Desert Star (Renée Ballard, #5; Harry Bosch Universe, #36) (55)

“No, Colleen, there’s nothing anybody else needs to know. There are just some things about the case that are sensitive … politically. Plus, Harry Bosch and I have worked cases going back several years, so we have a shorthand and a level of trust that is already built in. Is that okay?”

“Uh, sure, yes. I was just curious. I didn’t mean—”

“Okay, well, you just do what you do and get me some results, Colleen. And thanks for updating me. I’m going to head out now.”

“I thought you said you had some reports to write.”

“I changed my mind. I’ll do it from home. You should go home, too. It’s the weekend, Colleen.”

Ballard got up and went back to her workstation, returned her laptop to her backpack, and then headed toward the exit. She did not look back at Hatteras but had the feeling that she was being watched the whole way.





28


BOSCH WAS AT the table, looking at his phone, when Ballard entered the second-floor break room. He spoke first.

“Did you bait Hastings? Is he coming in?”

“No, we’re meeting downtown at two fifteen. Grand Central Market. What did you get from military archives?”

“I just emailed two files to you. Open up the one called ‘St. Louis.’”

Ballard sat down and opened her laptop. While she put in her password and went to her email, Bosch told her what Henic had sent him. He tried to contain the energy that he felt building inside.

“The new woman at the military archives in St. Louis called the old guy I used to deal with,” he said. “He vouched for me, said I was good people. So I got the whole military file on Hastings, no redactions.”

Ballard was across the table from him and looking at her screen.

“Okay, what am I looking for?” she asked.

“First, you have his postings, and then on page four you have a field action report,” Bosch said. “He lost part of his foot in Afghanistan. And that’s what got him his disabled vet status. Honorably discharged in ’04.”

“So he was here for Wilson.”

“Right.”

“He’s missing half his foot …”

“He must have a prosthetic. From what I saw last night and today, he’s got no limp.”

Ballard was squinting as she looked at her screen.

“You need glasses, Renée,” Bosch said.

“No, I don’t,” she said. “What was it, IED?”

“Doesn’t say in the field action report. When I was in Vietnam, some guys shot themselves so they could get the hell out of there.”

“In the foot?”

“Most of the time.”

“They must’ve really wanted out. Is that what you think Hastings did?”

“I have no idea. I was just talking about Vietnam.”

“Whether he did or he didn’t, what’s that got to do with Sarah Pearlman and Laura Wilson?”

“Nothing. Now open the second file.”

While Ballard did so, Bosch told her how he got the second file.

“Remember I said I got the military file without redactions? Hastings’s Social Security and military serial numbers were in the first file. I used them to access his VA file, and that’s what you have there.”

“Goddamn, Harry, we shouldn’t have this. We should have gotten a search warrant first.”

“No one’s ever going to know we got it, and it will never come up in court. Scroll through it until you get to 2008.”

“Shit, I can’t believe we’re doing this.”

It was Ballard’s last protest before following his directions. Bosch got up and came around the table to be able to see her screen.

“Okay, 2008,” Ballard said. “Says he came into the Westwood VA hospital for urinalysis. I can’t read these results.”

“They don’t mean anything,” Bosch said. “Since ’08, he has come in annually for a urinalysis test.”

“Is this about kidney disease?”

“It’s about this.”

Bosch leaned over her shoulder and pointed to a word in the treatment notes from Hastings’s 2008 visit.

“Nephrectomy,” she said. “What is that?”

“I had to look it up,” Bosch said. “It’s the surgical procedure for removing a kidney.”

Ballard turned from the screen to look at him.

“Harry,” she said. “It’s him.”





29


BALLARD STOOD ON the sidewalk on 1st Street near the corner of the Grand Central Market building. She was in a blind where Hastings would not be able to see her. It was 2:25 and she was waiting on the go-ahead from Bosch. An earlier text from him reported that he was in place and had eyes on Hastings, who had ordered and received a coffee and was looking at his phone while waiting for her.

The key was to make sure Hastings didn’t leave with his coffee cup. They needed that for his DNA.

Ballard paced in a small pattern next to the wall of the GCM’s parking garage while going over the story in her head. The news that Hastings had had a kidney removed in 2008 shot new momentum into the quiet investigation she and Bosch were conducting. The stakes had grown exponentially in the last few hours and she was now sure that she would be sitting very soon having coffee with a serial killer. She had to be careful not to stir any suspicion in Hastings, nothing that would cause him to flee or otherwise act out after their conversation.