The Night Fire (Harry Bosch #22) - Michael Connelly Page 0,86

then started around the table toward the door.

“Okay, I’ll do it,” Dupree said.

Ballard looked back at him and nodded.

“Okay, we’ll set it up.”

36

Ballard rolled out of work at six a.m. on Saturday morning after an uneventful shift on Watch Three. She had spent most of the night writing a detailed summary of the events that took place the day before on the Hilton investigation. This was a report she wasn’t turning in to anyone yet. She was operating completely off the reservation on the Hilton case with the hope that it would be easier to ask for forgiveness than permission—especially if she bagged Elvin Kidd. In that case, the summary report might be needed at a moment’s notice.

After leaving the station, she drove out to Venice and did a short paddle through the morning mist, with Lola sitting on the board’s nose like the figurehead on the prow of an old ship. After getting cleaned up, she waited until 8:30 to make a call, hoping she would not be waking anybody up.

When Ballard had worked at RHD, everybody had a go-to in every part of the casework: a go-to forensic tech, a go-to judge for warrants, a go-to prosecutor for advice and for filing charges on the wobblers—the cases that took some fortitude and imagination to pursue in court. Ballard’s go-to at the District Attorney’s Office had always been Selma Robinson, a solid and fearless deputy D.A. in the Major Crimes Unit who preferred the challenge cases over the gimmes.

Because the nature of the midnight beat was to turn cases over to other detectives in the morning, Ballard had gone to the D.A.’s Office few times in the four years she had been assigned to the late show. In fact, she was not sure the cell number she was calling for Selma Robinson was still good.

But it was. Robinson answered in a sharp, alert voice, and it was clear she had kept Ballard’s cell on her contacts list.

“Renée? Wow. Are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine. I didn’t wake you?”

“No, I’ve been up for a while. What’s up? It’s good to hear your voice, girl.”

“You too. I’ve got a case. I want to talk to you about it if you have some time. I’m living in Venice now. I could come your way, maybe buy you breakfast. I know this is straight out of the blue but—”

“No, it’s fine. I was just about to get something. Where do you want to meet?”

Ballard knew Robinson lived in Santa Monica on one of the college streets.

“How about Little Ruby’s?” she asked.

The restaurant was just off Ocean Boulevard in Santa Monica and just about equidistant for both of them. It was also dog-friendly.

“I’ll be there by nine,” Robinson said.

“Bring your earbuds,” Ballard said. “There’s some wiretap material.”

“Will do. You’re bringing Lola, I hope.”

“I think she’d love to see you.”

Ballard got to the restaurant first and found a spot in a corner that would give them some privacy to review the case. Lola went under the table and lay down, but then immediately jumped up when Robinson arrived and Lola remembered her old friend.

Robinson was tall and thin and Ballard had never known her to keep her hair in anything but a short Afro that was stylish and saved her time every morning while getting ready for battle in the courts. She was at least a decade older than Ballard and her first name had a deep history, her parents having met during the historic civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.

Ballard and Robinson hugged briefly but the prosecutor fawned over Lola for a full minute before sitting and getting down to the business of breakfast and crime.

“So like I said on the phone, I’m working on a case,” Ballard began. “And I want to know if I have it or not.”

“Well, then let’s hear it,” Robinson said. “Pretend I’m in my office and you’ve come over to file. Convince me.”

As succinctly as she could, Ballard presented the Hilton case, going over the details of the murder and then the long period the case spent gathering dust in a retired detective’s home study. She then moved into the investigation conducted in more recent days, and how it finally focused on Elvin Kidd and Ballard’s theory about the true motive for the killing. She revealed that she had flipped Marcel Dupree, stopped a murder from occurring in Men’s Central, and extracted a confession that could take Kidd off the streets for good. But what she wanted