Michael Connelly (118 page)

Bosch was so deep in these thoughts that he did not notice Chandler had come through the door until the flare of her lighter
caught his eye. He turned and stared at her.

“I won’t stay long,” she said. “Just a half.”

“I don’t care.”

He was almost done with the second cigarette.

“Who’s next?”

“Locke.”

The USC psychologist. Bosch nodded, though he immediately saw this as a break from her good guy–bad guy pattern. Unless she
counted Locke as a good guy.

“Well, you’re doing good,” Bosch said. “But I guess you don’t need me to tell you that.”

“No, I don’t.”

“You may even win — you probably will win, but ultimately you’re wrong about me.”

“Am I? …Do you even know?”

“Yeah, I know. I know.”

“I have to go.”

She stubbed the cigarette out. It was less than half smoked. It would be a prize for Tommy Faraway.

• • •

Dr. John Locke was a gray-bearded, bald and bespectacled man who looked as though he could have used a pipe to complete the
picture of university professor and researcher of sexual behavior. He testified that he had offered his expertise to the Dollmaker
task force after reading about the killings in the newspapers. He helped an LAPD psychiatrist draw up the first profiles of
the suspect.

“Tell the jury about your expertise,” Chandler asked.

“Well, I am the director of the Psychohormonal Research Laboratory at USC. I am founder of that unit as well. I have conducted
wide-ranging studies of sexual practice, paraphilia and psychosexual dynamics.”

“What is a paraphilia, doctor? In language we will all understand, please.”

“Well, in layman’s terms, paraphilia are what are commonly referred to by the general public as sexual perversions — sexual
behavior generally considered unacceptable by society.”

“Such as strangling your sex partner?”

“Yes, that would be one of them, big time.”

There was a polite murmur of humor in the courtroom and Locke smiled. He seemed very at ease on the witness stand, Bosch thought.

“Have you written scholarly articles or books about these subjects you mentioned?”

“Yes, I have contributed numerous articles to research publications. I’ve written seven books on various subjects, sexual
development of children, prepubescent paraphilia, studies of sadomasochism — the whole bondage thing, pornography, prostitution.
My last book was on childhood development histories of deviant murderers.”

“So you’ve been around the block.”

“Only as a researcher.”

Locke smiled again and Bosch could see the jury warming to him. All twenty-four eyes were on the sex doctor.

“Your last book, the one on the murderers, what was it called?”

“Black Hearts: Cracking the Erotic Mold of Murder.”

Chandler took a moment to look at her notes.

“What do you mean by ‘erotic mold’?”

“Well, Ms. Chandler, if I could digress a moment, I think I should fill in some background.”

She nodded her go-ahead.

“There are generally two fields, or two schools of thought, when it comes to the study of sexual paraphilia. I am what you
call a psychoanalyst, and psychoanalysts believe that the root of paraphilia in an individual comes from hostilities nurtured
in childhood. In other words, sexual perversions — in fact, even normal erotic interests — are formed in early childhood and
then manifest in expressions as the individual becomes an adult.

“On the other hand, behaviorists view paraphilia as learned behaviors. An example being, molestation in the home of a child
may trigger similar behavior by him as an adult. The two schools, for lack of a better word, are not that divergent. They
are actually quite closer than psychoanalysts and behaviorists usually like to admit.”

He nodded and folded his hands together, seeming to have forgotten the original question.

“You were going to tell us about erotic molds,” Chandler prompted.

“Oh yes, I’m sorry, I lost the train there. Uh, the erotic mold is the description I use to cover the whole shebang of psychosexual
desires that go into an individual’s ideal erotic scene. You see, everybody has an ideal erotic scene. This could include
the ideal physical attributes of a lover, the location, the type of sex act, the smell, taste, touch, music, whatever. Everything,
all the ingredients that go into this individual achieving the ultimate erotic scene. A leading authority on this, out of
Johns Hopkins University, calls it a ‘lovemap.’ It is sort of a guide to the ultimate scene.”

“Okay, now in your book, you applied it to sexual murderers.”

“Yes, with five subjects — all convicted of murder involving a sexual motivation or practice — I attempted to trace each man’s
erotic mold. To crack it open and trace the parts back to development in childhood. These men had damaged molds, so to speak.
I wanted to find where the damage took place.”

“How did you pick your subjects?”

Belk stood up and made an objection and moved to the lectern.

“Your Honor, as fascinating as all of this is, I don’t believe it is on point to this case. I will stipulate Dr. Locke’s expertise
in this field. I don’t think we have to go through the history of five other murderers. We are here in trial on a case about
a murderer who is not even mentioned in Dr. Locke’s book. I am familiar with the book. Norman Church is not in it.”

“Ms. Chandler?” Judge Keyes said.

“Your Honor, Mr. Belk is correct about the book. It’s about sadistic sex killers. Norman Church is not in it. But its significance
to this case will be clear in the next set of questions. I think Mr. Belk realizes this and that is the reason for his objection.”

“Well, Mr. Belk, I think the time for an objection was probably about ten minutes ago. We are well into this line of questioning
and I think we need to see it through now. Besides, you are correct about it being rather fascinating. Go on, Ms. Chandler.
The objection is overruled.”

Belk dropped back into his chair and whispered to Bosch, “He’s gotta be banging her.” It was said just loud enough that Chandler
might have heard him, but not the judge. If she did, she showed nothing.

“Thank you, Your Honor,” she said. “Dr. Locke, Mr. Belk and I were correct when we said that Norman Church was not one of
the subjects of your study, were we not?”

“Yes, that is correct.”

“When did the book come out?”

“Just last year.”

“That would be three years after the end of the Dollmaker case?”

“Yes.”

“Well, having been part of the Dollmaker task force and obviously becoming familiar with the crimes, why didn’t you include
Norman Church in your study? It would seem to be an obvious choice.”

“It would seem that way but it wasn’t. First of all, Norman Church was dead. I wanted subjects that were alive and cooperative.
But incarcerated, of course. I wanted people that I could interview.”

“But of the five subjects you wrote about, only four are alive. What about the fifth, a man named Alan Karps, who was executed
in Texas before you even began your book? Why not Norman Church?”

“Because, Ms. Chandler, Karps had spent much of his adult life in institutions. There were voluminous public records on his
treatment and psychiatric study. With Church there was nothing. He had never been in trouble before. He was an anomaly.”

Chandler looked down at her yellow pad and flipped a page, letting the point she just scored hang in the quiet courtroom like
a cloud of cigarette smoke.

“But you did at least make preliminary inquiries about Church, didn’t you?”

Locke hesitated before answering.

“Yes, I made a very preliminary inquiry. It amounted to contacting his family and asking his wife if she would grant me an
interview. She turned me down. Since the man himself was dead and there were no records about him — other than the actual
details of the murders, which I was already familiar with — I didn’t pursue it. I went with Karps in Texas.”

Bosch watched Chandler cross several questions off on her legal pad and then flip several pages to a new set. He guessed that
she was changing tack.

She said, “While you were working with the task force you drew up a psychological profile of the killer, correct?”

“Yes,” Locke said slowly. He adjusted himself in the chair, straightening up for what he knew was coming.

“What was that based on?”

“An analysis of the crime scenes and method of homicide filtered through what little we know about the deviant mind. I came
up with common attributes that I thought might be part of our suspect’s makeup — no pun intended.”

No one in the courtroom laughed. Bosch looked around and saw that the spectator rows were becoming crowded. This must be the
best show in the building, he thought. Maybe all of downtown.

“You were not very successful, were you? If Norman Church was the Doll-maker, that is.”

“No, not very successful. But that happens. It’s a lot of guesswork. Rather than a testimonial to my failure, it is more a
testimonial to how little we know about people. This man’s behavior did not make so much as a blip on anybody’s radar screen
— not counting, of course, the women he killed — until the night he was shot.”

“You speak as if it is a given that Norman Church was the killer, the Doll-maker. Do you know that to be true based on indisputable
facts?”

“Well, I know it to be true because it is what the police told me.”

“If you take it backwards, doctor. If you start with what you know about Norman Church now and leave out what the police have
told you about the supposed evidence, would you ever believe him capable of what he has been accused of?”

Belk was about to stand up to object but Bosch strongly put his hand on his arm and held him down. Belk turned and looked
angrily at him but by then Locke was answering.

“I wouldn’t be able to count him in or out as a suspect. We don’t know enough about him. We don’t know enough about the human
mind in general. All I know is, anybody is capable of anything. I could be a sexual killer. Even you, Ms. Chandler. We all
have an erotic mold and for most of us, it is quite normal. For some it may be a bit unusual but still only playful. For the
others, on the extreme, who find they can only reach erotic excitement and fulfillment through administering pain, even killing
their partners, it is buried deep and dark.”

Chandler was looking down at her pad and writing when he finished. When she didn’t ask another question immediately, he continued
unbidden.

“Unfortunately, the black heart is not worn on the sleeve. The victims who see it usually don’t live to talk about it.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” Chandler said. “I have nothing further.”

Belk plowed in without any preliminary softball questions, a look of concentration on his wide florid face that Bosch had
not seen previously.

“Doctor, these men with these so-called paraphilia, what do they look like?”

“Like anybody. There is no look that gives them away.”

“Yes, and are they always on the prowl? You know, looking to indulge their aberrant fantasies by acting them out?”

“No, actually, studies have shown that these people obviously know they have aberrant tastes and they work to keep them in
check. Those brave enough to come forward with their problems often lead completely normal lives with the aid of chemical
and psychological therapy. Those that don’t are periodically overcome by the compulsion to act out, and they may follow these
urges and commit a crime.

“Psychosexually motivated serial killers often exhibit patterns that are quite repetitive, so that police tracking them can
almost predict within a few days or a week when they will strike. This is because the buildup of stress, the compulsion to
act, will follow a pattern. Often, what you have are decreasing intervals — the overpowering urge comes back sooner and sooner
each time.”

Belk was leaning over the lectern, his weight firmly against it.

“I see, but between these moments of compulsion when the acts take place, does this man seem to have a normal life or, you
know, is he standing in the corner, slobbering? Or whatever?”

“No, nothing like that — at least, until the intervals become so short that they literally don’t exist. Then you might have
someone out there always on the prowl, as you said. But between the intervals there is normalcy. The aberrant sexual act —
rape, strangulation, voyeurism, anything — will provide the subject with the memory to construct fantasy. He will be able
to use the act to fantasize and stimulate arousal during masturbation or normal sex.”

“Do you mean that he will sort of replay the murder in his mind so that he can become sexually aroused for having normal sexual
intercourse with, say, his wife?”

Chandler objected and Belk had to rephrase the question so it was not leading Locke.

“Yes, he will replay the aberrant act in his mind so that he can accomplish the act that is socially acceptable.”

“So in doing so, a wife, for example, might not even know of her husband’s real desires, correct?”

“That is correct. It has happened often.”

“And a person such as this could carry on at work and with friends and not reveal this side of himself, correct?”

“Again, that is correct. There is ample evidence of this in the case histories of sexual sadists who kill. Ted Bundy led a
well-documented double life. Randy Kraft, killer of dozens of hitchhikers here in Southern California. I could name many,
many more. You see, this is the very reason they kill so many victims before being caught, and then it is usually only because
of a small mistake.”

“Like with Norman Church?”

“Yes.”

“As you testified earlier, you could not find or gather enough information about Norman Church’s early development and behavior
to include him in your book. Does that fact dissuade you from belief that he was the killer police claim him to be?”

“Not in the least. As I said, these desires can be easily cloaked in normal behavior. These people know they have desires
that are not accepted by society. Believe me, they take pains to hide them. Mr. Church was not the only subject I considered
for the book and then discarded for lack of valuable information. I did preliminary studies of at least three other serial
killers who were either dead or uncooperative and dropped them as well because of the lack of public record or background
on them.”