The victim’s hairless legs were stretched out into the alley and his hands were lying in his lap. Close-up shots of the hands revealed no broken fingernails or blood. It made Bosch wonder if Allen had been somehow prevented from fighting against the wire as it was pulled tight around his neck.
“What is it?” Soto asked.
She was sitting in the passenger seat next to him and had been silent as Bosch went through the photos. She had smuggled her beer out of the bar and had been sipping it as she watched Bosch study the book.
“What do you mean?” Bosch asked.
“I’ve watched you look through a murder book before,” she said. “I can tell when you see something that doesn’t add up.”
Bosch nodded.
“Well, there is no trauma to the hands. No blood, no broken fingernails. Somebody pulls a wire around your neck and you’d think your hands would go to your neck and start fighting the wire.”
“So what is that telling you?”
“Well, either that he wasn’t conscious when he was choked out or something or someone was holding his hands down. There’s no sign of binding marks on the wrists, so...”
He didn’t finish.
“What? No sign of binding means what?”
“That maybe there were two.”
“Two killers?”
“One to hold him down and control his hands, one to work the wire. There are other things, too.”
“I don’t think Karim and Stotter have tumbled to that. What other things?”
Bosch shrugged.
“Guy’s feet. No shoes but he’s wearing these liner socks.”
“They’re called Peds.”
“Okay, Peds. I don’t see any abrasions on the legs or anywhere else on the body from it being dragged.”
Soto leaned across the center console to look closer at the photo Bosch was looking at.
“Okay,” she said.
“The body is propped against the wall,” he said. “Presumably it was removed from a car and put there. It was carried. The victim’s not a big guy. Sure, it could’ve been done by one person, but still. One person carrying him from a vehicle to that spot? I don’t know. It gives me pause, Lucia.”
Soto just nodded after leaning back into her seat and taking another pull on her bottle.
The photos were contained in plastic sleeves with three holes that allowed them to be secured by the three rings of the binder. Bosch flipped back and forth between photos, double-checking his statements. He then took his phone out and took a picture of one of the photos — a midrange shot that showed the body in its entirety slumped against the graffiti-covered rear wall of the car shop.
“Harry, you can’t,” Soto said.
He knew what she meant. If a photo of a crime scene photo turned up in court or anywhere else, it would be obvious that Bosch had had access to the murder book. That could spawn an investigation that would lead back to Soto.
“I know,” Bosch said. “I’m just taking it to place the body on the wall. So I’ll know when I check out the alley. I want to get the location right, and this graffiti will help. After I go by there and check things out, I will destroy the photo. How’s that?”
“Okay, I guess.”
Bosch moved on to the next set of photos. These were taken inside room 6 at the Haven House. This was when the room was still crowded with James Allen’s belongings. There were clothes in the closet, several pairs of shoes and high heels on the floor. Two wigs — one blond, one brunette — on stands on the bureau. There were several candles in the room — on the bureau, on both bed tables, and on the shelf above the headboard of the bed. Also on the shelf was a large clear plastic container half full of condoms. The brand label on the container was Rainbow Pride. The label advertised that the container held three hundred lubricated condoms in six different colors. Bosch took out his notebook and wrote down the details to give to Haller later. He noted that Soto’s observation when reporting on the photos the day before was correct. The condom container was similar to the candy containers he remembered seeing in doctors’ offices and at convenience store cash registers.
Bosch closely scanned the photos of the motel room for any sign of a cell phone but didn’t see one. He knew there had to be one somewhere, because Da’Quan Foster had told Bosch during the interview at county jail that he had called Allen to arrange to meet him the night of the Lexi Parks killing.
Bosch flipped over to section five of the murder book, which he knew would contain the property report. He studied the lists of items retrieved by investigators at both crime scenes — the alley and the motel room where Foster lived. There was no mention of a phone on either list.
The conclusion: The killer had taken Allen’s phone because the phone contained a record of contact with him.
Bosch quickly went through the book to see if Karim and Stotter had subpoenaed any phone records. There were none and no record that a subpoena had been written or filed, and this led Bosch to believe that Allen either used a legit phone that was registered to someone else or used a throwaway that would be impossible to procure records for without either the phone or its number and service provider in hand.
Bosch made a note about going back to Da’Quan Foster and getting the number he used to contact Allen. That would be a start in tracing Allen’s phone activities.
“Sorry,” Bosch said.
“What are you talking about?” Soto said.
“I’m sure you weren’t planning on spending your evening sitting in my car.”
“It’s okay. Things don’t really get going in there until later. That’s when people start dancing on the bar and taking off their clothes.”
“Right.”
“I’m serious.”
“Oh, then I’ll hurry up here so you don’t miss that.”
“Maybe you should stay so you don’t miss it. Maybe loosen you up some, Harry.”
Bosch glanced at her and then back at the book. He was looking for the autopsy report.
“You think I’m too stiff, huh?”
“Well, around me. I think you always thought I was too fragile for the work. Deep down, I think you think it’s men’s work.”
“No, not true. For a long time my daughter wanted to do what you do. What I did. I didn’t discourage it.”
“But now she wants to be a profiler, right?”
“I think, but you never know.”
“She probably got the same message I got from you. ‘You are not suited for this.’”
“Yeah, well, maybe I’m old-fashioned. I kind of hate the idea of women seeing the evil men do. Something like that.”
He found the autopsy. He had read a thousand autopsy reports in his time. He knew the form of the document by heart and that form had barely changed in the last four decades. He quickly paged through to the measurements of the body. He didn’t need any of the conclusions. He just wanted to know what the victim weighed.
“Here it is,” he said. “Guy weighed a buck and a half. That’s not a lot but I’m thinking a lone killer drags a hundred fifty pounds. He doesn’t carry it.”
“I’ll tell Ali and Mike,” Soto said.
“No, you can’t. You never had this conversation.”
“Right, right.”
Bosch checked his watch. They had already been in the car an hour. He would have liked nothing more than to spend several hours scouring the murder book. He had yet to look at any records from the earlier murder, in which the victim was left in the same alley. But he knew he had to let Soto go soon. She had already gone above and beyond the call of duty to a former partner. Especially one who was no longer a cop.