The Night Fire (Harry Bosch #22) - Michael Connelly Page 0,104
sell drugs.”
“Shot dead?”
“Yeah, dead.”
“That’s crazy!”
“A lot of crazy stuff happens around here. You all should be careful. Bad things happen to good people. So stick together, get home safe.”
“Yes, Officer.”
“It’s Detective, actually.”
She brought the food back to the station in a take-out box, passing a shirtless and fully tattooed man cuffed to the lockdown bench in the back hallway. At her borrowed work space she continued writing her report while eating, careful not to drop crumbs into the keyboard and draw a complaint from the desk’s daytime owner. The foil wrapping had kept everything warm and the shrimp ceviche tacos had not lost their flavor on the ride back.
At dawn she printed out three copies of her report: one for Lieutenant McAdams, which she put in his inbox along with a note asking for a private meeting; one for herself, which went into her backpack; and the third for Captain Olivas. She put it into a fresh file folder and carried it with her as she headed across the parking lot to her cruiser.
Her phone buzzed almost as soon as she pulled out of the Hollywood Division parking lot to head downtown. It was Bosch.
“So I have to read about the Kidd case in the L.A. Times?”
“I’m so sorry. I’ve just been running crazy and then I wasn’t going to call you in the middle of the night. I just left the station and was about to try you.”
“I’m sure of that.”
“I was.”
“So they killed his wife.”
“Awful. I know. But it was her or us. Truly.”
“They going to get dinged for that? Are you?”
“I don’t know. They fucked up. Nobody was watching the door. Then she came out and it went sideways. I think I’m in the clear because I was just a ride-along, but those guys are probably all getting letters.”
Bosch would know she meant a letter of reprimand in their personnel files.
“At least you’re all right,” he said.
“Harry, I think she was about to shoot me,” Ballard said. “Then she got hit.”
“Well, then they had the right man in the OP.”
“Still. We had locked eyes. When it happened, she was looking at me, I was looking at her. Then …”
“You can’t dwell on it. She made a choice. It was the wrong one. Is Kidd talking?”
“He lawyered up and isn’t talking. I think he thinks he can sue the city for his wife and get enough money for a big-time lawyer—maybe your boy, Haller.”
“I doubt that. He doesn’t voluntarily take murder cases anymore.”
“Got it.”
“So, should I expect a call about my involvement in the Hilton case?”
“I don’t think so. I just finished the report and left you out of it. I said the widow found the murder book after her husband’s death and contacted a friend to turn it in. Your name is nowhere in the report. You shouldn’t have any problem at all.”
“Good to know.”
Ballard drove down the ramp off Sunset onto the 101. The freeway was crowded and moving slow.
“I’m taking it down to Olivas right now,” she said. “I have a meeting at PAB anyway.”
“Meeting on what?” Bosch asked.
“That arson-murder I worked the other night. I’m back on it. They need a midnight detective to help work it. And that’s me.”
“Sounds like they’re finally getting smart down there.”
“We can only hope.”
“That’s Olivas, right? One of his cases.”
“He’s the captain, yes, but I’ll be working with a couple detectives and the LAFD arson guys. So, what are you doing?”
“Montgomery. I have something in play. We’ll see how it—hey, I almost forgot, that guy down in Orange I told you about that was creeping the houses where female students lived? They bagged him.”
“Fantastic! How?”
“He creeped a house Saturday night but didn’t know a boyfriend was staying over. He caught the guy, trimmed him up a little bit, then called the police.”
“Good deal.”
“Last night I called one of the OPD guys on it—the guy I gave the heads-up to about me watching over Maddie’s place. He said the guy had a camera with an infrared lens. He had photos of the girls sleeping in their beds.”
“That’s fucked up. That guy should go away and the key should get lost. He’s on a path, you know what I mean?”
“And that’s the issue. No matter how twisted this is, right now they have him for burglary of an occupied dwelling. That’s it until the DNA comes back on the other hot prowls. But meantime, their worry is he’ll bail out and disappear.”