The Dark Hours

36

Ballard called for a car from the nearby North Hollywood Division to transport Abbott to the Van Nuys jail, where he was booked on suspicion of murder. After that, she dropped Bosch off at his house and drove to Hollywood Station, where she spent the next three hours working up the paperwork in support of the arrest and putting together the case package for both the District Attorney’s Office and Ross Bettany, who would presumably take it to a prosecutor in follow-up of the arrest.

By nine, she was printing it and laying the pages on the three rings of the murder book when Bettany showed up with his partner, Denise Kirkwood.

“This is your lucky day,” Ballard said.

“How so?” Bettany asked.

“I got you an insider willing to talk to save his own ass. And I booked your first suspect about four hours ago.”

“You did what?”

Ballard snapped together the rings in the binder, closed it, and held it up to him.

“It’s all here,” she said. “Read through and call me if you have any questions. I’ve been going all night, so I’m out of here. Good luck, but I don’t think you’ll need it. It’s all there.”

Ballard left Bettany with his mouth open and Kirkwood with a you-go-girl smile on her face. She got back to her car and drove west until she reached an industrial corridor that ran along the 405 freeway. With the sound of the elevated freeway buzzing overhead, she sat on a bench in a fenced dog yard with Pinto, the rescued Chihuahua mix that was hers for the taking. The brown-and-white dog weighed nine pounds and had the long snout of a terrier and a hopeful look in his amber eyes. She was given a half hour to decide but took less than ten minutes.

The dog came with a metal crate for transport, a five-pound bag of dry food pellets, and a leash with an attached dispenser of biodegradable poop bags. Ballard took him to the beach off Channel Road at the mouth of Santa Monica Canyon, where she sat cross-legged on a blanket and let him run off the leash.

Here, the beach was at its deepest point along the county coastline and nearly deserted. The sky was clear, and there was a slight chill coming in off the Pacific on a wind strong enough to kick sand up onto the blanket. Ballard could see all the way to Catalina Island and the outline of the cargo tankers coming out of the port behind Palos Verde.

The dog had been in a kennel for five weeks. Ballard loved watching him dart back and forth in front of her on the sand. He instinctively knew not to stray far from her. He checked on her every few seconds and seemed to realize she had saved him from a bleak future.

When the dog finally grew tired, he crawled into Ballard’s lap to sleep. She petted him and told him everything was going to be all right now.

He was there when Ballard took the call she had been expecting since leaving Bettany and Kirkwood with the murder book. It was Lieutenant Robinson-Reynolds calling to inform her she had been suspended for insubordination until further notice. The lieutenant was formal and used a monotone in the delivery of the notice, but then he went off the record and expressed his disappointment in her in terms of what her actions meant to him.

“You made me look bad, Ballard,” he said. “You embarrassed me, running through the night on this — and I have to hear it first from West Bureau command? I hope they roll you out of the department for this. And I’ll be right here, waiting to help.”

He disconnected before hearing Ballard’s response.

“They tried to kill me,” she said into the dead phone.

She put the phone down on the blanket and gazed out to the blue-black sea. Insubordination was a firing offense. Suspended until further notice meant that the department had twenty days to reinstate her or take her to a Board of Rights hearing, which was essentially a trial, in which a guilty verdict could result in termination.

Ballard was not troubled by all of this. She had expected things to lead to this from the moment she had hidden Bonner’s burner phone in her junk drawer. That was when she had left the confines of acceptable police work.

She picked up the phone and called the one person she believed cared about any of this.

“Harry,” she said. “I’m out. Suspended.”

“Shit,” he said. “I guess we knew that was coming. How bad? CUBO?”

Conduct Unbecoming of an Officer was a lesser crime than insubordination. It was hopeful thinking on Bosch’s part.

“No. Insubordination. My lieutenant says they’re going to try to fire me. And he’s going to help.”

“Fuck him.”

“Yeah.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. Probably just spend a couple days on the beach. Surf, play with my dog, think things through.”

“You have a new dog?”

“Just got him. We’re getting along real nice.”

“You want a new job to go with your new dog?”

“You mean with you? Sure.”

“Not much of a fallback but you would easily pass the background check.”

Ballard smiled.

“Thanks, Harry. Let’s see how things play out.”

“I’m here if you need me.”

“I know it.”

Ballard disconnected and put the phone down. She looked out at the sea, where the wind was kicking up whitecaps on the waves bringing in the tide.

37

Ballard turned off her phone Tuesday night, got into her sweats, and slept for ten hours on her living room couch, still not ready to return to the bedroom, where she had almost died. She woke up Wednesday in pain, her body sore from the struggle with Bonner as well as the uneven support provided by the couch. Pinto was curled up asleep at her feet.

She turned on her phone. Though suspended, she had not been removed from the department-wide alert system. She saw that she had gotten a text announcing that all divisions and units in the department were going on tactical alert again following civil disturbances in Washington, D.C., and expected protests locally. It meant the entire department would mobilize into twelve-hour shifts in order to put more officers out on the streets. By prior designation Ballard was on B shift, working 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. under the response plan.

She reached for the TV remote and put on CNN. Her screen immediately filled with the images of people, hordes of them, storming the U.S. Capitol. She flipped channels and it was on every network and cable news channel. The commentators were calling it an insurrection, an attempt to stop the certification of the presidential election two months before. Ballard watched in stunned silence for an hour without moving from the couch, before finally sending a text to Lieutenant Robinson-Reynolds.

She did not have to wait long for a response.

She then thought of responding with a snarky comment about being accused of insurrection within the department but let it pass. She got up, slipped on shoes, and took Pinto out for his first walk in the neighborhood. She went up to Los Feliz Boulevard and back, the streets almost deserted. Pinto stayed close, never pulling the slack out of the leash. Lola had always pulled the line tight, charging forward, all seventy pounds of her. Ballard missed that.

After coming home and feeding Pinto some of the food from Wags and Walks, Ballard returned to the couch. For the next two hours, remote in hand, she flipped channels and watched the disturbing images of complete lawlessness, trying to comprehend how divisions in the country had grown so wide that people felt the need to storm the Capitol and try to change the results of an election in which 160 million people had voted.

Tired of watching and thinking about what she was seeing, she packed two energy bars for herself as well as some more food for the dog. In the garage, she put both her paddleboard and the mini onto the roof racks of the Defender. She was about to hop in, when a voice came from behind.

“You’re going surfing?”

She whipped around. It was the neighbor. Nate from 13.

“What?” Ballard asked.

“You’re going surfing?” Nate said. “The country’s falling apart, there are protests all over the place, and you’re going surfing. You’re a cop — shouldn’t you be... I don’t know... doing something?”

“The department is on twelve-hour shifts,” Ballard said. “If everybody went to work now, there’d be nobody to work at night.”

“Oh, okay.”

“What are you doing?”

“What do you mean?”

“What the fuck are you doing, Nate? You people hate us. You hate the cops until the shit comes down and then you need us. Why don’t you go out there and do something?”

Ballard immediately regretted saying it. The frustrations of everything in her job and life had just misfired at the wrong person.

“You are paid to protect and serve,” Nate said. “I’m not.”

“Yeah, okay,” Ballard said. “That’s fine.”

“Is that a dog in there?”

He pointed through the window at Pinto.

“Yeah, that’s my dog,” Ballard said.

“You need HOA approval for that,” Nate said.

“I read the rules. I can have a dog under twenty pounds. He’s not even ten.”

“You still have to have approval.”

“Well, you’re the president, right? Are you telling me you don’t approve of me having a dog in an apartment where somehow a man was able to get around building security and break in and assault me?”

“No. I’m just saying there are rules. You have to submit a request and then get the approval.”

“Sure. I’ll do that, Nate.”

She left him there and got in the Defender. Pinto immediately jumped in her lap and licked her chin.

“It’s okay,” Ballard said. “You aren’t going anywhere.”

An hour later, she was paddling west along the Sunset break, the little dog out on the nose of the board, standing alert but shaking. It was a new experience for him.

The sun and salt air worked deeply on her muscles and eased the tension and pain. It was a good workout. She went ninety minutes — forty-five minutes toward Malibu and forty-five back. She was exhausted when she climbed into the tent she had pitched on the sand and took a nap, with Pinto sleeping on the blanket at her feet.

Ballard did not return home until after dark. She had purposely left her phone behind and found that she had accumulated several messages throughout the day. The first was from Harry Bosch, checking in to see how she was faring and to mention that he thought he had seen everything but never expected to ever see the Capitol stormed by its own citizens.

The second message was a formal notification that a Board of Rights hearing had been scheduled for her to appear at in two weeks at the Police Administration Building. Ballard saved the message. She knew she would need to have a representative from the union with her as a defense rep. She would make that call later. But the very next message was from the union and an officer named Jim Lawson saying that they had also received notice of the Board of Rights hearing and were prepared to defend her. Ballard saved that one too and moved on to the next message, which had come in at 2:15 p.m. from Ross Bettany.

“Yeah, uh, Ballard, Ross Bettany here. Give me a call back. Have something to talk to you about. Thanks.”

The last message came in two hours later and was from Bettany again, his voice a little more intense.

“Bettany here. Really need a call back from you. This guy Hoyle and his lawyer, he says he’ll only talk to you, only trusts you. So we need to figure something out. We obviously need to start talking to the guy. We need to file on Abbott by tomorrow a.m. or the case goes pumpkins. Call me. Thanks.”

After an arrest and booking, the district attorney had forty-eight hours to file charges and arraign the suspect or reject the case. The fact that Hoyle was lawyered up also added a complication. Ballard guessed that Bettany had taken what she had given him to the DA, and the filing deputy had wanted more — as in Hoyle giving a formal, voluntary statement as opposed to the surreptitious recording she had made in the car.

Bettany had left his cell phone number with both messages. Ballard thought that calling him back might violate the orders to engage in no police work during her suspension, but she called anyway.

“You know I’m suspended, right?”

“I know, Ballard, but you left me a shit sandwich here.”

“Bullshit, I gave you a full package you just needed to walk down to the DA.”

“Yeah, I did that, but they said no go.”

“Who was the filing deputy?”

“Some stiff named Donovan. Thinks he’s F. Lee Bullshit.”

“What’s wrong with the package?”

“Your taping Hoyle without his knowledge. Hoyle already has a lawyer — this hotshot guy Dan Daly — and he’s screaming entrapment. So Donovan looks at the tape and has a problem with it. First of all, who were you talking to when you put down the window and said you might need to transport Hoyle?”

Ballard froze for a moment. She realized she had lowered the window and talked to Bosch while recording Hoyle. It was part of the play but it had been a mistake.

“Ballard?” Bettany prompted.

“It was Bosch, the guy who worked the original case. The Albert Lee murder.”

“Isn’t he retired?”

“Yeah, he’s retired, but I went to him about the case because the murder book’s gone. I needed him to tell me about that investigation and we were together when the Hoyle thing went down.”

There was a silence while Bettany digested this incomplete explanation.

“Well, that’s not a good look, but that’s not the problem here,” he finally said. “The problem is you told Bosch you might need a transport, and Donovan says that’s a threatening and coercive tactic that could get the whole tape tossed. He told me to walk Hoyle through it again, but Hoyle says he will only talk to you. And that’s kind of funky, because you tricked the guy but he only trusts you. That’s where we stand.”

Now Ballard was silent as she considered this change of fortune. A mistake she had made was now working in her favor.

“They have to reinstate me if they want me to do the interview,” she said.

“That’s about the size of it, yes,” Bettany said. “Meantime, Donovan is working on a qualified immunity deal with Daly.”

“Have you told anybody about this?”

“My L-T knows, and he’s been talking to yours, I guess. Somebody at Hollywood.”

Ballard almost smiled, thinking about the jam Robinson-Reynolds was in, having doubled down on her suspension that morning with his terse reply to her text and now needing her back on the job to salvage a multiple-murder case.

“Where is Hoyle?” she asked.

“He’s home, I guess,” Bettany said. “Or wherever Daly has him stashed.”

“Okay, I’ll call my L-T and get back to you.”

“Make it quick, Ballard, okay? We don’t want to kick this guy Abbott loose. He has the funds and the connections to disappear, if you ask me.”

Ballard disconnected and immediately called Robinson-Reynolds on his cell. He didn’t bother with any sort of greeting and Ballard wasn’t expecting one.

“Ballard, you talk to Bettany?”

“Just did.”

“Well, it looks like you fell into the shit with your antics the other night and are coming out smelling like a rose.”

“Whatever. Am I reinstated or what? We have to get to Hoyle tonight. Our forty-eight on Jason Abbott is up in the morning.”

“I’m working on it. Set up the interview tonight. You’ll be reinstated by the time you get in the room.”

“Is that permanent reinstatement or temporary.”

“We’ll see, Ballard. It won’t be my call.”

“Thanks, L-T.”

She said it with cheery sarcasm. She disconnected and then called Bettany back.

“It’s a go,” she said. “Set it up for tonight and then call me.”

“Roger that,” Bettany said.

38

The reinterview of Dennis Hoyle took place at 8 p.m. at the Van Nuys Division detective bureau. Bettany, Kirkwood, and Donovan were on hand and prepped Ballard on key points that she needed to get on the record. Hoyle was accompanied by his attorney, Daniel Daly, who vetted the immunity deal his client signed. Hoyle was getting off easy, agreeing to plead guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud in exchange for his testimony against Abbott and possibly others. He would take his chances in front of a judge as far as sentencing went. The deal was predicated on his honesty and his claim that he had never engaged in the planning of or had foreknowledge of the murders of people who had accepted loans from the consortium. It was the sweetheart of all sweetheart deals on paper, but Donovan and his superiors had made the call. The unspoken plan most likely included an effort to break the agreement by catching him in a lie. And barring that, the sentencing judge could always be informed of the extent of the crimes Hoyle had engaged in with his cohorts and max out the sentence for the conspiracy plea.

Ballard told Bettany and the others to stay outside the interrogation room and watch the interview on a screen. Since Hoyle claimed he would talk only to her, she didn’t want him to think she and Bettany were a team. She entered the small gray room and sat across from Hoyle and his attorney. She put her phone on her thigh, a concession to Donovan that would allow him to message her if he didn’t like what he saw on the screen.

“First off, I have to make the legal boundaries of this interview clear,” Ballard said. “You need to acknowledge that if you lie directly to me or lie in any way by omission, then the deal is off and you will be prosecuted for conspiracy to commit murder.”

Hoyle opened his mouth to answer but Daly reached his arm out like a father stopping a child from walking blindly into the street.

“He understands,” Daly said. “That’s in the deal.”

“I still want to hear it from him,” Ballard said.

“I understand,” Hoyle said. “Let’s get this over with.”

“I know it’s not in the deal but I also want something else,” Ballard said.

“What?” Daly said.

“I want him to give up any and all ownership rights in the property that was owned by Javier Raffa,” Ballard said.

“Forget it,” Daly said.

“Then you can forget this deal,” Ballard said. “I’m not going to let him walk away from this and then take that place away from the family of the man he and his asshole buddies had killed.”

Immediately her phone buzzed and Ballard looked down at the message from Donovan.

She looked back up and directly at Hoyle, hoping her righteous glare would make him submit.

This time Hoyle put his arm out to stop his attorney.

“It’s okay,” he said. “I’ll agree to that.”

“You don’t have to,” Daly said. “We already negotiated the deal, and that’s not—”

“I said it’s okay,” Hoyle said. “I want to do it.”

Ballard nodded.

“The deputy district attorney will prepare an amendment to the deal,” she said.

She paused for a moment to see if Daly had more to say. He didn’t.

“Okay, let’s start,” Ballard said.

And so it went. Hoyle’s story did not change much from the first time he told it to Ballard. This time, though, she asked questions designed to elicit more about the origins of the factoring consortium and whether the plan from the start was to eventually murder those who borrowed its money. Ballard knew that eventually lawyers for Abbott and anybody else taken down in the investigation would study the transcript of the interview for any crack through which reasonable doubt might slip into the case.

The interview wrapped near midnight and then Hoyle was taken by Bettany and Kirkwood to be booked and released on the conspiracy charge. Meanwhile, Donovan filed formal charges against Abbott with a no-bail hold until his arraignment. Bail would assuredly be argued then.

Soon after concluding the interview and watching them take Hoyle away, Ballard got a text from Robinson-Reynolds. He didn’t waste words.

She didn’t bother to reply. She went home without a thank-you from anybody. She had turned what was supposed to look like a random New Year’s Eve accident into a credible multiple-murder case, but because she had stepped at least one foot over the line, she needed to be pushed to the side and even hidden if possible from the lawyers for the defense.

She had left Pinto in his travel crate and had to wake him up when she got home. She snapped his leash to his collar and took him for a walk. It was a clear and crisp night. The lights of the houses in Franklin Hills sparkled and she walked that way, passing no one on the streets. Even the Shakespeare Bridge was deserted and the houses down below it were dark. After the dog did his business, she bagged it and turned around.

The late-night cable news was all a rehash of the day’s staggering events in Washington. There was now word that a police officer had succumbed to injuries sustained while defending the Capitol. All cops go to work each day, thinking it could be their last. But Ballard doubted that officer ever imagined that he would give his life in the line of duty in the way he did. She went to sleep with dark thoughts about the country, her city, and the future.

By virtue of her job, Ballard was used to sleeping during the day and did not change her schedule on her days off. Consequently, she slept lightly and stirred every time any noise penetrated her dozing. Pinto, still getting used to his new home and surroundings, also slept fitfully, moving about in his crate every hour or so.

A text woke Ballard up for good at 6:20 a.m. — not because she heard it come in but because it lit the screen of her phone. It came from Cindy Carpenter.

Ballard had no idea what she was talking about, but no matter what it was, the words shook her.

She wanted to call immediately but held back because she doubted her call would even be answered. Ballard wondered if the text had something to do with Cindy’s residual upset over Ballard’s contacting her ex-husband.

But then another, even more disturbing text came in. This one was from Bosch.

Ballard quickly got her laptop and went to the Los Angeles Times website. Bosch was old-school — he got the actual newspaper delivered. Ballard was an online subscriber. She found the story Bosch was referencing prominently displayed on the home page.

After two men broke into a Hollywood home and raped a woman, the Los Angeles Police Department launched a full-scale investigation.

But the supervisor of the investigation elected to keep it quiet in hopes of identifying and capturing the rare team of rapists. No warning was put out to the public and at least two more women were attacked over the next five weeks.

The case, according to sources, is an example of the choices investigators face in pursuing serial offenders. A suspect’s routine can lead to capture, but drawing public attention to a crime spree can result in identifiable patterns changing, making the culprits more difficult to apprehend.

In this case, three women were sexually assaulted and tortured by men who broke into their homes in the middle of the night, prompting investigators to label them the “Midnight Men.” On Wednesday, officers in the Media Relations Unit remained mute on the case, while Lieutenant Derek Robinson-Reynolds, supervisor of Hollywood Division detectives, refused to explain or defend his decision to keep the investigation quiet. The Times has filed a formal request for police reports related to the crimes.

One of the victims said she was upset and angry to learn that the police knew of the rapists before she was assaulted on Christmas Eve. Her name is not being used because of the Times’s policy not to identify victims of sex crimes.

“I feel like maybe if I knew these guys were out there, I could have taken precautions and not been a victim,” the woman said tearfully. “I feel like first I got raped by these men and then again by the police department.”

The victim described a harrowing four hours that began after she was awakened in her bed by two men wearing masks, who blindfolded her and took turns assaulting her. The victim said she believed that the two men were going to kill her when the brutal attack was over.

“It was horrible,” she said. “I keep reliving it. It is the worst thing that has ever happened to me.”

Now she wonders if her ordeal could have been prevented if the police department had informed the public of the Midnight Men.

“Maybe they would have stopped or maybe they would have just moved on if they knew the police were onto them,” the victim said.

USC crime sociologist Todd Pennington told the Times that the Midnight Men case underlines the difficult choices faced by law enforcement.

“There is no good answer here,” he said. “If you keep the investigation under wraps, you stand a much better chance of making an arrest. But if you keep quiet and don’t make that arrest quickly, the public remains in danger. You are damned if you do and damned if you don’t. In this case, the decision backfired and there were additional victims.”

Pennington said serial offenders rarely stop committing crimes unless stopped by police.

“You have to realize that even if the police had gone public with their investigation, it is unlikely that these two men would have stopped their crimes,” he said. “Instead, they would have changed their patterns. But most likely there would still have been additional victims. And that’s the dilemma we face in deciding whether to go public. It’s a no-win situation for the police.”

Ballard’s face had grown hot while she read the article. Two paragraphs in, she knew that the department would likely peg her as the anonymous source for the story, since the only named villain was the man who had sought her suspension. She also knew this would not be the end of it. The Times was the paper of record and, as such, set the example for most of the other media in the city. There was no doubt that every local news broadcast would jump on this story, and the department would be under the magnifying glass once again.

She read the article one more time and this time took heart in what it didn’t reveal. It made no mention of the attacks all occurring on holidays, and it did not reveal the pattern of streetlight tampering. The source of the story had been careful about what information about the case got out to the public.

Ballard was confident that she knew who the source was. She picked up her phone and called Lisa Moore. With each ring she grew angrier, so that when the call finally went to voice mail, she was ready to fire with both barrels.

“Lisa, I know it was you. I’ll probably get blamed but I know it was you. You jeopardized an entire investigation just to spite Robinson-Reynolds for putting you on nights. And I know you calculated that I would get the blame for this. So fuck you, Lisa.”

She disconnected, almost immediately regretting the message she had left.

39

The story played for two days on the TV, radio, and Internet news, largely fueled by a hastily called press conference at the PAB in which an official department spokesman downplayed the Times report, saying that evidentiary connections between the crimes were tenuous, but the fact that each case involved two perpetrators seemed to connect the cases. Luckily for the department, the Capitol insurrection clogged airtime and newspaper space, and the story disappeared in the undertow of the larger story. Ballard never heard from Robinson-Reynolds, though his silence seemed to confirm his belief that she was the initial leak. Ballard also never heard back from Lisa Moore, even to deny the accusation she had left in her message.

Another story that didn’t get any traction was the arrest of a well-respected dentist in a murder conspiracy. Ballard was now an outsider on the case but she gathered from a call to Ross Bettany that the investigation was moving slowly. While the arrest of Jason Abbott was put out to the media, the involvement of Dennis Hoyle as a cooperating witness and ex-cop Christopher Bonner as a hit man had been successfully kept quiet. Ballard knew it wouldn’t stay quiet forever, especially when court hearings started, but the department had always operated according to the unspoken policy of spreading out the hits to its reputation whenever it possibly could.

On Saturday Ballard took a call from Garrett Single, who asked if she and her new dog wanted to come for a hike. Ballard had texted him a photo of Pinto earlier. He suggested Elysian Park because there was so much shade along the way. Ballard had not hiked Elysian since she was a cadet at the nearby police academy. She thought Pinto might enjoy it and, as Single had pointed out, the trail was dog-friendly and likely to be less crowded than other popular hiking spots. Ballard agreed to meet there, as Single was coming in from his home in Acton, which was far on the other side of the San Gabriel Mountains. Ballard knew of the community as a place where many firefighters lived because they only went to and from work once a week, working three days on and sleeping in the firehouse, then getting four days off. A couple two-hour drives a week were not a big deal.

Monday morning Ballard woke up in Acton, having spent the last thirty-six hours with Single. His home was wedged into a rugged mountainside in the Antelope Valley, where, he had warned her, coyotes and bobcats roamed freely. She made coffee while Garrett showered, and stepped out onto a back deck that overlooked a garden that he told her he had been working on for months. She had a blanket from the couch wrapped around her shoulders. The time with Single had been good but Ballard had felt uneasy and frustrated the whole time. She had been pushed out of everything. The Raffa case had moved into the prosecutorial phase, so that didn’t bother her as much as being completely out of the Midnight Men investigation. What doubled the frustration was the fact that she had been vilified by Cindy Carpenter and had heard nothing from Lisa Moore on how the case was being pursued. It left her with little confidence that anyone was getting closer to identifying and apprehending the tag team rapists.

She was pacing in the brush and running the facts of the case through her mind when she heard Single come up behind her. He put one arm around and used the other to pull her hair back from the nape of her neck. He kissed her there.

“What do you think?” he asked.

“About what?” she asked.

“The view. I mean, look at this place.”

Ballard hadn’t even noticed. She hadn’t been looking past her thoughts on the case.

“It’s pretty,” she said. “Stark.”

“It is,” Single said. “It’s why I like it.”

“No, you like it for the real-estate value and the wide-open space. Cops and firefighters always want space.”

“True. But I gotta be honest. I like the sharp ridges out here.”

“Then I gotta be honest. It’s too far away from the water.”

“What do you mean? We got the Santa Clara River right over that ridge.”

“Yeah, I’m talking about an ocean. The Pacific Ocean. Last I heard, you can’t surf the Santa Clara River — even when there is water in it.”

“But it’s a good counterpoint, mountains and oceans, isn’t it? The desert and beach have got at least one thing in common.”

“Sand?”

“You guessed it.”

Single laughed, and when he stopped, Ballard could hear her phone buzzing on the kitchen counter inside. It was the first time in thirty-six hours, and she had thought she was outside the limit of her cell service, but here it was: a call.

“Let me try to grab that,” she said.

“Come on,” Single said. “We’re talking about the future here.”

She hurried in through the door but the phone’s buzz died before she reached it. She saw the number was a city exchange but didn’t recognize it. She hesitated calling back blindly. It could be about her Board of Rights hearing. She still didn’t know if it would take place as scheduled after she had been taken off suspension and then placed back on. She waited and soon a voice-mail message notice appeared on the screen. She reluctantly played it back.

“Detective Ballard, Carl Schaeffer here from the Bureau of Street Lighting. I saw all the fuss on the news about the so-called Midnight Men and I’m guessing that’s your case and the cat is sort of out of the bag. But just in case it still matters, I wanted to let you know we got a maintenance call today on a light over in Hancock Park and I’m here if you want to know the details.”

Ballard immediately called Schaeffer back.

“Detective, how are you?”

“I’m fine, Mr. Schaeffer. I got your message. Did you send anyone out to repair the light?”

“No, not yet. I thought I’d check with you first.”

“Who called it in?”

“A guy we know over there — we sort of call him the mayor of Windsor Square. It’s not on his street but people there just sort of know he’s the go-to guy on streetlights and other neighborhood stuff. He called it in this morning. Just now, in fact. Right before I called you.”

“Can I get his name?”

“John Welborne.”

Schaeffer also gave Ballard the phone number Welborne had called from to initiate the maintenance request.

“Was I right about the Midnight Men — them being why you came here about the lights?”

“What makes you say that? Was there something in the paper about streetlights?”

“Not that I saw. I just kinda put two and two together. The paper said three different women were attacked, and you had asked about three different streetlights.”

“Mr. Schaeffer — Carl — I think you could’ve been a smart detective, but please don’t talk to anyone about this. That is not fully confirmed and it could hurt the investigation if it becomes public knowledge.”

“Completely understood, Detective. I have not told a soul and I certainly won’t. But thanks for the compliment. I thought about being a cop way back in the day.”

Single came in from outside and saw the serious look on Ballard’s face. He held his hands wide as if to ask if there was anything he could do. Ballard shook her head and continued with Schaeffer.

“Can you give me the address of the streetlight we’re talking about, Mr. Schaeffer?” she asked.

“Sure can,” Schaeffer said. “Let me look it up here.”

He read off an address on North Citrus Avenue.

“Between Melrose and Beverly,” he added helpfully.

Ballard thanked him and disconnected. She looked at Single.

“I’ve gotta go,” she said.

“You sure?” he said. “I don’t go back in till tomorrow. I thought maybe we’d take the dog and—”

“I have to. This is my case.”

“I thought you didn’t have any cases anymore.”

Ballard didn’t answer. She went back to his bedroom to gather her things and get Pinto out of his travel crate, where he was sleeping. She had been using clothes out of the surf bag she kept in the car, while Pinto had been treated to canned food from a mini-market in what passed for the town center of Acton. Her stay with Single had started as just a home-cooked meal from Single’s backyard barbecue — he had revealed in Elysian Park that he prided himself on good barbecue and she had put him to the test.

After walking Pinto in the scrub area surrounding Single’s home, she loaded her things and the dog into the Defender and was ready to go.

At the open door, he kissed her goodbye.

“You know, this could work,” Single said. “You keep your place in town and surf when I’m on shift. Three days on the water, four in the mountains.”

“So you think because you make a great pulled chicken sandwich that a girl’s just gonna swoon and fall into your arms, huh?” she said.

“Well, I also make a great brisket if you’d go back on the red meat.”

“Maybe next time I’ll break down.”

“So there will be a next time?”

“A lot’s going to ride on that brisket.”

She gently pushed him away and got in the Defender.

“You be careful,” he said.

“You too,” she replied.

On the way south to the city she waited until she cleared the Santa Clarita Valley and had solid phone service before calling the number she had been given for John Welborne. The call went to the Larchmont Chronicle, the community newspaper that served Hancock Park and its surrounding neighborhoods, for which, she learned, he was the publisher, editor, and reporter. That he was a member of the media made the call a bit tricky. Ballard needed information from him but didn’t want it to end up in his paper.

“Mr. Welborne, this is Detective Ballard with the LAPD. Can I talk to you for a few minutes?”

“Yes, of course. Is this about the article?”

“Which article?”

“We published a story Thursday about the fundraiser for the Wilshire Division officer who lost his wife to Covid.”

“Oh, no, not that. I’m with Hollywood Division. I need to talk to you off the record about something unrelated to the newspaper. I don’t want it in your paper — not yet, at least. This is an off-the-record conversation. Okay?”

“Not a problem, Detective Ballard. We’re a monthly, and it’s a couple weeks till deadline anyway.”

“Good. Thank you. I want to ask you about your call this morning to the Bureau of Street Lighting. You left a message reporting that there’s a streetlight out on North Citrus Avenue.”

“Uh, yes, I did leave a message, but Detective, I didn’t suggest that any crime had been committed.”

“Of course not. But it may have some connection to a case we’re investigating. That’s why we were alerted and that’s also the part I want to keep quiet.”

“I understand.”

“Can you tell me who told you about the light being out?”

“It was a good friend of my wife, Martha’s. Her name is Hannah Stovall. She knew she could call me and I’d alert the appropriate authorities. Most people don’t even know we have a Bureau of Street Lighting. But they know that I know people who know people. They come to me.”

“And she called you?”

“Actually, no, she sent an email to my wife, asking for advice. I took it from there.”

“I understand. Can you tell me what you know about Hannah Stovall? For example, how old do you think she is?”

“Oh, I would say early thirties. She’s young.”

“Is she married, lives alone, has roommates — what?”

“She’s not married and I’m pretty sure she lives by herself.”

“And do you know what she does for a living?”

“Yes, she’s an engineer. She works for the Department of Transportation. I’m not sure what she does but I could ask Martha. This sounds like you are seeing if she fits into some sort of profile.”

“Mr. Welborne, I can’t really share with you what the investigation is about at this time.”

“I understand, but of course I’m dying to know what is going on with our friend. Is she in danger? Can you tell me that?”

“I—”

“Wait — is this about the Midnight Men? It’s in the same general area of at least two of the attacks.”

“Mr. Welborne, I need you to stop asking me questions. I just want to assure you that your friend is not in danger and we will take all safeguards possible to keep it that way.”

Ballard tried to change the subject.

“Now, do you know where the streetlight is in relation to her home? How close is it?”

“From what I understand, it is right in front of her house. That’s why she noticed it was on one night, out the next.”

“Okay, and can you give me a phone number for Hannah Stovall?”

“Not offhand, but I can get it. Can I call you back at this number in a few minutes? I just need to call my wife.”

“Yes, I’m at this line. But Mr. Welborne, please don’t tell your wife what this is about, and please don’t you or your wife call Hannah about this. I need to keep her line clear so I can call her myself.”

“Of course, I’ll just tell her that the number’s needed for the streetlight maintenance order.”

“Thank you.”

“Stand by, Detective. I’ll get right back to you.”

40

Ballard held off on calling Hannah Stovall until she had a plan that she could confidently share with her. Strategizing the moves she would make, she drove the rest of the way into the city in silence, with the exception of a short call to Harry Bosch. She knew if there was no one else to back her play, there would always be Bosch. She asked him to stand by without telling him what he would be standing by for, and he didn’t object. He simply said he would be ready and waiting for anything, that he had her back.

She got into Hollywood shortly after 1 p.m., took Melrose to North Citrus Avenue, and turned south to cruise by the streetlight in front of the address Carl Schaeffer had given. She did not slow as she passed. She just surveyed and kept moving. Citrus was on the outer edges of what could be considered Hancock Park. It was on the west side of Highland, and the houses here were smaller postwar family homes with single-car garages. Slowly the neighborhood was being infiltrated by redevelopment, which came in the form of two-story cubes being built to the limits of the lot and then walled and gated. Next to the single-level Spanish-style homes that originally populated the neighborhood, the redevelopment looked sterile, soulless.

As she drove, Ballard checked the vehicles parked curbside for any signs of surveillance but saw nothing that indicated that the Midnight Men might be watching their next victim. At Beverly, she turned right, made a U-turn when she could, and then came back to Citrus. She headed back up the street the way she had come. This time when she passed the streetlight in question, she glanced at the plate at the bottom of the post to check for any sign of tampering. She saw nothing, but she had not expected to.

Back on Melrose she turned right and immediately parked at the curb in front of Osteria Mozza. The popular restaurant was closed due to Covid, and parking at the moment was plentiful. She pulled up her mask, got out, and opened the hatch. She got Pinto out of his crate and snapped on his leash. She then walked the dog back toward Citrus, taking a return call from John Welborne while on the way. He supplied Hannah Stovall’s phone number and the additional intel that she was most likely home at the moment because she was working from home during the pandemic.

Ballard turned south on Citrus and started down the street on the west side — which would take her by the streetlight. She took it slow, allowing the dog to set the pace while sniffing and marking his way down the street. The only tell she might have given — if the Midnight Men were watching — was to pull Pinto away from the streetlight in question so that he would not mark it and possibly destroy evidence.

Ballard surreptitiously checked the house where Hannah Stovall lived. There was no car in the driveway, and the garage was closed. Ballard noted that it was an attached garage that surely had internal access to the house, just as with the home of Cindy Carpenter.

Ballard kept walking and at Oakwood crossed Citrus and turned back north, walking the other side of the street like a pet owner wanting to give her dog new lawns to sniff and mark.

She checked the dashboard clock after she got back to the Defender. It was two-thirty and possibly a little early to start her plan. She also had Pinto to consider.

There was an overnight dog kennel on Santa Monica Boulevard near the Hollywood Station. She had used it on occasion for Lola and knew it to be clean and welcoming and not too crowded. Best of all, she would be able to use her phone to access the camera in the so-called playroom to check on Pinto.

It took an hour to get to Dog House, start a new account, and put Pinto up for the night. Ballard’s heart hurt as she realized the dog might think he was being rejected and turned back in to a shelter. She hugged him and promised to come back the next day, assuring herself more than the dog.

Her parking place in front of Mozza had gone unclaimed and she pulled back in shortly before four, adjusting her mirrors so she could pick up any vehicles coming out of North Citrus Avenue behind her. She then made the initial call to Hannah Stovall and the strategy she had formulated kicked into gear.

Her call was picked up right away.

“Hello, I’m looking for Hannah Stovall.”

“That’s me. Who’s this?”

“I’m calling about the report of a streetlight that is out on your street?”

“Oh, yes. Right in front of my house.”

“And how long would you estimate that it has been out?”

“Just since yesterday. I know it was working Saturday because it shines over the top of my shades in my bedroom. It’s like a night-light for me. I noticed it was gone last night and I emailed Martha Welborne this morning. This seems to be a lot of attention for one little streetlight. What’s going on?”

“My name is Renée Ballard. I’m a detective with the Los Angeles Police Department. I don’t want to scare you, Ms. Stovall, but I believe someone may be planning to break into your home.”

Ballard knew no gentler way to put it, but as she expected, Stovall reacted with extreme alarm.

“Oh my god — who?”

“I don’t know that but—”

“Then how do you know? You just call people up and scare the shit out of them? This doesn’t make sense. How do I know you’re even a cop? A detective or whatever you say you are.”

Ballard had anticipated having to prove who she was to this woman.

“Is this number a cell phone?” she asked.

“Yes,” Stovall said. “Why do you want to know that?”

“Because I’m going to hang up and text you photos of my police ID and my badge. Then I’ll call you back and explain what’s going on in fuller detail. Okay, Ms. Stovall?”

“Yes, send the text. Whatever this is, I want it to be over.”

“So do I, Ms. Stovall. I’m disconnecting now and will call you back.”

Ballard ended the call, pulled up photos of her badge and police ID, and texted them to Stovall. She waited a few minutes for them to land and be viewed, then called back.

“Hello.”

“Hannah — can I call you Hannah?”

“Sure, fine, just tell me what’s going on.”

“Okay, but I’m not going to sugarcoat this, because I need your help. There are two men out there targeting women in the Hollywood area. They invade their homes in the middle of the night and assault them. We believe they knock out the streetlights near the victim’s home a night or two before the attack.”

There was a long silence only punctuated by the repeated intake of breath.

“Hannah, are you all right?”

Nothing.

“Hannah?”

Finally she came back with words.

“Are they the Midnight Men?”

“Yes, Hannah.”

“Then why aren’t you here right now? Why am I alone?”

“Because they might be watching you. If we make a show, we lose the chance to capture them and end this.”

“You’re using me as bait? Oh my fucking god!”

“No, Hannah. You’re not bait. We have a plan to keep you safe. Again, that’s why I’m calling you instead of showing up. There’s a plan. I want to tell it to you but I need you to be calm. There is no reason to panic. They don’t come during the day. They—”

“You said they could be watching.”

“But they are not going to break in during daylight hours. It’s too dangerous for them, and the fact that your light is out proves they’re coming at night. Do you understand?”

No answer.

“Hannah, do you understand?”

“Yes. What do you want me to do?”

“Good, Hannah. Stay calm. In an hour this will be over for you and you’ll be safe.”

“Do you promise?”

“Yes, I promise. Now, this is what I want you to do. You keep your car in your garage, right?”

“Yes.”

“What kind of car is it? What color?”

“It’s an Audi A-six. Silver.”

“Okay, and where do you do your grocery shopping?”

“I don’t understand, why are you asking me this?”

“Just bear with me, Hannah. Where do you shop?”

“Usually at the Pavilions on Vine. Melrose and Vine.”

Ballard was not familiar with the store but immediately computed that this was a different location from the markets frequented by the other three victims of the Midnight Men.

“Is there a coffee shop inside?”

“There’s a Starbucks.”

“Okay, what I want you to do is get in your car and go to Pavilions. If you have reusable bags, carry one of them in like you’re going to do some light shopping. But first go to the Starbucks. I will meet you there.”

“I have to leave here?”

“It’s going to be safest if you are not there tonight, Hannah. I want to get you out without anything looking unusual. You are just going to the store to pick up a coffee and some dinner. Okay?”

“I guess. Then what?”

“I’ll meet you there, we’ll talk some more, and then I’ll put you in the hands of another detective, who will make sure you are guarded and safe until this is over.”

“When should I leave?”

“As soon as you can. You drive up to Melrose and go right and head to the store. You’ll pass me and I’ll be able to tell if you are followed. Then I’ll meet you at the Starbucks. Can you do this, Hannah?”

“Yes. I told you I could.”

“Good. Put a toothbrush and anything you might need for an overnight stay in the reusable bag. But don’t take a lot. You don’t want it to stand out.”

“Well, I’ll need my computer. I have to work tomorrow.”

“Okay, your computer is fine. Make it look like you are carrying more bags inside the one you’re carrying.”

“Got it.”

“And what about a mask? What color do you have?”

“Black.”

“Black is good. Wear that.”

Ballard knew she would have to wear her LAPD mask inside out.

“Okay, one other thing, Hannah.”

Ballard looked down at what she was wearing. Because she had come straight from Acton, she was casually dressed, in jeans and a white oxford borrowed from Single.

“Do you have a pair of jeans and white blouse you can wear?” she asked.

“Uh, I have jeans,” Stovall said. “I know everybody has a white blouse. But not me.”

Ballard looked over her shoulder to the back seat, where she had various jackets and other clothing.

“How about a hoodie?” she asked. “You have a red or gray hoodie?”

“Yeah, gray,” Stovall said. “I have it right here. Why are you asking about my clothes?”

“Because I’m going to take your place. Wear the gray hoodie when you come to Starbucks.”

“Okay.”

“What’s the length and color of your hair?”

“Jesus. I have short brown hair.”

“Do you have any hats you can wear?”

“I’ve got a Dodgers cap.”

“Perfect. Wear that, and text or call me on this number before you leave. That way I’ll be ready.”

“I’ll text.”

They disconnected. Ballard was concerned that Hannah might do something that would stand out to anyone who had her under surveillance. But it was too late to worry about it now.

It was now time to call in backup. Ballard felt too alienated from her own department to go inside for help. She was already working without a net and probably providing more fodder for the upcoming Board of Rights hearing. Taking stock of her situation, she noted that her boss was the one trying to fire her, while her partner on the Midnight Men case had been anything but a partner. Lisa Moore had proven herself to be unreliable, lazy, and vindictive.

There was no doubt in Ballard’s mind who she needed to call.

He answered immediately.

“Okay, Harry,” Ballard said. “Now’s when I need you.”

41

The text from Hannah Stovall came in twenty minutes later. Ballard sent her back a thumbs-up and then waited with her eyes on the sideview mirror. A few minutes went by before she saw the silver Audi emerge from North Citrus Avenue and turn right on Melrose. Ballard checked the car as it went by and caught a glimpse of the driver wearing a blue Dodgers cap.

Ballard’s eyes went back to the sideview and she waited and watched. She let two minutes go by. No follow car emerged from Citrus. Ballard pulled out and gunned it down Melrose in an effort to catch up to the Audi, but a traffic signal at Cahuenga undid her. When she finally pulled into the parking lot at Pavilions she had to cruise down two aisles before spotting the Audi. She then caught a glimpse of a woman wearing a Dodgers cap entering the supermarket with a reusable shopping bag that looked weighted with belongings.

Ballard parked and quickly moved to the store’s entrance. Covid protocols dictated that one door was an entrance, and the exit was on the other side of the front facade. Ballard entered and found the Starbucks concession immediately inside the entrance. There was a line of four people, with the woman with the weighted shopping bag in last position. Ballard checked the others in line, saw nothing suspicious and joined.

“Hannah,” she whispered. “I’m Renée.”

Stovall turned to look at her, and Ballard discreetly flashed her badge and put it away.

“Okay, so now what?” Stovall said.

“Let’s get coffee,” Ballard said. “And talk.”

“What is there to talk about? You’ve scared the hell out of me.”

“I’m sorry. But you will be completely safe now. Let’s wait till we’re sitting down to talk about the plan.”

Soon they were at a table off the side of the Starbucks counter.

“Okay, I have another investigator on his way,” Ballard said. “He’s going to take you to a hotel where you can check in and spend the night. He’ll be on guard the whole time. And hopefully this will all be over by morning.”

“Why did these men pick me? I’ve never hurt anyone.”

“We’ve tracked them through their patterns, but we don’t know all the answers yet. That just means we’ll find all of that out when we catch them. And thanks to you being vigilant in your neighborhood and noticing the streetlight, we are in our best position to do that now.”

“It was hard to miss. Like I said, it shines in my window at night.”

“Well, we got very lucky that you noticed it. So, while we’re waiting for my colleague, can I ask you about some of your routines?”

Ballard started going through the questions that were contained in the survey given to the other victims of the Midnight Men. She knew most of these by heart and didn’t need an actual copy of the questionnaire. Soon it became clear that Stovall was even more of an outlier than Cindy Carpenter up in the Dell. Though Stovall lived reasonably close to the first two victims, their worlds didn’t seem to intersect anywhere, other than favoring some of the same local restaurants. During the pandemic Stovall was working from home and rarely left the house except to shop for food. She didn’t even pick up food to go from restaurants, choosing instead to get home delivery. Home delivery had been a subject of interest early in the investigation because the first two victims used it from time to time. But the investigators learned they used different services, and a review of their transactions determined that they had never been served by the same driver.

It was when it came to her personal life that Ballard scored a connection between Stovall and the other victims. Stovall had never been married but she had been in a long-term relationship that had ended badly. Her partner had been furloughed from his job, and tensions rose when Stovall had to work from home like most of the rest of the world.

“I was on Zooms and calls all day and it sort of reminded him of what he had lost,” Stovall said. “He started to resent me for not losing my job and for being the one who brought in the money. We argued all the time and soon the house wasn’t big enough for the two of us. I own the house so I asked him to leave. It was awful. And talking about it is awful too.”

“I’m sorry,” Ballard said.

“I just wish this was over.”

“You’re going to get through it. I promise.”

Ballard looked around for Bosch but didn’t see him. She also looked for any man who might be watching them. She saw no one who drew her attention.

“What is your ex’s name?” she asked.

“Really?” Stovall said. “Why do you need to know that?”

“I need all the information I can get. It doesn’t mean it all fits or is important.”

“Well, I don’t feel comfortable giving out my ex-boyfriend’s name. I’m finally in a place where we can text each other without resorting to calling each other names. And this would totally fuck that up if you went knocking on his door to make sure he wasn’t one of the Midnight Men. I can assure you he’s not. He’s not even in town right now.”

“Where is he?”

“Cancún, I think. Somewhere in Mexico.”

“How do you know that?”

“He texted me, saying he was going to Mexico. I assume Cancún, because we went there once and he loved it.”

“So he wasn’t worried about Covid and going to a foreign country?”

“I asked him that. I didn’t even know you could fly in and out of Mexico at the moment. I told him he better not bring Covid back to the company.”

“You mean you work together?”

“Well, we did till the pandemic came. Then he got furloughed and I was kept on. That led to some real brawls.”

“He got physical?”

“No, no, I didn’t mean it that way. Just some knock-down-drag-out verbal fights. We never got physical.”

“But he’s now back in the workplace with you?”

“The department hired him back, yeah. We work at the same place technically, but I’m a designer so I’m working from home. Gilbert is a field engineer and he goes in. That’s why I said you better not bring Covid back with you.”

“Was he trying to make you jealous, telling you he was going to Mexico?”

“No, I don’t think so. He couldn’t find his bathing suit and he was just asking if he had left it at the house.”

“Was it weird that he was taking a vacation after coming back from being furloughed?”

“Yeah, a little. I was surprised. But he told me it was just a long weekend. An impromptu kind of thing because some guys were going and somebody had a place down there. I didn’t really ask questions. I looked for his bathing suit, then texted him that I didn’t have it, and that was it.”

Ballard looked around again, wondering what was taking Bosch so long. But he was there, standing near the pickup counter, waiting to be called into the conversation. Ballard waved him over and introduced him. Bosch pulled a chair away from another table and sat down.

“Okay, so we’re all here,” Ballard said. “Hannah, this is what we want to do. I’m going to be you for the night, and you get to stay at a nice hotel with Harry watching over you. I’m going to borrow your hat and borrow your car and go back to your house. If they’re watching, they’ll think it’s you coming home. Then I’ll be inside waiting and ready if they make a move. I’ll be able to call in backup anytime I need it.”

“Do I have any say in it?” Stovall asked.

“Of course. I need your permission to do this. Is there something wrong?”

“Well, for starters there are two of them, right? And only one of you.”

Bosch nodded. He had voiced the same concern when they had talked on the phone.

“Well, like I said, I can call backup if I need it,” Ballard said. “And we know from the other cases that one always comes in on his own, secures the victim, then lets the other in. So I just have to worry about them one at a time, and I like my chances with those odds.”

“Okay, I guess. You’re the police.”

“I’m going to grab a few things so it will look like I was shopping and then I’m going to leave. I just need the keys to your car and house. You and Harry will wait ten minutes just to be sure and then you two can go as well.”

“Okay.”

“Do you have any night routines I should know about?”

“Not really, I don’t think.”

“What about showering? Do you prefer mornings or nights?”

“Definitely mornings.”

“Okay. Anything else?”

“I can’t think of anything.”

“Do you usually have the TV on?”

“I’ll watch the news. CNN, Trevor Noah, that’s about it.”

“Okay. I’m going to grab a few things to put in the bag and then I’ll go.”

Ballard went to the door, grabbed a handbasket from a stack, and walked into the produce section, where she started selecting apples and oranges in case she needed sustenance while on the vigil ahead. Soon Bosch was standing next to her.

“For the record, I’m not happy about this,” he said.

Ballard looked past him to make sure Stovall was still in place at the table by the Starbucks concession.

“You’re worrying too much, Harry,” she said. “I’m calling backup the moment I hear something. They’ll be there in two minutes.”

“If they come. You’re doing this completely off the books, and coms won’t know what the hell you’re doing if you call for help.”

“I have to work it this way because I am off the books. And I’m not about to hand this off to somebody who deep down doesn’t even care about the case or its victims. Somebody who would rather use the case to get even than solve it.”

“She’s not the only one you can bring in and you know it. You just want to do this on your own, no matter the level of danger it puts you in.”

“I think that’s an exaggeration, Harry.”

“It’s not, but I know you’re not going to change your mind. So I want you calling me every hour on the hour, you copy that?”

“I got it.”

“Good.”

Ballard put a sweet potato in the basket and decided she had enough to make it through the night if necessary.

“I’m going to check out and head over to her house.”

“Okay. Remember, every hour on the hour.”

“Got it. And if you spend any time with her, ask about her ex-boyfriend.”

“What about him?”

“I don’t know — something feels off. I got the same feeling with Carpenter’s ex. Hannah’s ex took a long weekend in Mexico after being laid off for most of last year. Feels kind of convenient to me.”

“Yeah, it does.”

“Anyway, I gotta get going.”

She turned toward the checkout counters, took a few steps, and then turned back.

“Hey, Harry, you remember the other night when we joked about me going private and working with you?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“What if it wasn’t a joke?”

“Uh... well, that would be good with me.”

Ballard nodded.

“Okay,” she said.

42

On her drive back to the house on North Citrus Avenue, Ballard had to call Hannah Stovall with more questions. She knew that this risked undercutting Stovall’s confidence in her, but Ballard had to acknowledge, at least to herself, that the plan was evolving from minute to minute as various questions and decisions came to her.

Stovall was with Bosch in his car when she took the call.

“Hannah, how do I open the garage? I don’t see any clicker.”

“It’s programmed into the car. There’s a button on the bottom of the rearview mirror. There are actually three buttons but you want the first one.”

“Okay, got it. And I forgot to ask, is there an alarm?”

“There is but I never use it. Too many false alarms. And there isn’t one on the door from the garage to the kitchen anyway, since that is sort of indoors already.”

“And would it be unusual for you to take a walk at night? Like if I want to just get the lay of the land?”

“I should have mentioned that. I usually take a walk when I finish work. To sort of clear my head. I just go a couple blocks around the neighborhood.”

“Okay.”

Ballard dropped into thought about how she would handle this. The walk time was right now.

“Detective?”

“Yes, uh, this is all good. What do you wear when you walk?”

“Well, I don’t change or anything, so whatever I have on.”

“Okay, good. What about a hat?”

“Every now and then I wear a hat.”

“Okay, good.”

“You’ll let me know if anything happens, right?”

“Of course. You’ll be the first to know.”

Three minutes later Ballard pulled the Audi into the driveway of Stovall’s house and pushed the button to open the garage. She held her phone to her left ear, posing as though she were on a call so her face would be partially obscured to anyone watching. It was now almost six and the sun had dropped from the sky. The day was slipping toward the dark hours.

She pulled into the garage, hit the button again, and waited for the garage door to close before she got out of the car.

She used a key on the ring Stovall had given her to open the door from the garage to the kitchen. Ballard entered, hit the wall switch to turn on the lights, and then stood still in the kitchen, listening to the house. She heard only the low hum of the refrigerator. She put the bag of produce from Pavilions on the counter, took out the apples and oranges and placed them on a shelf in the refrigerator, and put the sweet potato on the counter. She then bent down to the cuff of her jeans and pulled Bosch’s gun out of an ankle holster.

Ballard slowly moved through the house, checking each room. The kitchen had one arched entrance to a dining room and a second one that led to a hallway that ran to the back of the house. She walked through the dining room into a living room. There was a fireplace with a flat-screen TV mounted above it. Ballard checked the front door and it was locked.

She next moved down the hallway, checking out a guest bedroom, another bedroom, which had been converted to an office during or before the pandemic, and a bathroom. Her last stop was the master bedroom, which included a walk-in closet and a large bathroom. The master suite took up the whole back of the house, and there was a back door in the bathroom. It was double-locked but Ballard opened it to check the yard before it got too dark. Stovall had created a sitting area on a wooden deck off the bathroom door. There was an ashtray on a table that needed to be emptied.

The rest of the yard was surrounded by a plank fence that included an enclosure for the city garbage and recycling containers. The enclosure had a locked wooden gate that led to a rear service alley.

Ballard tucked the gun into her pants at the small of her back and flapped her hoodie out over it. She stepped into the alley and looked north and south but saw no vehicles or anything else that raised suspicion or concern. Her phone buzzed and she saw that it was Bosch calling.

“We’re in place at the W, two rooms next to each other. We’re staying in and ordering room service.”

“Good. I’m at the house.”

“I still don’t like this, you being there by yourself. I should be there, not here.”

“I’m going to be fine. I’m about to call Hollywood and put them on standby.”

“You know they’re not going to like this.”

“But they’re not going to have a choice.”

There was a pause while Bosch thought before replying.

“Why are you doing this, Renée? It’s kind of crazy. It didn’t sound like you had a solid plan. Why don’t you just give it to them to run with?”

“Harry, you don’t know what the department’s like now. I couldn’t trust them not to screw it up.”

“Well, remember to check in with me too.”

“I know, every hour on the hour. You’ll hear from me.”

Ballard disconnected and stood in the alley for a few moments considering a plan. Stovall’s house was just two homes from the cross street at Oakwood. She realized she could walk out the front door, proceed on her walk posing as Stovall, and come back around to the house through the alley very quickly — and then be inside waiting and ready if the Midnight Men made a move.

She went back into the yard, leaving the door to the trash enclosure unlocked. She entered the house through the door off the smoking deck and left that unlocked as well.

In the walk-in closet she found a small collection of hats. She wanted something that would hide her face better than the Dodgers cap. She found a cloth hat with a wide, floppy brim probably used for gardening or other chores outside. Her hair was a bit darker and longer than Stovall’s so she twisted it into a ponytail before putting on the hat. She was also thinner than Stovall. She looked through the hangers until she found a windbreaker that was bulky but acceptable for a walk on a winter evening. She took off her hoodie and put on the windbreaker and she was good to go.

When she turned to leave, Ballard saw a slide bolt on the inside of the closet door. She closed the door, slid the bolt, and then tested the security of the door. The door locked tight and she realized Stovall had made the closet a safe room. It was a smart move.

She looked around inside the closet and found a Wi-Fi router on a shelf as well as a backpack survival kit. Stovall had prepared well and it was good to know there was this space to retreat to if necessary.

Before leaving, Ballard walked through the house once more to decide what lights to turn on. She would not be able to turn anything on once she snuck back inside, since that might alert anyone watching that she was in the house. She left the master closet light on as well as the lights in the kitchen, and one in the living room.

At the front door, she pulled her mask up over her nose to further her disguise, put in earbuds, and then stepped out of the house. She locked the door behind her and put the key ring she had taken from Stovall into the pocket of the windbreaker.

Ballard walked down a path of garden stones to the sidewalk. She looked both ways as if deciding which way to go. Her eyes scanned the cars on the street but it was now too dark to see into any of them. The Midnight Men could be watching and waiting and she would not know. She pulled her phone and angled her face down to the screen as if picking music to listen to, but she continued to scan the street, her eyes just under the line of the hat’s brim. She then put the phone away, glanced up at the streetlight that was out, as if noticing it for the first time, then turned south toward Oakwood.

Ballard walked briskly to the intersection and turned right. As soon as she got to the alley she turned right again and picked up her pace. Going through the trash enclosure and into the yard took less than three minutes from her closing of the front door. She doubted there had been time for an intrusion but she pulled the gun out from below the back of the windbreaker and entered the house through the door off the deck. Holding the gun at the ready position, she moved through the rooms, careful to stay away from windows that might reveal she had already returned to the house.

She checked the garage last, moving completely around the Audi and looking in and under it. She found no sign of a break-in.

Back inside, she surveyed the house once more, looking for the best place to wait and be ready. She decided on the home office because it was the most centrally located room and it also offered two options for hiding should an intrusion occur. There was a closet with a sliding door that had a large unused space. And along the wall to the left of the doorway, there was a standing four-drawer file cabinet that provided a blind from the entrance.

Ballard took the desk chair and sat down. She put the gun down on the desk and pulled her phone. She called Lisa Moore, though she did not expect her to take the call — not after the message Ballard had left the Thursday before. The call went to voice mail and Ballard disconnected. She then wrote a text.

She sent off the message, satisfied that she had at least given Moore the chance to be involved in her own case. She next called Neumayer’s desk phone because she didn’t have his cell. And the first flaw in her hasty plan emerged. The call went to voice mail and she heard Neumayer’s voice: “This is Detective Neumayer. I am going to be out of town until January nineteenth and will respond to your call then. If this is an emergency, dial nine-one-one. If this is about an ongoing case, please call the direct line to the detective bureau and ask for Detective Moore or Detective Clarke. Thank you.”

Ballard knew she should now call Robinson-Reynolds or at the very least Ronin Clarke, but she did neither. She decided to wait and see if she got a call back from Lisa Moore.

Her rash and incomplete planning was now beginning to weigh on Ballard. She thought about calling Bosch and taking him up on his offer to be there as backup. But she knew she couldn’t leave Hannah Stovall unguarded, no matter how unlikely it was that the Midnight Men knew her current location. She tried to examine her motives in moving so quickly with a plan that was so incomplete. She knew it was all wound up in her growing disillusion with the job, the department, the people that surrounded her. But not with Bosch. Bosch was the constant. He was more steadfast than the whole department.

She tried to push the grim thoughts away by pulling up the video from the playroom at Dog House to check on Pinto. The image on the screen was grainy and small but she managed to see Pinto lying low under a bench, watching the action of the other dogs, possibly too timid to join in. She had quickly reached a point where she loved the little dog, and she wondered why someone had mistreated and abandoned him.

Somehow, in the crosscurrents of thought, she came to a decision. Maybe it was all in the moment, but she knew the moment had been a long time coming.

She clicked off the video feed and composed a short email to Lieutenant Robinson-Reynolds. She reread it twice before hitting the send button.

Immediately, she was flooded with a feeling of relief and certainty. She had made the right decision. There was no looking back.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a call back from Lisa Moore’s cell number.

“What the fuck are you doing, Renée?”

“What am I doing? Let’s see. I got a solid lead and I’m following it. I know that may sound like out-of-the-box thinking but—”

“You’re suspended. You’re on the bench.”

“You think the Midnight Men are on the bench? You think you scared them away? Your little move last week to take the lieutenant down a notch just made them change things up, Lisa. They’re still out there, and I know where they’re going. They’re coming to me.”

“Where are you?”

“I’ll tell you what, stand by. I’ll call you when I need you.”

“Renée, listen to me. Something’s wrong. Your judgment is off. Wherever you are, you need backup and you need a plan. You’re giving the department all they need to get rid of you with a stunt like this. Don’t you see that?”

“It’s too late. I got rid of them.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I just quit. I sent the lieutenant my resignation.”

“You can’t do that, Renée. You’re too good a cop.”

“I already did.”

“Then, what are you doing right now? Get out of there and call in backup. You’re putting yourself in harm’s way. You—”

“I’ve always been in harm’s way. But I’m not a cop anymore. That means no rules. I’ll call you when I need you. If I need you.”

“I don’t get it. What are you—”

Ballard disconnected. And immediately she felt the euphoria and assuredness of her decision start to slip away.

“Shit,” she said.

She stood up and slid her phone into her back pocket. Picking up the gun, she held it down by her side. She walked to the door, having decided to take another sweep of the house so she would know the layout by heart should she need to maneuver in the dark.

She had just entered the hallway when the house started shaking. Not an earthquake, just a low vibration. A tremor. She realized that someone was opening the garage door.

43

Ballard quickly backed into the darkened office. She stood at the doorway at first and waited. The hallway offered a straight-shot view to the living room and the front door. Through an arched entry on the left was the kitchen and through that she could see the edge of the door to the garage. She fixed on that point, her gun still held down at her side.

Soon the tremor in the floor began again and she knew the garage door was closing. A few moments later, she saw the doorknob start to turn on the kitchen door. The door opened inward, at first blocking Ballard’s view of who was coming in.

Then the door closed and a man in dark blue coveralls stood there as she had, listening to the house. Ballard ducked further back into the shadows of the home office but kept one eye on the man. She didn’t breathe.

The man wore black synthetic gloves and a green ski mask that had been rolled up off his face because he did not expect anyone to be in the house. He would pull it down when Hannah Stovall came back from her walk. He had a fanny pack strapped around the coveralls, with the pouch in front. His eyebrows and sideburns revealed that he had red hair.

“Okay, I’m in,” he said. “Any sign of her?”

Ballard froze. He was talking to someone. She then saw the white earbud in his right ear. There was no cord. It was a Bluetooth connection to a phone held in a runner’s armband on his upper right arm.

Ballard hadn’t planned for that — that they would be in constant communication. Another flaw in a very flawed plan.

“Okay,” the man said. “I’ll take a look around. Let me know when you see her.”

The man moved out of the sliver of view Ballard had of the kitchen. She heard the refrigerator open and then close. She then heard footsteps on the wood flooring and could tell he had moved into the living room. She also heard a sound she could not identify. It was a slapping sound that was spaced at various intervals. She heard his voice again but it was farther away this time.

“Bitch has almost no food in the fucking fridge.”

He crossed in front of the hallway in the living room and she saw that he was tossing up and down one of the apples she had put in the refrigerator, making the slapping sound as he caught it. She had to think. If the redhead was in constant communication with his partner, she had to figure out a way to take him down without the partner realizing and possibly fleeing.

She wanted them both.

The footsteps grew louder and she knew he was heading to the hallway. She quickly and quietly moved to the blind side of the file cabinet and slid down the wall to a crouching position. She held the gun in a two-handed grip between her knees.

The steps paused and the overhead lights flicked on. Then the man spoke again.

“We’ve got a home office. Double monitors. Man, she doin’ some bidness up in here, y’all... Might need to take one of these for my own setup.”

The lights went out and the steps continued down the hallway. Ballard heard the man report what he saw in the hall bathroom, the guest room, and then the master suite. Their MO had obviously changed, possibly because of the exposure in the media, or dictated by Stovall’s stay-at-home schedule. Either way, the break-in came much earlier than in the three prior cases. She knew that this most likely meant they would not wait several hours in hiding, until Stovall went to sleep. Ballard believed the plan was now to move quickly, incapacitate and control Stovall, and then bring in the second man. The master suite was probably out as a hiding place, because that would be where Stovall went after her walk. That left the spare bedroom, the office, and the hall bathroom. Ballard believed the office was the best bet. The desk was set against one wall and the closet was directly opposite, meaning that if Stovall sat at her desk, her back would be to the closet door. The redhead would be able to surprise her from behind — if she went back to work after returning to the house.

Ballard waited, rehearsing in her mind the moves she would make when he returned to the office. One move if he saw her, and one move if he walked by without noticing her on his way to check out the closet.

“Hey, dude, she’s got a safe room in her damn closet. The guy didn’t tell us about that.”

There was silence while Ballard considered what that second sentence meant.

“Okay, okay, I’m looking. You said there was no sign of her yet.”

Silence.

“All right, then.”

The words almost made Ballard flinch. They were closer. The redhead was coming back to the office.

“I’m thinking the office is going to be the spot.”

As he said it, he entered the room, and the ceiling lights came back on. He passed by the file cabinet without noticing Ballard and moved directly to the closet. Ballard didn’t hesitate. She sprang from her crouch and moved toward his back. He was opening the closet door as she reached up to his right ear and grabbed the earbud out. At the same time she brought the gun up with her left and held the muzzle against the base of his skull. Holding the earbud cupped tightly in her palm, she whispered, “You want to live, don’t say a fucking word.”

Ballard put the earbud in her pocket, grabbed the man by the back of the collar, and jerked him backward, holding the gun against him the whole time and continuing to whisper.

“Down, get on your knees.”

He did so and now was holding his hands up shoulder height to show his compliance. Ballard pulled the phone out of the man’s armband. The screen showed a call connection to someone only identified as Stewart. Ballard put the phone on speaker.

“...happened? Hey, you there?”

She hit the mute button, then held the phone to the man’s face.

“Now, I’m going to take this off mute and you’re going to tell him that everything’s fine and that you just tripped over a box in the closet. You got that? You say anything else and it will be the last thing you ever say.”

“What are you, a cop?”

Ballard thumbed back the hammer on the gun. Its distinctive click sent the message.

“Okay, okay. I’ll tell him, I’ll tell him.”

“Go.”

She took the phone off mute and held it to the man’s mouth.

“Sorry, dude, I tripped. There’s boxes and shit in here.”

“You okay, Bri?”

“Yeah, just fucked up my knee a little bit. Everything’s copacetic.”

“You sure?”

Ballard hit mute.

“Tell him you’re sure,” she said. “And tell him to keep watching for the woman. Go.”

She took it off mute.

“I’m sure. Just tell me when you see her.”

“All right, man.”

Ballard hit mute again and put the phone down on the desk.

“Okay, hold still.”

With one hand holding the gun to his head, Ballard reached around to the fanny pack and felt for a buckle but came up empty.

“Okay, one hand, reach down and take off the pack.”

The man reached with his right hand. Ballard heard a snap and then his hand came back up holding the pack by its strap.

“Just drop it on the floor.”

The man complied. Ballard then used her free hand to frisk him and check the pockets of the coveralls. She found nothing.

“Okay, I want you to get facedown on the floor. Now.”

Again he complied but under protest.

“Who the fuck are you?” he said as he went down.

“Lie flat and don’t talk unless I ask you to. You understand?”

He said nothing. Ballard pushed the muzzle further into the back of his neck.

“Hey, do you understand?”

“Yeah, take it easy, I understand.”

He lowered himself to the floor and she held the gun on his neck all the way down, then put one knee on his back.

She realized that her handcuffs were in her equipment kit in her car, where she had put them while off duty and heading out to see Garrett. Add one more flaw to her plan.

She reached over to the fanny pack the redhead had just dropped to the floor.

“Let’s see what you’ve got in here,” she said.

She put the pack down on his back and unzipped it. It contained a roll of duct tape, a folding knife, and a premade, duct-tape blindfold on a peel-off backing that had been intended for Hannah Stovall. There was a strip of condoms and a garage remote.

“Looks like you have a full rape kit here, huh, Bri?” she said. “Can I call you Bri like your partner did?”

The man on the floor didn’t respond.

“Okay if I use some of your tape?” Ballard asked.

Again there was no answer.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Ballard said.

After putting the gun down on the man’s back, she pulled his hands together and wrapped the duct tape around his wrists, unspooling it from the roll as she went. She could feel him trying to keep his wrists parted.

“Stop fighting it,” she commanded.

“I’m not fighting it,” he yelled into the floor. “I can’t get them together.”

Ballard thumbed open the knife’s blade and cut the tape. She then grabbed the gun and stood up. She put the tape and the knife on the desk and then reached down and roughly yanked the ski mask off the top of his head, bouncing his face on the floor and releasing a torrent of red hair.

“Goddammit! That cut my lip.”

“That’s the least of your problems.”

Ballard reached down and picked up the garage opener. She recognized it as a programmable remote like the one she had been given by her apartment landlord. He had told her that once a year the HOA changed the code as a security measure and he would provide her with the new combination to install. She now understood how the Midnight Men got into each victim’s home.

“Who gave you the garage code?” she asked.

She got no answer.

“That’s okay. We’ll find out.”

She stepped back from him, moving to the side.

“Turn your head, show me your face.”

He did. She saw a small amount of blood on his lips. He looked young, no more than twenty-five.

“What’s your full name?”

“I’m not telling you my name. You want to arrest me, arrest me. I broke in, big deal. Book me, and we’ll see what happens.”

“Bad news, kid. I’m not a cop and I’m not here to book you.”

“Bullshit. I can tell you’re a cop.”

Ballard bent down and held the revolver out so he could see it.

“Cops have handcuffs, and cops don’t carry little revolvers like this. But when we’re through with you and your partner, you’re going to wish we were going to book you.”

“Yeah, who’s ‘we’? I’m not seeing anybody else here.”

“You’ll find out soon enough.”

She wanted to wrap his ankles with tape to prevent him from getting up but she also wanted to keep him talking. He wasn’t giving her anything yet but she felt that the more he talked, the better the chance he might slip up and provide something useful or important.

“Tell me about the photos.”

“What photos?”

“And videos. We know you and your pal documented the rapes. For what? For yourselves or somebody else?”

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. What rapes? I broke in to steal shit, that’s it.”

“And who was on the phone with you?”

“Getaway driver.”

The man shifted on the floor so that his right cheek was down and he could look up at Ballard. She responded by pulling out her phone and leaning down to take a photo of him. He immediately turned his head so he was facedown again.

“This’ll go out all over the Internet. Everyone in the world will know who you are and what you did.”

“Fuck off.”

“How did you pick them? The women.”

“I want a lawyer.”

“You don’t seem to understand, Brian, that you are not in the hands of the police or, shall we say, the traditional justice system. You were half right. I was a cop, but I’m not anymore. I quit because the system doesn’t work. It doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do to protect the innocent from monsters like you. You’re now in the custody of a different justice system. You’re going to tell us everything we want to know, and you’re going to answer for what you’ve done.”

“You know what, you’re fucking crazy.”

“What did you mean when you said ‘the guy’ didn’t tell you about the safe room?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t say that.”

“Who told you about Hannah Stovall?”

“Who’s that?”

“Who gave you the garage code?”

“Nobody. I want a lawyer. Now.”

“No lawyer can help you here. There are no laws here.”

Her phone started to buzz. She pulled it and checked the screen. It was Harry Bosch. The time on the screen told her that she was ten minutes late with her hourly check in. She accepted the call and spoke first.

“I’ve got one of them,” she said.

“What do you mean, you’ve got one of them?” Bosch asked.

“Like I said. As soon as we get the other, I’ll call you for pickup.”

Bosch paused as he came to realize what was going on.

“I’m questioning him now,” Ballard said. “Trying to. If he doesn’t want to talk, we can do it your way.”

“I’m on my way.”

“That’s fine. We can do it that way, too.”

“I know you’re playing to him. Do you want me to call in the troops?”

“No, not yet. Everything’s good.”

“Well, I’m on my way. For real.”

Ballard disconnected and put the phone down on the desk. She picked up the intruder’s phone and found it passcode protected. But it had been set to allow previews of texts, and there was a partial message on the screen.

The message was cut off there.

“You got a message here, Bri,” she said.

“You need a warrant to look in my phone,” Brian said.

Ballard fake-laughed.

“You are correct... if I were the police. Anyway, the message is from your partner. It says he checked with the guy, and the safe room in the closet was added after. After what? After Hannah kicked him to the curb? Told him to get the fuck out of her life?”

“Who the fuck are you people?” Brian said.

The tenor of his voice had changed. It had lost the tone of confidence and superiority. Ballard looked down at him.

“You’re going to find out very soon,” Ballard said. “And it will go a lot easier on you if you answer my questions. Who told you about Hannah Stovall?”

“Look, just take me to the police, okay?” he said. “Turn me in.”

“I don’t think that’s—”

There was a sudden crashing sound from the front of the house.

Ballard startled, then moved back into the hallway, raising her gun. Looking down the hall, she saw the front door of the house standing wide open, the jamb splintered where the lock had been. But there was no sign of anyone in her view. It was in that moment that she realized the man on the floor had given his partner a code. Copacetic — she had thought it an odd word when he said it, but it had not clicked in her brain that it was a code.

“Back here!” Brian yelled. “Back here!”

Ballard glanced behind her into the office and saw that the redhead was moving his wrists up and down, counter to each other, and trying to stretch the tape she had bound him with.

“Don’t fucking move!” she yelled.

He ignored her and kept churning his wrists like two pistons in an engine.

“Freeze!”

She raised her gun and pointed it at him. Face on the floor, he looked up at her and just smiled.

In her peripheral vision she saw movement to her left. She turned to see another man in blue coveralls and ski mask coming through the doorway from the kitchen into the hall. He closed on her without hesitation. She swung her aim to the left but he was on her too quickly, dropping his shoulder into her just as she fired the gun.

The report was muffled between their bodies as they crashed to the hallway floor. The masked man rolled off her, crossing his arms in front of his chest and groaning. Ballard saw a burn mark and entrance wound from the bullet she had fired into his chest.

“Stewart!”

The shout came from the office. Ballard felt the floor against her back shake as the red-haired man came running into the hallway. Ballard saw that he had grabbed the knife off the desk and held it in a hand still cuffed in duct tape. He saw his partner writhing on the floor and then turned his hateful stare at Ballard.

“You—”

Ballard fired one shot from the floor. It hit him under the jaw, its trajectory going up into the brain. He dropped like a puppet, dead before he even hit the floor.

44

The interrogation room was crowded. There was a lot of coffee breath and at least one of the men in front of Ballard was a smoker. It was one of the few times in the last year that she was only too happy to wear a face mask. She sat at a small steel table with her back to the wall. Next to her was Linda Boswell, her attorney from the Police Protective League. The three men in front of her sat with their backs to the door. It was as if Ballard had to somehow get past them to get out. And sitting shoulder to shoulder they took up the space from one side wall to the other. There was no getting around them. She had to go straight through.

Two of the men were from the Force Investigation Division. Captain Sanderson, head of the unit, was sitting front and center, and to his left was David Dupree. Dupree was thin, and Ballard pegged him as the smoker. She expected that if he were not wearing a mask, she would see a mouthful of yellow teeth.

The third man was Ronin Clarke, representing the Midnight Men task force since Neumayer was on vacation and Lisa Moore was on the outs with Lieutenant Robinson-Reynolds. The investigation had been designated a task force following the media frenzy that exploded after the story had been leaked to the Times. The three detectives normally assigned to the CAPs squad had also been assigned to the task force.

There were three different digital recorders on the table ready to capture the interview. Ballard had been given a Lybarger admonishment by Sanderson. This court-approved warning compelled her to answer questions about the shooting on Citrus Avenue for administrative investigative purposes only. If a criminal prosecution should arise from Ballard’s actions, then nothing she said in the interview could be used against her in a court of law. Ballard had thoroughly briefed her attorney on what had happened in Hannah Stovall’s house and what had led to the double shooting.

Boswell was now going to try to head things off at the pass.

“Let me just start by saying Ms. Ballard is not going to answer any questions from Force Investigation,” she said. “She—”

“She’s taking the Fifth?” Sanderson asked. “She does that and she loses her job.”

“That’s what I was about to tell you if you didn’t interrupt. Ms. Ballard — you notice I didn’t say Detective Ballard — does not work for the LAPD and therefore FID has no standing in the matter on Citrus Avenue.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Sanderson said.

“Earlier today, before the incident on Citrus Avenue, Ms. Ballard sent her resignation in an email to her immediate supervisor,” Boswell said. “If you check with Lieutenant Robinson-Reynolds, you will be able to confirm the email and the time it was sent. This means that Ballard was no longer a police officer at the time of the shooting of the two intruders to the house on Citrus. She was a private citizen and acted in defense of her life when two armed men broke into the home where she was lawfully permitted to be.”

“This is bullshit,” Sanderson said.

He looked at Dupree and nodded toward the door. Dupree got up and left the room, most likely to find Robinson-Reynolds, whom Ballard had seen in his office when she was brought to the Hollywood detective bureau for questioning.

“No, these are the facts, Captain,” Boswell said. “Ms. Ballard can show you her side of the email if you wish. Meantime, she is more than willing to tell Detective Clarke what happened and where a follow-up investigation might be warranted.”

“This is some kind of trick and we’re not going to play games,” Sanderson said. “She answers the questions or we go to the D.A. with it.”

Boswell scoffed.

“You can do that, of course,” she said. “But what will you go to the D.A. with? It is easily established through the home’s owner that she gave Ballard permission to be inside her home. She voluntarily gave her the keys to both her home and car. The physical evidence at the scene clearly shows a break-in and that Ballard, fearing for her safety, fired on two intruders who will soon be officially identified as the serial rapists known as the Midnight Men. So, let’s see, you are going to ask the elected district attorney to prosecute, for whatever reason, the woman who killed these two rapists after they broke into the house where she was alone? Well, all I can say is good luck with that, Captain.”

Clarke’s eyes betrayed that he was trying to repress a smile beneath his mask. The door to the room then opened and Dupree stepped back in. He closed the door but stayed standing. Sanderson looked at him and Dupree nodded. He had confirmed the resignation email to Robinson-Reynolds.

Sanderson stood up.

“This interview is now over,” he said.

He grabbed his recorder, turned it off, and followed Dupree out of the room. Clarke didn’t move and looked like he was still working on keeping a straight face.

“That leaves you, Detective Clarke,” Boswell said.

“I’d like to talk to Renée,” he said. “But I need to—”

The door was flung open, cutting Clarke off. Lieutenant Robinson-Reynolds stepped in. He stared at Ballard while talking to Clarke.

“Was she advised?” he asked.

“She got the Lybarger but not Miranda, if that’s what you mean,” Clarke said. “But she’s willing to talk and says there is a follow-up we—”

“No, we’re not talking,” Robinson-Reynolds said. “This is over. For now. Step out.”

Clarke stood up, grabbed his recorder, and left the room.

Robinson-Reynolds continued to stare at Ballard.

“Turn that off,” he said.

Ballard started to reach for the last recorder.

“No,” Boswell said. “I don’t think that’s a—”

“Turn it off,” Robinson-Reynold said. “And you can go. I have something to say to Ballard that doesn’t leave this room.”

Boswell turned to Ballard.

“You want me to stay, I’ll stay,” she said.

“That’s okay, I’ll listen,” Ballard said.

“I’ll be right outside.”

“Thanks.”

Boswell got up and left the room. Ballard turned off the recorder.

“Ballard,” Robinson-Reynolds said. “I find it hard to believe that you set this up to kill those two assholes. But if I find out you did, I’m coming after you.”

Ballard held his gaze for a long moment before replying.

“And you’d be wrong — just like you’re wrong about me leaking to the Times,” she said. “And men like those two? They got off easy. I’d rather they rotted in prison the rest of their lives than get off the way they did.”

“Well, we’ll see about them,” he said. “And I already know who the leak to the Times was.”

“Who?”

Robinson-Reynolds didn’t answer. He left the door open as he left.

“Nice working with you, too,” Ballard said to the empty room.

She pocketed her recorder and stepped out herself. Boswell was waiting for her in the squad room. Ballard saw Lisa Moore and Ronin Clarke at the CAPs pod along with the others assigned to the task force. The whole team had been called in to handle the investigation of the two men Ballard had shot. If Robinson-Reynolds had unmasked Moore as the leak to the Times, he had apparently not done anything about it yet.

“He say anything I should know about?” Boswell asked.

“Nothing worth repeating,” Ballard said. “Thanks for what you did in there. You kicked ass.”

“I’ve been going head-to-head with Sanderson for four years. He’s all bluster. The only thing intimidating about him is his breath, and thank god he had to wear a mask.”

Ballard couldn’t hold back her smile, even if it was hidden by her own mask.

“So he was the smoker,” Ballard said. “I thought it was Dupree.”

“Nope, Sanderson,” Boswell said. “So, now, the bad news. I can no longer represent you since you are no longer an officer.”

“Right. I understand.”

“I can recommend a good lawyer on the outside should you need one.”

“Thanks.”

“I don’t think you will, because I don’t think there’s any question about your actions. They were the definition of self-defense. And taking off my lawyer hat for a moment here, it was you who kicked ass today, Renée.”

“Things didn’t turn out the way I’d planned.”

“Do you need a ride somewhere?”

“No, I think I have somebody waiting out there.”

“Okay. Pleasure doing business with you.”

They bumped fists and Boswell headed to the front exit. Ballard walked over to the Sex Assault pod. Lisa Moore did not look up, though Ballard knew she had seen her approach. Clarke now had his mask off. He used his thumb and forefinger to pantomime shooting a gun, blowing into the barrel, then holstering the weapon like an Old West shooter.

“You guys get IDs on those two yet?” Ballard asked.

“Working on it,” Clarke said. “But L-T gave us orders. We can’t talk to you now.”

Ballard nodded.

“Yeah, I get it,” she said.

She left the squad room for what she assumed would be the last time, heading toward the front exit, which took her by the lieutenant’s office. Robinson-Reynolds was behind his desk, mask off, talking on his landline. She held his eyes as she walked by. She said nothing.

Bosch was waiting in front of the station, leaning against the side of his old Cherokee.

“All good?” he asked.

“For now,” Ballard said. “But this isn’t over.”

45

On Wednesday morning Ballard and Bosch were at the international terminal at LAX, awaiting the arrival of AeroMexico flight 3598 from Cancún. Bosch was in a suit and was holding a piece of paper Ballard had printed with the name GILBERT DENNING on it. They were standing outside the baggage and U.S. Customs exit, where professional drivers waited for their clients. The flight had landed thirty-five minutes earlier but there had been no sign of Denning yet. Ballard had a photo of him on her phone that she had gotten from Hannah Stovall. But with the mask requirement, it was hard to match a half face to the photo.

The airport was nearly empty. What few travelers there were came through the automatic doors in waves — a clot of people pulling their suitcases or pushing luggage carts followed by minutes of zero traffic. The drivers and families waiting for loved ones continued staring at the six doors.

Ballard was beginning to wonder whether they had somehow missed Denning, if he had walked by them or had taken a shuttle to another terminal. But then a man wearing a Dodgers hat and sunglasses and carrying only a backpack slung over his shoulder stepped in front of Bosch and pointed at the sign he held.

“Hey, that’s me, but I didn’t arrange for a driver. My car’s in the garage.”

Ballard quickly stepped over and spoke.

“Mr. Denning? We need to speak to you about your former girlfriend.”

“What?”

“Hannah Stovall. We need to talk to you about her. Would you come with us, please?”

“No, I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what’s going on. Is Hannah okay?”

“We’re here to help you, sir. Would you please—”

“What are you talking about? I don’t need any help. Are you police? Show me your badge, show me some ID.”

“We’re not police. We’re trying to keep this from getting to the police. I don’t think you would want that, Mr. Denning.”

“Keep what from getting to the police?”

“Your involvement in sending two men to Hannah’s house to have her beaten and sexually assaulted.”

“What? That’s insane. You two stay away from me.”

He stepped back so he could take an angle to Bosch’s left. Bosch shifted to block.

“This is your one and only chance to settle this,” he said. “You walk away and it’s a police matter. Guaranteed.”

Denning brushed past Bosch and headed toward the terminal’s exit door. Bosch turned to watch him. Ballard started to take off after him, but Bosch grabbed her arm.

“Wait,” he said.

They watched Denning go through the glass doors and step to the crosswalk that led to the parking garage. There were several people waiting for the light to change so they could cross.

“He’s going to look back,” Bosch said.

Sure enough, Denning looked back to see if they were still there. He quickly turned forward again and the traffic stopped as the crossing sign started flashing. People started moving toward the parking garage. Denning entered the crosswalk, took three steps, and then turned around. He walked with purpose through the doors, back into the terminal, and right up to Ballard and Bosch.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“For you to come with us,” Ballard said. “So we can talk.”

“I don’t have money. And the health people at the gate said I’m supposed to quarantine for ten days now.”

“You can quarantine for as long as you want after we talk. If not, I’m sure they’ll find a single cell for you at the county jail.”

The blood was draining from Denning’s face. He relented.

“Okay, okay, let’s go.”

Now they walked out of the terminal together.

In the garage Denning was ushered into the back seat of Ballard’s Defender. Ten minutes later, they cleared the airport and were moving down Century Boulevard.

“Where are we going?” Denning demanded. “My car’s back there.”

“Not far,” Ballard said. “We’ll take you back.”

A few blocks later, Ballard made a left into the Marriott Hotel parking lot.

“I don’t know about this anymore,” Denning said. “Take me back. I want to talk to a lawyer.”

Ballard pulled into a parking space in the lot in front of the hotel.

“You want to go back now, you can walk,” she said. “But everything changes if you walk. Your job, your home, your life.”

She looked at him in the rearview mirror.

“Either way, it’s time to get out,” she said.

Denning opened the door, got out, and slung his backpack over his shoulder.

Bosch and Ballard looked at him from the car, as if awaiting his decision. Denning threw his arms out wide.

“I’m still here,” Denning said. “Can we just go to wherever we’re going?”

Ballard and Bosch got out and started walking toward the entrance to the hotel. Denning followed them.

They had booked a room on the sixth floor. They didn’t know how long it would take for Denning to spill, and Bosch liked that there would only be one way out, which he could easily block. It was called an executive suite, with a wall partitioning the bedroom area from a small sitting area consisting of a couch, a padded chair, and a desk.

“Sit on the couch,” Ballard said.

Denning did as he was told. Ballard took the chair, and Bosch pulled the desk seat out and turned it so he would be facing Denning but also blocking his way to the door.

“I can give you six thousand — that’s all I have saved,” Denning said.

“And what would you want from us in return?” Ballard asked.

“I don’t know,” Denning said. “Why am I here? You said it would be a police matter if we didn’t talk. I don’t know what this is about but I don’t want to involve the police.”

Ballard waited to see if he would further incriminate himself. But he stopped talking.

“We don’t want money,” Ballard said. “We want information.”

“What information?”

“Do you know what happened at Hannah Stovall’s house two nights ago?”

“Yeah, I saw it online in Mexico. The two guys that broke in, she shot ’em.”

Ballard nodded as if confirming the fact. It was easy to understand how Denning had arrived at the wrong conclusion. In the news that came out after the Monday-night incident, the LAPD did not name the woman who had killed the Midnight Men, citing a policy of not identifying victims or intended victims of sexual assault. It was clear that had Ballard not prevailed in those moments in the hallway, she would have become the latest victim of the Midnight Men. The department had withheld her identity to avoid the entanglements and questions that would arise should her name and former affiliation be known.

Ballard was not interested in disabusing Denning of his belief. She wanted him thinking that any connection to him might have died with the Midnight Men.

“We know you gave them the layout of the house and the combination to plug into a garage opener,” Ballard said.

“You can’t prove that,” Denning said.

“We don’t have to,” Ballard said. “We aren’t the police. But we know that’s what happened and we’re willing to keep what we know to ourselves in exchange for the information we need.”

“What information?” Denning said. “And if you’re not the cops, why do you want this?”

“We want to know how you contacted the Midnight Men,” Ballard said. “Because there are others like you out there and we want to contact them.”

“Look, that’s not what they even called themselves,” Denning said. “The media did that. The whole thing blew up in the news last week and I wanted to stop them but it was too late. They went silent. But that’s one thing I can prove. I tried to stop it. And if there are others, I don’t know them. Can I go now?”

He stood up.

“No,” Bosch said. “Sit back down.”

Denning stayed standing and looked at Bosch, likely taking the measure of a man who was twice his age. Still, something about Bosch’s piercing stare chilled him and he sat down.

“You need to back up,” Ballard said. “Before you tried to stop them, how did you contact them?”

Denning shook his head as though he wished he could redo the past.

“They were just two guys on the Internet,” he said. “We started talking and one thing led to another. Hannah, she really fucked me over... and I... never mind. Fuck it.”

“These two guys, where on the Internet did you meet them?” Ballard asked.

“I don’t know. I was floating around... there’s a bunch of sites. Forums. You’re anonymous, you know? So you can say what you feel. Just put it out there, and some people respond and tell you things. Tell you about other places to go. Give you passwords. It just sort of happens. There’s a lot if you’re looking for it. You know, a place where everybody’s been there like you. Gotten fucked over by a woman. You sort of go down the rabbit hole.”

“This rabbit hole... are you talking about Dark Web stuff?”

“Yes, definitely. Everybody, everything anonymous. These guys, the so-called Midnight Men, they had a site and I got this password. And then... that was it.”

“How did you access the Dark Web?”

“Easy. Got a VPN first, then went through Tor.”

Ballard knew Bosch was probably at sea when it came to the Dark Web, but through cases and FBI bulletins, she had rudimentary knowledge of how virtual private networks and Dark Web browsers like Tor worked.

“So, how did you specifically find the Midnight Men?”

“They posted on a forum that said, you know, they were in the L.A. area and were, uh, were willing to... do things... to even the score, I guess you’d call it.”

Denning looked off to the side, too humiliated by his actions to hold Ballard’s eyes.

“Look at me,” Ballard said. “Is that what they called it? ‘Evening the score’?”

Denning turned his face back toward Ballard but kept his eyes down.

“No, they... I think the heading was ‘Teach a Bitch a Lesson,’” he said. “Yeah, and I... made a post about my situation and then they gave me a site and password to check out and things sort of went from there.”

“What was the site called?”

“It didn’t have a name. A lot of stuff doesn’t have names. It was a number.”

“Do you have a laptop in that bag?”

“Um, yeah.”

“I want you to show us. Take us to that site.”

“Uh, no, we’re not going to do that. It’s really bad stuff and I—”

He stopped when Bosch stood up and came toward the couch. Ballard could see that something about Bosch’s demeanor unnerved Denning. Harry’s hands were balled into fists, the scars on his knuckles white. Denning leaned back into the couch while Bosch roughly grabbed his backpack and started unzipping compartments until he found the laptop. He stepped over to the desk, put the computer down, and brought the desk chair back over.

“Show us the fucking site,” Bosch said.

“All right,” Denning said. “Take it easy.”

He moved to the desk and sat down. He opened the laptop. Ballard got up and stood behind him so she could see the screen. She watched while Denning signed into the hotel’s Internet.

“Some places have blocks on the Dark Web,” he said. “They don’t let you use Tor.”

“We’ll see,” Ballard said. “Keep going.”

There were no blocks, and Denning was able to go into his private network and use the Tor browser to access the site put together by the Midnight Men. The number he typed in was 2-0-8-1-1-2 and Ballard committed it to memory. He then added a numeric password which Ballard memorized as well.

“What’s the significance of the numbers?” she asked.

“Numbers assigned to letters,” Denning said. “A-1, B-2, and so on. Translates to T-H-A-L — ‘Teach Her a Lesson.’ But I didn’t find that out till later.”

He said it in a tone that suggested he would never have ventured onto the site if he’d known that’s what the numbers meant. He might have been able to convince himself of that but Ballard doubted anybody else would believe it.

“And I think the password is—”

“‘Bitch.’ Yeah, I figured that one out.”

The site was a horror show. It contained dozens of photos and videos of women being raped and humiliated. The men committing the atrocities were never seen, though it was apparent it was the Midnight Men, because the actions matched the reports of the victims in the cases known to Ballard. But there were more than three victims on the site. Cases had apparently not been connected or victims had not reported them, probably out of fear of their attackers or the system they would be sucked into.

Each of the digital files was labeled with a name. When Ballard spotted a file named Cindy1, she told Denning to open it. She immediately recognized Cindy Carpenter, though blindfolded with tape, in a horrific still shot from her assault.

“All right, enough,” she said.

When Denning was slow to kill the screen, Bosch reached over and slammed the computer shut, Denning yanking his fingers away at the last moment.

“Jesus Christ!” he shrieked.

“Get back on the couch,” Bosch ordered.

Denning complied, holding his hands up like he wanted no trouble.

Ballard had to compose herself for a moment. She wanted to get away from this room and this man, but she managed to get her last questions out.

“What did they want?” she asked.

“What do you mean?” Denning asked.

“Did they want money to do this? Did you pay them?”

“No, they didn’t want anything. They liked doing it, I guess. You know, they hated all women. There are people like that.”

He said it in a way designed to convey that he was different from them. He hated a woman to the point that he would sic two rapists on her. But he didn’t hate all women, like they did.

It made Ballard feel all the more repulsed. She needed to go. She looked at Bosch and nodded. They now knew all they needed to know.

“Let’s go,” Bosch said.

He and Ballard stood up. Denning looked up at them from the couch.

“That’s it?” he asked.

“That’s it,” Ballard said.

Bosch picked the laptop up off the desk and tossed it, more at Denning than to him.

“Easy,” Denning protested.

He carefully slid it back into the cushioned compartment of his backpack and stood up.

“We’re going to get my car now, right?”

“You can walk,” Ballard said. “I don’t want to be anywhere near you.”

“Wait, you—”

Bosch stepped into a punch that hit Denning in the gut with a force that belied his years. Denning dropped the backpack to the floor with a hard thud and fell back on the couch, gasping for air.

Ballard headed for the door while Bosch delayed a moment to see if Denning would get up. But it became clear he would not be getting up for a while.

Bosch followed Ballard out of the room into the hallway. He caught up halfway to the elevators.

“That last part was unscripted,” she said.

“Yeah,” Bosch said. “Sorry about that.”

“Don’t be,” she said. “I’m not sorry about that at all.”

46

Bosch drove because Ballard asked him to. As dark as her thoughts were, she didn’t want any distractions from them. Bosch handed back her mini-recorder. He’d had it in the breast pocket of his suit jacket. Ballard tested the sound of the recording and it was good. They had Denning on tape. She then started a new recording and repeated the site and password numbers Denning had provided. She then leaned against the passenger door and thought about what she had seen on his computer. After a while, she took out her phone. She had dropped Pinto off at the Dog House that morning. She pulled up the kennel camera and saw him in the familiar spot under the bench. Alert and watching the others. She put the phone away and was better braced for her dark thoughts.

“So...,” Bosch finally said. “What are you thinking?”

“That we have front-row seats on a pretty fucked-up world,” she said.

“The abyss. But you can’t let it get you down, partner. Being in the front row means you get to try to do something about it.”

“Even without a badge?”

“Even without a badge.”

They were on the 405 freeway going north and coming up on the 10 interchange. Bosch took his left hand off the wheel and rotated his wrist.

“What?” Ballard asked.

“Came in at a bad angle on that punch,” he said.

“Well,” Ballard said. “I hope you Houdinied him.”

She had read somewhere that Houdini had died from a punch to the gut.

Bosch put his hand back on the wheel.

“What are we going to do with this?” he asked.

“I’m still thinking the FBI is the best bet,” Ballard said. “They have the skills to deal with all the encryption and masking. Much better than the LAPD.”

“I didn’t really get any of that Dark Web stuff,” Bosch said. “Tell you the truth, I don’t even know how it works.”

Ballard smiled and looked over at him.

“You don’t have to know,” she said. “You’ve got me for that now.”

Bosch nodded.

“Well, how about the shorthand, then?” he asked.

“In the Dark Web, nothing is indexed,” Ballard began. “There’s no Google or anything like that. You sort of have to know your destination, and then one thing can lead to another. That’s what happened with Denning. He found like-minded and totally warped people, and that brought him eventually to the Midnight Men.”

“Okay.”

“The problem is that the Dark Web offers anonymity. He said he has a VPN. That’s a virtual private network that masks his computer ID when he’s prowling around on websites. Then he also uses Tor as a browser. It’s like the dot-com of the Dark Web and it encrypts his moves and bounces them all over the world to further defy tracing them. So he’s anonymous in the Dark Web, can’t be traced. Supposedly.”

“Supposedly?”

“The FBI is plugged in with the NSA and the whole federal alphabet soup of agencies. They’re cutting-edge when it comes to this. They’re doing things the public has no idea about. So I say we go to them, I give them the site where all that horrible stuff is and the password that’ll get them in. That’s all they need. They take it from there. They’ll be able to identify the three known victims on there. That last one we saw was my case, Cindy Carpenter. And I got the mojo on her ex as soon as I talked to him. He’s gotta go down for this. They’ll squeeze Denning and make him a witness, but he won’t walk. I’ll make sure of that. They let him walk, and I know the name of the Times reporter that would love that story.”

Bosch nodded.

“All of them have to go down,” he said.

“They will,” Ballard said. “The bureau will go silent but then the hammer will come down on all of them at once. A great reckoning of assholes. And if it doesn’t happen that way, then we make a call, and that’ll get some action going.”

Bosch nodded again.

“When should we go to the bureau?” he asked.

“How about right now?” Ballard said.

Bosch put on the blinker and started negotiating his way to the transition lanes to the eastbound 10. They were headed downtown.