Harry reached to the vest and opened one of the breast pockets. Normally this would be something he would ask a coroner’s investigator to do, as jurisdiction of the body belonged to the County Medical Examiner’s Office. But Bosch had no idea if a coroner’s crew would even show at the crime scene and he wasn’t going to wait to find out.
The pocket held four black film canisters. He didn’t know if this was film that had been shot or was unused. He rebuttoned the pocket and in doing so felt a hard surface beneath it. He knew rigor mortis comes and goes in a day, leaving the body soft and movable. He pulled back the equipment vest and knocked a fist on the chest. It was a hard surface and the sound confirmed this. The victim was wearing a bulletproof vest.
“Hey, check out the hit list,” Edgar said.
Bosch looked up from the body. Edgar’s flashlight was now aimed at the wall above. The graffiti directly over the victim was a 187 count or hit list with the names of several bangers who had gone down in street battles. Ken Dog, G-Dog, OG Nasty, Neckbone, and so on. The crime scene was in the Rolling 60s territory. The 60s were a subset of the massive Crips gang. They were at endless war with the nearby 7-Treys, another Crips subset.
The general public was largely under the impression that the gang wars that gripped most of South L.A. and claimed victims every night of the week came down to a Bloods versus Crips battle for supremacy and control of the streets. But the reality was that the rivalries between subsets of the same gang were some of the most violent in the city and largely responsible for the weekly body counts. The Rolling 60s and 7-Treys were at the top of that list. Both Crips sets operated under kill-on-sight protocols and the score was routinely noted in the neighborhood graffiti. An RIP list was used to memorialize homies lost in the endless battle, while a lineup of names under a 187 heading was a hit list, a record of kills.
“Looks like what we’ve got here is Snow White and the Seven-Trey Crips,” Edgar added.
Bosch shook his head, annoyed. The city had come off its hinges and here in front of them was the result—a woman put up against a wall and executed—and his partner didn’t seem to be able to take it seriously.
Edgar must have read Bosch’s body language.
“It’s just a joke, Harry,” he said quickly. “Lighten up. We need some gallows humor around here.”
“Okay,” Bosch said. “I’ll lighten up while you go get on the radio. Tell them what we’ve got here, make sure they know it’s a member of the out-of-town media and see if they’ll give us a full team. If not that, at least a photographer and some lights. Tell them we really could use some time and some help on this one.”
“Why? ’Cause she’s white?”
Bosch took a moment before responding. It was a careless thing for Edgar to have said. He was hitting back because Bosch had not responded well to the Snow White quip.
“No, not because she’s white,” Bosch said evenly. “Because she’s not a looter and she’s not a gangbanger and because they better believe that the media is going to jump all over a case involving one of their own. Okay? Is that good enough?”
“Got it.”
“Good.”
Edgar went back to the car to use the radio and Bosch returned to his crime scene. The first thing he did was delineate the perimeter. He backed several of the guardsmen down the alley so he could create a zone that extended twenty feet on either side of the body. The third and fourth sides of the box were the wall of the appliance shop on one side and the wall of the rims store on the other.
As he marked it off Bosch noted that the alley cut through a residential block that was directly behind the row of retail businesses that fronted Crenshaw. There was no uniformity in the containment of the backyards that lined the alley. Some of the homes had concrete walls, while others had wood-slat or chain-link fences.
Bosch knew that in a perfect world he would search all those yards and knock on all those doors, but that would have to come later, if at all. His attention at the moment had to be focused on the immediate crime scene. If he got the chance to canvas the neighborhood, he would consider himself lucky.
Bosch noticed that Robleto and Delwyn had taken positions with their shotguns at the mouth of the alley. They were standing next to each other and talking, probably sharing a complaint about something. Back in Bosch’s Vietnam days, that would have been called a sniper’s two-for-one sale.
There were eight guardsmen posted inside the alley on the interior perimeter. Bosch noticed that a group of people were beginning to congregate and watch from the far end. He waved over the guardsman who had led them into the alley.
“What’s your name, soldier?”
“Drummond, but everyone calls me Drummer.”
“Okay, Drummer, I’m Detective Bosch. Tell me who found her.”
“The body? That was Dowler. He came back here to take a leak and he found her. He said he could smell her first. He knew the smell.”
“Where’s Dowler now?”
“I think he’s on post at the southern barricade.”
“I need to talk to him. Will you get him for me?”
“Yes, sir.”
Drummond started to move toward the entrance of the alley.
“Hold on, Drummer, I’m not done.”
Drummond turned around.
“When did you deploy to this location?”
“We’ve been here since eighteen hundred yesterday, sir.”
“So you’ve had control of this area since then? This alley?”
“Not exactly, sir. We started at Crenshaw and Florence last night and we’ve worked east on Florence and north on Crenshaw. It’s been block by block.”
“So when did you get to this alley?”
“I’m not sure. I think we had it covered by dawn today.”
“And all the looting and burning in this immediate area, that was already over?”
“Yes, sir, happened first night from what I’ve been told.”
“Okay, Drummer, one last thing. We need more light here. Can you bring back here one of those trucks you have with all the lights on top?”
“It’s called a Humvee, sir.”
“Yeah, well, bring one back here from that end of the alley. Come in past those people and point the lights right at my crime scene. You got it?”
“Got it, sir.”
Bosch pointed to the end opposite the patrol car.
“Good. I want to create a cross-hatching of light here, okay? It’s probably going to be the best we can do.”
“Yes, sir.”
He started to trot away.
“Hey, Drummer.”
Drummond turned around once more and came back.
“Yes, sir.”
Bosch whispered now.
“All your guys are watching me. Shouldn’t they be turned around, eyes out?”
Drummond stepped back and twirled his finger over his head.
“Hey! Turn it around, eyes out. We’ve got a job here. Keep the watch.”
He pointed down the alley toward the gathering of onlookers.
“And make sure we keep those people back.”
The guardsmen did as they were told and Drummond headed out of the alley to radio Dowler and get the light truck.
Bosch’s pager buzzed on his hip. He reached to his belt and snapped the device out of its holder. The number on the screen was the command post and he knew he and Edgar were about to be given another call. They hadn’t even started here and they were going to be yanked. He didn’t want that. He put the pager back on his belt.
Bosch walked over to the first fence that started from the back corner of the appliance shop. It was a wood-slat barrier that was too tall for him to look over. But he noticed it had been freshly painted. There was no graffiti, not even on the alley side of it. He noted this because it indicated that there was a homeowner on the other side who cared enough to whitewash the graffiti. Maybe it was the kind of person who kept their own watch and might have heard or even seen something.
From there he crossed the alley and dropped to a squatting position at the far corner of the crime scene. Like a fighter in his corner, waiting to come out. He started playing the beam of his flashlight across the broken concrete and dirt surface of the alley. At the oblique angle, the light refracted off the myriad surface planes, giving him a unique view. Soon enough he saw the glint of something shiny and held the beam on it. He moved in on the spot and found a brass bullet casing lying in the gravel.