Read Suicide Run: Three Harry Bosch Stories for Free Online

chance.
    “Yeah, well, I just want to clear the case,” I said. “I don’t really care if you’re a psychic or Santa Claus, if you’ve got something that will help me I’ll listen.”
    “Well, I think maybe I do.”
    He turned the page in the file and picked up a stack of crime scene photographs. These were not the photos I had sent him. These were 8x10 blowups of the original crime scene photos. He had made these on his own. It told me that McCaleb had certainly spent some time with the case. It made me think that maybe it had hooked him the way it had hooked me. A girl with no name left dead on the hillside. A girl no one had come forward to claim. A girl no one cared about.
    In my secret heart I cared and I had claimed her. And now maybe McCaleb had, too.
    “Let me just start with my overview of what I think you’ve got here,” McCaleb said.
    He shuffled through the photos for a moment, ending with a still that had been made from the news video. It showed an aerial shot of the naked body, arms and legs stretched wide on the hillside. I took out my cigarettes and shook one out of the pack.
    “You may have already arrived at these same conclusions. If so, I apologize. I don’t want to waste your time. By the way, you can’t smoke in here.”
    “Don’t worry about it,” I said, putting the smokes away. “What have you got?”
    “Whether this is the actual murder site or not, this scene is very important in that it gives us an avenue to the killer’s thinking. What I see here suggests the work of what we call an exhibition killer. In other words, this is a killer who wanted his crime to be seen—to be very public—and by virtue of this to instill horror and fear in the general population. From this reaction by the public he draws his gratification. He is somebody who reads the newspapers and watches the news for any information or update on the investigation. It is a way of keeping score. So when we find him, I think we will find newspaper clippings and maybe even videos containing television reports on the case. These will probably be in his bedroom because they would be useful to him in carrying out masturbatory fantasies.”
    I noticed he had said we in reference to the case investigators but I didn’t react. McCaleb went on as if he were talking to himself and there were no one else in the office.
    “A component of the exhibition killer’s fantasy is the duel. Exhibiting his crime to the public includes exhibiting it to the police. In effect, he is throwing down a challenge. He is saying, ‘I am better than you, smarter and more clever. Prove me wrong if you can. Catch me if you can.’ You see? He is dueling with you in the public media arena.”
    “With me?”
    “Yes, you. In this case in particular you appear to be the media front man. It is your name in the newspaper stories included in the file.”
    “I’m lead on the case. I’ve been the one talking to the reporters.”
    McCaleb nodded again.
    “Okay,” I said. “All this is good in terms of understanding what a nut this guy is. But what do you have that will help point us to the right guy?”
    McCaleb nodded.
    “You know how the Realtors say, location, location, location? It’s the same with me. The place he chose to leave her is significant in that it plays into his exhibitionistic tendencies. You have the Hollywood Hills here. You have Mulholland Drive and the view of the city. This girl was not dropped here randomly. This place was chosen, perhaps just as carefully as she was chosen as a victim. The conclusion is that the drop site is a place our killer may be familiar with because of the routines of his life, but nonetheless was not chosen because of reasons of convenience. He chose this spot, he wanted this spot, because it was the best spot to announce his work to the world. It was part of the canvas. It means he could have come from a long distance to leave her there. He could have come a few blocks.”
    I noticed the use of