A Darkness More Than Night - Michael Connelly [65]
“You said ‘he,’ Detective. But in this case the victim is a woman.”
“This case does not involve autoerotic asphyxia. The cases I have seen and investigated involving this form of death all involved male victims.”
“Are you saying that in this case the death was made to look like autoerotic asphyxia?”
“Yes, that was my immediate conclusion. It remains so today.”
Langwiser nodded and paused. Bosch sipped some water. As he brought the cup up to his mouth he glanced at the jury. Everyone in the box seemed to be paying close attention.
“Walk us through it, Detective. What led you to that conclusion?”
“Can I refer to my reports?”
“Please.”
Bosch opened the binder in front of him. The first four pages were the OIR — the original incident report. He turned to the fourth page, which included the lead officer’s summary. The report had actually been typed out by Kiz Rider, though Bosch was the LO on the case. He quickly scanned the summary to refresh his mind, then looked up at the jury.
“Several things contradicted the death being an accident caused by autoerotic asphyxia. First off, I was immediately concerned because statistically it is rare that this occurs with female victims. It is not one hundred percent males but it is close. This knowledge made me pay very close attention to the body and the crime scene.”
“Would it be fair to say you were immediately skeptical of the crime scene?”
“Yes, that would be fair.”
“Okay, go on. What else concerned you?”
“The ligature. In almost all cases involving this that I have been aware of firsthand or through the literature on the subject, the victim uses some sort of padding around the neck to prevent bruising or breaking of the skin. Most often a piece of heavy clothing like a sweater or a towel is wrapped around the neck. The ligature is then wrapped around this padding. It prevents the ligature from making a contusion line running around the neck. In this case there was no padding.”
“And what did that mean to you?”
“Well, it didn’t make sense if you looked at it from the victim’s viewpoint. I mean, if you were to assume that she had engaged in this activity, then the scene didn’t make sense. It would mean that she didn’t use any kind of padding because she didn’t mind having the bruises on her neck. This to me was a contradiction between what we had there at the scene and common sense. Add in that she was an actress — which I knew right away because she had a stack of head shots on the bureau — and the contradiction was even greater. She relied on her physical presence and attributes while seeking acting work. That she would knowingly engage in an activity, sexual or otherwise, that would leave visible bruises on her neck — I just didn’t buy it. That and other things led me to conclude the scene was a setup.”
Bosch looked over at the defense table. Storey still had his head down and was working on the sketch pad as though he were sitting on a bench in a park somewhere. Bosch noticed Fowkkes was writing on a legal tablet. Harry wondered if he had said something in his last answer that could somehow be turned against him. He knew Fowkkes was an expert in taking phrases of testimony and giving them new meaning when taken out of context.
“What other things added to this conclusion?” Langwiser asked him.
Bosch looked at the OIR summary page again.
“The biggest single thing was the indication from postmortem lividity that the body had been moved.”
“In layman’s terms, Detective, what does postmortem lividity mean?”
“When the heart ceases to pump blood through the body, the blood then settles in the lower half of the body, depending on the position of the body. Over time it creates a bruising effect on the skin. If the body is moved, the bruising remains in the original position because the blood has coagulated. Over time the bruising becomes more apparent.”
“What happened in this case?”
“In this case there was clear indication that the blood