The Night Fire: A Ballard and Bosch thriller (Harry Bosch 22) (34 page)

But it didn’t work out that way. She knocked once and entered the War Room, only to find the same five men who had been there last time sitting in exactly the same positions. That included Olivas. They were in mid-discussion, which ceased the moment she opened the door. Since everybody was at least fifteen minutes early, Ballard took that as confirmation that Olivas had given the men an earlier start time, perhaps to discuss what to do about her inclusion in the case before she arrived. She assumed that would largely mean Olivas directing the other investigators to keep her at arm’s length. It would be something she needed to redirect.

“Ballard,” Olivas said. “Have a seat.”

He pointed to a seat at the end of the rectangular table. It would put her opposite him, with the two LAFD guys to her right and the two RHD guys, Drucker and Ferlita, to her left. On the table was a murder book with very few pages in it and a few other files, one of them thicker than the murder book.

“We were just talking about you and how we’re going to work this,” Olivas said.

“Really?” Ballard said. “Before I got here—nice. Any conclusions?”

“Well, for starters, we know we have you out there in Hollywood working the late show, so trolling for witnesses is still important. I know you did a couple sweeps out there already, but people in that world come and go. It would be good to hit that strip again.”

“Anything else?”

“Well, we were just getting started.”

“Well, could we start then with an update on where we are on the investigation? What happened with the bottle I gave you guys?”

“Good idea. Scrapyard, why don’t you summarize where things are?”

Drucker looked surprised that he had drawn the request from Olivas. He opened a file on the table in front of him and reviewed a few things in it, probably to gather his thoughts, before speaking.

“Okay, on the bottle,” he said. “We took it into latents as suggested and they did get a twelve-point match to a thumbprint off the victim, Edison Banks. So we are good there. We went out last night to find the bottle collector you got it from, to reinterview him and see if there was anything else to glean from him now that we have confirmation on the bottle. Unfortunately, we didn’t find him and—”

“What time were you out there?” Ballard asked.

“About eight,” Drucker said. “We looked around for an hour, couldn’t find him.”

“I don’t think he gets back to his squat till later,” Ballard said. “I’ll find him tonight.”

“That would be great,” Drucker said.

There was an awkwardness to the conversation, an acknowledgment that the men were doing what they should have done from the start—bringing in the expert on the dark hours of Hollywood.

“Were there other prints on the bottle?” Ballard asked.

Drucker flipped a page of the report in front of him.

“Yes,” he said. “We got a palm print. We matched it to the liquor license belonging to Marko Linkov, who operates the Mako store where we believe the bottle was originally sold. We spoke to him and watched the video you told us about. So we are up to speed there.”

“So it was the woman in the video?” Ballard said.

“We traced her plate—‘one for you, two for me’—and it turns out that plate was stolen off a same-make and -model Mercedes earlier that day. Our working conclusion is that the woman bought the bottle and gave it to our victim. Whether that was part of the plan to kill him, we don’t know. We have so far not been able to identify her.”

“What about the ATM? She got cash from there.”

“She used a counterfeit card with a legit number and PIN belonging to a seventy-two-year-old man living in Las Vegas, Nevada.”

“Did the ATM have a camera? Did you get a clear shot of her?”

“You watched the store video,” Ferlita said. “She put her hand over the camera. She knew just where it was.”

“No picture,” Drucker added.

Ballard did not respond. She sat back in her chair and considered all the new information. The complexity of the mystery woman’s actions was very suspicious and raised more questions.

“I don’t get it,” she finally said.

“Get what?” Olivas asked.

“I’m assuming this woman is the suspect,” she said. “Stolen plate, stolen ATM card. But for what reason? Why didn’t she buy the bottle somewhere else, where it would never be connected?”

“Who knows?” Nuccio said.

“It’s like she wanted to be seen but not identified,” Ballard said. “There’s a psychology there.”

“Fuck her psychology,” Drucker said. “We just need to find her.”

“I’m just saying, if we understand her, maybe it helps find her,” Ballard said.

“Whatever,” Drucker said.

Ballard let him have his moment before pressing on.

“Okay, what else?” she said.

“Isn’t that enough?” Ferlita said. “We’ve had the case two days and most of that was spent catching up to you.”

“And you wouldn’t have what you have if not for me,” Ballard said. “What about the victim and the probate case? Is that a copy of the file?”

She pointed to the thick file on the table next to Drucker.

“It is,” he said. “We’ve gone through it a couple times and haven’t found anything that links up to this. One of those cases where you feel it in your gut but there’s no evidence of anything.”

“Can I take that, then?” Ballard asked. “I’ll give it a read while I’m in the car tonight watching for the bottle man. Then I’ll be as up to date on this as everybody else.”

Drucker turned to Olivas for approval.

“Of course,” Olivas said. “We’ll make you a copy. Knock yourself out.”

“Has anybody talked to the Banks family?” Ballard asked.

“We’re going down to San Diego today to interview the brother,” Drucker said.

“Want to come?” Ferlita asked, a baiting tone in his voice.

“I’ll pass,” Ballard said. “I’m sure you two can handle it.”

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

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

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

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

“Who?”

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

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

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

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

“And you’re not telling me why?”

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

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

“All right, bro—”

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

“Renée.”

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

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

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

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

“Perfect. What time?”

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

“See you there.”

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

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

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

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

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

“Bosch, you dog.”

“Sorry about cutting you off before.”

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

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

“Matter of fact, he did.”

“And?”

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

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

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

“All that was perfect.”

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

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

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

“Will do.”

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

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

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

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

“No, I’m good,” Bosch said.

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

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

“Oh, thank you,” the young man said.

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

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

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

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

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

“Mr. Bosch, come on in.”

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

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

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

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