The Night Fire (Harry Bosch #22) - Michael Connelly Page 0,61
jury found O’Leary not guilty of the first charge but convicted him on the second two, and Montgomery sentenced him to eleven years in prison. More than a year passed before the appellate court ruled in O’Leary’s favor, ordering him released from prison on bail and to face a new trial. The District Attorney’s Office decided not to pursue the case a second time and the charges against O’Leary were dropped. By that time he had been disbarred, and divorced by his wife. He was working as a legal assistant in a law firm. During the final hearing at which the charges were dropped and the case dismissed, O’Leary had lashed out at Montgomery, not specifically threatening him with violence but yelling in court that the judge would pay someday for the mistake that cost O’Leary his career, his marriage, and his life savings.
Gustafson and Reyes investigated O’Leary and checked out his alibi, determining that at the exact time of the murder, his employee ID for the law firm he worked at had registered at the security entrance to the company’s building. It wasn’t a complete alibi because there was no camera at the entrance. But Gustafson and Reyes did not pursue it further after Herstadt became suspect number one.
Bosch wrote a few notes down on a pad—ideas for how he might follow up on both of these tracks. But his gut told him that neither Kirk nor O’Leary was good for the killing, no matter how angry they were at Montgomery. He wanted to move on to the other three tracks to see if they were more viable.
He got up from the table to walk a bit before diving back in. His knee stiffened when he held it in a sitting position too long. He walked out onto the back deck of his house and checked out the view of the Cahuenga Pass. It was only midafternoon but the freeway down below was slow-moving and clogged in both directions. He realized he had worked straight through the morning. He was hungry but decided to put another hour into the case before going down the hill and getting something that would count as both lunch and dinner.
Back inside, the music had stopped and he went to the record stack to make another selection that would keep his momentum up. He decided to stay with a strong bass quarterbacking the band and started flipping through his Ron Carter albums.
He was interrupted by the doorbell.
27
Ballard was at the door.
“I need your help,” she said.
Bosch stepped back and let her enter. He then followed her in, noticing that she had a backpack over her shoulder. As she walked past the dining room table, she looked down at the documents stacked in separate piles.
“Is that the Montgomery case?” she asked.
“Uh, yes,” Bosch said. “We got a copy of the murder book in discovery. I’m just looking at the other—”
“Great, so you’re working here on it.”
“Where else would I—”
“No, that’s good. I want you to help me from here.”
She seemed nervous, ramped up. Bosch wondered if she had slept since finishing her shift.
“What are we talking about here, Renée?” he asked.
“I need you to monitor a wiretap when I’m not able to,” she said. “I have the software on my laptop and I can leave it with you.”
Bosch paused to gather his thoughts before replying.
“This is in regard to the Hilton case?” he asked.
“Yes, of course,” she said. “Our case. You can work on Montgomery, but when a call or text comes in you’ll get an alert on my laptop and you just need to monitor it. It’ll be good that you have something else to do while monitoring.”
She gestured toward the stacks spread on the table.
“Renée,” he said. “Is this a legal tap?”
Ballard laughed.
“Of course,” she said. “I got the search warrant signed this morning. Then spent the next two hours getting it set up with the providers—a landline and a cell. Text messages included. Then I went to the tech unit and had the software put on my laptop.”
“You went to Billy Thornton with this?” Bosch asked.
“Yes, Department 107. What’s wrong, Harry?”
“He wouldn’t have signed off on this without an approval from the department. I thought this was a case we were working. Now command staff knows about it?”
“I had a captain sign off on it and he won’t be a problem for us.”
“Who?”
“Olivas.”
“What?”
“Harry, all you need to know is that it’s a legit wire. We’re good to go.”