Dark Sacred Night

36

Ballard waited for Bella Lourdes by the Coyote Street gate to the fire road leading up into the hills and the abandoned animal training compound. She was looking at the aerial photos Heather Rourke had texted her and deciding whether it would be better to approach the compound on foot or by attempting to drive a vehicle up the rugged fire road.

The compound was not far up and was in an open area that would prevent an unannounced approach by car. She decided she would go on foot and call in the airship if a show of LAPD force was necessary.

When Lourdes arrived, she had a partner with her. She identified him as Detective Danny Sisto and, recognizing Ballard’s concern, vouched for him as someone Bosch himself would implicitly trust. Ballard accepted her assurance and brought them both up to date on the situation. She showed them the photos from the airship’s flyover.

“Okay, I think I know the connection here,” Lourdes said.

“What?” Ballard asked.

Lourdes looked at Sisto for confirmation when she spoke.

“A couple years ago, there was a big Animal Control bust up here,” she said. “This place was like a training center for animals used in film and TV but it had been abandoned for years. The SanFers discovered it and they were running cockfights and dog fights up here. Animal Control got wind of it and shut it down.”

“I remember that,” Sisto said. “It was a big story. I think you guys were part of it.”

This last part he said to Ballard, meaning that the LAPD had joined Animal Control in shutting down the illegal activities at the compound. Ballard remembered nothing about the events or the media attention it got. But the confirmation that this was a place the SanFers knew about and had used previously was important. She knew they were in the right place.

Sisto pointed at her phone, which still had an aerial shot of the compound on the screen.

“We’re going to search the structures, right?” he asked. “Do we have a warrant? This is still private property, abandoned or not.”

“We don’t have time,” Ballard said.

“Exigent circumstances all the way,” Lourdes said.

Looking at the photos, they identified two trails in addition to the fire road that led through the brush and up to the compound. Before they headed up separately, Ballard called Rourke, explained the plan, and told her to stand by. The airship was still on the ground at the nearby LAPD training facility and Rourke assured her that it was ready to respond.

Ballard disconnected and looked at Lourdes and Sisto.

“Okay, let’s go find Harry,” she said.

Ballard had chosen the most direct route to the compound — the fire road. She stayed close to the tall brush that lined it but had the easier climb and the quickest time to the clearing where the compound was located.

At the final bend before the clearing, she started to hear a loud banging sound coming from the direction of the compound. It was intermittent. Five or six heavy impacts and then silence. After a few seconds it would start again.

Ballard pulled her phone to call or text Lourdes but saw she no longer had cell service. She had left the rover in the car since she wanted to keep this operation off the air. Each of them would have to approach on their own now, not knowing the progress of the others.

Ballard reached the clearing, pulling her gun and holding it at her side as she approached the first of two rundown structures. She turned the corner of the front building and saw Lourdes emerge from a trail to her right. There was no sign of Sisto.

Ballard was about to signal Lourdes over so they could clear the first building, when the banging started again. She could tell that it was coming from the other, smaller building set at the back of the clearing. Ballard pointed toward it. Lourdes nodded and they moved in the direction of the sound.

There was a wooden door on rollers that had been slid open four feet. It gave Ballard and Lourdes an angle on the inside of the shed but the structure was rectangular and its full interior could not be seen from outside.

As they got within a few feet of the opening, the banging stopped.

They froze and waited. It didn’t start again. Looking at the open door, Ballard spoke loudly.

“Harry?”

After a moment of silence:

“In here!”

Ballard looked at Lourdes.

“Hold cover. I’ll go in.”

Ballard entered the structure gun up. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust and then she turned to her right. The far wall of the shed was lined with rusting kennels, two stacked rows of four. Bosch was sitting in the third cage on the upper row, knees pulled up to his chest in the small space. Through the steel fencing, Ballard could see that his hands and ankles were tied. There was blood on his shirt and a laceration on his upper left cheek, just below a swollen eye.

Ballard swept the rest of the space with her weapon to make sure.

“It’s clear,” Bosch said. “But they’ll probably come back soon.”

He raised his bound feet and kicked at the door of the kennel, creating the banging sound Ballard had heard from outside the shed. His fruitless effort to break free and escape.

“Okay, hold on, Harry, and we’ll get you out,” she said. “What’s your status? Do we call an RA?”

“No RA,” Bosch said. “I’m good. Couple of bruised ribs, my legs cramping like hell. I probably need stitches under my eye. They didn’t want to beat me up too bad before Tranquillo got here with his dogs.”

Ballard didn’t think Bosch would go for the rescue ambulance. Not his style. She moved close to the cage and studied the padlock holding it closed.

“They didn’t leave the key hidden around here, did they?” she asked.

“Not that I saw,” Bosch said.

“I could shoot the lock but the ricochet might hit you.”

“Only works in movies.”

“Bella? All clear.”

Lourdes entered the shed then.

“Harry, you okay?” she asked urgently.

“I will be as soon as you get me out of here,” Bosch said. “My knee’s killing me.”

“Okay, I’m going back to the car,” said Ballard. “I think we can put a crowbar through the loop and twist it off.”

Bosch looked at Ballard through the fencing.

“Sounds like a plan,” he said. “Did you send the helicopter up here?”

“Yeah,” Ballard said.

Bosch nodded his thanks.

“I’ll be right back,” Ballard said.

Sisto was standing in the clearing, his back to the shed and maintaining a watch. Ballard passed by him on her way to the road down to the vehicles.

“Did you clear the other structure?” she asked.

“All clear,” he said.

“I’m going to need you in a few to twist off a lock.”

“I’m ready. Is he okay?”

“He will be.”

“Great.”

As she was heading down the fire road, her phone regained service and a text from Rourke came through. She was checking in and wanting an update. Ballard called her and told her to continue to stand by. As soon as Bosch was free, they would need to make a decision on what to do: set up a trap for his captors should they return, or clear out and proceed in another way.

She retrieved the crowbar from her city car’s roadside emergency kit, grabbed the rover out of the charging dock, and headed back up the fire road. Halfway up she heard the rat-a-tat sound of a dirt bike behind her. She turned and saw a rider on a lime-green bike come to a stop on Coyote Street and look up at her. He was wearing a matching helmet with a darkly tinted visor. They stared at each other for a few seconds before the rider turned the wheel and walked the bike into a U-turn before taking off.

Knowing that the first option of waiting for the return of the captors was now moot, she called Rourke on the radio and ordered the airship back into flight. She asked Rourke to circle the compound as a backup measure, keeping an eye out for the lime-green dirt bike.

Ballard was out of breath from hustling up the hill to the shed. She handed the crowbar to Sisto like she was passing a baton and he took it inside the shed while she trailed behind. She bent over and put her hands on her thighs and watched as Sisto threaded the crowbar through the loop on the cage door. He then turned the bar and the loop popped off its weld points. He opened the door and Ballard came over and joined Lourdes in carefully helping Bosch out and lowering him to his feet on the dirt floor. Lourdes opened a pocket knife and cut the bindings off his hands and feet.

“Standing up feels good,” he said.

He painfully tried a few steps, putting an arm around each woman’s neck.

“I think we need an RA, Harry,” Lourdes said.

“No, I don’t need that,” Bosch protested. “I can walk. Just let me...”

He dropped his arms from them and hobbled toward the doorway on his own. The sound of the airship off in the distance was coming closer.

“Call them off,” Bosch said. “These guys might be coming back. We can take them then.”

“No, I blew it,” Ballard said. “They know we’re here. Lime-green dirt bike?”

Bosch nodded.

“Yeah, him.”

“He saw me when I went back for the crowbar. Saw the cars.”

“Shit.”

“Sorry.”

“Not your fault.”

Bosch walked out into the clearing and looked up at the sun. Ballard watched him. She guessed that during the night, he might have come to the grim conclusion that he’d never see the big orange ball again.

“Harry, let’s go get you looked at and get some stitches on that cheek,” Lourdes said. “Then we’ll go over gang books and draw warrants for every one of the motherfuckers you identify.”

Ballard knew that the SFPD must have extensive photo books of known members of the SanFers. If Bosch made IDs of those who had revealed themselves to him during the night, then they could make arrests.

“I don’t think they were SanFers,” Bosch said. “I think Tranquillo called in the eMe for this. Probably made sure all of his boys had alibis for the night.”

“And Cortez never showed up?” Lourdes asked.

“Nope. I think he was coming by today. With his dogs.”

Bosch turned to Ballard.

“How did you find me?” he asked.

“Your daughter,” Ballard said. “The tracking app on your phone.”

“Did she come up?”

“No, I told her to stay away from the house.”

“I have to call her. They took my phone and crunched it.”

“You can use mine as soon as it gets service.”

Lourdes pulled her phone and checked it, then held it up.

“Two bars,” she said.

She handed Bosch the phone and he punched in a number. Ballard only heard his side of the conversation.

“Hey, it’s me. I’m okay.”

He listened and then continued in a calming voice.

“No, really. I got a little roughed up but no big deal. Where are you?”

Ballard read the relief on Bosch’s face. Maddie had listened to her and stayed away from the house.

“My phone got crunched, so if you need me, call this number for Detective Lourdes,” he said. “You can also call Detective Ballard. You have that number, right?”

He listened and nodded, even though his daughter wouldn’t see it.

“Uh, no, she’s gone now,” he said. “She left a couple days ago. We can talk about that later.”

He then listened for a long time before making a final response.

“Love you, too. I’ll see you soon.”

He disconnected the phone and handed it back to Ballard. He looked shaken by the call, or maybe the realization of how close he had come to losing everything.

Bosch turned to Lourdes and Sisto.

“I’ll come in tomorrow to look at the eMe book,” he said. “I just want to go home now.”

“You can’t go home,” Ballard said quickly. “It’s a crime scene. So is this. We need to run this by the book: call out Major Crimes, find out how they got to you. How they got to your house.”

“And you need stitches,” Lourdes said.

Ballard saw the realization break on Bosch’s face. He had a long day ahead of him.

“Fine, I’ll go to the ER. And you can call out the troops. But I don’t want to be here anymore.”

Bosch started unsteadily walking toward the dirt road leading down. His limp was more pronounced than when Ballard had seen it before.

She saw him look up at the airship passing overhead. He raised his arm and sent a thumbs-up as a thank-you.

37

By the time Ballard was released by the detectives from Major Crimes it was almost six and she had not slept in more than twenty-four hours. With her next shift starting in five hours it was not worth driving down to the beach or out to her grandmother’s house in Ventura in rush-hour traffic. Instead, she drove south to Hollywood Station. She left her city ride in the parking lot, got a change of clothes out of her van, and then took an Uber to the W Hotel on Hollywood Boulevard. She knew from many previous stays there that they gave a deep law enforcement discount, had a dependable room service menu, and were liberal about checkout time. There was a cot at the station in a storage room known as the Honeymoon Suite, but she knew from experience she couldn’t sleep there. Too many intrusions. She wanted comfort, food, and solid sleep in the limited time she had.

She got a room with a northern view of the Santa Monica Mountains, the Capitol Records Building, and the Hollywood sign. But she closed the drapes, ordered a salad with grilled chicken, and took a shower. A half hour later she was eating on the bed, bundled in an oversize bathrobe, her wet hair slicked back and down her neck.

Her laptop was open on the bed and distracting her from what was now less than four hours of available sleep time. But she couldn’t help herself. She had downloaded the GRASP files from the thumb drive Professor Calder had given her that morning. She had told herself she would make only a quick survey of the data before going to sleep but the shower had helped push back her fatigue and she became transfixed.

What had drawn her attention initially was that there was a murder in the division just two nights before Daisy Clayton was abducted and murdered. This case was quickly cleared by arrest, according to the data.

Ballard was unable to enter the department’s database remotely but was able to access two brief Los Angeles Times reports on the case in the newspaper’s murder blog, which documented every murder that occurred in the city. According to the first story, the killing had occurred in a tattoo parlor on Sunset called ZooToo. A female tattoo artist named Audie Haslam was murdered by a customer. Haslam owned the shop and was working a solo shift when someone entered, pulled a knife and robbed her. Haslam was then walked into a back room used for storage and stabbed multiple times during a brutal struggle. She bled out on the floor.

Ballard’s excitement over a possible connection to the Clayton case was quickly doused when she read the second story, which described the arrest of the suspect, a motorcycle gang affiliate named Clancy Devoux, the following day after police matched a bloody fingerprint from the scene to him. Devoux had several vials of ink and an electric tattoo needle in his possession. Investigators found the victim’s fingerprints on the vials. They also found a fresh tattoo of a skull with a halo scabbing over on Devoux’s forearm. He had apparently come into the shop as a customer and the robbery-murder occurred after Haslam had given him a tattoo. It was not clear if the murder was an impulsive act brought on by something Haslam did or might have said or Devoux’s plan all along.

According to the follow-up report, Devoux was being held without bail in the Men’s Central Jail. That meant he was in custody on the night Daisy Clayton was taken. There was no way he was a suspect in the second murder. Deflated, Ballard still made a note to pull the murder book on the case. Her thinking was that there might be names in the book of people who were in Hollywood at the time and who might have information on the Clayton case. It was a long shot, she knew, but one that might need to be taken.

There were five rapes reported in the four-day span of the GRASP data and Ballard paid careful attention to these as well. She pulled up whatever information she could on her laptop and determined that two of the rapes were classified as assaults by strangers. The other three were considered rapes by acquaintances and not the work of a predator stalking women he didn’t know. One of the stranger cases occurred the day before the Clayton murder and one occurred the day after. It appeared from the digest summaries in the GRASP data that they were not the work of one man. There had been two sexual predators.

Ballard typed the case numbers from the murder and the two rapes into a file request form and emailed it to the archives unit. She asked for expedited delivery of the files but knew that the priority would be low because she was looking for cold files — a closed murder case and two rapes that were now beyond the seven-year statute of limitations.

After sending the email, Ballard felt her excitement wane and her fatigue return. She closed her laptop and left it on the bed. After setting her phone to sound an alarm in three hours, she slipped under the bedcovers, her robe still on, and fell immediately to sleep.

She dreamed that someone was following her but disappeared each time she turned around to look behind her. When the alarm woke her, she was in a deep stage-four sleep and disoriented as she opened her eyes and didn’t recognize her surroundings. It was the thick terry cloth of the robe that finally brought it all back and she realized where she was.

She ordered an Uber and got dressed in the fresh clothes she’d brought from her van. The car was waiting when she took the elevator down and walked out to the hotel’s entrance.

Harry Bosch’s abduction made the sergeant’s report at roll call. It was mentioned since it had occurred in his home, which straddled the line between Hollywood and North Hollywood divisions, and that home was now posted with uniformed and plainclothes officers from Metropolitan Division in an attempt to dissuade Tranquillo Cortez from sending more men to abduct Bosch again.

Otherwise the briefing was short. A cold front had moved across the city from the ocean, and lower temperatures were one of the best crime deterrents around. Sergeant Klinkenberg, a longtime veteran who kept himself in shape and wore the same size uniform as he did on graduation day from the academy, said things were slow out on the streets of Hollywood. As the troops were filing out, Ballard made her way against the flow of bodies heading to the door and up to Klinkenberg, who remained behind the lectern.

“What’s up, Renée?” he asked.

“I missed the last couple of roll calls,” Ballard said. “I just want to check to see if you guys put out the BOLO I gave Lieutenant Munroe about the guy named Eagleton.”

Klinkenberg turned and pointed to the wall where there was a corkboard covered with Wanted flyers.

“You mean that guy?” he said. “Yeah, we put that out last night.”

Ballard saw her flyer for the man who called himself Eagle on the board.

“Any chance you can give it another pop next roll call?” she asked. “I really want this guy.”

“If it’s as slow as tonight, then no problem,” Klinkenberg said. “Get me another stack and I’ll put it out.”

“Thanks, Klink.”

“How’s Bosch? I know you were involved in that.”

“He’s good. He got roughed up and cracked a few ribs. They finally persuaded him to stay the night at Olive View up there. With a guard on the door.”

Klinkenberg nodded.

“He’s a good guy. He got a rough deal around here but he’s one of the good ones.”

“You worked with him?”

“As much as a blue suiter can work with a detective. We were here at the same time. I remember he was a no-bullshit kind of guy. I’m glad he’s okay and I hope they catch the fuckers who grabbed him.”

“They will. And when they do, he and whoever was part of it will go away for a long time. You grab one of us, you cross a line, and that message will go out loud and clear.”

“There you go.”

Ballard went downstairs to the detective bureau, where she set up at a desk near the empty lieutenant’s office. The first thing she did was go online and connect to the live cams at the pet-care center where she had left her dog. It had been more than twenty-four hours since she had seen Lola and she missed her greatly. Ballard had always thought that when she rubbed the dog’s neck or scratched her hard head, she got more fulfillment out of it than Lola did.

She located her on one of the camera screens. She was sleeping on an oval bed. A smaller dog had pushed in and curled up on the bed with her. Ballard smiled and immediately felt the pang of guilt that came every time she caught a case that took over her schedule and required leaving Lola at pet care for extended periods. She had no qualms about the level of care. Ballard checked the cameras often and paid for extra things like walks around the Abbot Kinney neighborhood. But Ballard could not help wondering if she was a bad pet owner and if Lola would be better off being put up for adoption.

Not wanting to dwell on the question, she killed the connection and went to work, spending the next two hours of her shift going through the FI cards put aside for special attention and backgrounding the individuals who had caught the notice of patrol officers in Hollywood in the months surrounding the murder of Daisy Clayton.

At shortly after two a.m. she got her first callout of the night and spent the next two hours interviewing witnesses to a brawl that had broken out at a bar on Highland when the bouncer had attempted to clear the place at closing time and a group of four USC students had objected because they still had full bottles of beer. The bouncer was cut across the back of the head by one of those bottles and was treated at the scene by paramedics. Ballard took his statement first, but he could not say for sure which of the four students had wielded the bottle he was struck with. After securing his confirmation that he wished to press charges against his attacker, the LAPD released him to the paramedics, who transported him to Hollywood Presbyterian. Ballard next spoke to a bartender and the establishment’s manager before moving on to the students.

The students were locked two apiece in the back seats of patrol cars. Ballard had purposely put the two boys who looked the most scared together and had secretly left her digital recorder on the front seat where they couldn’t get it. It was a ploy that every now and then produced an unintended confession.

When she pulled the recorder out this time, she got the opposite of a confession. Both of the young men were angry and scared that they were going to be arrested when neither of them had thrown the bottle at the bouncer.

That left the two in the other car, whom Ballard had not covered with a recorder. She took them out one at a time to be interviewed. The first student denied that he had instigated the brawl or hit the bouncer with the bottle. But when confronted with the twenty-six-beer bar tab they had amassed, he acknowledged that he had overconsumed and was talking trash to the bartender and the bouncer when closing time was announced. He apologized to Ballard for his behavior and told her he was willing to do it to the bar’s staff as well.

The interview with the last student went differently. He announced that he was the son of a lawyer and was fully aware of his rights. He said he would not be waiving his rights or talking to Ballard without an attorney present.

When finished, Ballard conferred with Sergeant Klinkenberg, who was the on-site patrol supervisor.

“What do you think?” he asked. “Somebody’s gotta go for this, right? Otherwise, these little college pissants will just come back up here and do it again.”

Ballard nodded as she looked down at her notebook to get the names right.

“All right, you can kick Pyne, Johnson, and Fiskin loose,” she said. “Book Bernardo — he’s got the shaved head and thinks his lawyer dad will save him. And make sure the three you let go aren’t driving.”

“We already asked,” Klinkenberg said. “They Ubered.”

“Okay, I’ll paper it as soon as I get back to the barn and drop it by the jail.”

“It’s a pleasure doing business with you.”

“Likewise, Klink.”

Back at the bureau it took Ballard less than an hour to write up the incident report and the arrest warrant for Bernardo. After leaving the paperwork with the records clerk, she checked the watch office clock and saw she was down to the last two hours of her shift.

She was dead tired and looking forward to sleeping five or six hours at the W. The thought of sleep reminded her of the dream she’d had in which she felt there was someone following her. It made her turn around as she walked down the empty back hallway to the detective bureau.

There was no one there.

38

The phone call came in at noon, waking Ballard from another deep trench of sleep. The hotel room was dark with the blackout drapes drawn closed. The screen of her phone glowed. It was a number she didn’t recognize, but at least it wasn’t blocked.

She took the call, her voice cracking when she said hello.

“Ballard, it’s Bosch. You asleep?”

“What do you think? What number is this?”

“It’s a landline. I haven’t replaced my cell yet.”

“Oh.”

“You had to work last night? Even though you spent the day saving my ass?”

“I wasn’t on the clock when I did that, Harry. Where are you? Still at Olive View?”

“No, got released this morning. Six stitches, two cracked ribs, and otherwise a clean bill of health. I’m at San Fernando PD.”

“Did they pick up Tranquillo yet?”

“Not yet, but they think they got him surrounded. SIS is sitting on a house in Panorama City where they think he’s holed up. Belongs to his aunt — the one that was married to Uncle Murda. They’re in deep cover, waiting for him to make a move, and then they’ll scoop him up.”

The SIS was the LAPD’s elite surveillance squad that was called in to shadow violent offenders. They carried high-powered weapons and engaged in military-style follow maneuvers. Ballard also knew that SIS tactics had been questioned for decades by the media and law enforcement critics from across the country. Many of their surveillance jobs ended in deadly shoot-outs. The SIS kill count topped all other divisions and units in the department.

“Okay,” Ballard said. “Let’s hope they do.”

“So, what’s on the schedule for today?” Bosch asked, changing the subject.

“Technically, I’m off, but my partner’s not back till Monday and I could use the OT. I was going to work. But my number-one priority is to get up and go see my dog. She probably hates me by now.”

“You have a dog?”

“Yup.”

“Nice. So you see the dog, then what? Where are we on the shake cards?”

It didn’t sound to Ballard like Bosch was a dog person.

“I’ve gone through the finalists and you are welcome to back-read me on them if you want,” she said. “I cleared about twenty and prioritized the rest. I have an appointment at four today with one of the men at the top of the list.”

“An appointment?” Bosch asked. “What do you mean?”

Ballard told him about the shake cards involving the officer who happened upon a porno shoot in a van. She said the two priority names were Kurt Pascal and Wilson Gayley.

“I know somebody in the business,” she added. “She set up a casting meeting with Pascal. He was the one having sex in the van. I’m going to—”

“Where’s the meet?” Bosch asked.

“Canoga Park. She has her own studio. I met her last year on—”

“You shouldn’t go on your own. I’ll go too.”

“You have Tranquillo Cortez to worry about.”

“No, I don’t. I’m just sitting here waiting. But my car’s still at my house. Can you pick me up on the way?”

“Sure. Give me a couple hours to go see my dog.”

“Anything on the GRASP files?”

“Yeah, I picked them up yesterday before the shit hit the fan with you. The professor gave me a thumb drive. I printed hard copies for you before I left work this morning.”

“Good. Did you take a look?”

“Not a deep dive. I did see there was a murder two days before Daisy. But the suspect was in custody before Daisy disappeared.”

“We should probably look at it anyway.”

“I ordered the book last night. Before heading up to you, I’ll see if it’s landed.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

“Good.”

“And Renée?”

“Yes?”

“You saved my life yesterday. When I was in that cage... all I could think about was my daughter and her being alone... and all the things I was going to miss being with her for... anyway, thank you. It’s not much but... yeah, thank you.”

Ballard nodded.

“You know what I was thinking about, Harry? I was thinking about all the cases that would never get solved if you were gone. You still have work to do.”

“I guess. Maybe.”

“I’ll see you in a few hours.”

Ballard disconnected and rolled off the bed. She started getting ready to go see her dog.

39

Bosch was waiting in front of the SFPD headquarters when Ballard pulled up in her van. He eyed the boards on the roof racks as he approached and opened the door. Ballard noticed that the bruise under his eye was now a deep purple and he had a row of butterfly sutures on his upper left cheek.

Bosch got in and checked out the back of the van while pulling his seatbelt over his shoulder.

“Is this like a Scooby-Doo van or something?” he asked. “The surfboards and stuff?”

“No,” Ballard said. “But I thought if I brought my city ride, our guy might see it and rabbit before the interview.”

“You have a point.”

“Besides, it saved me having to go into the station. I called to check on the ZooToo murder book and it hasn’t landed yet. On Saturdays they cut the courier runs in half.”

“‘ZooToo’?”

“It was the name of the tattoo shop where the murder went down.”

“Got it.”

“So, do you think it was wise to be standing out front of the police station like that?”

“If you’re not safe at a police station, then where are you safe? Anyway, how do you want to handle this guy?”

Ballard had been thinking about that for the thirty minutes it took her to get from Hollywood to San Fernando.

“This guy isn’t going to know what this is about,” she said. “So I’m thinking we identify ourselves upfront and draw him in with the Good Samaritan play.”

“‘Good Samaritan play’?” Bosch said.

“Come on, you must’ve done it a million times. Make the guy think he’s helping the police. Draw him in and lock in his story, then turn it upside down. He goes from hero to zero.”

Bosch nodded.

“Got it,” he said. “We always called that the rope a dope.”

“Same thing,” Ballard said.

They discussed the play further as Ballard drove across the north end of the Valley toward Canoga Park, the community where more than half of the world’s legally sanctioned pornography production was located.

They arrived at Beatrice Beaupre’s unmarked warehouse twenty-five minutes before Kurt Pascal was due. Beaupre opened the studio door. She was black with startling green eyes that Ballard thought were probably contacts. The short dreadlocks were new since Ballard had last seen her. She looked past Ballard at Bosch and frowned.

“You didn’t tell me you were bringing somebody,” she said.

“This is my partner on the case,” Ballard said. “Detective Harry Bosch.”

Bosch nodded but remained quiet.

“Well, just as long as we’re clear,” Beaupre said. “I run a business here and I don’t want any trouble. To me, a man means trouble. We already have one coming in, so you, Harry Bosch, you chill out.”

Bosch held his hands up in surrender.

“You’re the boss,” he said.

“Damn right,” Beaupre said. “Only reason I’m doing this and putting my neck out is because your partner saved my skinny ass from death’s door last year. I owe her and I’m going to pay up today.”

Bosch looked at Ballard with a raised eyebrow.

“She saves more people than John the Baptist,” he said.

The joke fell on deaf ears with Beaupre but Ballard stifled a laugh.

They walked past the door to the room Ballard remembered as being Beaupre’s office and continued down a hall, passing a framed poster for a movie called Operation Desert Stormy, which depicted porn star Stormy Daniels straddling a missile in a bathing suit. Ballard scanned the credits for Beaupre’s name but didn’t see it.

“Was that one of your movies?” she asked.

“I wish,” Beaupre said. “All of Stormy’s flicks are in big-time demand. I put the poster up for appearances, you know. Doesn’t hurt if people think you have a part of that action.”

They entered a room at the end of the hallway that was carpeted and had a stripper pole on a one-foot-high stage. There were several folding chairs lined against one wall.

“This is where we do casting,” Beaupre said. “But most of the time it’s for the women. Men, we go off reels and reps. But I figure this is where you should talk to the guy. If he shows.”

“Do you have reason to think he won’t?” Bosch asked.

“It’s a flaky business,” Beaupre said. “People are unreliable. I don’t know anything about this guy. He could be a flake and a no-show. He could be right smack on time. We’ll see. Now I got a question. Am I supposed to be in here with you all?”

“No, that’s not necessary,” Ballard said. “If you can send him back here when he arrives, we’ll take it from there.”

“And no blowback on me, right?” Beaupre said.

“No blowback on you,” Ballard said. “We have you covered.”

“Good,” Beaupre said. “I’ll be in my office. The intercom buzz will go to me and then I’ll bring him to you.”

She left the room, closing the door behind her.

Ballard looked at Bosch and tried to gauge what he was thinking about the setup. She couldn’t read him and was about to ask if he wanted to change the interview plan, when Beaupre stuck her head in through the doorway.

“Imagine that, this guy’s an early bird,” she said. “You two ready?”

Ballard nodded at Bosch and he nodded back.

“Bring him in,” he said.

Ballard looked around at the room. She quickly started moving chairs, putting two side by side and facing a third in the center.

“I wish we had a table,” she said. “It will feel weird without a table.”

“It’s better without one,” Bosch said. “He can’t hide his hands. They tell a lot.”

Ballard was thinking about that when the door opened again and Beaupre led Kurt Pascal in.

“This is Kurt Pascal,” she said. “And this is Renée and... is it Harry?”

“Right,” Bosch said. “Harry.”

Both Ballard and Bosch shook Pascal’s hand and Ballard signaled him to the single chair. He was wearing baggy polyester workout pants and a red pullover hoodie. He was shorter than Ballard had expected and the baggy clothes camouflaged his body shape. His long brown hair was streaked with a slash of red dye and tied up in a topknot.

Pascal hesitated before sitting down.

“You want me to sit or do you want to see my stuff?” he asked.

He hooked his thumbs into the elastic band of his pants.

“We want you to sit,” Ballard said.

She and Bosch both waited for Pascal to sit first, then Ballard sat down. Bosch remained on his feet, leaning his hands on the back of the empty folding chair so he could cut off any move Pascal made toward the room’s door.

“Okay, I’m sitting,” Pascal said. “What do you want to know?”

Ballard pulled her badge and held it up to him.

“Mr. Pascal, Ms. Beaupre doesn’t know this but we’re not really movie producers,” she said. “I’m Detective Ballard, LAPD, and this is my partner, Detective Bosch.”

“What the fuck?” Pascal said.

He started to stand. Bosch immediately took his hands off his chair and stood straight, ready to keep Pascal from the door.

“Sit down, Mr. Pascal,” Ballard ordered. “We need your help.”

Pascal froze. It seemed to be the first time in his life that anyone had asked him for help.

He then slowly sat back down.

“What’s this about?” he asked.

“We’re trying to find a man — a dangerous man — and we think you might be able to help,” Ballard said. “You have a past association with him.”

“Who?”

“Wilson Gayley.”

Pascal started to laugh and then shook his head.

“Are you fucking with me?” he asked.

“No, Mr. Pascal, we’re not fucking with you,” Ballard said.

“Wilson Gayley is dangerous? What did he do? Run a stop sign? Flip off a nun?”

“We can’t share the details of the case we’re working. It’s a confidential investigation and anything you tell us will be confidential as well. Do you know where he is at the moment?”

“What? No. I haven’t seen that guy in a couple years, at least. Somebody had a party for him when he got out of prison, and I saw him there. But that was like three years ago.”

“So you have no idea where he is these days?”

“I have an idea where he isn’t and that’s in L.A. I mean, if he was here, I would have seen him around, you know?”

Pascal shoved his hands into the front pocket of the hoodie. Ballard realized he could hide his hands even without a table.

“How did you know Wilson Gayley in the first place?” Bosch asked.

Pascal shrugged like he was not sure how to answer.

“He was making street movies,” he said. “Shorts. He had a name for them. It was like a series. I think it was called Hollywood Whores or something like that. He hired me in a room like this after seeing my package, you know? And then we went driving around, and he’d pay street girls to get in and fuck me while he filmed it. That was how I got my start in the business, you know?”

Ballard and Bosch stared at him for a long moment before Ballard continued the questioning.

“When was this?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” Pascal said. “Ten years ago. Thereabouts.”

“What kind of vehicle did you use?” Bosch asked.

“Vehicle? It was a van,” Pascal said. “It was an old VW like they had on that show Lost. People always made that connection. Two-tone. White on the top, blue on the bottom.”

“And the women? Who talked them into getting in the van?” Ballard asked.

“That was him mostly,” Pascal said. “He had a silver tongue. He used to say he could sell matches to the devil. But there was no shortage of women who would get in. Most of them were pros, anyway.”

“Prostitutes,” Ballard said.

“That’s right,” Pascal said.

“Were some of them runaways?” Ballard asked.

“I suppose so,” Pascal said. “We didn’t really ask a bunch of questions, you know? If they got in the van, they got paid, and they knew what they had to do.”

“Underage girls?” Ballard tried.

“Uh... no,” Pascal said. “That would be illegal.”

“It’s all right,” Ballard said. “Ten years ago — the statute of limitations has passed. You can tell us.”

Ballard’s statement about the statute of limitations wasn’t exactly true but it didn’t matter. Pascal wasn’t going there.

“No, nobody underage,” he said. “I mean, we checked IDs but somebody here and there could’ve had a phony, you know what I’m saying? Not our fault if they were lying.”

“How often did you do this?” Bosch asked.

“I don’t know,” Pascal said. “A couple times a month. He’d call me up when he needed me. But he was going out with different guys on different nights. To have variety in the product, you know?”

“You know any names of those other guys?” Bosch asked.

“No, not really,” Pascal said. “Been a long time. But Wilson would.”

“But you don’t know where he is?”

“No, I don’t. Scout’s honor.”

He pulled his right hand out of the hoodie’s front pocket and held it up as if to show his sincerity. Ballard noticed that he was getting happy feet — involuntarily shaking his foot as he got increasingly nervous about the interview. She was sure Bosch had picked up on it as well.

“Did you ever see Gayley get mad or upset with any of the women in the van?” Ballard asked.

“Not that I remember,” Pascal said. “So, all these questions. What’s this all about? I thought you wanted me to help with an investigation or something.”

“You are helping,” Ballard said. “I can’t tell you how because of the case, but you are definitely helping. The thing is, we really need to locate Gayley. Are you sure you can’t help us with that? Give us a name. Somebody else who knows him.”

“I got no names,” Pascal said. “And I really need to go.”

He stood up again but Bosch took his hands off the back of his chair once more and moved a few steps toward the door to block Pascal’s angle to it. Pascal immediately read the situation and sat back down. He slapped his palms down on his thighs.

“You can’t hold me like this,” he said. “You haven’t even given me my rights or anything.”

“We’re not holding you, Mr. Pascal,” Ballard said. “We’re just talking here, and there’s no need for rights at this stage. You’re not a suspect. You are a citizen aiding the police.”

Pascal reluctantly nodded.

“I’m now going to show you some photos of individuals and I want to see if you recognize any of them,” Ballard said. “We want to know if any of these women were ever with Wilson Gayley.”

From her briefcase Ballard pulled out a standard six-pack — a file with six windows cut into it and displaying six photos of different young women. One of the photos was a shot of Daisy Clayton that Ballard had gotten out of the online murder book. It was a posed shot taken at her school in Modesto when Daisy was in the seventh grade. She was smiling at the camera, makeup covering acne on her cheeks, but she looked older than her years and there was already a distant look in her eyes.

Another photo was a mug shot of Tanya Vickers, the prostitute who had been with Pascal and Gayley on the night they had been rousted by the cops and their shake cards were written. While their interaction probably amounted to just that one night, including her photo was intended as a test of Pascal’s veracity.

Ballard flipped the cover of the file back and handed it to Pascal.

“Take your time,” Ballard said.

“I don’t need to,” Pascal said. “I don’t know any of them.”

He reached out to hand the file back but Ballard didn’t take it.

“Look again, Mr. Pascal,” Ballard said. “It’s important. Did any of those women ever get into the van with you and Gayley?”

Pascal withdrew the file and impatiently looked again.

“You know how many women I’ve fucked in ten years?” he asked. “I can’t remember every — maybe her and maybe her.”

“Which ones?” Ballard asked

Pascal turned the file and pointed to two of the photos. One was Vickers. The other was Daisy Clayton.

Ballard took the file back and pointed to the photo of Daisy.

“Let’s start with her,” Ballard said. “You recognize her from the van?”

“I don’t know,” Pascal said. “Maybe. I can’t remember.”

“Think, Mr. Pascal. Look again. How do you recognize her? From where?”

“I told you. I don’t know. It was from back at that time, I guess.”

“She got into the van with you and Gayley?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. I’ve fucked about a thousand women since then. How am I supposed to remember them all?”

“It must be difficult. What about her?”

She pointed to the photo of Vickers.

“Same thing,” Pascal said. “I think I remember her from back then. She mighta been in the van.”

“Where in Hollywood would Gayley stop the van to pick up women for his films?” Ballard asked.

“All over the place. Wherever the whores were, you know?”

“Santa Monica Boulevard?”

“Yeah, probably.”

“Hollywood Boulevard?”

“Sure.”

“How about Western Avenue? Was that a place you stopped?”

“Most likely — if that’s where the pros were working.”

“Do you remember specifically stopping at Hollywood and Western to recruit women for the films?”

“No. Been too long.”

“Do you remember the name Daisy from back then?”

“Uh...”

He shook his head. Ballard knew she wasn’t getting anywhere. She went in a new direction.

“What was in the van?” she asked.

“You mean, like, inside the VW?” Pascal asked.

“Yes.”

“I don’t know. Stuff, you know? He always had a fucking carton of rubbers. He had to. And there was a mattress. All the seats were taken out and a mattress was on the floor. And he had extra sheets and all of that. Some costumes. Sometimes the girls would only work if they had on a disguise, you know?”

“How’d he store it?”

“He, uh, he had boxes and cartons and shit that he put it all in.”

“What kind of cartons?”

“You know, like plastic containers for putting shit in.”

“How big?”

“What?”

“How big were the plastic containers?”

“I don’t know. Like this.”

He used his hands to shape a box in the air in front of him. He delineated a square that was maybe two feet by two feet. It would be difficult to fit a body into such a space.

“I really gotta go now,” Pascal said. “I have a wax at five. I’ve got work tomorrow.”

“Just a few more questions,” Ballard said. “You’ve been very helpful. Do you know what happened to the van you and Mr. Gayley used?”

“No, but I doubt it’s around anymore. It was a real piece of shit back then. What else?”

“The films you made in the van with Mr. Gayley, do you have copies?”

Pascal laughed.

“Fuck, no. I wouldn’t keep that shit. But it’s all gotta be out there somewhere on the internet, right? Everything’s on the net.”

Ballard looked at Bosch to see if he had any questions. He gave a quick head shake.

“Can I go now?” Pascal said.

“Do you have a driver’s license?” Ballard asked.

“No, I don’t drive anymore. I Uber.”

“Where do you live, then?”

“Why do you need that?”

“In case we have follow-up questions.”

“You can call my agent. He’ll find me.”

“You’re not going to give me your home address?”

“Not if I don’t have to. I don’t want it in some police file somewhere, you know?”

“What about your cell-phone number?”

“Same answer.”

Ballard stared at him for a long moment. She knew there would be many ways to find Pascal later. She wasn’t worried about that. The moment was more about cooperation and what his refusal meant in terms of her suspicions about him. It was also the moment when she needed to make a decision. If she wanted to shift things and go at him hard with questions about Daisy Clayton and his possible involvement with her murder, then she would need to advise him of his rights to have an attorney present and to choose not to speak to the police. Considering the reluctance to talk that Pascal had already shown, such an advisement would most likely bring the interview to an abrupt end and put Pascal on notice that they considered him a suspect.

She decided it was too soon for that. She hoped Bosch was on the same page with her.

“Okay, Mr. Pascal, you can go now,” she finally said. “We’ll find you if we need to.”

40

Ballard and Bosch didn’t discuss the interview until after they thanked Beatrice Beaupre for her help and got back into the van.

“So?” she asked.

“I’d put him on the long-shot list,” Bosch said.

“Really? Why?”

“I think if he had anything to do with Daisy, he wouldn’t have said what he said.”

“What do you mean? He didn’t say shit.”

“He picked out her picture. Not a good move if he and Gayley killed her.”

“Nobody said the guy’s a genius. He makes his living with his dick.”

“Look, don’t get upset. I’m just giving you my reaction. I’m not saying he’s in the clear or we should drop it. I’m just saying I didn’t get the vibe, you know what I mean?”

“I’m not upset. I’m just not ready to move on from these guys yet.”

She started the van’s engine.

“Where to?” she asked. “Back to San Fernando?”

“You mind taking me to my house?” Bosch asked.

“Is it safe?”

“Supposedly they put a car on it. I’m just going to get some fresh clothes and my Jeep. Be good to get mobile again. You going that way?”

“Not a problem.”

Ballard backed out of the parking slot in front of the warehouse and drove off. She headed south on surface streets, wanting to avoid the freeways at this point in the day. As she drove, she thought about Bosch’s take on Pascal and the interview. She had to decide if her suspicions were based on solid underpinnings of circumstantial evidence or simply her hopes that a creep like Pascal would be guilty because society would be better off without him. After a while she had to admit to herself that she may have let her feelings about Pascal and what he did for a living skew her judgment of things. Her way of acknowledging this to Bosch was indirect.

“So, there’s still some of the culled shake cards to go through and run down,” she said. “You going to be around tonight? We could split them up.”

“Hey, I’m not telling you to drop Pascal,” Bosch said. “Let’s do a deep dive on Gayley. We locate him and see if what he says matches up with Pascal. We get them telling different stories and we might have something.”

Ballard nodded.

“We can do that,” she said.

They drove in silence for a while, with Ballard thinking about next moves in trying to locate Gayley. She had only scratched the surface in her prior search.

Bosch directed her to take a shortcut on Vineland up into the hills. It would lead them to Mulholland Drive and that would lead them to his street.

“So, have you figured out how they knew where you lived?” Ballard asked. “The men who grabbed you, I mean.”

“Nobody knows for sure,” Bosch said. “But once Cortez was wired in through Luzon, he could have had people on my tail since early in the week. I drove home with them on me.”

“Is Luzon the cop who set you up?”

“He was the leak that got my witness killed. How much he knew about setting me up is not yet determined.”

“Where is he?”

“The hospital. He tried to kill himself. He’s still in a coma.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah.”

“So, the SIS setup on Cortez — how’d they get PC if Luzon’s in a coma and nobody else is talking?”

“You don’t need probable cause to watch somebody. And if he flushes, they have a reason to pull him over. Child support. He’s got a judgment against him for three kids and a standing subpoena from a children’s court judge.”

That darkened the picture for Ballard. If the SIS was operating without probable cause to arrest Cortez, then following and pulling him over would seemingly have only one purpose; to see if he made the wrong move.

She dropped that part of the conversation. In a few minutes she turned off Mulholland onto Woodrow Wilson Drive. Then, as they came around the last bend before his house, Bosch leaned tensely forward and released his seatbelt.

“Damn it,” he said.

“What?” Ballard asked.

There was a patrol car parked in front of the house. There was also a Volkswagen Beetle. As she got closer, she could read the Chapman sticker on the back window.

“Your daughter?” she asked.

“I told her not to come up,” Bosch said.

“So did I.”

“I’ve got to send her back, get her out of here.”

Ballard pulled her van to a stop next to the patrol car and showed her badge to the officer behind the wheel. She didn’t recognize him and saw that the car’s roof code was from North Hollywood Division. They lowered their windows at the same time.

“I’ve got Harry Bosch here,” Ballard said. “He’s got to pick up some things inside.”

“Roger that,” the officer said.

“When did his daughter arrive?”

“A couple hours ago. She drove up, showed me her ID. I let her go in.”

“Roger that.”

Bosch got out of the car and checked up and down the street for any vehicles or anything else that didn’t belong. He looked back in at Ballard before closing the door.

“Are you going into the station from here?” he asked.

“Not yet,” Ballard said. “I’m heading downtown and taking the spotter from the airship yesterday to dinner. I called in a favor on that flyover.”

“Hold on, then. Let me go in and get some money. I want to buy dinner.”

“Don’t worry about it, Harry. We just go to the Denny’s by Piper Tech. It’s not a big deal.”

“Really? What about something nicer? Let me send you over to the Nickel Diner. I know Monica there. I’ll call and she’ll take good care of you.”

“Denny’s is good, Harry. Convenient. It’s right across from Piper.”

Bosch nodded toward his house.

“I’ve got to deal with my daughter and then I have something else to do,” he said. “But I want to meet this guy sometime — the spotter. To say thanks.”

“It’s not necessary and it’s not a guy. She was just doing her job.”

Bosch nodded.

“Well, tell her thanks for me,” he said. “The sound of that chopper — it changed everything.”

“I’ll tell her,” Ballard said. “You coming by the station later to help me look for Gayley?”

“Yeah, I’ll get by later on. Thanks for the ride.”

“Anytime, Harry.”

She watched him cross in front of the van and go to the front door. He had to knock because his keys were one of the things left behind when he had been abducted. Soon the door was opened and Ballard caught a glimpse of a young woman as she grabbed Bosch into an embrace and closed the door.

Ballard stared at the door for a few seconds and then drove off.