“Okay, people, listen up,” he said. “I didn’t think we should meet together outside in the sunshine and fresh air. I thought it would be better for us to be in here, where it’s dark and it stinks of death. The indications are that many people died in this place and that they died horribly. They were tortured and murdered and we must respect them and honor them by doing our very best work here. We cut no corners, we bend no rules. We do it right. I don’t care if this guy Hardy is riding in that car right now with Baker and Kehoe and confessing his ass off. We are going to put together a case that is absolutely fucking bulletproof. We all make the vow right now that this guy never sees the light of day again. Destination: death row. Nothing else. Everybody got that?”
There were a few nods across the room. It was the first time Bosch had ever seen the lieutenant giving a pep talk like a football coach. Harry liked it and thought it was a good move to remind everyone in the room how high the stakes were with the investigation.
After the preamble Gandle proceeded to divide responsibilities among the teams. While much of the investigation inside the two town houses would involve the gathering of forensic evidence, the heart of the case would undoubtedly be the videos found in the second bedroom closet and the photos taped to the walls throughout the town house. The OU investigators would be charged with documenting who the victims were, where they came from and what exactly happened to them. It would be a terribly grim task. Earlier, Chu had put one of the DVDs from the bedroom closet into his computer so that he and Bosch could get a sense of what was on the vast collection of tapes and discs. The video showed Hardy raping and torturing a woman to the point that she began begging him — after he pulled down her gag — to kill her and simply put her out of her misery. The video ended with the woman choked unconscious but clearly still breathing and Hardy turning to his camera and smiling. He had gotten what he wanted from her.
In all of his years as a cop, Bosch had seen nothing so gut-wrenching and horrible. There were images on that one disc that he knew were indelible and that he would have to try to push into the recesses of his mind. But there were dozens more discs and tapes and hundreds of photographs. Each would need to be viewed, described, catalogued and placed into evidence. It was going to be painful, soul-searing work, guaranteed to leave the kind of internal scars only homicide cops carry. Gandle said that he wanted everyone in the unit to be open to discussing the harrowing duty with therapists in the department’s Behavioral Sciences Unit. Every cop knew that quietly carrying the horrors of the job inside could be like carrying untreated cancer. Still, seeking help for dealing with the burden was seen by many as a weakness. No cop wanted to be weak, whether it was in the view of the bad guys or their fellow good guys.
Gandle next turned the meeting over to Bosch and Chu, the lead investigators, and they quickly summarized the steps that led them to Hardy and the side-by-side town houses.
They also discussed the dichotomy in the investigation that they now faced. There was a need for speed on one level but also a necessity to move deliberately and carefully to ensure that they conducted the most thorough investigation possible.
The department was under the legal obligation to file charges against Hardy within forty-eight hours of his arrest. He would be brought into court for his first appearance before a judge on Wednesday morning. If by then he was not charged with a crime, he would be released.
“What we’re going to do is file one case against him,” Bosch said. “One murder now and then we add on later when we’re ready with the rest. So on Wednesday we go with Lily Price. Right now, it’s a wobbler but it’s still our best bet. We have a DNA hit, and while it’s not Hardy’s, we think we can prove it puts him at the scene. What we’re hoping is that between now and Wednesday morning we find an image of Lily somewhere in this place.”
Chu held up a 5 × 7 photo of Lily Price taken from the original murder book. It was her yearbook photo. She was smiling and innocent and beautiful. If they found her image anywhere among Hardy’s souvenirs, it wouldn’t look the same.
“We’re talking nineteen eighty-nine so she won’t be on any of the DVDs unless we find out that Hardy was transferring VHS to DVD,” Chu said. “But this is unlikely as there is no transfer machine here and this isn’t the kind of thing you send out to have done.”
“We’re going to take a quick run at the still photos,” Bosch said. “Those of you working the VHS, keep an eye out for her. If we find her on one of this guy’s tapes or photos, then we’re gold on Wednesday.”
When Bosch and Chu were finished, Gandle took back the lead to wrap things up with a final rally cry.
“Okay, people,” he said. “That’s it. We all know what we have to do. So let’s do it. Make it count.”
The group started to break up. Bosch could feel an air of urgency among the detectives. Gandle’s charge had worked.
“Oh, one other thing,” Gandle said. “No time limitations on the work on this. We have full overtime authorization and that comes directly from the chief’s office.”
If the lieutenant was expecting a cheer or even a round of applause, he was disappointed. There was little reaction to the good news that money would flow unabated into the investigation. OT was a good thing and it had been in short supply all year. But there was a reluctance to consider financial remuneration for the work this case would entail. Bosch knew that everyone in the room would work whatever hours were needed whether paid or not.
This is why we do this.
Bosch thought about what Kiz Rider had said to him earlier. It was all part of the mission and this case told that tale better than most.
38
It took the three teams of detectives assigned to the photographic and video evidence two hours to package all the materials from the second bedroom closet into evidence boxes. As if in a solemn funeral procession three unmarked cars then transported the boxes north to Los Angeles and the PAB. Bosch and Chu were in the last car, three boxes of still photos on the rear seat. There was little to talk about as they drove. They had a grim duty ahead of them and thoughts of preparing for it were all-consuming.
The media relations office had tipped the media to the arrival of the procession and as the detectives carried their boxes into the police headquarters, they were documented by photographers and videographers lined up outside the building’s entrance. This was not done simply to appease the media. Rather, it was part of what would be an ongoing effort to use the media to hammer home with the public — and the local jury pool — that Chilton Hardy was guilty of ghastly deeds. It was part of the subtle complicity that would always exist between the police and the media.
All three of the meeting rooms had been assigned to what was being known as the Hardy Task Force. Bosch and Chu took the smallest room because it did not have video equipment. They were going to sort through still photographs and didn’t need it.
Hardy had shown no apparent rhyme or reason in his cataloguing of the photos. Old and new, the photographs were tossed into several shoeboxes and placed on the shelves of the closet. There was no writing on the front or back of any of them. Several photos were taken of the same individuals but these might be spread across two or three different shoe boxes.
As Bosch and Chu began to go through them, they attempted to group the photos in a variety of ways. First and foremost they tried to put all photos of the same individual together. They then tried to estimate the age of the photos and organize them chronologically. Some of the photos had date stamps on them and these were helpful, though there was no way of knowing if the camera used had been set with the proper date.