The Drop - Michael Connelly [118]
“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