The Night Fire

48

Instead of sleeping, Ballard called the Las Vegas Metro number off the police report Laurie Lee Wells had provided. But she was surprised when the voice that answered said “OCI.”

Every law enforcement agency had its own glossary of acronyms, abbreviations, and shorthand references to specialized units, offices, and locations. Harry Bosch had once joked that the LAPD had a full-time unit dedicated to coming up with acronyms for its various units. But Ballard knew that generally OC meant Organized Crime, and what gave her pause was that the Wells report dealt with the theft of a wallet.

“OCI, can I help you?” the voice repeated.

“Uh, yes, I’m looking for Detective Tom Kenworth?” Ballard said.

“Please hold.”

She waited.

“Kenworth.”

“Detective, this is Detective Renée Ballard, Los Angeles Police Department. I’m calling because I’m wondering if you can help me with some information regarding a homicide case I’m investigating.”

“A homicide in L.A.? How can we help you from over here in Las Vegas?”

“You took a report last year from a woman named Laurie Lee Wells. Do you remember that name?”

“Laurie Lee Wells. Laurie Lee Wells. Uh, no, not really. Is she your victim?”

“No, she’s fine.”

“Your suspect?”

“No, Detective. Her wallet was stolen in Vegas at a place called the Devil’s Den and that resulted in her identity being stolen. Does any of this ring a bell yet?”

There was a long pause before Kenworth responded.

“Can I get your name again?”

“Renée Ballard.”

“And you said Hollywood.”

“Yes, Hollywood Division.”

“Okay, I’m going to call you back in about five minutes, okay?”

“I really need to get some information. This is a homicide.”

“I know that, and I will call you back. Five minutes.”

“Okay, I’ll give you my direct number.”

“No, I don’t want your direct number. If you’re legit, I’ll find you. Talk to you in five.”

He disconnected before Ballard could say anything else.

Ballard put the phone down and started to wait. She understood what Kenworth was doing — making sure he was talking to a real cop on a real case. She reread the Metro police report Laurie Lee Wells had given her. Less than a minute later she heard her name over the station intercom telling her she had a call on line 2. It was Kenworth.

“Sorry about that,” he said. “Can’t be too careful these days.”

“You’re working organized crime, I get it,” Ballard said. “So, who stole Laurie Lee Wells’s identity?”

“Well, hold on a second, Detective Ballard. Why don’t we start with you telling me what you’re working on? Who’s dead and how did Laurie Lee Wells’s name come into it?”

Ballard knew that if she went first, Kenworth would control the flow of information going both ways. But it felt as though she had no choice. His callback and cagey manner told her that Kenworth wasn’t going to give until he got.

“We actually have two murders, one last year and the other last week,” she said. “Our victim last year was a superior-court judge who was stabbed while walking to the courthouse. Our victim last week was burned alive. So far, we’ve come up with two connections: the same law firm represented players likely involved in each of these seemingly unrelated cases — and then there’s the woman.”

“The woman?” Kenworth asked.

“We’ve got the same woman on video in the immediate vicinity of each crime scene. She’s wearing different wigs and clothing but it’s the same woman. In the first case, the judge’s murder, she was even corralled as a possible witness and identified herself to police as Laurie Lee Wells, giving the correct address of the Laurie Lee Wells who had her wallet and identity stolen in Las Vegas last year. Problem is, we went to that address and spoke to the real Laurie Lee Wells, and she’s not the woman on the video. She told us about what happened in Vegas and that’s what brings me to you.”

There was silence from Kenworth.

“You still there?” Ballard prompted.

“I’m here,” Kenworth said. “I was thinking. These videos, you have a clear shot of the woman?”

“Not really. She was clever about that. But we identified her by her walk.”

“Her walk.”

“She’s intoed. You can see it in both videos. Does that mean anything to you?”

“‘Intoed’? Nope. I don’t even know what it means.”

“Okay, then what can you tell me about the Laurie Lee Wells case? Have you identified the woman who took her identity? You work in organized crime. I have to assume her case has been folded into something bigger.”

“Well, we have some organized groups here who engage in identity theft on a large scale, so a lot of that comes through our office. But with the Wells case we took it because it fit with a location we’ve been looking at.”

“The Devil’s Den.”

Kenworth was silent, pointedly not confirming Ballard’s supposition.

“Okay, if you don’t want to talk about the Devil’s Den, then let’s talk about Batman,” Ballard said.

“‘Batman’?”

“Come on, Kenworth. Dominick Butino.”

“That’s the first time you’ve mentioned him. How is he part of this?”

“The law firm that connects all of this also repped Butino on a case over here. They won it. Let me just ask you, Detective, since you’re in OCI — have you ever heard of a woman hitter, maybe working for Butino or the Outfit?”

As was becoming routine, Kenworth didn’t answer right away. He seemed to have to carefully weigh every piece of information he eventually gave Ballard.

“It’s not that hard a question,” Ballard finally said. “You either have or you haven’t. Your hesitation suggests you have.”

“Well, yeah,” Kenworth said. “But it’s more rumor than anything else. We’ve picked up intel here and there about a woman who handles contracts for the Outfit.”

“What are the rumors?”

“We had a guy — a connected guy — come out here from Miami. He ended up dead in his suite at the Cleopatra. The casino surveillance cams showed him going up with a woman. The scene looked like a suicide — he sucked down a bullet. But the more we looked into it, the more we think it was a hit. But that was nine months ago and we haven’t gotten anywhere with it. It’s gone cold.”

“Sounds like our girl. I’d like to see the video.”

Kenworth gave that his usual pause.

“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours,” Ballard prompted. “We can help each other here. If it’s the same woman, we have something big. Give me your e-mail and I’ll send you what we’ve got. You send me what you have. This is what cooperating police agencies do.”

“I think that will be all right,” Kenworth finally said. “But we don’t have her face. In a city of cameras, she seemed to know where every one of them was placed.”

“Same here. What’s your e-mail? I’ll send you the first video. You send me back yours and then I’ll send you our second. Deal?”

“Deal.”

After disconnecting, Ballard uploaded the video from Mako’s that showed the suspect buying the bottle of Tito’s and using the ATM. On the e-mail to Kenworth, she wrote Black Widow in the subject line because that was the name Ballard had come up with for the dark-haired, darkly dressed version of the suspected killer.

Kenworth carried his telephone manners into his e-mail etiquette: after a half hour, Ballard had received nothing in return from the Las Vegas detective. She was beginning to feel she had been ripped off and was about to call him when a return e-mail came in with the Black Widow subject line. It had two videos labeled CLEO1 and CLEO2 attached. The only message in the e-mail said: “The car in CLEO2 was stolen, set on fire in Summerland.”

Ballard downloaded and watched the videos.

The first was a camera trail that showed a man in a Jimmy Buffett shirt playing blackjack at a high-roller table at the Cleopatra. Ballard assumed he was the victim-to-be. The woman sitting next to him was not playing any hands. She had long and full blond hair that appeared to be a wig. Its thick bangs acted like a visor, shielding her downward-tilted face from camera capture.

The man cashed in his chips, then the camera angles changed as the couple left the table and headed to the elevator reserved for tower suites. The woman kept her head down and away from any camera. She carried what appeared to be a large white overnight bag slung over one of her shoulders and she was wearing black parachute pants and a halter top. The last capture shown on the video was the couple in the elevator, the 42 button on the panel glowing as they rode up. The time stamp on the elevator shot showed them getting off on the forty-second floor at 01:12:54 and then the video ended.

Ballard went to CLEO2. This video began with the elevator camera and a time stamp of 01:34:31 and showed a woman getting aboard on the forty-second floor. She was wearing a wide-brimmed hat that totally obscured her face. Only a small fringe of black hair could be seen going down her back. She was wearing black slacks, blouse, and sandals. The overnight bag strapped over her shoulder was black but had the same dimensions as the one seen in the CLEO1 video.

The woman got off the elevator at the casino level and the cameras followed her through the vast gaming space and out the doors to a parking garage. She walked down a parking aisle, got into a silver Porsche SUV, and drove away.

Thanks to Kenworth’s message, Ballard knew the fate of the Porsche.

Ballard reversed the video and watched the woman walk down the parking aisle again. She noted the gait was slightly intoed.

“Black Widow,” Ballard whispered.

Making good on her deal, she uploaded the video from Grand Park and sent it to Kenworth with a message:

After sending it, she realized 187 might not be the penal code number for murder in Nevada. She also realized that not only did Vegas Metro and LAPD need to talk, but LAPD needed to talk among themselves. The case had reached a point where she needed to bring Olivas up to date and put the need for interagency cooperation with Vegas on his plate.

But before she did that she had to tell her own partner.

Ballard called Bosch and he picked up immediately. But his voice was drowned out by the background noise of traffic and a blaring siren. She managed to hear him yell, “Hold on.”

She waited as he apparently rolled up the windows of his car and put in earbuds.

“Renée?”

“Harry, where are you? What’s going on?”

“Heading to Bunker Hill behind an RA. Clayton Manley just went down thirty-two floors without an elevator.”

“Oh, shit. He jumped?”

“That’s what they’re saying. Who knows? RHD is taking it. Gustafson and Reyes. I’m heading there, see what I can find out.”

“Listen, Harry, be careful. This thing is coming together. I’ve been talking to Vegas Metro. They have a case over there, a murder. They sent video and it’s our girl. The Black Widow.”

“That’s what they call her?”

“No, actually, I called her that when I sent them our videos.”

“What’s the case over there?”

“Mob-related. Some OC guy from Miami checked into the Cleopatra but didn’t check out. It was a suicide setup — like he swallowed a bullet. But they have him on video going up to the room with the Black Widow. Then she comes down, different wig, different look. But she has the walk. It’s her. I’m sure.”

There was a silence, but with Bosch, Ballard was used to it.

“Fake suicide,” he finally said.

“Like with Manley,” Ballard said. “But why is RHD taking it if it’s a suicide — supposedly?”

“I don’t know. Maybe what I’ve been telling Reyes made them put Manley back on their radar. I was in the middle of telling him how they’d missed Manley when he got the call. Anyway, I’m pulling in. I’m going to see if I can get up to the firm.”

“Harry, she could be up there. Or at least still in the vicinity.”

“I know.”

“Well, if they felt the need to get rid of Manley, they might feel the same about you. You’re the one who went in there and stirred things up.”

“I know.”

“So don’t go in. Just wait for me there. I’m on my way.”