Ballard moved back into the house to conduct a different kind of search. She needed a phone number for Bosch’s daughter. In the master bedroom, she had seen a small desk like is found in a hotel room. She went there and started looking through drawers until she found one containing checkbooks and rubber-banded stacks of envelopes.
One stack was all telephone bills. She quickly opened the envelope on top and saw that Bosch had a family plan where he paid for two cell phones on one account. One she recognized as his number, and the other she assumed was his daughter’s. She next opened the checkbook and looked through the registry until she came upon a record of a check for four hundred dollars to Madeline Bosch.
She had what she needed and made the call. It rang through to a message, which didn’t surprise her, since Bosch’s daughter would have no reason to recognize her number.
“Madeline, this is Detective Ballard with the LAPD. It’s very important that you call me back as soon as you hear this. Please call me back.”
She gave her number even though the girl’s phone would have captured it. She then disconnected, put everything back in the drawer, and got up from the desk. Bosch had mentioned in passing that his daughter went to Chapman down in Orange County and was just an hour or so away. She was considering a call to the school’s security office to see if Madeline Bosch could be located, but then her phone buzzed and the screen showed the number she had just called.
“Madeline?”
“Yes, what’s going on? Where’s my father?”
“We’re trying to find him and we need your help.”
“Oh my god, what happened?”
“Don’t panic, Madeline. Is that what you go by? Madeline?”
“It’s Maddie. Tell me what happened.”
“I’m not sure. He missed two appointments with me and I can’t reach him. I’m at his house now and his car is in the carport and there’s food on the table but he’s not here. When did you hear from him last?”
“He, uh, texted me last night. He asked about getting together this weekend.”
“Are he and your mother divorced? Would he be in touch with—”
“My mother’s dead.”
“Okay, sorry, I didn’t know. This is where I need your help. Your dad told me that you two had a deal. He could track your phone if you could track his. I think his phone is off at the moment but I want you to pull up your tracker and tell me where the last tracking point on it is. Can you do that?”
“Yes. I just need to—I’ll put you on speaker while I…”
“Go ahead.”
Ballard waited and eventually Maddie spoke.
“Okay, it only goes up to eleven forty-two last night. Then it stops.”
“Okay, that’s good. What’s the location of the phone.”
There was silence as Maddie checked the location. Ballard hoped it wasn’t the house. That would not advance things at all.
“Uh, it’s up in the Valley. A place called the Saddletree Open Space.”
Ballard’s heart sank. It sounded like a place to dump a body.
“Can you be more specific?” she asked, trying not to reveal her thoughts in the tone of her voice. “Can you widen the screen or something?”
“Hold on,” Maddie said.
Ballard waited.
“Um, it’s, like, near Sylmar,” Maddie said. “The nearest road to the spot is Coyote Street.”
“Can you hang up, take a screenshot, and text it to me?”
“Yes, but why was he up there? What is—”
“Maddie, listen to me. We need to hang up so you can send me the screenshot. I need to get that to the right people so we can see if your father is there. I know you’re scared and this is an awful kind of call to get. But I need to go now. I will call you back as soon as I know something. Okay?”
Ballard thought she could hear the girl crying.
“Maddie?”
“Yes, okay. I’m hanging up.”
“One other thing. I know that if you are anything like your dad, you’re going to send me the screenshot and then get in a car and head up here. Don’t do that. You have to stay away from your house, okay? It may not be safe.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“No, I’m not. I need you to stay away until you hear from me or your father, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Good. Send me the screenshot.”
Ballard disconnected. She knew that Heather Rourke was probably sleeping, but that didn’t matter. She called her friend and, surprisingly, the call was answered right away.
“What are you doing awake, Renée?”
“Still working, and I have a situation. I need a flyover up in the Valley. Who do you think would do it for me?”
“That’s easy. Me.”
“What?”
“I’m working an OT shift and have the Valley today. We’re about to go up. Where in the Valley?”
“Sylmar area. How long until—”
“Thirty minutes. What exactly are you looking for?”
“We’re looking for a missing police officer. I’m going to text you a screenshot of the location we have on a map. The area’s called the Saddletree Open Space. I need to know what’s there. Any houses, structures, whatever. And if there’s nothing there…look for a body.”
“You got it. Get that screenshot to me.”
“As soon as I have it, I’ll send. Keep this off the radio if you can. Use my cell to make contact.”
“Roger that.”
Ballard disconnected just as the screenshot from Maddie Bosch came through. She forwarded it to Heather Rourke and started moving through the house, realizing that it might become a crime scene. She left the back slider open and went out the front door and locked it behind her.
She didn’t get a clear signal on her phone until she took Woodrow Wilson back down into the pass and started north on the 101 freeway. Then she called Lourdes at San Fernando PD.
“Do you know anything about the Saddletree Open Space?”
“Uh, I don’t even know what that is.”
“It’s just north of Sylmar off a road called Coyote Street. We traced Bosch’s phone to a spot there last night about midnight. Then it went dead. I have an airship about to fly over and tell us what’s there. I’m on my way.”
“I’m closer. I can get up there now.”
“Wait for the flyover. We don’t know what’s up there. It could be a body but it could be a trap.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“If you people knew there was a hit out on him, why wasn’t he protected?”
“He turned it down. I don’t think he took it seriously. We still don’t know if it has anything to do with this. He might be up there camping and there’s no cell service.”
“Maybe, but I doubt it. I want to keep my phone free. I’ll call when I hear something on the flyover.”
“I’m here and, look, Harry saved my life once and…”
She didn’t finish.
“I get it,” Ballard said.
She disconnected.
The late-morning northbound traffic was light and Ballard made good time. She took the 101 to the 170 and then the 5 before dropping onto surface streets at Roxford. She checked her phone screen repeatedly, but there was nothing from Rourke on the flyover. Ballard even leaned over to look up through the windshield to see if she could spot the helicopter moving against the backdrop of the mountains that rimmed the Valley. There was nothing.
As she was crossing San Fernando Road, she got a call from Rourke instead of a text. There was no sound of the chopper’s engine in background and she grew livid.
“You’re still at Piper Tech?”
“No, we have a pad we can use at the Davis.”
Ballard knew the department had a training facility near Sylmar named after former chief Edward Davis.
“You did the flyover? Was there anything up there?”
Ballard could hear her own voice drawn tight by the tension of the moment.
“No body,” Rourke said. “But about a hundred yards further north into the scrub from the spot on that screenshot you sent me, it looks like there’s some kind of an abandoned kennel or animal-training facility. There are a couple of sheds and training rings. But no vehicles, no sign of life.”
Ballard exhaled. At least Bosch’s body wasn’t lying out there in the sun.
“Can it be accessed?” she asked.
“Might be tough on the suspension,” Rourke said. “Looks like there was a washout on the dirt road up there.”
“Did you take any photos?”
“Yes. I’m about to send but I thought I should talk to you first.”
“No problem.”
“Do you want us to stay close?”
“I think I’m about fifteen out on a ground search. If you can fly backup, I wouldn’t turn it down.”
“Okay, we’re here till we get a call.”
“Roger that.”
Ballard disconnected and called Lourdes back. She told the San Fernando detective what the results of the flyover were and invited her to meet at the terminus of Coyote Street and then conduct a ground search of the last known location of Harry Bosch’s phone.
“I’m on my way,” Lourdes said.