Desert Star (Renée Ballard, #5; Harry Bosch Universe, #36) (33)

“Yes, all true, but what’s it got to do with the new investigation?”

“Were you extorted in any way by Harris to provide an alibi for him?”

“No, I wasn’t!”

“Were you an anonymous source for that Times article?”

“I was not! I think you really need to go now. I have a Zoom.”

Beecher stood up but Ballard and Bosch did not.

“Please sit down, Mr. Beecher,” Ballard said. “We have more questions.”

“My Zoom is in, like, five minutes,” Beecher complained.

“The sooner you sit down, the sooner you will get to your Zoom.”

Beecher had moved behind his chair and put his hands on it as if for support. He bowed his head and then raised it angrily.

“I want you to leave,” he said.

“Sit down,” Bosch said. “Now.”

Bosch’s first words in the house gave Beecher a jolt and he looked at Bosch as if scared.

“Please,” Ballard offered.

“Oh, whatever,” Beecher said.

He came around the chair and dropped into it.

“Laura’s father died of Covid last year,” Ballard said. “He never saw justice for his daughter. Her mother is still alive and waiting for justice. We need your help, Mr. Beecher. We need the truth.”

Beecher ran both hands through his thick dark hair, messing up what had been a carefully composed front wave.

“You’re barking up the wrong tree,” he said.

Ballard leaned a few inches forward. It was not a denial or an admission that he had lied. But she took it as an indication that there was a new story to be told.

“How so?” she asked.

“Harmon didn’t kill Laura,” Beecher said. “There is no way in the world that happened.”

“Is that why you gave him an alibi?”

“He had an alibi but he couldn’t use it.”

“Which was?”

“He was with someone else, not me. But that person couldn’t go to the police. He was a famous guy and he couldn’t risk it coming out that he wasn’t straight. His career would have been over.”

“You knew this man?”

“At the time I knew of him. A lot of people did. So Harmon made me say I was the one with him that night, end of story.”

“Who was it who was really with him that night?”

“I’m not telling you. It’s the same risk today that it was back then. He’s still a star. I’m not going to ruin his career.”

“We would keep it confidential. We wouldn’t even put it on paper.”

“No. Nothing stays a secret forever, but if I told you, it would be a betrayal. Not just of him, but of all of us.”

Ballard slowly nodded. She instinctively guessed that they had gotten all they could from Beecher. He had admitted that he lied but confirmed the alibi of Harmon Harris.

“Okay, let me ask you this,” Ballard said. “If you weren’t with Harris, how do you know he was actually with this other person? This Mr. X movie star.”

“Because I asked him.”

“You asked Mr. X?”

“Yeah, I wasn’t going to just take Harmon’s word and lie to the cops. I went to him and asked. He confirmed. End of story, and you have to leave now.”

“You know, we could charge you for lying to us back then.”

“After seventeen years? I really doubt that.”

Ballard knew her threat had backfired almost as soon as she said it. She could think of no other way to get the name she needed from Beecher.

“Are you still in touch with Mr. X?” she asked.

“No, not really,” Beecher said. “He’s gotten so big you can’t get near him even to say, ‘Hey, you remember me?’”

“Could you reach out and get him to call us anonymously? I just want to confirm this and move on with the investigation.”

“No. It’s impossible for him to be anonymous. You’d know who you’re talking to within ten seconds.”

Ballard nodded and glanced over at Bosch. It was her signal for him to ask any questions he might be sitting on. But he gave a slight shake of the head. He had nothing to ask that hadn’t already been asked.

“Okay, Mr. Beecher, thank you for your cooperation,” she said. “I’m going to leave you my card, and I hope you’ll call if you think of any further information to share with me.”

“Fine,” Beecher said. “But I don’t think I’ll be calling you.”

All three of them stood up and headed toward the door. Beecher opened it and then stepped back to let Ballard and Bosch out. As Bosch passed him, Beecher spoke.

“You don’t talk too much, do you?” he said.

“I usually don’t have to,” Bosch said.





18


BOSCH WAS LISTENING to the King Curtis live album recorded at the Fillmore West just a few months before he was murdered in 1971. He popped the volume two notches for “A Whiter Shade of Pale” and thought about all the music not recorded by the sax player because of his early demise in a fight in front of his New York apartment. Parker, Coltrane, Brown, Baker—the list of those who left the stage in mid-song was long. It got Bosch thinking about the Gallagher family and all that was lost with them. The kids never even had the chance to leave a song behind.