Desert Star (Renée Ballard, #5; Harry Bosch Universe, #36) (74)

He looked out across the Cahuenga Pass to his sideways view of the Hollywood sign. He felt the inadequacy of his response to her.

“I’ll let you go now,” Juanita said. “Once again, thank you, Detective Bosch.”

“Harry.”

“Thank you, Harry. Goodbye.”

“Goodbye, Juanita.”

Bosch clutched the phone in his hand as he thought about Juanita waiting years for answers and then not even getting the full truth of things. A deep font of anger started to well up inside him.

Bosch limped back inside the house and used his laptop to search for a phone number. He called it and asked by name for the reporter whose voice he had heard at the LAPD press conference. As he waited for the transfer, he went back out to the deck. He was staring out across the pass when the voice with a slight Caribbean accent came into his ear.

“Keisha Russell, how can I help you?”

“You called me a gunslinger on live television.”

“Harry Bosch. It’s been a while.”

He remembered how she said his name. It sounded to him like she was taking a bite out of a crisp apple.

“I thought you were in D.C., covering politics.”

“I got tired of the winters. Plus, I almost got killed at the Capitol last year. Decided it was time to come home to my first love, covering crime.”

“I thought covering politics was covering crime.”

“Funny. And funny that you called me. I wanted to call you but couldn’t find anybody around here who would share your number. Did you call just to complain, or is there something you want to say?”

Bosch gave one last thought to holding back, but quickly the images he carried from the case—Sarah Pearlman, Laura Wilson, and even Juanita Wilson—crowded such consideration out.

“You’re being used,” he said. “You were smarter than that last time you were on the beat.”

“Really?” Russell said. “Used by who?”

“The source who told you I was the shooter. They told you about me but not the rest of the story. They’re more concerned with getting rid of me than getting the whole truth out.”

“Is this conversation on the record?”

“Not yet.”

“Then I’m going to have to go. I’m on deadline. If you want to meet after I file, then I’d definitely be up for that. It’s been a long time. Maybe we get a drink and you can school me on who’s who in the zoo.”

It was an old LAPD expression, a caution that was just as useful when answering a code 3 radio call—lights and siren authorized—as when delving into the abyss of department politics. Step one was assessment: determining who’s who in the zoo.

“Maybe after things shake out a little bit,” Bosch said. “If I’m still here.”

“I wouldn’t bet against it,” Russell said. “You may or may not be a gunslinger, but you’re definitely a survivor. Anything you think I really need to know before I file this story?”

“Right now, you only have half the story.”

“Then tell me the half I don’t have.”

“It’s not my place.”

“What if I lay off the gunslinger stuff and keep it on point with what happened Sunday? I do you that favor, what do you do for me?”

“Where did that come from?”

“ ‘Gunslinger’? I had to dig deep. That was a Honey Chandler quote from a motion she filed back in the nineties. Remember her? The actual quote was ‘Bosch is a gunslinger who shoots first and asks questions later.’ She also called you a cowboy in the motion. I love that and I’m definitely going to use it in my story.”

Bosch caught a flash memory of the civil rights lawyer before she was murdered by someone trying to impress him. Honey Chandler had been Bosch’s nemesis, and he didn’t doubt that she would have labeled him a gunslinger in one of her documents or even in open court, but he had respected her in the end.

He dropped his gaze down to the freeway at the bottom of the pass. It was in full rush-hour inertia.

“Yes,” he said. “I remember Chandler. Like I remember you being a reporter who always wanted to get it first but still get it right.”

“That’s a low blow, Harry. It’s always blame the messenger. But I’m asking you to help me get it right. If you don’t want to, then who is to blame?”

Bosch hesitated for only a moment before speaking.

“There was a fox in the henhouse, Keisha.”

That was followed by a long silence before Russell responded.

“What does that mean?” she asked.

“You didn’t get this from me,” Bosch said. “Confirm it somewhere else. Rawls was the fox.”

“You’re talking in riddles. What henhouse are we talking about?”

“Rawls was a volunteer for the unit. He was working on the Pearlman and Wilson cases. Right there with us.”

“The Open-Unsolved Unit—are you fucking kidding me?”

“I wish.”

“And they’re trying to hide that to avoid the embarrassment.”

“You wanted to know who’s who in the zoo.”

“So, let me get this straight. Renée Ballard put a serial killer on her own cold case team.”