The Night Fire

44

Bosch spent Wednesday morning gathering files for a follow-up meeting scheduled with Clayton Manley. The attorney had called the day before and reported that the firm’s litigation committee had agreed to take on Bosch’s case on a commission basis. Bosch pulled all the records that he had kept from the missing-cesium case from a box where he stored documents from the most important cases of his career — most solved, some not.

He then picked up his phone, made a call, and left a message canceling a physical therapy session for his knee that had been scheduled for that morning. He knew his therapist would take the cancellation out on him when he arrived for the next session. He could already feel the pain from that.

When his phone buzzed two minutes later he guessed it would be his therapist saying he would be charged for the session anyway, since he had canceled on the day of. But the call turned out to be Mickey Haller.

“Your boy the clay man called like you said he would.”

“Who?”

“Clayton Manley. His e-mail is ‘clayman at Michaelson & Mitchell.’ He asked me to send the pension stuff ’cause he’s taking on your wrongful-death case. You told him you were actually dying?”

“I may have, yes. So you’re cooperating? He left me a message wanting to meet today. This must be why.”

“You told me to cooperate, I’m cooperating. You’re not going to let him file something, are you?”

“It won’t get that far. I’m just trying to get inside that place.”

“And you’re not telling me why?”

Bosch got a call-waiting beep. He checked his screen and saw it was Ballard.

“You don’t need to know yet,” he told Haller. “And I have a call coming in that I should take. I’ll check in about all of this later.”

“All right, bro—”

Bosch clicked over to the other call. It sounded like Ballard was in a car.

“Renée.”

“Harry, what do you have going today? I want to talk to you about something. Another case.”

“I have an eleven o’clock meeting downtown. After that I have time. Are you headed to the beach now?”

“Yes, but I’ll sleep a few hours and then we can meet after your thing. How about lunch?”

“Musso’s just hit a hundred years old.”

“Perfect. What time?”

“Let’s make it one-thirty in case my thing runs long. You’ll get more sleep.”

“See you there.”

She disconnected and Bosch went back to work on his own case, putting together a carefully constructed file he would give Clayton Manley. He left the house at ten and headed toward his downtown appointment, knowing from his call with Manley the day before that he was in play at Michaelson & Mitchell.

Bosch had noted four things during his earlier visit to Manley. One was that in a firm that had at least two floors of lawyers, Manley’s office, as remote as it seemed to be at the end of the hallway, was just doors away from the offices of the firm’s two founding partners. There had to be a reason for that, especially in light of the embarrassing run-in Manley had had with Judge Montgomery. That kind of public chastisement and humiliation would usually result in an order to clear out your desk and be gone by the end of the day. Instead, Manley maintained a position close to the firm’s top two seats of power.

The second thing he had noticed was that Manley apparently did not have a personal secretary or a clerk — at least not one sitting outside his office. There was no law firm staff at all in that hallway. Harry assumed that the doors he had passed to the offices of Mitchell and Michaelson led to large suites, each with its own set of clerks and secretaries guarding the entrances to the throne rooms. There had to be a reason Manley had none of that, but Bosch was more interested in how that could affect his plans for the meeting at eleven.

The last two things Bosch had noted during his first visit were that Manley’s office appeared to have neither a private bathroom nor a printer in plain view. His conclusion was that Manley most likely relied on a secretarial or law-clerk pool somewhere else in the offices, as well as a printer used by lesser members of the firm.

Not until he was on the 101 heading south did he remember he was supposed to call Mickey Haller back. He put his cell phone on speaker when he made the call. His Jeep had been manufactured about two decades before there was anything known as Bluetooth.

“Bosch, you dog.”

“Sorry about cutting you off before.”

“No problem and you didn’t have to call back. I said my piece.”

“Well, I wanted to ask you something. Did Manley ask you why you recommended him to me?”

“Matter of fact, he did.”

“And?”

“I can barely hear you, man. You need to get a car that’s quiet on the inside and has a digital sound system.”

“I’ll think about it. What did you tell Manley about recommending him to me?”

“I told him that what you wanted to do was really outside my wheelhouse. I also told him I thought he got a bad shake from Judge Montgomery that time. I said there is no call to embarrass a fellow lawyer, no matter what the cause. So I sent you over there because it looked like a case that could get him some positive attention. All that good?”

“All that was perfect.”

“I don’t know exactly what you’re up to, bro, but I hope you aren’t going to dump me for this guy. Because the truth is, I could run circles around him — backward.”

“I know that, bro, and that’s not the play. We’ll be back on track soon. Just trust me with this.”

“I had the file from the pension case messengered over to him. Make sure when all is said and done that I get it back.”

“Will do.”

Twenty minutes later Bosch was on the suede couch in the waiting room at Michaelson & Mitchell. He had a file full of documents on his lap. He had gotten there early so he could again take the measure of the place, check faces of lawyers and personnel, see who was going up and down the winding staircase. He opened his phone, pulled up the general number of the law firm, and waited.

There was a buzz and the young man behind the reception counter took a call. Bosch heard him say, “I’ll walk him back.”

The receptionist removed his telephone headset and started around the counter. Bosch pushed the Call button on his phone.

“I’ll take you back now,” the young man said. “Would you like a bottle of water or something else?”

“No, I’m good,” Bosch said.

Bosch got up to follow. Almost immediately there was the sound of the phone buzzing at the reception desk. The receptionist looked back at his station, a pained expression on his face.

“I know the way,” Bosch said. “I can make it on my own.”

“Oh, thank you,” the young man said.

He peeled off to go back to the phone and Bosch rounded the staircase and headed down the hall to Clayton Manley’s office. He pulled out his phone and ended the call.

The offices with names on the doors were all on the left side. These were on the outside of the building, with windows overlooking Bunker Hill. There were two unmarked doors on the right side of the hallway. As Bosch headed toward Manley’s office, he opened each of these, knowing that if he surprised someone in an office he could just say he was lost. But the first room was a small break room with a coffee maker and a half-size, under-counter refrigerator with a glass door displaying designer waters and sodas.

He moved to the next room down and found a supply room with a large copy machine next to a bank of shelves containing paper, envelopes, and files. There was also an emergency exit door.

Bosch quickly stepped in and assessed the printer. He made the easiest move to disable it, reaching behind it and unplugging the power cord. The cooling fan and digital screen went dead.

He quickly returned to the hallway, walked down to Manley’s office, and knocked once politely on the door before entering. Manley stood up behind his desk.

“Mr. Bosch, come on in.”

“Thank you. I brought the documents you asked for — from the radiation case.”

“Have a seat and let me just send this e-mail. It’s actually to Mr. Haller, thanking him for the docs he sent relating to your pension arbitration.”

“Okay, good. How was he to deal with?”

Manley typed a few words onto his screen and hit the Send button.

“Mr. Haller?” he asked. “He was fine. Seemed pleased to help. Why? Was there something I missed?”

“No, no, I just didn’t know whether he was second-guessing, you know, passing on the case.”

“I don’t think so. He seemed eager to help and messengered over everything he had. Let me see what you have there. I also have a contract and power of attorney for you to sign.”

Bosch handed the file across the desk. It was almost an inch thick and he had padded it with non-pertinent reports from the case in which he had gotten dosed with cesium years before. Manley made a cursory flip through the file, stopping once to look at one of the documents that had randomly caught his attention.

“This is great stuff,” he finally said. “It will be very helpful. We just need to formalize our agreement that I’m representing you on a commission basis and I will take it from here. You’ll have the power and might of this entire firm behind you. We’ll sue the bastards.”

Manley smiled at the final cliché.

“Uh, that’s great,” Bosch said. “But... you can call me paranoid but I don’t want to leave that file here. It’s the only evidence I have of what happened to me. Is there any chance you could make copies and I keep the originals?”

“I don’t see why not,” Manley said without hesitation. “Let me give you the contract to read over and sign and I’ll go get this copied.”

“Sounds good.”

Manley looked around on his desk until he found a thin file. He opened it and handed Bosch a three-page agreement under the Michaelson & Mitchell letterhead. He then pulled a pen out of a holder on his desk and put it down in front of Bosch.

“And I’ll be right back,” Manley said.

“I’ll be here,” Bosch said.

“Can I get you something? Water? Soda? Coffee?”

“Uh, no, I’m fine.”

Manley got up from his desk and left the office with Bosch’s file. He left the door to the room open a foot. Bosch quickly got up and went to the door to watch Manley go down the hall to the copy room. He listened while Manley loaded the stack of documents, then cursed when he realized the machine was dead.

Now was the moment. Bosch knew that Manley would either come back to his office, inform Bosch of the copy trouble, and summon a clerk to do the copying, or he would go off further into the office complex in search of another copier.

Bosch saw Manley emerge from the copy room, head down and focused on the documents he was carrying. He quickly went back to his seat in front of the desk. He was holding and reading the contract when Manley stuck his head in the door.

“We’re having trouble with the copier over on this side,” he said. “It will take me a few extra minutes to get this done. You okay?”

“No worries,” Bosch said. “I’m fine.”

“And nothing to drink?”

“Nothing, thanks.”

Bosch held up the contract as if to say it would keep him busy.

“Back soon,” Manley said.

Manley left and Bosch heard his footsteps going down the hall. He quickly got up, quietly closed the door to the office, and went back to the desk, this time going behind it to Manley’s seat. He checked his watch first to time Manley’s absence, then did a quick survey of the top of the desk. Nothing caught his eye, but the computer screen was still active.

He looked at the desktop on the screen and saw a variety of files and documents, including one that said BOSCH STUFF. He opened it and found that it contained notes from his first meeting with Manley. He read these quickly and determined it was an accurate accounting of their conversation. He closed the file and looked at the labeling of others on the desktop. He saw nothing that drew his attention.

He checked his watch and then rolled the chair back from the desk so he could get quicker access to the keyed file drawers on either side of the footwell. One of them had the key in the lock. Bosch turned it and opened the drawer. It contained file folders of different colors, most likely color-coded in some way. He walked his fingers through them to the files labeled with M names, but found no file on Montgomery.

He checked his watch. Manley had been gone two minutes already. He pulled the key out of the drawer and used it to unlock the other one. He went through the same procedure here and this time found a file marked MONTGOMERY. He pulled it quickly and flipped through it. It was as thick as the file he had given Manley to copy. It appeared to be documents from Manley’s ill-fated defamation lawsuit against the judge — the face-saving measure that had been destined to fail from the beginning.

Bosch noticed that the inside flap of the file had several handwritten names, numbers, and e-mails on it. With no time to think about what these might mean, he pulled out his phone and took a photo of the inside flap and the table-of-contents page opposite. He then closed the file and slid it back into the drawer. He closed and locked the drawer and transferred the key back to its original position.

He checked his watch. Three and a half minutes had gone by. Bosch had given Manley over a hundred pages to copy, and had placed in the middle of the package two pages that were stapled together and would cause a delay if they jammed a copier. But Bosch couldn’t count on that. He thought he had two minutes more at the most.

He went back to the computer and pulled up Manley’s e-mail account. Bosch’s eyes ran down the list of senders and then the words in the subject boxes. Nothing was of interest. He did an e-mail search of the name Montgomery by subject but no messages came up.

He then closed the e-mail page and went back to the home screen. In the Finder application he searched the name Montgomery again, this time coming up with a folder. He quickly opened it and found it contained nine files. He checked his watch. There was no way he could risk looking through them all. Most were simply labeled MONTGOMERY plus a date. All the dates were before the date of the defamation suit, so Bosch took these to be prep files. But one file was titled differently: it said simply TRANSFER.

Bosch opened TRANSFER and it contained only a thirteen-digit number, followed by the initials G.C. and nothing else. The mystery of it intrigued him. He took a photo of it as well.

As Bosch closed the folder, he heard the ding of a new e-mail from the computer. He opened Manley’s e-mail account and saw that the new message had an address that included the name Michaelson and the subject header Your new “client.”

Bosch knew he was out of time, and that if he opened the e-mail it would be marked as read. It could tip Manley to what he had been doing. But the quote marks around the word client got the best of him. He opened the e-mail. It was from Manley’s boss, William Michaelson.

Bosch was stunned. Without thinking more than a second about it, he deleted the message. He then went to the Trash folder and deleted it from there as well. He closed the e-mail account, moved the desk chair back into place, and crossed to the door to reopen it. Just as he swung the door in a foot, Manley arrived with the file and his copies of the documents.

“Going somewhere?” he asked.

“Yeah, to look for you,” Bosch said.

“Sorry, the machine jammed. Took longer than I thought. Here are your originals.”

He handed Bosch a stack of documents. He held the copies in his other hand and headed toward his desk.

“Did you sign the contract?”

“Just about to.”

“Everything in order?”

“Seems so.”

Bosch came back to the desk but didn’t sit down. He took the pen off the table and scribbled a signature on the contract. It wasn’t his name but it was hard to tell what name it was.

Manley moved around behind his desk and was about to sit down.

“Have a seat,” he said.

“Actually, I have another appointment, so I need to go,” Bosch said. “After you’ve looked at all of that stuff, why don’t you just give me a call and let’s discuss next steps?”

“Oh, I thought we had more time. I wanted to talk about bringing in a video team and going through the story with you.”

“You mean in case I die before we get to court?”

“Actually, it’s just the latest vogue in negotiations: have the victim tell his own story instead of the lawyer. When you have a good story — like you do — it gives them a real taste of what to expect in court. But we’ll set that up for next time. Let me walk you out.”

“No worries,” Bosch said. “I know my way out.”

A few moments later Bosch was headed down the hallway. As he passed the door that said WILLIAM MICHAELSON on the frosted glass, it opened and a man was standing there. He looked to be about sixty years old, with a graying fringe of hair and the paunch of a relaxed and successful businessman. He stared at Bosch as he went by. And Bosch stared right back at him.

45

The Musso & Frank Grill had outlasted them all in Hollywood and still packed them in for lunch and dinner every day in its two high-ceilinged rooms. It had an old-world elegance and charm that never changed, and a menu that kept that spirit as well. Most of its waiters were ancient, its martinis were burning cold and came with a sidecar on ice, and its sourdough bread was the best south of San Francisco.

Ballard was already seated in a semicircular booth in the “new room,” which was only seventy-four years old compared with the hundred-year-old “old room.” She had documents from a file spread in front of her and it reminded Bosch of how he had reviewed the Montgomery file. Bosch slid into the booth from her left.

“Hey.”

“Oh, hey. Let me clear some of this stuff out of the way.”

“It’s okay. It’s good to spread a case out, see what you got.”

“I know. I love it. But we’ve got to eat eventually.”

She stacked the reports in a crosshatch pattern so that the distinct piles she had been making wouldn’t get mixed up. She then put it all down next to her on the banquette.

“I thought you wanted to tell me about your case,” Bosch said.

“I do,” Ballard said. “But let’s eat first. I also want to hear about what you’ve been so busy with.”

“Probably not anymore. I think I just blew it.”

“What? What do you mean?”

“I have a guy — a Bunker Hill lawyer. I think there’s a chance he had Montgomery hit. His alibi is just too perfect and there are a couple other things that don’t jibe. So I posed as a client and went in to see him, and they figured it out this morning. His boss did. So that’s the end of that angle.”

“What will you do now?”

“Don’t know yet. But just the fact that they got on to me about it makes me think I’m on the right track. I have to come up with something else.”

A waiter in a red half-jacket came over. He put down plates of bread and butter and asked if they were ready to order. Bosch didn’t need a menu and Ballard had one in front of her.

“I wish it was tomorrow,” Bosch said.

“How come?” Ballard asked.

“Thursday is chicken pot pie day.”

“Ooh.”

“I’ll have the sand dabs and an iced tea.”

The waiter wrote it down and then looked at Ballard.

“Are they good, the sand dabs?” Ballard asked Bosch.

“Not really,” Bosch said. “That’s why I ordered them.”

Ballard laughed and ordered the sand dabs and the waiter walked away.

“What are sand dabs?” Ballard asked.

“Really?” Bosch said. “It’s fish. Little ones that they bread and fry. Squeeze some lemon on them. You’ll like them.”

“What’s the lawyer’s motive — on your case?”

“Pride. Montgomery embarrassed him in open court, banned him from his courtroom for incompetence. The Times picked up on it and it went from there. He hit the judge with a half-assed defamation suit that got thrown out and made more news, which only put his reputation further down the toilet. His name is Manley. People started calling him UnManley.”

“And he’s still at a Bunker Hill law firm?”

“Yeah, his firm stuck with him. I think he’s gotta be related to somebody. He’s probably Michaelson’s son-in-law or something. They have him in a back office down a hallway where the big shots can keep an eye on him.”

“Wait a minute, ‘Michaelson’? Who is that?”

“He’s the one who found out I was working on the Montgomery case. Cofounder of the firm, Michaelson & Mitchell.”

“Holy shit!”

“Yeah, I sort of saw an e-mail where he told my suspect what I was up to.”

“I don’t mean about that. I mean about this.”

She pulled the documents she had been working on back up onto the table and started separating the individual stacks. She leafed through one of the stacks until she found what she was looking for and handed it to Bosch. It was a legal motion with a court date stamp on it. Bosch wasn’t sure what he was looking for until Ballard tapped the top of the page and he saw the law firm letterhead: Michaelson & Mitchell.

“What is this?” he asked.

“It’s my case,” Ballard said. “My crispy critter from the other night. The coroner identified him and it turned out he was worth a small fortune. But he was a homeless drunk and probably didn’t know it. That was a motion filed by Michaelson & Mitchell last year trying to kick him out of the family trust because he had been MIA for like five years. His brother wanted him out of the money and hired Michaelson & Mitchell to get it done.”

Bosch read the front page of the stapled document.

“This is San Diego,” he said. “Why would the brother hire an L.A. firm?”

“I don’t know,” Ballard said. “Maybe they have an office down there. But it’s Michaelson whose name is on the pleading. It’s all over the case file I got from Olivas.”

“Did the brother get what he wanted?”

“No, that’s the point: he didn’t win. And a year later the missing brother gets melted in his tent with a rigged kerosene heater.”

Ballard spent the next ten minutes walking Bosch through the murder of Edison Banks Jr. All the while, Bosch tried to wrap himself around the fact that the Michaelson & Mitchell law firm was involved in both of their cases. Bosch didn’t believe in coincidences but he knew they happened. And here two detectives working different cases had just found a link between them. If that wasn’t a coincidence, he didn’t know what was.

When Ballard finished her summary, Bosch keyed in on one aspect of the case she had mentioned.

“This woman who bought the bottle of vodka,” he said. “No ID on her or the car?”

“Not so far. The car’s plate was stolen and the ATM card she used was bogus — stolen from Vegas.”

“And no photo.”

“Nothing clear. I have the store’s video on my laptop if you want to see.”

“Yes.”

Ballard pulled her laptop out of her backpack and opened it on the table. She brought up the video, started playing it, and turned the screen so Bosch could see it. He watched the woman park her car and enter, use the ATM, buy the bottle of vodka, and then leave. He noticed a height scale on the frame of the store’s door. With the stilettos, the woman was almost five-ten on the scale.

Her height may have been discernible but her face was never clearly seen on the video. But Bosch watched her mannerisms and the way she walked when she went back to the Mercedes. He knew that she could have been wearing all manner of disguises, from a wig to hip padding, but the way someone walked was usually always the same. The woman had a short stride that may have been dictated by her stiletto heels and skintight leather pants, but there was something else.

Bosch moved the cursor to the Rewind arrow on the screen and backed up the video so he could watch her get out of the Mercedes and enter the store. Her moving toward the camera gave another angle on her gait.

“She’s slightly intoed,” Bosch said. “On the left.”

“What?” Ballard asked.

Bosch reversed the video again and turned the screen back to Ballard before hitting the Play button. He leaned over to see the screen and narrate.

“Watch her walk,” he said. “Her left leg is slightly intoed. You can tell by the front point of those shoes. It’s pointing inward.”

“Like pigeon-toed,” Ballard said.

“Doctors call it intoed. My daughter had it but she grew out of it. But not everybody does. This woman — it’s only on her left. You see it?”

“Yes, barely. So what’s it get us? Maybe she was faking it to fool observant investigators like you.”

“I don’t think so.”

Now Bosch went into his briefcase and pulled out his laptop. While it was booting up, the waiter brought him an iced tea. Ballard stayed with just water.

“Okay, look at this,” Bosch said.

He pulled up the surveillance video from Grand Park and started playing it. He turned the screen to Ballard.

“This is the morning Judge Montgomery got murdered,” he said. “This is him coming down the steps on his way to the courthouse. Check out the woman walking ahead of him. That’s Laurie Lee Wells.”

They watched silently for a few moments. The woman was dressed in a white blouse and tan slacks. She had blond hair, a thin build, and was wearing what looked like flats or sandals.

Bosch continued his narration.

“They both go behind the elevator building,” he said. “Her first, then him. She comes out but he doesn’t. He was stabbed three times. She keeps going to the courthouse.”

“She’s intoed,” Ballard said. “I see it. On her left side.”

The condition was more clearly seen when the woman turned and started walking directly toward the courthouse and the camera.

“One blond-haired, one black-haired,” Ballard said. “You think it’s the same woman?”

“Same walk in both videos,” Bosch said. “Yeah, I do.”

“What do we have here?”

“Well, we have two different cases with the same law firm involved. A law firm with an attorney who had a grudge against Judge Montgomery. A law firm also representing the brother who had at least a legal grudge against Edison Banks. On top of that, this firm has represented a known organized-crime figure from Las Vegas — where, by the way, the woman in black’s ATM number was stolen from.”

“Who?”

“A guy named Dominick Butino, an enforcer known as ‘Batman,’ but not because he likes comic books and superheroes. And remember that Clayton Manley — the lawyer Montgomery threw out of his courtroom — is still at the firm. They have him hidden away under the watchful eyes of the founding partners. But when you have a lawyer who fucks up like that and brings shame to your firm, what do you usually do?”

“Cut ties.”

“Exactly. Get rid of him. But they don’t do that.”

“Why?”

“Because he knows something. He knows something that could bring the house down.”

“So what you’re getting at here is that this law firm set up these hits. Manley was part of it and they don’t want him running around loose,” Ballard said.

“We have no evidence of that, but, yeah, that’s exactly what I’m thinking.”

“A female hit man they probably connected with through their organized-crime clientele.”

“Woman.”

“What?”

“Hit woman.”

The waiter brought their sand dabs and Bosch and Ballard didn’t speak until he was gone.

“Didn’t the original detectives on Montgomery track that woman down?” Ballard asked. “Looks like she was wearing a juror badge.”

“They went to the jury pool and talked to her,” Bosch said. “She said she didn’t see anything.”

“And they just believed her?”

“She told them she was wearing earbuds and listening to music. She didn’t hear the judge get attacked behind her. They bought it, dropped her right there.”

“But also, wouldn’t she have had blood on her? You said the judge was stabbed three times and she’s wearing a white blouse.”

“You’d think so, but this was a pro hit. Montgomery was stabbed three times under the right arm. In a wound cluster the size of a half dollar. The blade cut the axillary artery — one of the three main bleeders in the body. It’s a perfect spot because the arterial spray is contained under the arm. The assassin walks away clean. The victim bleeds out.”

“How do you know so much about this?”

Bosch shrugged.

“I had training when I was in the army.”

“Do I want to hear why?”

“No, you don’t.”

“So then what do we do now about this hit woman?”

“We go find her.”

46

The first move they made was to find out whether Laurie Lee Wells was Laurie Lee Wells. Bosch had pulled the witness report on Wells out of the murder book files and shared it with Ballard. The report was written by Orlando Reyes, who had conducted the interview. It said he had routinely run Wells’s name through the NCIS database and had found no criminal record. This was expected; L.A. County did not allow people with criminal records to serve on juries. No follow-up was noted in the report.

Ballard and Bosch drove up to the Valley and the address on the report after finishing their sand dabs. With Bosch driving, Ballard looked up Laurie Lee Wells on IMDb and other entertainment databases and determined that there was a legitimate actress with the name who had had limited success in guest appearances on various television shows over the past years.

“You know there’s a TV show on HBO about a hit man who wants to become an actor?” Ballard said.

“I don’t have HBO,” Bosch said.

“I watch it at my grandmother’s. Anyway, Laurie Lee Wells was on it.”

“So?”

“So it’s weird. The show is about a hit man wanting to be an actor. It’s a dark comedy. And here we have an actress who might be a hit woman.”

“This isn’t dark comedy. And I doubt Laurie Lee Wells the actress is the Laurie Lee Wells we’re looking for. Once we confirm that, we need to figure out how and why her identity was taken and used by our suspect.”

“Roger that.”

Laurie Lee Wells the actress lived in a condominium on Dickens Street in Sherman Oaks. It was a security building, so they had to make first contact through an intercom at the gate — never the best way to do it. Ballard had the badge, so she handled the introduction. Wells was home and agreed to see the two investigators. But then she did not buzz the gate unlocked for nearly three minutes, and Bosch guessed she was cleaning up — hiding or flushing illegal substances.

Finally, the gate buzzed and they entered. They took an elevator to the fourth floor and found a woman waiting by an open door. She resembled the driver’s license photo they had pulled up earlier. But Bosch realized immediately she was not the woman they had studied on the videos. She was too short. This woman was barely five feet tall; even four-inch stilettos would not make her as tall as the woman who hit the five-ten mark on the door of Mako’s.

“Laurie?” Ballard said.

She wanted to keep the interview friendly, not adversarial, and going with first names was prudent.

“That’s me,” Wells said.

“Hi, I’m Renée and this is my partner, Harry,” Ballard said.

Wells smiled but looked a long time at Bosch, not able to hide her surprise at his age and the fact that he wasn’t doing the talking.

“Come on in,” she said. “I hate to say this because I’ve actually played this part in a TV show, but ‘What’s this about?’”

“Well, we’re hoping you can help us,” Ballard said. “Can we sit down?”

“Oh, sure. Sorry.”

Wells pointed to the living room, which had a couch and two chairs clustered around a fireplace with fake logs in it.

“Thank you,” Ballard said. “Let’s get the preliminaries out of the way. You are Laurie Lee Wells, DOB February twenty-third, 1987, correct?”

“That’s me,” Wells said.

“Have you been on jury duty any time in the last five years?”

Wells furrowed her brow. It was a question from left field.

“I can’t — I don’t think so,” she said. “The last time was a long time ago.”

“Definitely not last year?” Ballard asked.

“No, definitely not for a long time. What does it—”

“Were you interviewed last year by two LAPD detectives investigating a murder?”

“What? What is this? Should I call a lawyer or something?”

“You don’t need a lawyer. We think someone was impersonating you.”

“Oh, well, yes — that’s been going on for almost two years now.”

Ballard paused and sent a glance toward Bosch. Now they were the ones thrown a curveball.

“What do you mean by that?” Ballard finally asked.

“Someone stole my ID and has been impersonating me for two years,” Wells said. “They even filed my taxes last year and got my return, and it’s like nobody can do anything about it. They ran up so much debt I’ll never be able to buy a car or get a loan. I have to stay here because I already own it, but now my credit is shit and nobody will believe it’s not me. I tried to buy a car and they said no way, even though I had letters from the credit-card companies.”

“That’s terrible,” Ballard said.

“Do you know how your identity was stolen?” Bosch asked.

“When I went to Vegas,” Wells said. “My wallet got stolen when I was at a show. Like pickpocketed or something.”

“How do you know it happened there?” Bosch asked.

Wells’s face turned red with embarrassment.

“Because I was at one of those shows where men are the dancers,” she said. “I had to pay to go in — it was a bachelorette party — and then when I wanted to get my wallet out to give a tip to the dancers, it was gone. So it happened there.”

“And you reported it to the LVPD?” Ballard asked.

“I did, but nothing ever happened,” Wells said. “I never got anything back, and then somebody started applying for credit cards in my name and I’m fucked for the rest of my life. Excuse my language.”

“Do you happen to have a copy of the crime report?” Ballard asked.

“I’ve got a ton of copies because I have to send one to explain things every time I get ripped off,” Wells said. “Hold on.”

She got up and went out of the room. Ballard and Bosch were left to stare at each other.

“Vegas,” Ballard said.

Bosch nodded.

Wells soon came back and gave Ballard a copy of the two-page crime report she had filed in Las Vegas.

“Thank you,” Ballard said. “We won’t take too much more of your time but can I ask, are you getting regular reports on the usage of your name by the identity thief?”

“Not all the time, but the detective will call me every now and then and tell me what the thief is up to,” Wells said.

“What detective is that?” Ballard asked.

“Detective Kenworth with Vegas Metro Police,” Wells said. “He’s the only one I’ve ever dealt with.”

“‘Ken... worth,’” Ballard said. “Is that two names or one?”

“One. I don’t remember his first name. I think it’s on the report.”

“Well, what did he tell you was going on? Was it just local purchases?”

“No, she moved around. It was travel and hotels and restaurants. She kept applying for new cards because as soon as we got a fraud alert we’d shut it down. But then a month later she’d have another card.”

“What an awful story,” Ballard said.

“And all because of a bachelorette party too,” Wells said.

“Do you remember the name of the place where this happened?” Bosch asked. “Was it at a casino?”

“No, it wasn’t a casino,” Wells said. “It was called Devil’s Den and it was usually a strip bar for men. I mean, the dancers were women — but on Sunday nights it’s for women.”

“Okay,” Ballard said.

“Do you vote?” Bosch asked.

It was another question out of the blue but Wells answered.

“I know I should,” she said. “But it doesn’t seem to matter in California.”

“So you’re not registered to vote,” Bosch said.

“Not really,” Wells answered. “But why do you ask me that? What does it have to do with—”

“We think the person who stole your ID may have impersonated you during jury duty,” Bosch said. “You have to be registered to vote to be included in the jury pool. She may have registered to vote as you and then gotten picked for jury duty.”

“God, I wonder if she made me a Republican or a Democrat.”

Back in the car Bosch and Ballard talked it out before making their next move.

“We need to get the address off her voter registration,” Bosch said.

“It will tell us where the jury notice would have gone.”

“I can handle that,” Ballard said. “But what are we thinking here? This whole setup — this hit — relied on the killer getting a jury summons? That seems... I don’t know. Like a long shot, if you ask me.”

“Yes, but maybe not as long as you think. My daughter got a jury summons less than two months after she registered to vote. It’s supposed to be random selection. But every time they pull out a new pool of jurors, they winnow out those who have recently served, or who haven’t responded to summons in the past and have been referred for action. So the new voter has a better chance than others to get the call.”

Ballard nodded in a way that showed she was unconvinced.

“We also don’t know how long this was planned or how it was planned,” Bosch continued. “Laurie gets her wallet stolen last year and maybe they applied for the full setup. A voter registration card could be useful in a scam as a second ID. The thief could have had this idea for a long time and then things fell into place.”

“We have to find out whether there’s a connection between Devil’s Den and Batman Butino.”

“And talk to the detective with Metro Vegas. See how much he tracked this.”

“Maybe he got photos or video of the phony Laurie Lee Wells,” said Ballard. “What else?”

“We need to talk to Orlando Reyes,” Bosch said. “He interviewed her.”

“That’s what I don’t get. She killed the judge and then just reported for jury duty? Why? Why didn’t she get the hell out of there?”

“To complete the job.”

“What does that mean?”

“To complete the cover. If she had walked in one door of the courthouse and out the other, they would have known it was her. She stayed around so Reyes could find her, interview her, and move on.”

“It’s like buying the Tito’s vodka. She could have done it anywhere, but she bought it two blocks from where Banks was murdered — and at a place she knew had cameras that we would eventually get to. I said this to Olivas and the others. There is a psychology there. She’s a show-off. I think she gets off on hiding in plain sight. I don’t know why but it’s there.”

Bosch nodded. He believed Ballard was correct in her assessment.

“It will be interesting to hear Reyes’s take on her,” he said.

“I thought those guys weren’t talking to you,” Ballard said. “Maybe I should take Reyes.”

“No. You do and the case gets grabbed by them and RHD. Let me do it. When I explain that this could end up being very embarrassing for him, I think he’ll agree to meet me off campus and talk.”

“Perfect. You take him and I’ll work on the other stuff.”

“You sure?”

“Yes, my badge gives me better access on all of it. You take Reyes, I’ll take the rest.”

Bosch started the Jeep so he could get her back to her own car in Hollywood.

“And we also need to figure out how to approach Clayton Manley,” he said as he pulled away from the curb.

“I thought you said he was onto you,” Ballard said. “You’re not thinking about going back in there posing as a client, are you?”

“No, that’s burned. But if I can get Manley somewhere by himself, I might be able to lay it on the line for him and make him see that his options are dwindling.”

“I’d like to be there for that.”

“I want you there showing off your badge and gun. Then he’ll know his ass is hanging out there in the wind.”

“The times you were with him in his office...”

“Yeah?”

“You didn’t do anything I need to know about, right? Nothing that could cause blowback on the case?”

Bosch thought about what he should tell her. About what he did and what could be proved that he did.

“The only thing I did was read an e-mail that came up on his screen,” he finally said. “I told you this before. It was when he left the room to make copies. I heard a ding and looked at his e-mail and it was from his boss, Michaelson, calling him a fool for letting a fox into the henhouse. That sort of thing.”

“And you’re the fox.”

“I’m the fox.”

“And that’s it?”

“Well, then I deleted it.”

“You deleted the message?”

“Yeah, I didn’t want to risk him reading it while I was there in the office. I had to get out before he found out.”

“Okay, you never told me this, right?”

“Right.”

“And, really, that was all you did?”

Bosch thought about the photographs he had taken with his phone in Manley’s office. He decided to keep those to himself. For now.

“That was it.”

“Good.”

47

On the way back to Hollywood to drop Ballard at her car, Bosch called Reyes on his direct number at RHD and put it on speakerphone.

“Robbery-Homicide, Reyes.”

“Reyes, this is the luckiest call you ever took.”

“Who is — Bosch? Is this Bosch? I’m hanging up.”

“You do and you can read about it in the paper.”

“What the fuck are you talking about now? Am I on a speaker?”

“I’m driving so you’re on the speaker. And I’m talking about the real killer of Judge Montgomery. It’s going to come out soon, and you can look like you were a part of it or you and your partner can look like the ones who flat-out got it wrong — which is not far from the truth, Reyes.”

“Bosch, I’m not playing your games. I—”

“Not a game, Orlando. This is your chance to fix the fuckup. Meet me at the pink benches near the elevators in Grand Park in an hour.”

“No way. In an hour, I’m going home. Beat the traffic.”

“Then remember when the shit hits the fan that I was the one who gave you a shot at being part of this. One hour. Be there or beat the traffic. I don’t really care. I was once in the squad, Reyes, and I wanted to give you a courtesy. Adios.”

Bosch disconnected.

“You think he’ll show?” Ballard asked.

“Yeah, he’ll show,” Bosch said. “When I talked to him before, I think he kind of sensed this was no CBA. I think he was bullied by his partner. That happens.”

“I know.”

Bosch looked over at her and then back to the road.

“You talking about me?” he asked.

“No, of course not,” she said. “Besides, we’re not partners. Officially.”

“We clear this case and it may come out. What we’ve been doing.”

“I don’t know. Olivas put me on the Banks case. I connected it to you and this. I don’t see any blowback. Especially now that I have Olivas on a leash.”

Bosch smiled. Ballard had told him about the conversation she’d had with Olivas in the CIV. She thought the deal she had made and the recording she had as a backup gave her the upper hand.

“You really think you have that guy on a leash, huh?”

“Not really. But you know what I mean. He doesn’t want any waves. He wants a nice flat surface that he can paddle away on in a year. He causes me grief and I’m going to turn it right back on him. He knows that.”

“You’ve got the world wired.”

“For now. But nothing lasts forever.”

She had parked her cruiser on the street near Musso’s and Bosch pulled in behind it.

“What will you do now?” he asked.

“Go to the station, grab a few hours’ sleep in the cot room before going to roll call.”

“Back in the day, when I was at Hollywood Division, we called it the Honeymoon Suite.”

“They still do — at least some of the old-school guys. Some things about the department will never change.”

Bosch thought she was referring to something deeper than the nap room at the station.

“Okay, I’ll hold off calling you after I get with Reyes,” he said. “You call me when you wake up.”

“Will do,” Ballard said.

She got out of the car and he drove on. Thirty minutes later he was sitting on the pink bench second closest to the elevator building in Grand Park. The closest bench was occupied by a vagrant who was lying with his head propped up on a dirty duffel bag and reading a paperback with the cover torn off. Bosch did not know if Reyes knew what he looked like but he doubted that he would be mistaken for the man reading.

Ten minutes past the designated meeting time, Bosch was about to give up on Reyes. He was seated on the bench at an angle that gave him an open view of anyone walking across the park from the direction of the Police Administration Building. But nobody was coming. Bosch leaned forward to push himself up and not put stress on his knee when he heard his name spoken from behind. He didn’t turn. He waited and a man in a suit came around the bench from behind him. Bosch noted the uneven drape of the suit jacket over the hips and knew the man was carrying. He was mid-thirties and completely bald on top, with a monk’s fringe around the sides.

“Reyes?”

“That’s right.”

The man sat down on the bench.

“I almost went to the guy over there with the book,” Reyes said. “But I figured you had a little more dignity than that.”

“That’s funny, Orlando,” Bosch responded.

“So, what can I do for you, Bosch? I have to get out to Duarte and traffic’s going to be a motherfucker.”

Bosch pointed toward the elevator building. They were at an angle similar to that seen from the camera on the courthouse facade behind them. They could not see the place where Judge Montgomery had been fatally stabbed.

“Tell me about the juror,” Bosch said.

“Who?” Reyes said. “What juror?”

“The witness. Laurie Lee Wells. Your name is on the report. You interviewed her.”

“Is that what this is about? Forget it, we’re not going to go over every step of the investigation. She was a waste of time and now you’re wasting my time. I’m going home.”

Reyes stood up to leave.

“Sit down, Orlando,” Bosch said. “She was the killer and you missed it. Sit down and I’ll tell you about it.”

Reyes stayed standing. He pointed down at Bosch.

“Bullshit,” he said. “You’re just looking for absolution. You got the real killer kicked free and now you’re grabbing at straws. That woman didn’t see anything, didn’t hear anything. She was listening to Guns N’ Roses, Bosch. Turned up loud.”

“That’s a nice detail,” Bosch said. “It wasn’t in your report. Neither was anything about checking her out.”

“I checked her out. She was clean.”

“You mean you ran her name. But if you had gone to her apartment and knocked on her door, you would have seen that the real Laurie Lee Wells of Dickens Street, Sherman Oaks, was not the Laurie Lee Wells you interviewed. You got duped, Orlando. Sit down and we can exchange information. I’ll tell you about it.”

Reyes was hesitant, even jumpy. It was as if one foot wanted to head toward Duarte and the other wanted to go to the bench. Bosch threw his final argument at him.

“Do you know that the supposed juror you talked to is suspect number one on another RHD case? The crispy critter they picked up the other night. That was a hit disguised as something else. Just like Montgomery.”

Reyes finally sat down.

“Okay, Bosch, let’s hear it. And it better be good.”

“No, it doesn’t work that way. You talk to me first. I want to know about the interview. How you found her, where you talked to her. You talk to me, then I talk to you.”

Reyes shook his head, annoyed that he had to go first. But then he started telling the story.

“Simple. We collected video, then we watched the video. We saw the woman and identified the jury tag. I forget what Gussy was doing but I came over on my own. We didn’t have a name, obviously, so I asked to look around the jury assembly room. Nobody matched her. The jury clerk told me they had sent three groups up to courtrooms for jury selection that day. I checked those out, too, and still didn’t see her. I knew she couldn’t already be on a case because she was coming in too early for that. On the tape, I mean. Trials don’t start till ten each day. She’s on the tape before eight.”

“So how’d you find her?”

“The jury clerk told me to check out the cafeteria next to the jury assembly room. I did and there she was. Drinking coffee and reading a book. The blond hair stood out, you know? I knew it was her.”

“So you approach?”

“Yes, I badged her, told her about the murder and that she was on the video. I wanted to take her back to the PAB for the interview but she said she was on a jury panel and wanted to stay at the cafeteria. I talked to her there.”

“You didn’t record it?”

“No, if she turned out to be a witness of value, I would have gone the whole nine yards with her. But she wasn’t. I learned that pretty quick when it was clear she didn’t know what had happened twenty feet behind her. She had on the earbuds, remember?”

“Yes, Guns N’ Roses. Did you check her ID?”

“I didn’t look at her license, if that’s what you mean. But I knew the jury clerk would have all of that if we needed it. Look, Bosch, it’s your turn now. Tell me what you think you have and what you think you know.”

“One more question. Once you spoke to her and got her name, did you go to the jury clerk and confirm that she was a real juror?”

“Why would I do that, Bosch?”

“So the answer is no. You found her sitting in the cafeteria but you didn’t make sure she was legitimately there as a juror.”

“I didn’t have to. She didn’t see anything, she didn’t hear anything, she was of no use to me as a witness. Now, are you going to tell me what you think you know about her, or not?”

“I know the real Laurie Lee Wells who lives at the address you put in the report was never called for jury duty at the time of the murder and was not the woman in the video.”

“Fuck me. And you tie the woman in the video to that lawyer Montgomery had the problem with?”

“Working on that. That lawyer’s firm represents a party who may be involved in an arson-murder, and the same woman is on video in the vicinity of that killing. I think she’s a hitter who works for somebody that law firm represents. There are more connections — mainly through Las Vegas — and we’re working on them as well.”

“Who is ‘we,’ Bosch? Don’t tell me you brought that lawyer Haller into this.”

“No, not him. But you don’t need to know who I’m working with. You need to sit tight until I put all of this together and then we will bring it to you. That okay with you, Orlando?”

“Bosch, you don’t even—”

He was interrupted by a buzzing from his pocket. He pulled out his phone and looked at a text. He was about to type a response when he got a call on the phone and took it. He held a hand up to Bosch to keep him from speaking. He listened to the caller and then asked one question: “When?” He listened some more before saying, “Okay, I’m heading there now. Pick me up out front.”

He disconnected the call and stood up.

“I gotta go, Bosch,” he said. “And it looks like you’re a day late and a dollar short.”

“What are you talking about?” Bosch asked.

“Clayton Manley just took a dive off an office tower in Bunker Hill. He’s splattered all over California Plaza.”

Bosch was momentarily stunned. Then for a quick moment he thought about the crow that had hit the mirrored glass in Manley’s office and then fallen down the side of the building.

“How do they know it was him?” he asked.

“Because he sent an adios e-mail to the whole firm,” Reyes said. “Then he went up and jumped.”

Reyes turned and walked away, heading back to the PAB to catch a ride with his partner.