The Night Fire: A Ballard and Bosch thriller (Harry Bosch 22) (12 page)

“Told Cecilia? What did you tell her?”

“No, my wife. My daughter—our daughter is … was … troubled. She killed herself, didn’t she? Oh my god I just can’t…”

“Yes, I’m afraid she did. You spoke to her earlier tonight?”

“She called me. She said she was going to do it. She’s said it before but this time it felt … is my wife there?”

“She’s at the house. She asked us to leave. Is there a family member or friend I can call to be with her? That’s really why I’m calling. We had to respect her wishes for us to leave but I don’t think she should be alone.”

“I’ll get somebody. I’ll call her sister.”

“Okay, sir.”

There was more whimpering and Ballard let it go for a while before interrupting.

“Where are you, Mr. Winter?”

“Naperville. The company I work for is based here.”

“Where is that, sir?”

“Outside Chicago.”

“I think you need to come home and be with your wife.”

“I am. I’ll book the first flight out.”

“Can you tell me what your daughter said on the phone call?”

“She said she was tired of having no friends and being overweight. We tried different things with her. To help her. But nothing worked. It felt different this time. She seemed so sad. I told Ivy to watch her because I had never heard her so sad before.”

His last few words came out in bursts as he started to cry loudly. “Mr. Winter, you need to be with your wife. I know that won’t happen until tomorrow, but you should call her. Call Ivy. I’ll hang up now and you can call.”

“Okay … I’ll call.”

“This is your cell, right?”

“Uh, yes.”

“So you should have my number on your call log. Call me if there are any questions or there is something I can do.”

“Where is she? Where is my baby?”

“They took her to the coroner’s office. And they will be in touch with you. Good night now, Mr. Winter. I’m sorry for your loss.”

Ballard disconnected and sat unmoving in her car for a long moment. She was torn between accepting that an eleven-year-old girl would take her own life and being suspicious because the mother left her hanging and the father never asked how she had killed herself.

She pulled her phone and hit redial. Winter answered immediately.

“Mr. Winter, I’m sorry to call back,” she said. “Were you talking to your wife?”

“No,” Winter said. “I couldn’t bring myself to call her yet.”

“Is this an iPhone you are on, sir?”

“Uh, yes. Why would you ask that?”

“Because for the report I’m going to have to write, I need to confirm your location. This means I need to contact the Naperville police and have an officer come to your hotel, or you could just text me your contact info and share your location with me. It would save time and you wouldn’t be intruded on by the police up there.”

There was silence for a long beat.

“You really have to do that?” Winter finally asked. “Yes, sir, we do,” Ballard said. “Part of the protocol. All deaths are investigated. If you don’t want to share your location on the phone, just tell me where you are and I’ll have a local officer run by as soon as possible.”

Another silence went by and when Winter spoke, his voice had a coldness to it that was unmistakable.

“I’ll text my contact info and share my location with you,” he said. “Are we done now?”

“Yes, sir,” Ballard said. “Thank you once again for your cooperation and I’m sorry for your loss.”

On the way back to the station Ballard detoured down Cahuenga and then over to Cole. She drove slowly by the line of tents, lean-to tarp constructions, and occupied sleeping bags that ran the fence line of the public park. She saw that the spot previously used by the man who had been immolated the night before was already taken by someone with an orange-and-blue tent. She stopped in the street—there was no traffic to worry about impeding—and looked at the blue tarp where she knew the girl named Mandy slept. All seemed quiet. A slight gust of wind flapped the dirty tarp for a moment but soon the scene returned to a still life.

Ballard thought about Mandy and the prospects of her life. She then thought about Cecilia and wondered how she had lost any sort of prospect for happiness. Then Ballard thought about her own desperate beginnings. How did one child retain hope in the darkness and another come to believe it was gone forever?

Her phone buzzed and she answered. It was Lieutenant Washington and she immediately looked at the radio charger to see if she had left her rover behind somewhere. But it was there in its holder. Washington had chosen to call her rather than use the radio.

“L-T?”

“Ballard, where are you?”

“Headed to the house. About three blocks out. What’s up?”

“Dautre and Roberts were just in here. They told me about the girl.”

He had managed to mispronounce
Dautre
, making it sound more like
doubter
than
daughter
, and had missed Robards’s name altogether.

“What about her?” she said.

“I heard it was bad,” Washington said. “You confirm it was suicide?”

“I signed off on it. The parents were kind of hinky. The father is out of town. But I confirmed that. He’s where he said he was. I’ll turn it all over to West Bureau homicide for follow-up.”

“All right, well, I want to get you back here and get BSU out to talk to you three.”

Behavioral Science Unit. It meant psychological counseling. It was the last thing Ballard would want from the department. Half the department already thought she had fabricated sexual harassment allegations against a supervisor. That “unsubstantiated” investigation had resulted in her being forced into BSU sessions for a year. Adding another shrink sheet to her file would bring the other half in line with the popular belief. And that was before you even got to the double standard involving female cops. A male officer asking for counseling was courageous and strong; a female doing the same was just plain weak.

“Fuck that,” Ballard said. “I don’t want it.”

“Ballard, it was a bad scene,” Washington insisted. “I just got the details and it’s a fucking horror show. You gotta talk to somebody.”

“L-T, I don’t want to talk to anybody, I don’t need to talk to anybody. I’ve seen worse, okay? And I have work to do.”

The tone of her voice gave Washington pause. There was silence for several seconds. Ballard watched a man crawl out of a single tent, walk to the curb, and openly start to urinate in the gutter. He hadn’t noticed her or heard her idling car.

“All right, Ballard, but I made the offer,” Washington said.

“Yes, you did, L-T,” Ballard responded in a gentler tone. “And I appreciate it. I’m going to go back to the bureau and write this up, then I’ll be done for the day. I’ll hit the beach and all will be beautiful again. Salt water cures everything.”

“That’s a roger, Ballard.”

“Thank you.”

But Ballard knew she wouldn’t be going west to the beach at the end of her shift. It was Walk-In Wednesday at the ballistics unit and she planned to be first in line.

It was 9:05 a.m. in Department 106 and there was no sign of EMT Albert Morales. Bosch stood in the back of the courtroom so that he could step out and search the hallway, as he had been doing every five minutes. Haller was at the defense table, busying himself with paperwork and files to make it appear he was prepping for the day of court.

“Mr. Haller,” the clerk said. “The judge is ready.”

The clerk’s voice conveyed the impatience the judge had most likely imparted to her on the phone from his chambers.

“Yes, I know,” Haller said. “I’m just looking for a witness sheet and then I’ll be good to go.”

“Can we bring in your client?” the clerk asked.

Haller turned and glanced back at Bosch, giving him a you-fucked-me stare.

“Uh, not quite yet,” he said. “Let me confer with my investigator a moment.”

Haller got up from the table and charged through the gate, striding toward Bosch.

“I’m not your investigator,” Bosch whispered.

“I don’t give a fuck,” Haller said. “That was for her, not you. Where the fuck is our witness?”

“I don’t know. The subpoena said nine and I told him nine and he’s not here. I have no way to contact him other than calling the firehouse and I know he’s not there because he’s off today.”

“Jesus Christ!”

“See if the judge will give you an hour. I’ll go out looking for—”

“The only thing the judge is going to give me is a citation of contempt. He’s probably in chambers writing it up right now. I can keep my finger in the dike maybe five more minutes. After that, I’ll have to bring in my DNA witness and do this in reverse—”

He stopped when the door opened. Bosch recognized Morales in street clothes, looking as put out as Haller. His forehead was peppered with sweat. He was carrying his med kit, which looked like a large fishing tackle box.

“That’s him.”

“Well, it’s about fucking time.”

Bosch left Haller and went to Morales.

“The subpoena said nine,” he said.

“I couldn’t find parking,” Morales said. “So I parked at the fire station and walked over, carrying this thing. It’s thirty pounds. Then the fucking elevators take forever.”

“All right, go back out in the hallway and take a seat on a bench. Don’t talk to anyone. Just cool down and don’t move till I come out and get you.”

“I’m sweating, man. I have to hit the head and towel off or something.”

“It’s down the hall past the elevators. Do what you have to do but do it quick and get back here. You want me to watch your kit?”

“Don’t do me any favors, man. I don’t want to be here.”

Morales left the courtroom and Bosch walked back to Haller. “He’ll be good to go in five minutes. He walked over from the station and is sweating, wants to clean up a little.”

“He’s got the gizmo in his box?”

“He should. I didn’t ask.”

“He’d fucking better.”

Haller turned and headed back through the gate. He waved to the clerk.

“You can bring my client out and you can get the judge,” he announced. “The defense is ready to proceed.”

Bosch noticed Saldano, the prosecutor, eyeing Haller suspiciously. She had no idea what was going on.

Ten minutes later court was in session, with Herstadt seated next to Haller. Judge Falcone was on the bench but the jury box was empty. Bosch was watching from the back row of the gallery, near the courtroom door.

The judge was angry. He had told the jurors to come in early and they had done so. But now they sat in the assembly room while the lawyers argued over the inclusion of the unexpected witness. Morales was not on the witness list provided by the defense to the court and the prosecution at the start of the trial. Saldano had now blindly objected to him testifying, on principle, without even knowing who he was or what he would say.

It all made for a bad start to the day.

“Mr. Haller, in granting you the subpoena late yesterday I was not guaranteeing you that this witness would testify,” the judge said. “I was anticipating the objection from the state and that you would supply solid grounds for his inclusion at this late moment in the trial.”

“Your Honor,” Haller said, “the court has granted the defense wide latitude and it is certainly appreciated. But as you told the jurors at the start of these proceedings, this trial is a search for truth. My investigator located a witness yesterday evening who could change the course of this search for truth. It is unfair not only to my client, but to the people of California to not let him be heard by the jury.”

Falcone glanced out at the gallery and his eyes found Bosch. For a split second Bosch thought he saw disappointment, and once again he wished Haller would stop calling him his investigator.

“But you see, Mr. Haller, you have created a circumstance with your investigator and this witness that is patently unfair to the prosecution,” the judge said. “Ms. Saldano has had no time to prepare for this testimony, to have her investigator vet and background this witness, or to question him on her own.”

“Well, welcome to my world, Your Honor,” Haller replied. “I have never met or spoken to this witness myself. As I said before, his importance was discovered late yesterday—I believe you signed the subpoena at five-fifteen. He is now here to testify. We will all learn what he has to say as he says it.”

“And what exactly will you be asking him?”

“I will ask him about the events he was involved in on the day of the murder. He is the emergency medical technician who treated my client when he went into seizure in the coffee shop a little more than an hour before the murder of Judge Montgomery.”

The judge turned his attention to the prosecutor.

“Ms. Saldano, do you want to respond?”

Saldano stood up. She was in her late thirties and a rising star in the D.A.’s Office, assigned to the Major Crimes Unit. Where she went, the media followed. Bosch had already noticed the reporters lining the front row of the gallery.

“Thank you, Your Honor,” she said. “The state could simply object on the basis the court has already outlined: lack of notice, lack of inclusion of this witness on the defense’s witness list, lack of discovery in regard to his testimony. But since Mr. Haller has decided to throw the old search-for-the-truth trope into his plea for special dispensation, the state would argue that this witness has nothing to add to the testimony in this case that will in any way get us closer to the truth. We have already had testimony from Mr. Haller’s own expert witness on the seizure his client allegedly had in the coffee shop. The state did not object to that testimony. This new witness can only provide the same information.”

She paused for a breath before wrapping her argument up.

“So, clearly, Your Honor, this is some kind of a stall,” she said. “A waste of the court’s time. More smoke and mirrors from a courtroom magician who has nothing left in his bag of tricks.”

Bosch smiled and saw that Haller, who was leaning back in his chair and turned toward the prosecution’s table, had to hold back a smile himself.