?”

  “Yes, I have worked on three or four. I have also studied the literature on the subject. It is referenced in books on homicide investigation techniques. I have also read summaries of in-depth studies conducted by the FBI and others.”

  “Was this before this case occurred?”

  “Yes, before.”

  “What is autoerotic asphyxia? How does it occur?”

  “Ms. Langwiser,” the judge began.

  “Sorry, Your Honor. Restating. What is autoerotic asphyxia, Detective Bosch?”

  Bosch took a drink of water, using the time to draw his thoughts together. They had gone over these questions during lunch.

  “It is an accidental death. It occurs when the victim attempts to increase sexual sensations during masturbation by cutting off or disrupting the flow of arterial blood to the brain. This is usually done with a form of ligature around the neck. The tightening of the ligature results in hypoxia — the diminishing of oxygenation of the brain. It is believed by people who . . . uh, practice this that hypoxia — the light-headedness that ensues — heightens masturbatory sensations. However, it can lead to accidental death if the victim goes too far, to the point where he damages the carotid arteries and/or passes out with the ligature still tightly in place and asphyxiates.”

  “You said ‘he,’ Detective. But in this case the victim is a woman.”

  “This case does not involve autoerotic asphyxia. The cases I have seen and investigated involving this form of death all involved male victims.”

  “Are you saying that in this case the death was made to look like autoerotic asphyxia?”

  “Yes, that was my immediate conclusion. It remains so today.”

  Langwiser nodded and paused. Bosch sipped some water. As he brought the cup up to his mouth he glanced at the jury. Everyone in the box seemed to be paying close attention.

  “Walk us through it, Detective. What led you to that conclusion?”

  “Can I refer to my reports?”

  “Please.”

  Bosch opened the binder in front of him. The first four pages were the OIR — the original incident report. He turned to the fourth page, which included the lead officer’s summary. The report had actually been typed out by Kiz Rider, though Bosch was the LO on the case. He quickly scanned the summary to refresh his mind, then looked up at the jury.

  “Several things contradicted the death being an accident caused by autoerotic asphyxia. First off, I was immediately concerned because statistically it is rare that this occurs with female victims. It is not one hundred percent males but it is close. This knowledge made me pay very close attention to the body and the crime scene.”

  “Would it be fair to say you were immediately skeptical of the crime scene?”

  “Yes, that would be fair.”

  “Okay, go on. What else concerned you?”

  “The ligature. In almost all cases involving this that I have been aware of firsthand or through the literature on the subject, the victim uses some sort of padding around the neck to prevent bruising or breaking of the skin. Most often a piece of heavy clothing like a sweater or a towel is wrapped around the neck. The ligature is then wrapped around this padding. It prevents the ligature from making a contusion line running around the neck. In this case there was no padding.”

  “And what did that mean to you?”

  “Well, it didn’t make sense if you looked at it from the victim’s viewpoint. I mean, if you were to assume that she had engaged in this activity, then the scene didn’t make sense. It would mean that she didn’t use any kind of padding because she didn’t mind having the bruises on her neck. This to me was a contradiction between what we had there at the scene and common sense. Add in that she was an actress — which I knew right away because she had a stack of head shots on the bureau — and the contradiction was even greater. She relied on her physical presence and attributes while seeking acting work. That she would knowingly engage in an activity, sexual or otherwise, that would leave visible bruises on her neck — I just didn’t buy it. That and other things led me to conclude the scene was a setup.”

  Bosch looked over at the defense table. Storey still had his head down and was working on the sketch pad as though he were sitting on a bench in a park somewhere. Bosch noticed Fowkkes was writing on a legal tablet. Harry wondered if he had said something in his last answer that could somehow be turned against him. He knew Fowkkes was an expert in taking phrases of testimony and giving them new meaning when taken out of context.

  “What other things added to this conclusion?” Langwiser asked him.

  Bosch looked at the OIR summary page again.

  “The biggest single thing was the indication from postmortem lividity that the body had been moved.”

  “In layman’s terms, Detective, what does postmortem lividity mean?”

  “When the heart ceases to pump blood through the body, the blood then settles in the lower half of the body, depending on the position of the body. Over time it creates a bruising effect on the skin. If the body is moved, the bruising remains in the original position because the blood has coagulated. Over time the bruising becomes more apparent.”

  “What happened in this case?”

  “In this case there was clear indication that the blood had settled in the left side of the body, meaning the victim’s body had been lying on the left side at or shortly after the time of death.”

  “However, that was not the way the body was found, correct?”

  “That is correct. The body was found in the supine position — lying on the back.”

  “What did you conclude from this?”

  “That the body had been moved after death. That the woman had been positioned on her back as part of the setup to make her death look like an autoerotic asphyxiation.”

  “What did you think was the cause of death?”

  “At that point I wasn’t sure. I just didn’t think it was as presented. The bruising on the neck beneath the ligature led me to believe we were looking at a strangulation — just not at her own hands.”

  “At what point did your partners arrive on the scene?”

  “While I was making the initial observations of the body and crime scene.”

  “Did they come t
o the same conclusions as you?”

  Fowkkes objected, saying the question called for an answer that would be hearsay. The judge sustained the objection. Bosch knew it was a minor point. If Langwiser wanted the conclusions of Edgar and Rider on the record, she could just call them to testify.

  “Did you attend the autopsy of Jody Krementz’s body?”

  “Yes, I did.” He flipped through the binder until he found the autopsy protocol. “On October seventeenth. It was conducted by Dr. Teresa Corazón, chief of the medical examiner’s office.”

  “Was a cause of death determined by Dr. Corazón during autopsy?”

  “Yes, the cause of death was asphyxiation. She was strangled.”

  “By ligature?”

  “Yes.”

  “Now doesn’t this contradict your theory that the death was not caused by autoerotic asphyxiation?”

  “No, it confirmed it. The pose of autoerotic asphyxiation was used to cover the strangulation murder of the victim. The interior damage to both carotid arteries, to the muscular tissue of the neck and the hyoid bone, which was crushed, led Dr. Corazón to confirm that death was at the hand of another. The damage was too great to be knowingly self-inflicted.”

  Bosch realized he was holding a hand to his neck as he described the injuries. He dropped it back down to his lap.

  “Did the medical examiner find any independent evidence of homicide?”

  He nodded.

  “Yes, examination of the victim’s mouth determined that there was a deep laceration caused by biting on the tongue. Such injury is common in cases of strangulation.”

  Langwiser flipped a page over on her tablet.

  “Okay, Detective Bosch, let’s go back to the crime scene. Did you or your partners interview Jane Gilley?”

  “Yes, I did. Along with Detective Rider.”

  “From that interview were you able to ascertain where the victim had been in the twenty-four hours prior to the discovery of her death?”

  “Yes, we first determined that she had met the defendant several days earlier at a coffee shop. He invited her to attend a premiere of a movie as his date on the night of October twelfth at the Chinese Theater in Hollywood. He picked her up between seven and seven-thirty that night. Ms. Gilley watched from a window in the house and identified the defendant.”

  “Did Ms. Gilley know when Ms. Krementz returned that night?”

  “No. Ms. Gilley left the house shortly after Ms. Krementz went on her date and spent the night elsewhere. Consequently, she did not know when her roommate returned home. It was when Ms. Gilley returned to the house at eleven A.M. on October thirteenth that she discovered Ms. Krementz’s body.”

  “What was the name of the movie which was premiered the night before?”

  “It was called Dead Point.”

  “And who directed it?”

  “David Storey.”

  Langwiser waited through a long pause before looking at her watch and then up at the judge.

  “Your Honor,” she said, “I am going to move into a new line of questioning now with Detective Bosch. If appropriate, this might be the best time to break for the day.”

  Houghton pulled back the baggy black sleeve of his robe and looked at his watch. Bosch looked at his. It was a quarter to four.

  “Okay, Ms. Langwiser, we’ll adjourn until nine o’clock tomorrow morning.”

  Houghton told Bosch he could step down from the witness stand. He then admonished the jurors not to read newspaper accounts or watch TV reports on the trial. Everyone stood as the jurors filed out. Bosch, who was now standing next to Langwiser at the prosecution table, glanced over at the defense side. David Storey was looking at him. His face betrayed no emotion at all. But Bosch thought he saw something in his pale blue eyes. He wasn’t sure but he thought it was mirth.

  Bosch was the first to look away.

  20

  After the courtroom emptied, Bosch conferred with Langwiser and Kretzler about their missing witness.

  “Anything yet?” Kretzler asked. “Depending on how long John Reason keeps you up there, we’re going to need her tomorrow afternoon or the next morning.”

  “Nothing yet,” Bosch said. “But I’ve got something in the works. In fact, I better get going.”

  “I don’t like this,” Kretzler said. “This could blow up. If she’s not coming in, there’s a reason. I’ve never been a hundred percent on her story.”

  “Storey could have gotten to her,” Bosch offered.

  “We need her,” Langwiser said. “It shows pattern. You have to find her.”

  “I’m on it.”

  He got up from the table to leave.

  “Good luck, Harry,” Langwiser said. “And, by the way, so far I think you’re doing very well up there.”

  Bosch nodded.

  “The calm before the storm.”

  On his way down the hall to the elevators Bosch was approached by one of the reporters. He didn’t know his name but he recognized him from the press seats in the courtroom.

  “Detective Bosch?”

  Bosch kept walking.

  “Look, I’ve told everybody, I’m not commenting until the trial is over. I’m sorry. You’ll have to get —”

  “No, that’s okay. I just wanted to see if you hooked up with Terry McCaleb.”

  Bosch stopped and looked at the reporter.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Yesterday. He was looking for you here.”

  “Oh, yeah, I saw him. You know Terry?”

  “Yeah, I wrote a book a few years ago about the bureau. I met him then. Before he got the transplant.”

  Bosch nodded and was about to move on when the reporter put out his hand.

  “Jack McEvoy.”

  Bosch reluctantly shook his hand. He recognized the name. Five years earlier the bureau had tracked a serial cop killer to L.A., where it was believed he was about to strike his next victim — a Hollywood homicide detective named Ed Thomas. The bureau had used information from McEvoy, a reporter for the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, to track the so-called Poet and Thomas’s life was never threatened. He was retired from the force now and running a bookshop down in Orange County.

  “Hey, I remember you,” Bosch said. “Ed Thomas is a friend of mine.”

  Both men appraised each other.

  “You’re covering this thing?” Bosch asked, an obvious question.

  “Yeah. For the New Times and Vanity Fair. I’m thinking about a book, too. So when it’s all over, maybe we can talk.”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  “Unless you’re doing something with Terry on it.”

  “With Terry? No, that was something else yesterday. No book.”

  “Okay, then keep me in mind.”

  McEvoy dug into his pocket for his wallet and then removed a business card.

  “I mostly work out of my home in Laurel Canyon. Feel free to give me a call if you want.”

  Bosch held the card up.

  “Okay. I gotta go. See you around, I guess.”

  “Yeah.”

  Bosch walked over and pushed the button for an elevator. He looked at the card again while he waited and thought about Ed Thomas. He then put the card into the pocket of his suit jacket.

  Before the elevator came he looked down the hallway and saw McEvoy was still in the hallway, now talking to Rudy Tafero, the defense’s investigator. Tafero was a big man and he was leaning forward, close to McEvoy, as if it was some sort of conspiratorial rendezvous. McEvoy was writing in a notebook.

  The elevator opened and Bosch stepped on. He watched them until the doors closed.

  • • •

  Bosch took Laurel Canyon Boulevard

  over the hill and dropped down into Hollywood ahead of the evening traffic. At Sunset he took a right and pulled to the curb a few blocks into West Hollywood. He fed the meter and went into the small, drab white office building across Sunset from a strip bar. The two-story courtyard building catered to small product
ion companies. They were small offices with small overheads. The companies lived from movie to movie. In between there was no need for opulent offices and space.

  Bosch checked his watch and saw that he was right on time. It was quarter to five and the audition was set for five. He took the stairs up to the second floor and went through a door with a sign that said NUFF SAID PRODUCTIONS. It was a three-room suite, one of the biggest in the building. Bosch had been there before and knew the layout: a waiting room with a secretary’s desk, the office of Bosch’s friend, Albert “Nuff” Said, and then a conference room. A woman behind the secretary’s desk looked up at Bosch as he stepped in.