The Night Fire (Harry Bosch #22) - Michael Connelly Page 0,35
where you are and I’ll have a local officer run by as soon as possible.”
Another silence went by and when Winter spoke, his voice had a coldness to it that was unmistakable.
“I’ll text my contact info and share my location with you,” he said. “Are we done now?”
“Yes, sir,” Ballard said. “Thank you once again for your cooperation and I’m sorry for your loss.”
16
On the way back to the station Ballard detoured down Cahuenga and then over to Cole. She drove slowly by the line of tents, lean-to tarp constructions, and occupied sleeping bags that ran the fence line of the public park. She saw that the spot previously used by the man who had been immolated the night before was already taken by someone with an orange-and-blue tent. She stopped in the street—there was no traffic to worry about impeding—and looked at the blue tarp where she knew the girl named Mandy slept. All seemed quiet. A slight gust of wind flapped the dirty tarp for a moment but soon the scene returned to a still life.
Ballard thought about Mandy and the prospects of her life. She then thought about Cecilia and wondered how she had lost any sort of prospect for happiness. Then Ballard thought about her own desperate beginnings. How did one child retain hope in the darkness and another come to believe it was gone forever?
Her phone buzzed and she answered. It was Lieutenant Washington and she immediately looked at the radio charger to see if she had left her rover behind somewhere. But it was there in its holder. Washington had chosen to call her rather than use the radio.
“L-T?”
“Ballard, where are you?”
“Headed to the house. About three blocks out. What’s up?”
“Dautre and Roberts were just in here. They told me about the girl.”
He had managed to mispronounce Dautre, making it sound more like doubter than daughter, and had missed Robards’s name altogether.
“What about her?” she said.
“I heard it was bad,” Washington said. “You confirm it was suicide?”
“I signed off on it. The parents were kind of hinky. The father is out of town. But I confirmed that. He’s where he said he was. I’ll turn it all over to West Bureau homicide for follow-up.”
“All right, well, I want to get you back here and get BSU out to talk to you three.”
Behavioral Science Unit. It meant psychological counseling. It was the last thing Ballard would want from the department. Half the department already thought she had fabricated sexual harassment allegations against a supervisor. That “unsubstantiated” investigation had resulted in her being forced into BSU sessions for a year. Adding another shrink sheet to her file would bring the other half in line with the popular belief. And that was before you even got to the double standard involving female cops. A male officer asking for counseling was courageous and strong; a female doing the same was just plain weak.
“Fuck that,” Ballard said. “I don’t want it.”
“Ballard, it was a bad scene,” Washington insisted. “I just got the details and it’s a fucking horror show. You gotta talk to somebody.”
“L-T, I don’t want to talk to anybody, I don’t need to talk to anybody. I’ve seen worse, okay? And I have work to do.”
The tone of her voice gave Washington pause. There was silence for several seconds. Ballard watched a man crawl out of a single tent, walk to the curb, and openly start to urinate in the gutter. He hadn’t noticed her or heard her idling car.
“All right, Ballard, but I made the offer,” Washington said.
“Yes, you did, L-T,” Ballard responded in a gentler tone. “And I appreciate it. I’m going to go back to the bureau and write this up, then I’ll be done for the day. I’ll hit the beach and all will be beautiful again. Salt water cures everything.”
“That’s a roger, Ballard.”
“Thank you.”
But Ballard knew she wouldn’t be going west to the beach at the end of her shift. It was Walk-In Wednesday at the ballistics unit and she planned to be first in line.
BOSCH
17
It was 9:05 a.m. in Department 106 and there was no sign of EMT Albert Morales. Bosch stood in the back of the courtroom so that he could step out and search the hallway, as he had been doing every five minutes. Haller was at the defense table, busying himself with paperwork and files to make it appear he was prepping for the day of court.
“Mr. Haller,” the clerk said. “The judge is ready.”