Dangerous Women

The Ford Taurus with the license plate containing 1JK on it was parked in the driveway. I put my hand on the hood as we walked up the driveway to the door. It was cold.

At 8:00 p.m., just as the light was leaving the sky, I knocked on the front door. Seguin answered in blue jeans and a T-shirt. No shoes. I saw his eyes go wide when he looked at me. He knew who I was before I held up the badge and said my name. I felt the cold finger of adrenaline slide down my back. I remembered what McCaleb had said about the killer tracking the police while they tracked him. I had been on TV talking about the case. I had been in the papers.

Giving nothing away, I calmly said, “Mr. Seguin, I am Detective Harry Bosch with the LAPD. Is that your car in the driveway?”

“Yeah, it’s mine. What about it? What’s going on?”

“We need to ask you about it, if you don’t mind. Can we come in for a few minutes?”

“Well, no, I’d first like to know what-”

“Thank you.”

I moved through the threshold, forcing him to step back. The others followed me in.

“Hey, wait a minute, what is this?”

We had worked it out before we’d arrived. The interview was mine to conduct. Sheehan was second seat. McCaleb said he just wanted to observe.

The living room was carpenter overkill. Built-in bookshelves on three walls. A wooden mantel that was too big for the room had been built around the small, brick fireplace. A floor to ceiling television cabinet was built in place as a divider between the sitting area and what looked like a little office space.

I nodded approvingly.

“Nice work. You get a lot of downtime with your work?”

Seguin reluctantly nodded.

“Did most of this when we had a strike a couple years ago.”

“What do you do?”

“Stage builder. Look, what is this about my car? You can’t just push your way in here like this. I have rights.”

“Why don’t you sit down, Mr. Seguin, and I’ll explain. We believe your car was possibly used in the commission of a serious crime.”

Seguin dropped into a soft chair positioned for best viewing of the television. I noticed that McCaleb was moving about the outer edges of the room, studying the books on the shelves and the various knickknacks displayed on the mantel and other surfaces. Sheehan sat down on the couch to Seguin ’s left. He stared at him coldly, wordlessly.

“What crime?”

“A murder.”

I let that sink in. But it appeared to me that Seguin had recovered from his initial shock and was hardening. I had seen this before. He was going to try to ride it out.

“Does anyone drive your car besides you, Mr. Seguin?”

“Sometimes. If I loan it to somebody.”

“What about three weeks ago, August fifteenth, did you lend it to anybody?”

“I don’t know. I’d have to check. I don’t think I want to answer any more questions and I think I want you people to leave now.”

McCaleb slid into the seat to Seguin ’s right. I remained standing. I looked at McCaleb and he nodded slightly and only once. But I knew what he was telling me; he’s the guy.

I looked at my partner. Sheehan had missed the sign from McCaleb because he had not taken his eyes off Seguin. I had to make a call. Go with McCaleb’s signal or back out. I looked back at McCaleb. He looked up at me, his eyes as intense as any I had ever seen.

I signaled Seguin to stand up.

“Mr. Seguin, I need you to stand up for me. I am placing you under arrest on suspicion of murder.”

Seguin slowly came to his feet and then made a sudden move toward the door. But Sheehan was ready for it and was all over him and had his face down in the carpet before he had gotten three feet. Frankie pulled his arms behind his back and cuffed them. I then helped him pull Seguin to his feet and we walked him out to the car, leaving McCaleb behind.

Frankie stayed with the suspect. As soon as I could I came back inside. I found McCaleb still sitting in the chair.

“What was it?”

McCaleb reached out his arm to the nearest bookshelf.

“This is his reading chair,” he said.

He pulled a book off the shelf.

“And this is his favorite book.”

The book was badly worn, its spine cracked and its pages weathered by repeated readings. As McCaleb thumbed the pages I could see paragraphs and sentences had been underlined by hand. I reached over and closed the book so I could read the cover. It was called The Collector.

“Ever read it?” McCaleb asked.

“No. What is it?”

“It’s about a guy who abducts women. He collects them. Keeps them in his house, in the basement.”

I nodded.

“Terry, we need to back out of here and get a search warrant. I want to do this right.”

“So do I.”

Seguin was sitting on the bed in his cell looking at a chessboard set up on the toilet. He didn’t look up when I came to the bars, though I could tell my shadow had fallen across the game board.

“Who are you playing?” I asked.

“Somebody who died sixty-five years ago. They put his best moment-this game-in a book. And he lives on. He’s eternal.”

He looked up at me then, his eyes still the same-cold, green killer’s eyes-in a body turned pasty and weak from twelve years in small, windowless rooms.

“Detective Bosch. I wasn’t expecting you until next week.”

I shook my head. “I’m not coming next week.”

“You don’t want to see the show? To see the glory of the righteous?”

“Doesn’t do it for me. Back when they used the gas, maybe that’d be worth seeing. But watching some asshole on a massage table get the needle and then drift off to Never-Never Land? Nah, I’m going to go see the Dodgers play the Giants that day. Already got my ticket.”

Seguin stood up and approached the bars. I remembered the hours we had spent in the interrogation room, close like this. The body was worn but not the eyes. They were unchanged. Those eyes were the signature of all the evil I had ever known.

“Then what is it that brings you to me here today, Detective?”

He smiled at me, his teeth yellowed, his gums as gray as the walls. I knew then that the trip had been a mistake. I knew then that he would not give me what I wanted and release me.

Two hours after we put Seguin in the car two other detectives from RHD arrived with a signed search warrant for the house and car. Because we were in the city of Burbank, I had routinely notified the local authorities of our presence and a Burbank detective team and two patrol officers arrived on scene. While the patrol officers kept a vigil on Seguin, the rest of us began the search.

We spread out. The house had no basement. McCaleb and I took the master bedroom and Terry immediately noticed wheels had been attached to the legs of the bed. He dropped to his knees, pushed the bed aside and there was a trapdoor in the wood floor. There was a padlock on it.

While McCaleb went off into the house to find the key I took my picks out of my wallet and worked the lock. I was alone in the room. As I fumbled with the lock I banged it against the metal hasp and I thought I heard a noise from beyond the door in response. It was far away and muffled but to me it was the sound of terror in someone’s voice. My insides seized with my own terror and hope.

I worked the lock with all my skill and in another thirty seconds it came open.

“Got it! McCaleb, I got it!”

McCaleb came rushing back into the room and we pulled open the door revealing a sheet of plywood below with finger latches at the four corners. We raised this next and there beneath the floor was a young girl. She was blindfolded, gagged and her hands were shackled behind her back. She was naked beneath a dirty pink blanket.