Desert Star (Renée Ballard, #5; Harry Bosch Universe, #36) (61)

“What?” he said. “Are you saying Ted’s the one? No way.”

“We’re not saying that,” Ballard said. “I just didn’t know that Ted had that kind of a health situation. If I had, I would have questioned why the councilman wanted him on our team.”

“The guy wanted to be a cop his whole life,” Hastings said. “LAPD wouldn’t take him but Santa Monica did. Then he gets sick and is forced to quit his chosen profession. So yeah, I gave him a kidney. I had an extra one.”

“What sort of issue did he have with his kidneys?” Ballard asked.

“Cancer,” Hastings said. “Took both kidneys, his spleen. He almost died. But he fought his way back, started a small business, and built it up. He’s amazing. But he never gave up on the dream of being a detective. So when he saw the press conference on TV where Jake announced the reboot of the cold case team, he came to me and said, ‘Put me on.’ I talked to Jake and we agreed. Jake went to you with it.”

“And he conveniently left out his medical history,” Ballard said. “You must have known that the LAPD would not have accepted the liability of that.”

“Jake didn’t want to give you any reason to push back on him,” Hastings said. “So Ted got added to the team. And now you’re saying he had something to do with Sarah and the Wilson girl? That is ridiculous.”

“Again, we’re not saying that,” Ballard said.

“Then what are you saying?” Hastings said. “Why all these questions about Ted?”

Ballard paused for a moment and looked back at Bosch. He knew she was trying to decide whether to trust Hastings not to pass on what she told him to his friends Jake Pearlman and Ted Rawls. Bosch nodded, giving her the go-ahead from his view of things.

“I told you that DNA from the Laura Wilson case matched her killer to the Sarah Pearlman case,” Ballard said.

“Yes, you told me,” Hastings said. “And Wilson had a ‘JAKE!’ button. It’s thin, Detective Ballard.”

“The DNA sample from the Wilson case came from blood found in urine on the toilet seat in her apartment,” Ballard said. “The blood also told us something else. That the killer had kidney disease.”

As staunch a defender of Rawls as he was, even Hastings blinked at the revelation. He was quiet for a few moments and then spoke in a reserved voice.

“So when you found out I was missing a kidney …,” he said, his voice trailing off.

“Plus, I thought you had lied when you told me that the ’05 campaign was before your time,” Ballard said.

Hastings nodded.

“And I knew Laura Wilson was Black before you told me,” he said.

Ballard let him sit with that for a moment and then continued.

“When was the last time you talked to Ted Rawls?” she asked.

“Uh, yesterday,” Hastings said. “He … I called him because I was upset about our conversation. He told me it was probably a setup, that you were getting my DNA. And I remembered the guy there who came up and took my cup. You, right?”

He looked directly at Bosch, who nodded.

“I’m sorry I called you an old man,” Hastings said. “That wasn’t cool at all.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Bosch said. “I am an old man.”

“What else did Ted tell you?” Ballard asked.

“I don’t really remember,” Hastings said. “I kind of went dark when he said, ‘She’s looking at you, man, and you’d better be careful.’”

“Anything else that you can remember?” she pressed.

“No, I just wanted to get off the phone,” Hastings said. “I was so angry once I realized what that meeting between us had really been about.”

“Who else have you talked to about this?” Bosch asked. “Did you tell the councilman?”

“No, I was going to tell him all about it tomorrow when I told him you needed to be fired,” Hastings said. “I talked to Rita about it, but she hasn’t told anyone.”

He held Ballard’s eyes for a long moment.

“You can’t talk to anybody else about this,” Ballard said. “Not the councilman and certainly not Ted Rawls. Rita, too.”

“We keep quiet while you do what?” Hastings asked.

“Continue the investigation,” Ballard said. “We’re very close, and you and the councilman will be the first we call when we get there.”

“What if Ted calls me?” Hastings said. “What do I say?”

“Just don’t take the call,” Bosch said. “If you talk to him, he might be able to read that you know something.”

“My god,” Hastings said. “I really can’t believe this.”

Ballard stood up and Bosch did the same. He knew that she understood that they had to get moving on Rawls—if it wasn’t already too late.

Hastings remained seated and looked like he was deep in thought.

“I just realized something,” he said.

“What?” Ballard asked.

“That I gave my kidney to the guy who killed Sarah,” Hastings said. “And Laura Wilson and who knows who else. I kept this guy alive to do that.”

“Nelson, we don’t know that yet,” Ballard said. “We are working this one step at a time. You’ve been very helpful but we need to continue our work. I promise I will personally keep you in the loop.”