The Waiting

8

Ballard woke to the sound of her phone buzzing on the bedside table. She checked the number but didn’t recognize it. She answered anyway.

“Ballard.”

“This is Seth.”

“Okay. Seth who?”

“Dawson. You left me a message, said call anytime. I just got off work.”

Ballard put it together.

“Oh, right, yes. Sorry, I leave a lot of messages for a lot of people. Anyway, I wanted to ask a few questions about the burg—”

“Did you catch them?”

“Uh, no, we didn’t. But why do you say ‘them’?” Ballard pivoted to a sitting position, put her feet on the floor. She turned on the bed-table light and reached for her notebook next to it.

“Had to be more than one,” Dawson said. “To hit all of those cars that morning. At least, that’s what the cop said.”

“Wait a minute,” Ballard said. “There was more than one auto burglary? I only have your report.”

“Yeah, see, I was the only one who waited around for the cops to show up. It took them like an hour. But I had insurance, so I needed a police report. I knew that. The other guys got tired of waiting and took off.”

“How many others got ripped off?”

“There was four of us, including me.”

“Do you recall what was taken from the other cars?”

“I think just phones, maybe a little bit of cash.”

“Do you know the other three?”

“Not really. I mean, I saw them on the water, but we didn’t really talk. Just stayed out of each other’s way, mostly.”

“Okay, Seth. The police report says you live in Venice. Do you go up to Topanga often?”

“Hardly ever. And after that shit, never again, man. My insurance had a five-hundred-dollar deductible, so that cost me.”

“I understand. You lost a phone and a watch?”

“Yeah, the Breitling was from my dad. He spent three grand on it.”

“I’m sure it was of great sentimental value to you.”

“It was.”

“So, if you hardly ever went up to the Topanga break, how come you went there that morning?”

“It was like glass down by me in Venice. So I checked the app and it said that was where the waves were that morning. I went.”

“Which app do you use?”

“I used to use Dawn Patrol but then I switched to Surf’s Up. I think, if I remember... yeah, I had switched by then. It woulda been Surf’s Up.”

It was the same app that Ballard used and that had led her to Staircases yesterday morning. She wrote it down in her notebook even though she knew she wouldn’t forget. It was a solid lead. If the thieves were using a surf app to determine which breaks were hot and drawing surfers, she could do the same thing in her search for whoever had stolen her badge and gun.

“You said you just got off work,” she said. “Where do you work, Seth?”

“The FedEx at the airport,” he said. “I’m a cargo coordinator. I make sure the right packages go to the right planes going to the right airports. It’s just a job.”

“You work nights to keep your days for surfing?”

“Exactly.”

“I know the drill. Listen, I’d appreciate it if you kept this conversation between us. It’s an active investigation, so it would be better if people didn’t know what we’re doing.”

“Okay.”

“Thank you for your time. I’ll be in touch when we get these guys.”

“Cool.”

Ballard disconnected and thought about things for a moment. She was energized by the lead regarding the surf app. She lay back down on the bed. It took her only thirty seconds to know sleep was not happening. She got up to take a shower.

9

Surf’s up reported that for a second straight day, the break at Staircases was where the juiciest waves in the Southland were rolling in. While Ballard didn’t believe the thieves she was looking for were the smartest criminals she had ever hunted, she did think that they were probably wise enough not to return to the same spot a day after stealing a police officer’s badge and gun. But she headed up the Pacific Coast Highway anyway, just to scope it out through eyes that had a better understanding of the setup.

She had spent a good part of the night working online, matching theft reports against the wave history on the Surf’s Up app. With only one exception, every theft reported by a surfer in the previous twelve months had occurred at the break where the app said the best waves were to be found. It was clear when her analysis was completed that the thieves — and she, too, was convinced it was more than one culprit — were using the Surf’s Up app to plot their crimes.

And now she was driving in predawn darkness toward Staircases on the off chance that the thieves were not as smart as she’d assumed.

It was still dark when she got there. The parking area behind the bluffs was empty. She got out and walked the length of the lot, looking at the ridgeline that ran behind it. There had to be an observation point where both the water and the parking area could be seen. This would allow the thieves to watch their intended victims hide their vehicle keys and know exactly when they were out on the water so they could make their move.

The bluff between the parking lot and the water was at its highest point at the north end of the lot. Ballard instinctively knew that it would be the best observation spot. She turned on a mini-flashlight she had retrieved from her equipment bag and trudged up the sandy incline. At the top she found a small clearing in the seagrass where the parking area and the beach were easily viewed. The litter of cans and bottles and other trash seemed to be proof that she was right.

Most of the debris was discarded willy-nilly on the sand or in the seagrass rimming it. But one can of Red Bull stood upright. Ashes around the pop-top hole indicated that it had been used as an ashtray. This seemed unusual to Ballard, considering that the spot was out in the open, and ashes could easily be flicked into the wind.

She snapped on latex gloves and picked up the can by the rim using two fingers so as not to smudge any prints on the barrel. She gently shook the can, and it seemed empty of liquid, but there was something inside. She guessed it was a cigarette butt or the end of a joint. She pulled an evidence bag out of her pocket and put the can in it. It was possible that the can had been handled by the thieves who ripped her off, but it was a long shot. Still, she had learned over the years to follow her hunches. Sometimes they paid off.

Looking out across the beach to the water, she saw one surfer already out there in the early light of dawn. He wore no wetsuit, and Ballard knew it was her breakfast suitor, Van.

Ballard wished she were out there, not standing on a bluff with an evidence bag in her hand. She wondered if there would ever come a time when she didn’t carry latex gloves and evidence bags in her pockets.

She walked back down to the parking lot and saw that there was now another vehicle there, a vintage VW van painted light blue with white trim. Windows all around, and surf racks on the roof. It had to be Van’s van, and she wondered if Van was really his name or a nickname he’d picked up because of the VW. Either way, she liked him better for what he drove and its connection to the surf culture of the past.

She got back in the Defender and took the Pacific Coast Highway to the 10 freeway, which would take her through downtown and out to Cal State L.A., where the department’s forensics lab was located.

On the way she stopped at the beach at Topanga and looked around, but there were no surfers and not much action on the break. She looked for the fruit vendor mentioned in the Dawson police report but he was nowhere in sight, and Ballard wasn’t going to wait to see if he showed. The Red Bull can in the evidence bag on the seat next to her was front of mind and she wanted to get it to the lab without further delay.

The PCH curved east through the tunnel in Santa Monica and transitioned to the 10 freeway. Twenty minutes later she was through downtown and taking the exit for the lab complex the LAPD shared with the sheriff’s department. The latent-prints unit was on the first floor, and as it did in the DNA lab three floors above, the Open-Unsolved Unit had a go-to tech there assigned to handle its print requests. But criminalist Federico Beltran was not as accommodating as Darcy Troy. Ballard was hoping that by coming in person to deliver a piece of evidence for examination, she could avoid delay.

After parking, she pulled her phone and called Paul Masser. She didn’t want to run into him in the building and have to explain what the Red Bull can was all about. When he answered, she could tell he was in a moving car.

“Hey, did you get to the lab yet?” she asked.

“Just left. Darcy said she’d put the samples through today.”

“Samples?”

“I gave her both. As you said last night, it would be good to identify the woman and get her genetic signature.”

Ballard nodded, though she knew he couldn’t see her. “Okay, but will it slow Darcy down, having two samples to send to DOJ?”

“I don’t see how it could, but if you want me to call her back and say hold off on the lipstick, I will.”

“No, never mind. I’m overthinking it.”

“She said she’d be quick.”

“Good. Where are you headed now?”

“Norwalk to pull Nicholas Purcell’s birth certificate — if he was born here in the county. After that, back to the barn.”

“Okay, I’ll see you there later. I’ve got an errand to run this morning. Tell Colleen not to panic if I’m late.”

“I’m sure she will anyway.”

Ballard disconnected and realized she had a problem: She needed her ID to get inside the building. She had been to the lab so many times during her career that she knew every one of the security officers who manned the front entrance. More than once, she had been waved through without showing her ID, but she always had it with her. It would be just her luck if a new guard was on post today and asked her for it.

She thought about possible solutions for a few moments and then got out and opened the back door of the Defender. She had a plastic carton there that contained her crime scene equipment — overalls, booties, rubber boots, gloves, hats, crime scene markers, extra notebooks, and a camera. She hadn’t needed most of it during her time in the Open-Unsolved Unit because the crime scenes in those cases were long gone. But she needed it now. She put the bag containing the Red Bull can on top of the carton, kicked the door of the Defender closed, and carried the whole thing to the building.

As she went through the automatic doors, Ballard exaggerated the weight of the carton and tried to hurry by the check-in desk, where a security guard sat. She recognized him, but he was fairly new and might not recognize her. She quickly read his nameplate — Eastwood — as she moved by, and it prompted her to remember his obvious nickname.

“Hey, Clint,” she said. “Ballard, Open-Unsolved, going to see Rico in Latents. Can you put me down?”

“Sure thing,” Eastwood said. “Badge number?”

“Seven-six-five-eight.”

“All you need is a nine.”

“What?”

“To make a straight.”

Ballard threw out a fake laugh. “Oh, yeah, right. Can you hit the door?”

“Sure can. You need help with that? Looks heavy.”

“No, I got it. Thanks.”

Eastwood buzzed the automatic door and it opened. Ballard was in. She walked down the hall to the latent-prints section and put the crime scene carton down next to the door. She went in with the evidence bag containing the can.

Federico Beltran was already in his cubicle looking at side-by-side fingerprints on a large computer screen. Ballard knew this was the last step in making a print match. The computer pulled matches from all databases the department subscribed to around the country, and it was the tech’s job to eyeball the matches for accuracy and make the call.

“Rico, my favorite print man,” Ballard said. “How are you this fine morning?”

Beltran looked up at her; she was leaning on the half wall to the right of his screen. “Ballard,” he said. “I’m busy this fine morning.”

“Well, I’m going to have to add to your plate,” Ballard said. She raised her hand from behind the wall so he could see the evidence bag containing the can. Beltran groaned like Ballard had known he would.

“Come on, now,” she said. “Cheer up. I’m only laying one item on you. It could be a lot worse.”

“Leave it on the desk and I’ll get to it,” Beltran said.

“Actually, I need this on a priority, Federico. I’m going to wait on this one.”

“You can’t. I’m in the middle of a case here.”

“And I can see you’re at the end of it, so finish that and run with mine. You’re our guy and the key to solving this case. You could be a hero, and we won’t forget to mention you in the press release.”

“Right. We never get the kudos. You people hog all the glory.”

“But not this time. I just need you to vape this can and see what you get. Two hours tops, and if there’s any kudos to hand out, your name’s first on the list.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that before and I think it was from you.”

But Beltran turned away from his screen and took the bag from Ballard. She knew she had him.

“What’s the case number?” he asked. “I’ll have to see if a vaper is free.”

The vaper was the glass case where small objects were exposed to vaporized cyanoacrylate, which crystallized on the ridges of fingerprints, raising them and turning them white. They could then be collected by tape or photographed and compared to other prints in the databases.

But whether or not the vaper was free was not Ballard’s immediate problem. All work submitted to the latent-prints section for processing and comparison had to be filed under a case number. The problem was that Ballard had no case number because there was no official investigation into the theft of her badge, gun, and other property. Ballard had to be careful about which legitimate case number to give. If she gave Beltran a case that was solved someday, her request for a print run would become part of discovery during a prosecution and could hand a defense attorney all that was needed to question the integrity of the case.

This was why Ballard was prepared with a murder case that would never be solved. She gave Beltran the number, 88-0394, and the name, Jeffrey Haskell. Beltran wrote the information down and realized the case was more than three decades old.

“Eighty-eight?” he said. “How can this be a priority?”

“I’ll tell you how,” Ballard said. “Because that Red Bull can was touched by a suspect we watched yesterday, and I need to know his identity and see if he connects to any other cases.”

The truth was that the 1988 case had been reviewed by members of the Open-Unsolved Unit earlier in the year and Ballard had signed off on their assessment that it was not solvable using any contemporary forensic tools. There was no DNA. There were no ballistics. There were no fingerprints. There weren’t any witnesses, and there was no murder weapon. The case was the murder of a twenty-two-year-old Malibu kid named Jeffrey Haskell who had driven into a crime-ridden area of South Central to buy drugs in a housing project. Instead of scoring, he was robbed, stabbed with an unknown instrument, and left to bleed out in the car he had borrowed from his mother after telling her he was going to a bookstore. Thirty-plus years later, there were no leads to follow and no suspects. It was a cold case that was destined to forever be on a shelf in the murder archives.

Not every case could be solved. Ballard knew this but also knew the value of a case number and name that could be used to get lab work done on items that were not part of an active investigation. She had committed Jeffrey Haskell’s name and his case number to memory. She knew she would never be able to get justice for Haskell, but in a way only she knew about, he might help solve another crime.

“Okay,” Beltran said. “I have your cell. I’ll call you if I get anything.”

“No, I’m staying,” Ballard said. “That way I know you won’t back-burner it the minute I walk out the door.”

“I’m not going to do that.”

“So you say.”

“Okay, fine. Stay as long as you like. I’m going to go fume it.”

He stood up, took the evidence bag, and headed to the lab doors at the back of the room. Ballard knew she couldn’t follow him. There were strict protocols in place to ensure that evidence in the lab was not contaminated or tainted by nonessential personnel.

“Okay, so you’ll let me know when you have something?” she called after him. She hated how her tone verged on pleading.

“I said I would,” Beltran said without breaking stride or turning back to her.

Ballard watched him go through the doors and then checked the time on her phone. It was only 8:20, and if she left now, she could be to the Ahmanson Center before anyone — other than Colleen Hatteras — realized she was late.

10

Hatteras let Ballard into the unit through the emergency door, and Ballard went right to the phone at her desk at the end of the raft. Beltran had not answered a call from her on the drive out to the west side and Ballard believed it was because he knew her cell number and chose to ignore her when he saw it on the caller ID screen.

She dialed his direct line now and tried to slow her breathing. She was frustrated with Beltran but knew this was not the time to confront him. This was an off-the-books investigation that she did not want to draw any attention to. As she’d expected, Beltran picked up on the first ring. Ballard swallowed her frustration and went with her routine-casework voice.

“Rico, it’s Ballard. Just checking to see if you’ve got something for me.”

“Yeah, what I got, Ballard, is a complete waste of my time.”

“Yeah? How so?”

“There’s no way this is your guy from that ’88 case. He wasn’t even born in ’88.”

Ballard realized that she’d told Beltran that the Red Bull can had been handled by a suspect in the case. That was a misstep. She tried to cover the discrepancy with a quick comeback question. “Well, then, who is he?” she asked.

“The prints on that can came back to a Dean Delsey, age twenty-fucking-two. You can’t pull me off the important shit on my plate to run down these long shots that are a complete waste of time.”

Ballard did a slow burn in silence.

“Ballard, you there?”

“Yeah, I’m here. Give me his DOB and anything else you came up with.”

Beltran grudgingly gave her Delsey’s birth date and added that he had a record of arrests for minor crimes and assaults. No prison time but he was currently on probation for an auto-theft conviction.

“Thank you,” Ballard said with zero sincerity. “What I’ll do is talk to Doreen and ask her to put Open-Unsolved cases with a different print tech from now on.”

Even though this was an off-the-books investigation, Ballard felt she had to draw a line with Beltran because his attitude could hinder her unit’s legitimate investigations. Doreen was Doreen Hudson, the longtime director of the LAPD crime lab and a woman who had undoubtedly put up with her share of obstructive male tactics in her rise from an entry-level criminalist nearly four decades before. By referring to her by her first name, Ballard was signaling that she knew Hudson well and that the sisterhood was not to be fucked with. The truth was that she didn’t know Hudson well enough to call her directly and complain about Beltran or ask for a new tech to be assigned. She was counting on Beltran’s not knowing that.

“Oh, well, you don’t have to do that,” Beltran said quickly. “We can—”

“It’s not a problem,” Ballard said sweetly, cutting him off. “If you think what we’re doing out here is a complete waste of time, then that’s not a great fit and I’ll take care of it. Have a good one!”

Before Beltran could respond, Ballard pushed the button to disconnect the call.

“Whoa, who was that?” Hatteras said.

Ballard glanced up to see Hatteras looking over the partition, as usual.

“Never mind, Colleen,” Ballard said. “Just some jerk. Is Paul back yet?”

“Here,” Masser said.

Ballard turned in her chair and saw him walking in. He held up a document and came right to Ballard’s station.

“Got a copy of the birth certificate,” he said.

He put the document on her desk and pointed to the date of birth for Nicholas Purcell and then to a second date in a box marked RECORDED. The birth certificate had been recorded two days after his birth at St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Burbank.

“What’s it mean?” Hatteras asked.

“It means Nicholas Purcell was not adopted,” Masser said. “To adopt, a judge issues a decree, and a new birth certificate is created. The giveaway is that it’s usually weeks between the date of birth and the date of recording at the county registrar. Two days between dates means no adoption. Nicholas is the son of Jonathan and Vivian Purcell.”

“So that means... the judge is definitely our guy?” Hatteras said.

Masser nodded. “Looks like it,” he said.

“But we stick with protocol,” Ballard said. “We wait for the DNA confirmation.”

“And we should have that by Friday,” Masser said.

“Then we make our move,” Ballard said.

They fell into a solemn silence for a long moment, the gravity of knowing they were going after a superior court judge weighing on them. Masser finally broke the silence, but only to add more weight to their thoughts.

“The repercussions will be massive,” he said. “Any case he ruled on will be vulnerable to appeal. I guess it’s lucky he’s always been on the civil side. But still, the appeals that come out of this will clog things up for years.”

“That’s not our concern,” Ballard said. “If he’s the guy, he’s the guy, and we take him down.”

“Absolutely,” Masser said.

Hatteras cleared her throat to draw Ballard’s attention.

“What is it, Colleen?”

“Well, one thing you should know is that I’ve been building a heritage pattern using—”

“You mean a family tree?”

“Yes, the genetic tree, starting with the DNA sequence we got from Darcy.”

“Nicholas’s DNA.”

“Right. And what’s strange is that I’m not connecting anything to the judge so far.”

“What are you saying? We might be barking up the wrong family tree?”

“Funny, but yes, something doesn’t fit. I feel like I should be making connections, and so far they’re not there.”

“Well, keep at it, Colleen. It will probably be Friday before we know anything for sure about the DNA.”

“Okay, boss.”

“And don’t call me that.”

“Okay, Renée.”

“Better.”

Hatteras dropped down behind the partition to go back to work, and Masser went to his module as well. Ballard looked at the info she had written down during the call with Beltran.

She opened up the DMV link and typed in Dean Delsey’s name and DOB. She knew she was creating a DMV search record that could be found should her off-the-books investigation blow up in her face. Unlike the crime report searches she’d conducted during the night, the department assiduously monitored DMV searches because of past abuses involving officers taking cash to conduct such searches for private investigators and lawyers. But Delsey was Ballard’s only lead at the moment and she was willing to risk it. She felt confident that should she be questioned, she’d be able to come up with an adequate cover story.

The address Delsey had on his driver’s license was on Park Court right off Speedway in Venice. That fit the profile she was building in her mind for the people who had ripped her off. Delsey was a small-time criminal living close to the beach and the surfing culture he was preying on. The photo on his driver’s license supported this as well. He was white, with the sun-bleached hair and ruddy complexion of a surfer.

The fact that Delsey’s fingerprints were on a can that was found in a small clearing on a bluff overlooking a prime surfing beach was evidence of nothing. But Ballard instinctively believed she was closing in on her target.

She thought of something and picked up the desk phone, then thought better of it and used her cell. This would be a test. She called Beltran’s direct line, and this time he picked up the call from her cell immediately.

“Hey, Detective, I think we got cut off before.”

“No, actually, I hung up.”

“Oh. Did you already talk to the director?”

“No, not yet. I’ll do it later. But I forgot to ask before — did you figure out what was in the Red Bull can?”

“Yes, I was just writing up the report for you. There were two cigarette butts and the tip of a cannabis joint. I preserved it all. You need me to pack it all up and send it over to genetics?”

“No, just hold everything there and I’ll be by at some point to grab it.”

“I’ll have it here when you need it.”

“Thanks, Rico.”

She disconnected. She wasn’t sure whether she preferred the old resentful Rico or the new obsequious Rico, but confirming that there was a joint in the Red Bull can was helpful intel for when she confronted Delsey.

“Paul?” she called without looking over the wall.

Masser appeared above the partition. “Yes?”

“Thanks for everything this morning. Can you mind the store for a while? I’m going to run an errand.”

“Not a problem. I want to do more legal vetting on Judge Purcell.”

“Meaning what?”

“You know, look at the trials he’s handled, how he’s ruled. I mean, I’m fascinated. What a double life — assuming he’s our guy. You know he was appointed to the bench the same year Pillowcase went inactive on the rapes?”

“Yeah, I saw that.”

“Anyway, I want to know everything there is to know about him.”

“Good. When you’re ready, we’ll do an all-hands meeting to talk about what you got.”

“Good by me.”

Ballard stood up. “Okay, I’ll be back.”

She was about to step away when the desk phone buzzed. She reached down and answered it. “Open-Unsolved.”

“Landry at the front desk. You’ve got a visitor. An Officer Bosch.”

Ballard froze for a moment.

“A female Bosch?” she asked.

“Female,” Landry confirmed. “Madeline Bosch. Should I send her back?”

“Uh, no, I’ll come out.”

“I’ll tell her.”

Ballard disconnected and for a moment just stared at the phone.

“What is it?” Hatteras said. She’d stood up again. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Ballard shook her head. “No, I’m fine,” Ballard said.

She walked away toward the entrance to the unit, trepidation building with every step. Once she exited, she walked down the long central hallway of the complex to the front, where there was a reception desk and a row of chairs. The Ahmanson Center was the LAPD’s main training center, and most days many of those chairs were occupied by applicants who wanted to wear the badge.

Maddie Bosch was there in street clothes. There appeared to be no stress or sadness on her face.

“Maddie, is Harry all right?” Ballard asked.

Maddie stood up. “Uh, yeah, as far as I know,” she said. “I haven’t talked to him in a couple of days. Did you hear something?”

“No,” Ballard said. “I just thought that if you came to see me in person, there might be something—”

“No. Sorry if I scared you — that’s not why I’m here. As far as I know, Dad’s fine. He’s Harry.”

“Okay, good.”

Harry Bosch had been a mentor of sorts to Ballard and had worked with the Open-Unsolved Unit at its start. He was now battling cancer and Ballard had not gotten an update recently.

“I’m here because I want to volunteer,” Maddie said.

Ballard was not expecting that. “What, you mean for the unit?” she asked.

“Yes, the unit,” Maddie said. “I’m on a four-on-three-off schedule at Hollywood Division, and they have me working PM watch Friday to Monday. It gives me a lot of free time during the week and I thought this might be good, you know? I want to be a detective one day and this can give me some experience.”

“Did you talk to Harry about it?”

“No. Harry’s retired and I make my own decisions.”

“Right. Sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s okay. I just don’t need his permission. I’d like to volunteer. Can we talk about it? Do you have time?”

“Yes, of course. Let’s go to the cafeteria so we can sit down and talk a little more privately. There’s not a lot of privacy in the bullpen here.”

They walked down the main hall and turned right to a smaller hallway that led to the cafeteria. Ballard got a coffee and Maddie a hot tea. The place was largely deserted because it was between the breakfast and lunch rushes. There was a sea of empty tables and they took one that would afford the most privacy for their conversation.

“I haven’t been back here since I was in the academy,” Maddie said.

“I trained in the old place in Chavez Ravine,” Ballard said.

“I almost never go there.”

“So, I take it you know what we do here.”

“Well, you work cold cases. Murders mostly. From what I understand, you have all the murder books right here. You review them to see if modern forensic technology can be used to identify suspects and bring closure to families that lost people.”

“We close cases but I’m not sure we ever bring closure to the families. We give answers, but answers don’t end the grief people carry.”

“Harry always said the same thing.”

“Then you know. A lot of the people who want to volunteer for the unit come with a specific case in mind. Like a friend or a family member, someone from the neighborhood where they grew up. Is there a case like that with you?”

“Not really, no.”

“Okay, well, I know I could talk to Harry about a recommendation and—”

“I’d rather you didn’t. I’d really like to do this on my own.”

“I understand that, but Harry’s my friend and I think it would be odd if I didn’t at least tell him we’re going to work together.”

“Can you do that after you decide? I brought a sheet with me.” She took a printed sheet of paper from her pocket and unfolded it.

“This has the names and numbers of my supervisors,” she said. “Has my TO on there, though I’m no longer a boot. But she could tell you what a quick learner I am and how I react under pressure.”

Ballard took the paper and looked at it. She didn’t recognize any of the names, even though, until just a few years ago, she had been assigned to Hollywood Division as the midnight-shift detective.

“Man, it looks like a complete turnover of command staff since I was there,” she said.

“Yeah, just about everybody is new,” Maddie said.

Ballard nodded and continued to stare at the paper.

“So, what do you think?” Maddie prompted.

Ballard looked up at her. “Well, a couple of things I want you to know first,” she said. “I expect members of the unit to put in one day a week. I prefer two but I’ll take one. They don’t have to be eight-hour shifts, but I want to see you in here at least once a week. Will that be a problem?”

“No, not at all,” Maddie said. “Like I said, I have a lot of free time. The only thing that might be a scheduling conflict is if I have court. But that doesn’t happen a lot. What else?”

“If you’re running with a case, you stick with it or hand it off. And if you’re not running down a case, I want you pulling cases and reviewing them to see if there’s a shot at getting something done. We have a whole protocol for determining that. But there are six thousand unsolved cases going back to 1960. Right now the sweet spot is the eighties and early nineties. The cases are recent enough that there might be a live suspect out there, and those cases were originally worked before DNA was part of the landscape.”

“Okay.”

“Do you have any questions?”

“Um, the cases here, they go back only to 1960?”

“No, we’ve got cases from way earlier than that, but our cutoff point is currently 1975. With anything before that, it’s unlikely that anyone involved would be alive — suspects or immediate family.”

“Oh, right. I get it.”

“Yeah. So, anything else I can answer?”

“Not really... except when will you decide if you’ll take me on?”

“Well, I have to do a couple of things first. I have to talk to my captain and see if he’ll approve taking on someone who’s already full-time in the department. That hasn’t happened before. But I’ll tell you, and I’ll tell him: It would be really good to have someone else in the unit with a badge. It would take a lot of stuff off my shoulders. A lot of things come up that only a badge can do, like make arrests and testify in court. And I’m the only one. It would be nice to have you in the unit. Real nice, in fact.”

“Well, good. I hope you can convince the captain.”

“Me too.”

Ballard held out the paper she had been given. “Do these people know that I might call them?” she asked.

“Not really,” Maddie said. “Should I tell them?”

“Uh, no, it will be better if I call them cold. Do you want to see the unit and where you’ll be if this works out? A couple of the other volunteers are here today.”

“Sure.”

“Okay, let’s go.”

11

Ballard parked on Speedway in front of a garage door at the rear of a walled residence. Three signs on the shabby gray door warned of the consequences of blocking it. But Ballard wasn’t planning on leaving her vehicle. The spot gave her a prime view of Dean Delsey’s second-floor apartment in a run-down complex that had been built seventy-five years ago and designed to look like a boat. The windows in the complex were round like portholes, and the exterior front corner of the retaining wall surrounding the property had anchors attached to it as if it were the prow of a ship. Before settling in to watch, Ballard had done a walk around the apartment complex and had determined that Delsey’s DL address corresponded with the apartment at the east end of the second floor.

The apartment had a balcony that overlooked Speedway. Stacked against its side wall were three or four surfboards. Ballard could see that the sliding door to the apartment was open, and faint, unidentifiable music was floating through.

Someone was home.

Ballard settled in for what she knew could be an hours-long surveillance. She wasn’t sure what her next move would be but she hoped at a minimum to get a look at Delsey before she called it a day.

She thought of something she should have done before leaving the office and decided to risk drawing Hatteras into her off-the-books actions. She called her on her cell.

“Renée, you all right?”

“I’m fine. But I need you to do something for me.”

“Sure.”

“All right, go over to my terminal. I should still be signed in.”

“You got it.”

Ballard waited until Colleen said she was in place and that Ballard was still signed in to the department network. Ballard then walked her through accessing the DMV database and putting Delsey’s address into the search engine to see if the same address happened to be on anyone else’s driver’s license.

“Two names come up,” Hatteras said.

“One is Dean Delsey,” Ballard said. “Give me the other one.”

“Robert Delsey. Must be his brother. Or, wait, no, this may be his father. He’s older.”

“What’s his DOB?”

Hatteras gave a birth date in 1981, making Robert twice Dean’s age. It also doubled Ballard’s interest in the pair. Another father-and-son case, the second in two days. Ballard did not put much stock in so-called coincidences — Harry Bosch had taught her that — but she thought this one must be a genuine one.

She directed Hatteras to open a search on the department’s criminal records index. Hatteras reported that Robert Delsey had a criminal history much longer than Dean’s. It included a nine-year stretch in prison for assault with a deadly weapon. Nine years meant it was no bar fight or skirmish over surf territory. It told Ballard that he had probably come close to killing someone, and that meant he was a dangerous man.

She asked Hatteras to use her cell phone to take a photo of Robert Delsey off the computer screen and text it to her.

“What are you up to?” Hatteras asked.

“Just an old case I worked before I came to the unit,” Ballard said, ready with her answer. “Nothing you have to worry about. Send me that photo, and thank you, Colleen.” Ballard disconnected before another question could come.

The photo arrived on her text app and Ballard studied Robert Delsey. The genetic connection to Dean Delsey was evident. They were most likely father and son. Robert’s face and skin were worn by more years in the sun and salt. Ballard thought of her own father and the deeply tanned wrinkles etched into the corners of his black-brown eyes — he had eyes like his favorite actor, Charles Bronson.

Ballard sat for twenty minutes with a decision she had to make before finally picking up the phone and calling a name on her favorites list. Harry Bosch answered with his usual greeting.

“Everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine. How about you?”

“No complaints.”

“Staying busy?”

“Not too much. Been bingeing The Lincoln Lawyer, if you can believe it.”

“You still working with the real Lincoln Lawyer?”

“Here and there — when he needs me.”

“And how is your health, Harry?”

“I’m hanging in. My last scans were clean.”

“That’s good to hear.”

“So what’s up with you?”

“Just checking in. Hadn’t heard from you, and there’s something I need to talk to you about.”

“Sure.”

“It’s about Maddie and it’s a bit awkward.”

“What’s going on?”

“Well, Maddie came in and volunteered for the squad.”

“Open-Unsolved?”

“Yeah, my squad.”

“Okay. What’s the awkward part?”

“Well, she didn’t want me to tell you because she’s, you know, asserting her independence and she’s probably not sure how you’d take it. But it puts me in an awkward spot because it’s not something I would keep from you. I don’t want to get in the middle of you two. I’m sure she’ll tell you. If she’s approved by the captain, I mean.”

“Did she say why she wants to do this?”

“Well, I think it’s kind of obvious. She wants to be like you, Harry. She wants to be a detective, and this won’t hurt her cause. It could even fast-track it.”

Bosch went silent and Ballard imagined him sitting in his house up on the hill, thinking about his daughter.

“You still there, Harry?”

“I’m here. What do you think about this? Do you want her on the unit? She’s young. She doesn’t know what she doesn’t know.”

“There’s that, but, selfishly, I want her. I’ve been telling the captain for months that I need another badge on the squad. I have to do too much of the legal stuff. The Mirandas, the testifying, the search warrants. It takes too much of my time. So, yeah, I’d take her. But I’ll kill it right here if you want me to, Harry.”

Bosch hesitated, but only for a moment.

“No, it’s not my choice. It’s hers. She’s got to follow her star. Isn’t that what the kids say?”

“As long as you’re sure.”

“I’m sure. Just watch over her, Renée. Keep her safe. And I’m not talking about from bullets. From all the other stuff. From going into the darkness. It’s there in those cold cases you work.”

“I know and I will, Harry.”

“Thank you.”

There was an awkward pause.

“So, you’re sure you’re doing okay?” Ballard asked.

“A hundred percent,” Bosch replied.

“Okay, then let’s get a dinner or a lunch soon.”

“You got it.”

Ballard disconnected. She knew that Bosch in his own way had tried to keep his daughter safe from the darkness that had gotten inside him at times. But it was a never-ending battle. She thought about what Dr. Elingburg had said about vicarious trauma. Sometimes it wasn’t vicarious. Sometimes it was right in your face.

As soon as she dropped her phone into a cupholder, it buzzed. She thought it might be Bosch calling back about something but the screen showed that it was her boss at RHD, Captain Gandle. For a few seconds she considered not answering, but she knew that whatever he wanted, she’d inevitably have to deal with it. She took the call.

“Captain.”

“Ballard, what the fuck? You followed the presiding judge of the superior court to get a DNA sample?”

“Who told you that?”

“Doesn’t matter who told me. You didn’t think to ask my permission to do this?”

“Captain, I have a mandate from you to follow cases where they lead. Do you remember telling me that?”

“Yeah, but not to put the presiding judge under surveillance without at least notifying your CO about what you were doing. Do you have any idea what kind of shit will come down on us if this goes sideways?”

“He’s a primary suspect in a murder and several rapes. It’s not going to go sideways. If the DNA matches, we’re going to take him down, and I don’t care who he is.”

“Ballard...” Gandle went silent.

Ballard needed to know how he’d gotten his information. If she had a leak in the unit, she had to shut it down.

“Look,” she said, “I don’t know what you were told but we got a familial hit on the Pillowcase Rapist. I’m sure you remember the case — a serial rapist that ended up murdering a woman. Two months ago a man was arrested on a domestic-violence call. He was swabbed, and the genetics eventually went into CODIS and pointed to his father as the Pillowcase Rapist. We have the son’s birth certificate, and the judge is his father. No adoption. So what were we supposed to do? Not follow through? No fucking way.”

“No, you were supposed to call me and say, ‘Captain, we have a delicate situation here.’ We — you and I — would have then decided what to do from there.”

“There was no deciding what to do. He’s a suspect, and just because he’s a judge doesn’t mean he wasn’t a rapist and murderer twenty years ago or isn’t one now. We did exactly what we should have done — we got his DNA and we’ll know by Friday if he’s confirmed as the guy. What I want to know now is who told you about this.”

“Why do you care?”

“Because I need to know who to trust in my unit with need-to-know information. If this gets out of the department and to the judge before Friday, we’re going to have a problem.”

“It was Kelly Latham, okay?”

The head of the DNA lab and Darcy Troy’s boss. Ballard immediately knew that Paul Masser had given Troy too much information when he dropped the DNA samples at the lab. It made Ballard breathe a little easier. She doubted that Masser realized the background detail he had given Troy would end up with her boss and then make the jump to the captain overseeing the Open-Unsolved Unit.

“You really fucked me, Renée,” Gandle said. “I have this information that I wish I didn’t have. Because I should turn around and inform the tenth floor about this right now.”

The tenth floor of the PAB was where the offices of the chief of police and most of the department’s command staff were located. One of the things Ballard liked most about her job was that, at the Ahmanson Center, she was away from all that. She had only one commander to worry about there, and he was more concerned with back-door alarms than anything else.

“Do what you need to do, Captain,” she said. “But if I were you, I would wait until we hear from the DOJ, because when we get the match, we’re going to have to come up with an arrest plan and that’s when you can bring the tenth floor into it.”

Gandle hesitated. “By Friday, you think?” he asked.

“Our lab liaison put a rush on it,” Ballard said, deciding not to mention Darcy Troy’s name.

“Okay, but I want to be informed of every move you make between now and then.”

“Well, that’s easy. We’re not making any moves until we get the results back. My IGG person is building a genetic tree, but that’s internet work. We’re not out there knocking on any doors.”

“That’s Hatteras? Tell her to stop the IGG. Do nothing more until the results are in. Understood?”

“Yes, understood.”

“What are you doing right now?”

“I’m sitting in my car making calls about a prospective volunteer. I’ll let you know if she pans out and I want to bring her on.”

“A she — that’s good. Just make sure she can kick a door open.”

“I already know that she can, Captain.”

“Good. Let me know.”

He disconnected and Ballard sat there staring through the windshield, reviewing the call and hoping she had headed off a problem with the captain. It was a long moment before she realized that there was a man standing on the balcony of the Delsey apartment.

She grabbed the binoculars from the center console and focused on him.

It was Dean. He was wearing a blue-and-white Hawaiian shirt. He looked older than his license photo, and his hair was shorter now, but he was definitely in his twenties, not his forties. He was holding a bottle of beer and smoking a joint, blowing the smoke out across Speedway. Ballard watched, waiting to see if he was joined on the balcony by his father or someone else from the apartment. But no one came out.

Dean Delsey finished smoking and flicked what was left of the joint down onto Speedway. He then disappeared back inside.

Ballard did some quick detective math. It appeared that Dean Delsey was alone in the apartment. If the father and son were responsible for the string of thefts, it stood to reason that between the two, the son would be the one she had the better chance of breaking. He had an arrest record but had repeatedly been given second chances by the system. The father had done hard time. Dean was on probation; Robert was on parole. Dean was the weak link.

Ballard reached under her seat and grabbed her handcuffs, then lowered the front visor and got out of the car.

12

Ballard stealthily approached the door to apartment 211, then leaned her right ear toward the jamb. She heard music playing inside but again couldn’t identify it.

She took a step back and checked for a peephole or a Ring camera. There was none. She used the side of her fist to pound loudly on the door.

“Parole, open up!”

She leaned forward again but heard no movement inside — no toilet flushing, no footsteps of someone rushing around trying to hide contraband. She pounded on the door again, this time harder.

“Department of Parole. Open the door or we’ll kick it in.”

Now she heard the music cut off and footsteps approaching. She unholstered her weapon and held it down at her side.

The door opened and the man from the balcony stood there.

“He’s not here,” he said.

“Step back,” Ballard said.

Dean Delsey saw the gun at her side and raised his hands as he stepped back.

“Whoa, no need for that,” he said. “Bobby’s not here.”

“Are you Dean Delsey?” Ballard asked.

“That’s me but—”

“Against the wall. Now.”

“Okay, okay.”

Delsey turned, spread his hands at shoulder height, and put them on the wall, a move he had clearly made in the past. Ballard used a foot to kick his legs farther apart. She holstered her gun, then placed one hand on his back to keep him in position while using the other to pat him down for weapons.

“Where’s your father?”

“I don’t know. He went out, didn’t tell me where.”

“When’s he coming back?”

“He didn’t say.”

“Give me your right hand behind your back.”

“Look, you don’t need—”

“Right hand behind your back. Now.”

He complied. She took the handcuffs out of the waistband at the back of her pants and snapped one around his wrist.

“Now the left.”

Delsey complied again, but not without complaint. “I’m just saying, if you’re here for him, you don’t have to hook me up,” he said.

“Who said I’m here for him?” Ballard said. “Move.”

She pulled him away from the wall and walked him to the center of the apartment’s living room. There was a threadbare couch, a beat-up La-Z-Boy chair with its faux leather cracked and split on the armrests, and a flat-screen TV tuned to a muted music channel.

“On your knees,” Ballard said.

“Aw, come on,” Delsey said.

“Knees.”

“Fuck it.”

Delsey dropped to his knees on the uncarpeted terrazzo floor. Ballard grabbed the chain between the cuffs with one hand and the back collar of his Hawaiian shirt with the other.

“Okay, I’m going to lower you onto your belly now. This is for my safety and yours.”

“Yeah, bullshit.”

Ballard pushed him forward and he went down easily.

“Okay, what is this?” Delsey protested. “Are you here for me or him?”

“For you, Dino,” Ballard said. “And I could violate you right now and put you in the pen. I watched you drinking and toking on the balcony ten minutes ago.”

“I got news for you: I’m over twenty-one, and recreational use of marijuana is legal.”

“And I got news for you: Read the terms of your probation. No alcohol and no drugs, even legal ones, without permission of the court. You want to show me your court permission to get high?”

She waited. Delsey was silent.

“I didn’t think so. You are fucked, my friend. I own you.”

“Fuck this. I want to see some ID right the fuck now.”

“That’s funny. I want to see some ID too. My ID. But you took it.”

Delsey strained to look up at Ballard standing over him. She saw that he recognized her from the LAPD ID card stolen from her car.

“Yeah, it didn’t take me long,” Ballard said. “I found your ass.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Delsey said.

“Sure you do. But you know what? This is your lucky day, Dino. If you make it right, you can stay out of jail. Otherwise, we wait here for dear old Dad to come home and see if he wants to make a deal instead. He still has five years on his parole tail. You have eighteen months on your suspended sentence. I’m guessing he’ll throw you under the bus to avoid going back to Soledad for the full nickel.”

Delsey was silent. Ballard waited.

“What do you want?” he finally said.

Ballard moved over, sat on the couch, and leaned down toward him. His face was on the terrazzo, turned to the side.

“I want my shit back,” she said. “All of it.”

“Impossible,” Delsey said.

“Why is that?”

“Because we don’t keep it, okay? I mean, I’ve still got the wallet and ID card but everything else is long gone, so you’re out of luck, Officer.”

“If that’s the case, then you’re the one who’s out of luck. You’ve got one shot here, Dino. Tell me where it went and I cut you loose. Nobody needs to know, not even your father.”

Delsey thought about it. After a moment Ballard prodded him.

“The clock is ticking,” she said. “All bets are off the minute Daddy comes through that door. What’s it going to be, Dino?”

“I hate that,” Delsey said. “Would you stop fucking calling me that?”

“Fine. What’s it going to be, Dean? I take off the cuffs or I take you to jail? I’m running out of goodwill here.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah, I get it. Life’s a bitch. But it is what it is, Dean. So decide.”

“All right. We take everything to a guy down the beach. He gives us cash. That’s it.”

“What guy?”

“His name’s Lionel but he calls himself the Lion. I don’t know his last name. He’s connected to some serious people. My dad knew his dad up at Soledad.”

“Where is he exactly?”

“The Eldorado. He lives in one room and does business in another across the hall.”

Ballard knew of the Eldorado. It was a dump hotel about ten blocks up Speedway. “How do you reach out to him?” she asked.

“My dad texts him when we have stuff,” Delsey said. “That’s it.”

“You brought him stuff yesterday after ripping me off at Stair-cases?”

“Bobby did, yeah.”

“What kind of security does the Lion have?”

“I think there’s a guy there. But I don’t know for sure. My dad always goes.”

“What’s his number?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never texted him.”

“Then I guess we’re going to have to wait here for Bobby to show up. But then he’ll know that you snitched. Is that going to be a problem?”

“Look, I don’t know the number because it changes all the time. But I know where yesterday’s number is.”

“Where?”

“In Bo — uh, my father’s room. There’s a night table next to the bed. He’s got a pad in the drawer there and he scratches off the old number and writes the new one down every time.”

“And you said you still had my wallet with my ID card. Where is it?”

“My room. There’s a table in the same spot.”

Most criminals were not smart. Ballard knew that it was usually a criminal’s stupidity rather than a detective’s great work that led to solving cases. Delsey and son were not shining examples of the criminal mind.

Ballard looked around and saw a bottle of Corona on a pass-through counter to the kitchen. She grabbed it and took it back to the living room. She carefully placed it on Delsey’s back between his shoulder blades.

“You move, I’ll know it,” she said. “You won’t want that.”

She walked into a short hall that led to two bedrooms with a bathroom between them. In the first bedroom, she found her wallet with her ID card in the top drawer of the bedside table. She was surprised by how relieved she felt at recovering it. The badge was the main thing and that was still out there somewhere, but the ID card got her through security at all city facilities. She could go back to using the front entrance at the Ahmanson Center. All the credit cards that had been in the wallet were gone, but her driver’s license was still behind the plastic window. She got another mood lift from that.

Ballard checked the living room to make sure Delsey had not moved, then went into the other bedroom, opened the bedside table drawer, and found the scratch pad. Bobby Delsey had written down seven phone numbers; six of them were crossed out. As Ballard typed the seventh number into her phone, she wondered how long the Delsey duo had been ripping off surfers and fencing the goods through the Lion. She tore the page off the pad and stuffed it in her pocket, hoping it would cut off communication between the Lion and the Delsey duo.

When she put the pad back in the drawer, she noticed a watch with a metal band; it had been hidden behind the scratch pad. She lifted it out and studied the face. There was a brand mark: Breitling. She realized it was probably the watch stolen from Seth Dawson. The watch his father had given him. She turned it over and checked the back. There was an inscription: To Seth from Dad 12-25-21.

She pushed it over her hand and onto her wrist.

When she returned to the living room, she saw the beer bottle still in place between Delsey’s shoulder blades.

“You and your father were using the Surf’s Up app to pick your locations,” she said.

“Is that a question?” Delsey asked.

“Not really. I’m just telling you I’m onto your game. Is there any code used when texting the Lion?”

“I don’t know. My dad always did it.”

“Don’t move.” She put one foot on either side of his body and used a key to remove the handcuffs.

“You should have reached farther under the seat,” she said. “You would have gotten my cuffs.”

“It wasn’t me,” Delsey said. “It was my dad. I was just lookout.”

“What a team. My guess is you actually knew some of the surfers you ripped off.”

Delsey said nothing. Perhaps he felt guilty, but Ballard doubted it.

“Don’t tell your dad or anyone else about me. You warn the Lion and I’ll fucking come back and find you. You won’t want that.”

“I’m not going to say anything.”

“And I’ll tell the Lion it was you who snitched him off. You and Bobby won’t want that either.”

“I told you, I’m not going to say anything.”

“And you’re not going to rip off any more surfers. I’ll be reading the crime reports every day. One more rip-off at a surf beach and I’ll put together a case on you myself.”

“How do I tell my dad we have to stop without telling him about you?”

“Just say your probation officer came by and asked questions about the thefts. Convince your dad it’s time to move on.”

“Easy for you to say.”

“I’m a little short on sympathy for you, Dino. In fact, I want to put you and your fucking father in jail and throw away the key. But you got lucky this time. It won’t happen with me again.”

Ballard went out the door. She was halfway down the stairs when she heard the glass beer bottle rattle and then roll across the apartment’s terrazzo floor.

When she got back to Speedway and headed toward her car, she saw a tow truck parked in front of it; the hook was being lowered. A man with white hair pulled into a ponytail stood between the car and the garage door it was blocking. He wore sunglasses and had his arms folded across his chest as he watched the tow truck operator lower the hook. Ballard trotted over before her Defender got attached.

“Hey, hold on!” she yelled over the sound of the truck. “I’m moving it.”

“You’re too late!” the man with the folded arms yelled back. “It’s clearly marked ‘No Parking.’ Why do people ignore the signs?”

Ballard walked into the channel between the garage and the car. The man unfolded his arms and held his hands up as if to stop her forward progress.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “You ignored the warnings and you’ll have to pay Venice Tow if you want it back.”

Ballard held up her newly returned ID card. “I was on police business,” she said. “Talk about signs — you didn’t see the sign on the visor?”

“Uh, what sign?” the man asked.

“Go look.”

“I will.”

He went all the way around the Defender to get to the front and had to crane his neck to see the OFFICIAL LAPD BUSINESS sign attached to the visor. Ballard followed him and used the key fob to unlock the car.

“That’s too small,” the man said. “Nobody would notice that.”

She opened the driver’s-side door, and the man put his hand on her arm to stop her from getting in. Ballard reacted quickly, mostly out of instinct and partly out of the anger she felt at having to let the Delsey duo off the hook. She grabbed the man’s wrist with her left hand, seized his elbow with her right, and spun him hard into the passenger door of the Defender.

“Do you want to go to jail for assaulting a police officer?”

“Assault? That was no assault. You assaulted me.”

“You touched me. It was unwanted. That’s assault.”

“Look, you—”

“No, you look. Go back inside and set your parking trap for somebody else.”

The man’s mouth dropped open.

“That’s right,” Ballard said. “I know. You get a nice kickback from the tow yard.”

She let him loose. The man turned and silently walked over to the tow truck operator, shaking his head.

Ballard got in the Defender and started it up.

13

Ballard had a view of the entrance to the Eldorado from a spot at a red curb at Paloma and Speedway. There was a lot of pedestrian traffic in and out of the one-star hotel, mostly young people. Ballard guessed that there were other businesses besides the Lion’s being run out of the Eldorado. If the Lion was paying cash for stolen goods, there was probably a place to spend that money nearby. The likely products for sale were drugs and sex.

She couldn’t get a sense of the security arrangements from outside. She knew she would have to go in blind, and for the first time she started second-guessing her off-the-books maneuvering to get her badge and gun back. She thought maybe it might have been better to just report the thefts and take the heat.

Now it was too late.

She watched a skinny white teenage boy go into the hotel, carrying a laptop case. Ballard guessed it belonged to one of the kid’s parents and he would trade it for pennies on the dollar to get a hit of fentanyl or crystal meth. The Eldorado was at the low end of nowhere.

She opened her phone’s text app and composed a text to the Lion.

She waited to see if there would be a response. It came two minutes later.

The Lion was no chump. Ballard just had to hope that the Delsey duo hadn’t cashed in anything else after the theft at Staircases. She typed in what she knew.

She waited again for the go-ahead and it came a minute later.

Ballard took that to mean she had passed the test. She got out of the front seat of the car and into the back seat. She had a box there filled with clothing she used on surveillances and surreptitious DNA captures. Sometimes she had to change clothes while on a tail to avoid being made by the target.

The back windows of the Defender were darkly tinted and she changed without worrying about being seen by passersby. She put on ripped jeans and a peasant shirt with Mexican embroidery around the neckline. She pulled on a pair of Old Gringo boots that were wide in the calf and made her look slightly bowlegged, but the extra space left room for her Ruger. She knew she would probably be searched by the Lion’s security, but she might get the boot gun through.

She finished her new look with a sun-bleached Dodgers hat. Before getting out of the car she called Tom Laffont. He picked up right away.

“What’s happening?”

“I need you to do me a favor.”

“Okay.”

“Take down this address. If you don’t get a call from me in thirty minutes, I want you to call Pacific Division and send backup.”

“Okay. You want backup right now? I can be there in thirty minutes.”

“No, it’s just a precaution. I gotta do an interview on an RHD case from before. Kind of a dicey no-tell hotel but I should be fine. In and out in thirty.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure.”

She gave him the address of the Eldorado along with the room number supplied by the Lion. After hanging up, she set the timer on her phone for twenty-nine minutes. She knew that Laffont would be precise and would call Pacific Division at the exact thirty-minute mark if Ballard did not get back to him first.

She got out of the car, locked it, and proceeded to the entrance of the hotel.

The lobby of the Eldorado was not meant for loitering. There were no chairs or benches or even counters to lean on. The front desk was enclosed behind glass with a push-through slot for credit cards and cash. The man at the desk was reading a book and seemed to take no notice of Ballard as she entered.

Ballard saw a single elevator to the left and a hallway to the right. A placard on the wall between them told her that rooms 1 through 12 were down the hall. She headed that way but had to step aside when the boy she had seen earlier with the laptop passed by, now empty-handed. He had made his deal.

The corridor was dimly lit; the room numbers rose as she walked. Ballard saw a man sitting on a chair at the end of the hall. She judged that he was sitting between rooms 11 and 12. He stood up before she got there. He was Black, six feet — plus, thick in the middle, and dressed completely in black. There was a handgun holstered on his hip and in plain view of all who approached.

“Here to see the Lion,” Ballard said.

The security man flipped his hands up, signaling her to raise her arms. She complied and he patted her down with no deference to her gender. He ran his hands down both her legs but half-assed it over her boots because it was difficult for him to bend over his stomach and get his hands down there. When he was finished, he knocked on the door of room 11 and stepped aside.

The door opened and a smiling white man stood there. He was rail-thin with dyed blond hair braided into cornrows. He looked like he couldn’t be more than twenty-five years old. He wore a Dodgers uniform top with Ohtani’s number on it, board shorts, white socks, and black slides. Around his neck on a thick gold chain was an oversize medallion of a lion’s head with emerald eyes.

“You’re Bobby D.’s girl?” he said. “I’m the Lion.”

“All right if I come in?” Ballard asked.

“Sure. Make yourself at home.”

Ballard entered what looked like a basic fourteen-by-fourteen hotel room adapted for an unintended use. The bed was turned up and leaning against the back wall to make room for the folding tables on which the week’s take was stacked. There were phones, laptops, cameras, electronic game consoles, and plastic tubs filled with various items. One held prescription bottles. Another had a closed top, but the shapes of handguns were visible through the white plastic. One table held designer handbags and jeans in piles, price tags still attached. The room was clearly the destination for goods stolen and shoplifted from across the city.

The Lion closed the door behind Ballard and she heard the lock click.

“See anything you like,” he said, “it’s yours. Gratis.”

Ballard turned and looked at him. He held out his arm like a game-show host, presenting the treasure on the tables. His shirt came up on his right hip and Ballard saw the pearl handle of a gun protruding from the waistband of his shorts.

“I’m sure we could come to an understanding, you and me,” he said. “I don’t think Bobby would mind too much, do you? I mean, I love older women. They know just what a guy needs.”

“Uh, he told me to just make a deal,” Ballard said.

The Lion spread both arms wide and ran his eyes down Ballard’s body.

“Well, now, I only see one thing you got with you to trade, darlin’. So how ’bout we go across the hall to my private crib for a little of that afternoon delight?”

“I think I just want to make a deal. I’ve got the phone Bobby gave me in my boot.”

Ballard reached down and pulled up the leg of her jeans.

“Hey, wait,” the Lion said, sensing danger.

But it was too late. Lion went for his gun, but Ballard came up with her gun in hand and pushed the barrel into his neck.

“Don’t do it,” Ballard said.

The Lion started raising his hands. Ballard saw fear creep into his eyes.

“Okay, okay, now,” he said. “Be easy.”

“Shut up,” she said. “You make a sound, it’ll get you killed.” She reached her free hand to his waist and pulled his gun.

“Hey, come on,” he said. “Let’s just be friends.”

Ballard stepped back and pointed the big and small guns at his chest.

“On the floor,” she said. “Now.”

Keeping his hands up, the Lion got down on one knee and then the other.

“Lionel, huh?” Ballard said. “What’s your last name?”

“Why do you care?” the Lion said. “What do you want?”

“Good question. Bobby D. brought you a gun and a badge yesterday. Where are they?”

The Lion’s eyes widened.

“Oh, shit! That was you! That was your badge! Bobby told me they took it off a surfer chick who was a cop.”

He gave a short, high-pitched laugh. Anger flooded Ballard and she rushed forward into him, knocking him backward to the floor. She was on top of him then and this time she pushed the barrel of his own gun into his neck.

“I asked you a question, Lionel. You want to get out of this room alive, you better start telling me what I—”

“Okay, okay, okay. Take it easy. We can deal, we can deal.”

“I’m not interested in a deal. Where is the badge? Where is the gun?”

She pulled back from him and dragged the barrel of his gun down his torso to his thigh, where she held it.

“Talk,” she said. “Or you’re going to lose a leg.”

“Okay, okay, the gun is in the gun box,” he said. “Right behind you. Just take it, it’s yours.”

“The badge.”

“Uh, I, uh, already sold the badge. But we can get it back.”

“Sold it to who?”

“Just a guy. A customer buys guns from me. He’d been telling me he was looking for a badge and so I hit him when one came in.”

“What did he want the badge for?”

“I don’t know. It’s not my business. He probably wanted to rip off drug dealers, you know? Pull ’em over, take their shit.”

Ballard stood up and signaled the Lion back up to his knees. “Stay right there,” she said.

She backed up to the gun box and flipped off the top. She looked through the guns inside it until she saw a blue-steel Glock 17. She put her boot gun down on the table and lifted out the Glock. She checked the slide and found her initials there, etched at the academy gun shop the day she took possession of the weapon.

She used the gun to signal the Lion to turn around. “Face the wall, Lionel,” she said.

The Lion didn’t move. “Why?” he said. “You’re not going to do me. You’re a cop.”

“I said face the fucking wall,” Ballard said. “Now.”

“Okay, okay, okay.”

“Then do it.”

He turned on his knees and faced the wall. But she had been too loud. There was a sharp knock on the door and then the muffled voice of the Lion’s security man.

“Everything all right in there, boss?” he said.

“Tell him you’re fine,” Ballard whispered.

“Everything’s fine,” Lionel called. “We’re good.”

Ballard put his weapon in the box, then popped the cartridge on her Glock. It was a full clip, and she reloaded the weapon.

“You said you know how to get the badge back,” she asked. “How?”

“Easy,” the Lion said. “The guy who wanted the badge also told me he was looking for a SIG mini.”

“Which is what?”

“SIG Sauer MPX. A mini machine gun. Uses thirty-round clips and can do some heavy damage.”

“He needs that to rip off drug dealers?”

“That was just a guess. I don’t know what he wants it for. It’s not my business.”

Ballard instinctively knew that whoever had her badge was planning something bigger than carjacking drug dealers. Chasing down her stolen property had led her into the middle of something — something she couldn’t leave alone.

Ballard made a decision.

She walked over to the table with the designer handbags and chose an over-the-shoulder Prada bag. She checked Lionel’s position before touching it.

“Put your forehead against that wall, Lionel,” she said. “Right now.”

He complied. She unzipped the Prada bag and pulled out all the tissue stuffing. She slipped the strap over her shoulder, put her gun into the bag, and kept her hand on it.

“Okay, we’re going to go now,” she said.

“What?” Lionel said.

“You and me, we’re going to walk out of here and you’re going to tell your guy out there that everything’s cool and he needs to mind the store till you’re back. You say anything else and somebody’s going to get shot, Lionel, and it won’t be me.”

“Why don’t you just go? I’ll make sure he doesn’t try to stop you.”

“That would be nice but I’m going to need you once we get outside.”

“For what?”

“We’ll talk about that when we get there. You have your phone on you?”

“I got it.”

“Good. Let’s go. You lead the way. Tell your guy you’re just walking me out.”

“Whatever.”

He opened the door and immediately his security man stood up from his chair in the hall.

“Be right back, big man,” he said. “Just walking the lady out.”

Lionel headed up the hall. Ballard smiled at the security man and followed. The walk to the end of the hall seemed to take forever, but she knew that turning around and checking on the security man might tip him off that something was wrong.

They made it through the lobby and out to the street.

“Now what?” Lionel said.

“I got something in my car I want to show you,” Ballard said. “It’s over here.”

They walked up Speedway, to where the Defender was parked. Ballard opened the driver’s door, pulled the gun from the handbag, and held it free. She leaned into the car, threw the bag in, and reached under the driver’s seat for her handcuffs. She turned to Lionel, and his eyes went wide when he saw the cuffs.

“What the fuck?”

“Put your hands on the car.”

“Wait, you’re arresting me? I’m trying to help you here.”

He turned to run, but Ballard was ready for the move. She grabbed the back of his collar and the thick gold chain around his neck. She yanked him backward and spun him to the ground. Putting a knee on his spine, she shoved her gun into the waistband of her jeans. She pulled his right arm behind his back, cuffed it, and then went for the left.

“What are the charges?” Lionel yelled.

Ballard couldn’t help but laugh.

“You really need to ask?” Ballard said. “Let’s start with possession of stolen property. That Prada bag still has a Nordstrom price tag on it. Two grand, Lionel. That puts you into a felony and a cell.”

Ballard checked his pockets and pulled out a set of keys, a roll of cash, and his phone. She needed that phone for her plan to work.

“Now we’re going to get up,” she said. “If you help me, you’ll be able to make all of this go away.”

“Fuck you,” Lionel said. “I ain’t fucking helping you do shit.”

“We’ll see if you change your mind after a night in a cell.”

“I got a lawyer. He’ll get me out in an hour. You heard of the Lincoln Lawyer, bitch?”

“Yeah, I’ve heard of him. But the thing about lawyers is that they have to be able to find you to get you out.”

The Lion didn’t have a comeback for that.

“Let’s go,” Ballard said. “Get up.”

14

Ballard knocked on the door of the house on Woodrow Wilson. It was dark but the lights were on behind the windows. She was raising her fist to knock a second time when the door opened and there stood Harry Bosch.

“Renée, you all right?”

“I am now. I need help, Harry. And I think you’re the only one I can trust.”

“Is this about Maddie?”

“No, nothing to do with Maddie.”

“Come in.”

He stepped back and Ballard entered.