The Night Fire: A Ballard and Bosch thriller (Harry Bosch 22) (25 page)

Muniz and Companioni learned that the Cassidy couple had arrived from Los Angeles on Sunday, Feb. 17, for an appearance by Melanie Cassidy on the Home Shopping Network scheduled for the following Tuesday afternoon. Melanie Cassidy regularly hosted a sales segment regarding a unique student lunch box that she and her husband had created. The two had been to Tampa on several prior occasions and routinely stayed at the Hard Rock because they enjoyed the casino. They were also regulars at Bern’s Steakhouse.

Pittman stated that the Hard Rock security team was fully cooperative with the investigation. Muniz and Companioni were able to use casino surveillance cameras to trace the couple’s movements during the day of the killings. They were seen gambling and winning a jackpot on one of the progressive play tables, meaning that a community pot continually grows in value as gamblers from all connected tables play. Certain winning hands draw a percentage of winnings from the progressive pot. Larry Cassidy won a $42,000 jackpot and cashed in the casino check he received after the win.

Pittman said they also observed two men in the casino watching the couple’s movements after the jackpot win. The two men, later identified as Cardozo and Fields, were traced by the detectives as well. It is believed, according to the investigators, that they followed the Cassidy couple when they left the casino to celebrate their winnings during a dinner at Bern’s. In an earlier report, the
Times
spoke with James Braswell, who served the couple. He said the couple were regulars but that Monday night they were more celebratory than usual, buying a bottle of expensive champagne and even sharing it with a couple at a nearby table.

Pittman said that after dinner the couple left the restaurant and drove toward Bayshore Boulevard on their way back to their hotel. At the red light at Howard Avenue and Bayshore, they were rear-ended by the car behind them. When Larry Cassidy got out to check for damage to his rental car, he was confronted by Cardozo, who showed he had a handgun in his belt. He ordered Cassidy back into his car and then got into the back seat behind him. The Cassidy car then proceeded to Palma Ceia on MacDill Avenue, with Fields following in the suspects’ car. The killings occurred shortly after the car was parked.

Cardozo and Fields were identified through a facial recognition program used to analyze the Hard Rock surveillance videos. The process took more than two weeks and was conducted by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. The suspects were then traced to separate apartments in Tampa Heights, where they were living under false names and paying cash for rent.

A team of officers directed by Lt. Greg Stout, of the Special Operations Unit, made simultaneous raids on the apartments early Thursday, and both men were arrested without incident. Stout said at the press conference that a gun believed to have been the murder weapon was found hidden in Cardozo’s apartment.

“We have no doubt that these are the right guys,” Stout said.

Muniz and Companioni appeared at the press conference but did not address the media. When contacted by phone later, Companioni said, “This guy, Cardozo, is a piece of [expletive] and that’s all I have to say.”

The suspects are scheduled to be arraigned tomorrow at the Hillsborough County Courthouse.

Bosch read through the story a second time and came away as convinced as the Tampa police apparently were. Reading between the lines, he guessed that Fields had flipped and was hoping to avoid a murder charge by laying the killings squarely on his partner, Cardozo. It seemed obvious that someone was talking or they would not have had the details about the fender bender and the abduction at the traffic light.

Other stories followed in the weeks after the arrest story, but Bosch didn’t need to read them. What he knew already scratched Maura Frederick off his list.

But Clayton Manley was still on it, and Orlando Reyes had not said anything about him when he rejected talking to Bosch earlier.

Bosch grabbed his phone and hit Redial. This time he decided on a different tack with Reyes.

The unsuspecting detective answered promptly. “Robbery-Homicide Division, Detective Reyes. How can I help you?”

“You can start by telling me why you dropped Clayton Manley.”

“Bosch? Bosch, I told you, I’m not talking to you.”

“I checked out Tampa and you were right: Maura Frederick is in the clear. But that was just a deflection, Reyes. You need to tell me why you dropped off Manley or you’re going to have to tell it to a judge.”

“What the fuck are you talking about? Are you crazy?”

“There’s something missing about Clayton Manley from the murder book, something not in discovery, and if I put that idea in Haller’s ear he’s going to run with it and he’s going to drag you and your dumbshit partner into court to talk about it with the judge.”

“You’re the dumbshit, Bosch. There’s nothing. We got the DNA hit on that nutjob and that was it. Game over. We didn’t need to do anything else on Manley.”

“It’s in the chronology, Reyes. Actually, it’s what’s
not
in the chrono. The interview with Manley came a week before the DNA hit, but there’s nothing on Manley in the chrono that week after you talked to him. You aren’t going to convince me—or Haller or the judge—that you did nothing on Manley that week. He was a solid suspect. At least a person of interest. So what happened? What did you leave out of discovery? What happened the week before the DNA came back?”

Reyes said nothing—and that was when Bosch knew he had struck a nerve. His bluff was on the nose. Gustafson and Reyes had taken the Manley angle another step but had left it out of the discovery version of the murder book they handed over to the defense.

“Talk to me, Reyes,” Bosch said. “I can contain it. You don’t and you get Haller up your ass. If he smells any money in this he’ll sue you, the department, the city—it’ll blow up and you get blown up with it. You want that? You’re new to RHD. You think they’ll keep you around if you get tainted with this?”

He waited and Reyes finally broke.

“Okay, listen, Bosch,” he began. “Detective to detective, I’ll give you something and you do whatever the fuck you want with it. But it won’t add up to anything because your nutjob was the guy. He fucking did it.”

“Just give it to me,” Bosch said.

“You have to protect me. No Haller, no fucking lawyers.”

“No Haller, no lawyers.”

“Okay, the only thing we left out of discovery was that we started out with Manley by running down every lawyer in that firm.”

“Michaelson and Mitchell.”

“Right, every lawyer. We wanted to see who we were dealing with, what other clients they were representing. It’s a big powerful law firm and we had to step carefully. We put all the lawyer names in the county courts computer and got all their cases in the last ten years. It was a lot. But we got one hit of interest.”

“Which was?”

“About five years ago Michaelson and Mitchell represented Dominick Butino. Got him off on a weapons beef—witness changed his story. And that was it. Then the DNA came in on Herstadt and we dropped it. It didn’t mean anything anyway.”

Bosch knew the name. Dominick “Batman” Butino was a reputed organized-crime figure from Las Vegas who had business interests in Los Angeles. Bosch now knew exactly what Gustafson and Reyes had done. They had DNA directly linking Herstadt to the Montgomery killing. They weren’t going to put something in discovery—a certified mobster—that would allow the defense to create any sort of jury distraction.

They didn’t want Haller building a potential third-party-culpability case by pointing to a lawyer who had threatened and sued Montgomery, and whose firm represented a notorious organized-crime figure. Butino’s nickname did not come from the superhero but from his alleged use of a baseball bat to collect money owed to him.

It was a classic anti-discovery move by the cops. And it may have inadvertently hidden the real killer.

“Which lawyer?” Bosch asked.

“What?” Reyes said.

“Which lawyer in the firm represented Butino?”

“William Michaelson.”

A founding partner. Bosch wrote it down.

“So, you never talked to Manley about this?” he asked.

“Didn’t need to,” Reyes said.

“Did he ever know he was being looked at, that he was a suspect?”

“No, because he wasn’t a suspect. He was a person of interest for about five minutes. You’re acting like we dropped the ball on this but we didn’t. We had a DNA match, a suspect documented to have been in the vicinity, and then we had a confession. You think for one second we were going to spend another minute on Clayton Manley? Think again, Bosch.”

Bosch had what he needed but couldn’t end the call without throwing something back at Reyes.

“You know what, Reyes, you were right about what you said before,” he said. “A killer is out there walking free. But not because of anything I did.”

He disconnected the call.

Ballard met Bosch at a gas station on Crenshaw four blocks from Dulan’s. She was driving her van and Bosch was in his Cherokee. She had loaded her paddleboard inside the van to avoid being conspicuous. They pulled up side by side, driver’s window to driver’s window. Bosch had dressed as a detective, right down to his sport coat and tie. Ballard had dressed down and was wearing a Dodgers cap and a sweatshirt and jeans. Her hair was still damp from the shower after paddling.

“What’s our plan?” Ballard asked.

“I thought you had the plan,” Bosch said.

She laughed.

“Actually, I caught an all-night case last night and didn’t have much time to scheme,” she said. “I do have good news, though.”

“What’s that?” Bosch asked.

“Marcel Dupree hasn’t paid child support in three years and a judge wants to talk to him about it. He’s got a felony warrant.”

“That helps.”

“So what do you think we should do?”

“You’ve been in there before? What’s the setup?”

“One time. I read somewhere they had the best fried chicken in the city. And peach cobbler. So, I went to see. It’s like a counter—you go down the line, order what you want, then take it on a tray and find a place to sit. They have an overflow room that will probably be in use at one today, end of the lunch hour.”

“We need a signal. In case you need me. We’ve got no radios.”

“I brought my rover in case we want to hook Dupree up after.”

She handed the radio across to Bosch.

“You keep it in case something goes really sideways and you need to call it in. You remember the codes?”

“Of course. Code three—officer needs help. But what if things don’t go sideways? What are we doing?”

“Well, I’m going in by myself. Most people by themselves look at their cell phones. I’ll text you a running play-by-play and a code three if I need you to call in the troops.”

Bosch thought about things before speaking next.

“Once you’re in there and have your phone out, text me a hello so I know we have a clear signal,” he said. “But my question is what are you hoping to accomplish in there? You think you’re going to overhear their conversation, just get a look at Kidd, what?”

“Yeah, I want to get a look at him,” Ballard said. “And if I’m lucky and I’m close, I may hear something. I’ll put my phone on Record but I know that’s a long shot. I want to see if he’s panicked, and if he is then maybe we take it to the next step and really spook him to see what he does. We can also squeeze Dupree.”

“When?”

“Maybe right after lunch. You’re dressed up like a detective and I’m undercover. Maybe we call South Bureau, get a couple unies to pull him over, and then we take him back to South Bureau and borrow a room.”

“How close are the tables in there?”

“Not that close. They wouldn’t have picked the place if they knew people were sitting on top of each other.”

Bosch nodded.

“Okay, let’s see what happens,” he said. “Don’t forget to text me so I know we have a signal.”

“It’s just a first step,” Ballard said. “I want to see who we’re dealing with here.”

“Okay, be safe.”

“You too.”

Ballard drove off. She checked the dashboard clock and saw it was 12:45. She made a U-turn on Crenshaw and headed back toward the restaurant. It was busy and there was no parking directly in front of the establishment. She parked at the curb half a block away and texted Bosch before getting out of the van.

Going in.

She got out, slinging her backpack strap over her shoulder, and walked to the restaurant. Her gun and handcuffs were in the pack.

She entered Dulan’s at exactly one p.m. and was immediately hit with the smell of good food. It suddenly occurred to her that to complete her undercover picture she was going to have to eat. She looked around. Every table in the front room of the restaurant was taken and there was a line of people waiting to go down the hot line and get their food. Acting like she was looking for a friend, she checked out the overflow room to the right. There were empty tables here. She stopped short when she saw a man sitting by himself at a four-top. He was texting on his phone. She was sure it was Marcel Dupree. The round head but now with braids instead of unkempt. He had no food or drink in front of him. He was totally dressed in Crips blue, right down to the flat-billed Dodgers cap. It looked like he was waiting for Elvin Kidd before ordering.

The room was long, with a row of four-top tables running down the right side and deuces running down the left. The table across the aisle from Dupree’s four-top was already taken by a couple. The next deuce down was taken as well, but the third was open. Ballard realized that by sitting there she could have a full view of whoever sat across the table from Dupree.

She walked down the aisle, passing Dupree, and to the open table. Hanging her backpack over the back of the chair, she dropped her van keys on the table and turned to the four-top across the aisle, where three young women sat.

“Excuse me, do you mind watching my stuff while I go get food?” she asked. “I won’t be long. The line isn’t bad.”

“Sure, no problem,” one of the women said. “Take your time.”