Ballard and Bosch didn’t discuss the interview until after they thanked Beatrice Beaupre for her help and got back into the van.
“So?” she asked.
“I’d put him on the long-shot list,” Bosch said.
“Really? Why?”
“I think if he had anything to do with Daisy, he wouldn’t have said what he said.”
“What do you mean? He didn’t say shit.”
“He picked out her picture. Not a good move if he and Gayley killed her.”
“Nobody said the guy’s a genius. He makes his living with his dick.”
“Look, don’t get upset. I’m just giving you my reaction. I’m not saying he’s in the clear or we should drop it. I’m just saying I didn’t get the vibe, you know what I mean?”
“I’m not upset. I’m just not ready to move on from these guys yet.”
She started the van’s engine.
“Where to?” she asked. “Back to San Fernando?”
“You mind taking me to my house?” Bosch asked.
“Is it safe?”
“Supposedly they put a car on it. I’m just going to get some fresh clothes and my Jeep. Be good to get mobile again. You going that way?”
“Not a problem.”
Ballard backed out of the parking slot in front of the warehouse and drove off. She headed south on surface streets, wanting to avoid the freeways at this point in the day. As she drove, she thought about Bosch’s take on Pascal and the interview. She had to decide if her suspicions were based on solid underpinnings of circumstantial evidence or simply her hopes that a creep like Pascal would be guilty because society would be better off without him. After a while she had to admit to herself that she may have let her feelings about Pascal and what he did for a living skew her judgment of things. Her way of acknowledging this to Bosch was indirect.
“So, there’s still some of the culled shake cards to go through and run down,” she said. “You going to be around tonight? We could split them up.”
“Hey, I’m not telling you to drop Pascal,” Bosch said. “Let’s do a deep dive on Gayley. We locate him and see if what he says matches up with Pascal. We get them telling different stories and we might have something.”
Ballard nodded.
“We can do that,” she said.
They drove in silence for a while, with Ballard thinking about next moves in trying to locate Gayley. She had only scratched the surface in her prior search.
Bosch directed her to take a shortcut on Vineland up into the hills. It would lead them to Mulholland Drive and that would lead them to his street.
“So, have you figured out how they knew where you lived?” Ballard asked. “The men who grabbed you, I mean.”
“Nobody knows for sure,” Bosch said. “But once Cortez was wired in through Luzon, he could have had people on my tail since early in the week. I drove home with them on me.”
“Is Luzon the cop who set you up?”
“He was the leak that got my witness killed. How much he knew about setting me up is not yet determined.”
“Where is he?”
“The hospital. He tried to kill himself. He’s still in a coma.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah.”
“So, the SIS setup on Cortez—how’d they get PC if Luzon’s in a coma and nobody else is talking?”
“You don’t need probable cause to watch somebody. And if he flushes, they have a reason to pull him over. Child support. He’s got a judgment against him for three kids and a standing subpoena from a children’s court judge.”
That darkened the picture for Ballard. If the SIS was operating without probable cause to arrest Cortez, then following and pulling him over would seemingly have only one purpose; to see if he made the wrong move.
She dropped that part of the conversation. In a few minutes she turned off Mulholland onto Woodrow Wilson Drive. Then, as they came around the last bend before his house, Bosch leaned tensely forward and released his seatbelt.
“Damn it,” he said.
“What?” Ballard asked.
There was a patrol car parked in front of the house. There was also a Volkswagen Beetle. As she got closer, she could read the Chapman sticker on the back window.
“Your daughter?” she asked.
“I told her not to come up,” Bosch said.
“So did I.”
“I’ve got to send her back, get her out of here.”
Ballard pulled her van to a stop next to the patrol car and showed her badge to the officer behind the wheel. She didn’t recognize him and saw that the car’s roof code was from North Hollywood Division. They lowered their windows at the same time.
“I’ve got Harry Bosch here,” Ballard said. “He’s got to pick up some things inside.”
“Roger that,” the officer said.
“When did his daughter arrive?”
“A couple hours ago. She drove up, showed me her ID. I let her go in.”
“Roger that.”
Bosch got out of the car and checked up and down the street for any vehicles or anything else that didn’t belong. He looked back in at Ballard before closing the door.
“Are you going into the station from here?” he asked.
“Not yet,” Ballard said. “I’m heading downtown and taking the spotter from the airship yesterday to dinner. I called in a favor on that flyover.”
“Hold on, then. Let me go in and get some money. I want to buy dinner.”
“Don’t worry about it, Harry. We just go to the Denny’s by Piper Tech. It’s not a big deal.”
“Really? What about something nicer? Let me send you over to the Nickel Diner. I know Monica there. I’ll call and she’ll take good care of you.”
“Denny’s is good, Harry. Convenient. It’s right across from Piper.”
Bosch nodded toward his house.
“I’ve got to deal with my daughter and then I have something else to do,” he said. “But I want to meet this guy sometime—the spotter. To say thanks.”
“It’s not necessary and it’s not a guy. She was just doing her job.”
Bosch nodded.
“Well, tell her thanks for me,” he said. “The sound of that chopper—it changed everything.”
“I’ll tell her,” Ballard said. “You coming by the station later to help me look for Gayley?”
“Yeah, I’ll get by later on. Thanks for the ride.”
“Anytime, Harry.”
She watched him cross in front of the van and go to the front door. He had to knock because his keys were one of the things left behind when he had been abducted. Soon the door was opened and Ballard caught a glimpse of a young woman as she grabbed Bosch into an embrace and closed the door.
Ballard stared at the door for a few seconds and then drove off.