“So what happened next?”

“The editor said he would even fight a court order. An attorney from the city attorney’s office was called in and began negotiating with the magazine’s lawyer. The result was that I flew to New York City and was allowed access to the negative in the photo lab in the Architectural Digest offices.”

“For the record, what date were you there?”

“I took a redeye on October twenty-ninth. I was at the magazine’s office the following morning. It was a Monday, October thirtieth.”

“And what did you do there?”

“I had the magazine’s photo lab manager make blowups of the shot containing the bookshelves.”

Langwiser introduced two large blowup photographs on hard backing as her next exhibits. After they were approved over unsustained objection she put them on easels set in front of the jury. One showed the bookcase in full while the other was a blowup of one shelf. The image was grainy but the titles on the spines of the books could be read.

“Detective, did you compare these photos with those taken during the search of the defendant’s house?”

“Yes, we did.”

Langwiser asked permission to set up a third and fourth easel and to put blowup photos taken during the search of the full bookcase and the shelf with the space for a missing book. The judge approved. She then asked Bosch to step down from the witness stand and use a pointer to explain what he found during his comparison study. It was obvious to anyone looking at the photos what he found but Langwiser was painstakingly going through the motions so that no juror could be confused.

Bosch put the pointer on the photo showing the open space in the shelved books. He then brought it over and put the tip on a book that was in the same spot.

“When we searched the house on October seventeenth there was no book here between The Fifth Horizon and Print the Legend. Here in this photo, taken ten months before, there is a book between The Fifth Horizon and Print the Legend.”

“And what is the title of that book?”

“Victims of the Night.”

“Okay, and did you look at photos you had from the search of the full bookcase in order to see if this book, Victims of the Night, had been shelved elsewhere?”

Bosch pointed to the October 17 blowup of the entire bookcase.

“We did. It’s not there.”

“Did you find this book anywhere in the house?”

“No, we did not.”

“Thank you, Detective. You can return to the witness stand now.”

Langwiser introduced a copy of Victims of the Night as an exhibit and handed it to Bosch.

“Can you tell the jury what that is, Detective?”

“It is a copy of Victims of the Night.”

“Is that the book that was on the defendant’s shelf when his photograph was taken for Architectural Digest in January of last year?”

“No, it’s not. It’s a copy of the same book. I bought it.”

“Where?”

“A place called Mystery Bookstore in Westwood.”

“Why did you buy it there?”

“I called around. It was the only place I could find that had it in stock.”

“Why was it so hard to find?”

“The man at Mystery Bookstore told me it was a small printing by a small publisher.”

“Did you read this book?”

“Parts of it. It is mostly photographs of unusual crime scenes and accident scenes, that sort of thing.”

“Is there anything in there that struck you as unusual or perhaps relating to the killing of Jody Krementz?”

“Yes, there is a photograph of a death scene on page seventy-three that immediately drew my attention.”

“Describe it, please.”

Bosch opened the book to a marker. He spoke as he looked at the full-page photograph on the right side of the book.

“It shows a woman in a bed. She’s dead. A scarf is tied around her neck and looped over one of the bars of the headboard. She is nude from the waist down. Her left hand is between her legs and two of her fingers have penetrated the vagina.”

“Can you read the caption beneath the photo, please?”

“It says, ‘Autoerotic Death: This woman was found in her bed in New Orleans, a victim of autoerotic asphyxia. It is estimated that around the world more than five hundred people die from this accidental misadventure each year.’”

Langwiser asked and received permission to place two more blowup photos on the easels as exhibits. She placed them right over two of the bookshelf photos. Side by side the photos were of Jody Krementz’s body in her bed and of the page from Victims of the Night.

“Detective, did you make a comparison between the photo of the victim in this case, Jody Krementz, and the photo from the book?”

“Yes, I did. I found them to be very similar.”

“Did it appear to you that the body of Ms. Krementz could have been staged, using the photo from the book as a model or baseline?”

“Yes, it did.”

“Did you ever have occasion to ask the defendant what happened to his copy of the book Victims of the Night?”

“No, since the day of the search of his home, Mr. Storey and his attorneys have refused repeated requests for an interview.”

Langwiser nodded and looked at the judge.

“Your Honor, may I take these exhibits down and offer them to the court clerk?”

“Please do,” the judge responded.

Langwiser made a show of taking the photos of the two dead women down first by folding them in toward each other like two sides of a mirror closing. It was a little thing but Bosch saw the jurors watching.

“Okay, Detective Bosch,” Langwiser said when the easels were cleared. “Did you make any inquiries or do any further investigation into autoerotic deaths?”

“Yes. I knew that if this case ever moved to a trial that the classification of the death as a homicide staged to look like this sort of accident might be challenged. I was also curious about what that caption in the book said. Frankly, I was surprised by the figure of five hundred deaths a year. I did some checking with the FBI and found that the figure was actually accurate, if not low.”

“And did that cause you to do any further research?”

“Yes, on a more local level.”

With Langwiser prompting, Bosch testified that he checked through records at the medical examiner’s office for deaths due to autoerotic asphyxia. His search went back five years.

“And what did you find?”

“In those five years, sixteen deaths in Los Angeles County classified as accidental death by misadventure had been attributed specifically to autoerotic asphyxia.”

“And how many of these cases involved female victims?”

“Only one case involved a female.”

“Did you examine this case?”

Fowkkes was up with an objection and this time asked for a sidebar conference. The judge allowed it and the attorneys gathered at the side of the bench. Bosch could not hear the whispered conversation but knew that Fowkkes was most likely trying to stop the direction of the testimony. Langwiser and Kretzler had anticipated he would move once more to block any mention of Alicia Lopez in front of the jurors. It would likely be the pivotal decision in the trial – for both sides.

After five minutes of whispered argument, the judge sent the lawyers back to their places and told the jurors that the issue before the court would take longer than anticipated. He adjourned for another fifteen-minute break. Bosch returned to the prosecution table.

“Something new?” Bosch asked Langwiser.

“No, the same old argument. For some reason the judge wants to hear it again. Wish us luck.”

The lawyers and the judge retreated to chambers to argue the point. Bosch was left at the table. He used his cell phone to check messages at his home and office. There was one message at work. It was from Terry McCaleb. He thanked Bosch for the tip from the night before. He said he got some good information at Nat’s and that he’d be in touch. Bosch erased it and closed the phone, wondering what it was that McCaleb had picked up.