Desert Star (Renée Ballard, #5; Harry Bosch Universe, #36) (46)

“Sure,” Kramer said. “What do you need?”

“I need you to keep this conversation between us. Is that a problem?”

“Not at all, Detective.”

Ballard gave Kramer her cell number and told him to call if he thought of anything else she should know. She was almost hyperventilating by the time she got back to her car. She started the engine and cranked up the air conditioning. She composed herself and then reached over to the passenger seat to get her case list. She studied it for a moment, trying to modulate her breathing. She focused on one entry on the paper.

Hastings—send photo of LW

She realized that she had never done that. And that raised a big question.

She checked the dashboard clock, did the math, and realized that Harry Bosch was in the air and it would still be a few hours until she would be able to talk to him. She knew she had much to do before then.

She dropped the car into drive and pulled away from the curb.





24


BOSCH DROVE INTO the north parking lot of the Hawthorne mall and easily spotted Ballard’s city ride. It was the only vehicle in the vast sea of asphalt that surrounded the abandoned mall. He drove directly to her and parked so that their driver’s-side windows faced each other and they could talk without getting out of their vehicles. In LAPD slang, it was called a “69 meeting” because of the positioning of the cars.

Bosch’s window was already down because the old Cherokee’s air-conditioning did little to effect climate change in the car. Ballard’s window glided down upon his arrival.

“Harry, how was the flight?”

“Fine. I listened to some good music. So what’s with the code sixty-nine?”

“I didn’t want to talk at Ahmanson. Rawls was in today and he’s a pipeline to Hastings and Pearlman. In fact, he’s been coming in a lot this week and I think that’s because Hastings wants to know what moves we’re making.”

“Really? Can’t Hastings just call you anytime he wants?”

“He could, yeah. But he wants to hide how closely he’s paying attention, because Hastings is our guy.”

“What do you mean? The killer?”

“I’d bet my badge on it, Harry. We get his DNA, and it’s going to match.”

“Tell me how you got there.”

Ballard recapped the interview she conducted that morning with Sandy Kramer and how one of her very last questions to the tuxedo salesman revealed that Hastings had lied to her when he said that the Laura Wilson murder occurred before his time working for Jake Pearlman.

“He’s been with Pearlman all along,” she said. “And that’s not a little lie. That is a lie meant to throw me off. That makes it a big lie.”

“Okay, I get it,” Bosch said. “That’s suspicious, but it doesn’t get you to handcuffs. You have anything else?”

“I do. After talking to Kramer, I started going back over my interactions with Hastings on this case. He’s always been the point man. He’s the one who calls and wants updates, supposedly for Pearlman. But now I think he was trying to see how close we were getting to him.”

“Still no handcuffs.”

“Look at this.”

She handed a piece of notebook paper to him. Bosch looked at it and realized it was her case list.

“Your list,” he said. “I already saw this.”

“I know,” Ballard said. “But I never sent Hastings a photo of Laura Wilson and didn’t scratch it off the list.”

“And what does that mean?”

“Okay, I’ve had two phone conversations with Hastings this week about the Wilson case. I’ve been going over the first conversation in my head. I asked him if he knew the name Laura Wilson and to check what campaign records there might be about her working as a volunteer or making a donation or whatever. I also asked him to check with the staff, including the councilman. I am ninety-five percent sure I never said Laura was Black. The plan was to scan a photo and send it to him. But I never did. I forgot.”

“Okay.”

“So then in the next conversation, he reports back that there are no records and nobody, including Jake, can remember a Laura Wilson being a volunteer or otherwise. And then to underline this, he said that Jake said he would have remembered if he had an African American woman on staff or as a volunteer.”

“But you’re sure you hadn’t told him Laura was Black.”

“Exactly. And then when Jake came by the unit yesterday, he said the same thing: that he would have remembered an African American on the campaign.”

Bosch nodded. Ballard had told him before he’d left for the airport that she had been tipped that Pearlman was on his way for a surprise visit to the unit.

“Could Hastings have figured out she was Black on his own?” he asked.

“Well, anything’s possible,” Ballard said. “But I didn’t tell him. I’m sure of it.”

“Other than that, how was the surprise visit?”

“He and his entourage were there for about thirty minutes tops. I showed them around, they took some video, and I got about five minutes with Pearlman to ask about Laura. And that’s another thing, Hastings kept interrupting and saying Jake had a tight schedule and had to go. Another sign he’s trying to block the investigation. He clearly didn’t want me asking Pearlman questions.”