Desert Star (Renée Ballard, #5; Harry Bosch Universe, #36) (9)
“That sounds like a deal I can’t refuse. I’m going to go now before you change your mind.”
Both women laughed.
“See you tomorrow, Darcy.”
Ballard disconnected and checked the time. She had to go pick up her food. She grabbed the leash and hooked it to Pinto’s collar, then headed out. Little Dom’s was two blocks away. The restaurant people there knew her well from in-person and takeout orders on a weekly basis. It had been her go-to place since she moved into the neighborhood. Her food was ready and waiting and still hot. And there was even a dog biscuit for Pinto.
5
BOSCH LEFT HIS home before dawn because he wanted to get to his destination while the sun was still low in the sky. He got up to the 210 freeway and headed east in very light traffic until he reached the 15 and turned northeast, joining the cars headed toward Las Vegas. But short of the Nevada border he jogged directly north on Death Valley Road and into the Mojave Desert. The road cut across a barren land of brush and sand, the low-lying salt pan off in the distance, glowing white in the morning sun like snow.
At the Old Spanish Trail to Tecopa he pulled off the road by an Inyo County Sheriff’s Department call box and cell tower powered by a sun panel. He put on a Dodgers cap and got out in the sun. It was 7 a.m. and already 79 degrees according to his phone. He walked past the call box and about thirty feet into the brush. He found the spot easily. The lone mesquite tree was still there, partially shading the four columns of rocks piled one on top of another to create a sculpture of sorts marking where the grave had been found. Three of the rock columns had crumbled over time, knocked down by desert winds or earthquakes.
To Bosch it was another place of hallowed ground. It was where an entire family had ended. A father, mother, daughter, and son murdered and then buried in the rock and sand, never to be found had it not been for a Cal State geological expedition studying the nearby salt pan for evidence of climate change.
Bosch noticed that a profusion of flowers had sprouted around the rocks and the trunk of the mesquite tree. Each flower had a yellow button center surrounded by white petals. They were low to the ground and probably pulling water as well as shade from the mesquite, which Bosch knew could send roots eighty feet down through the rock and sand and salt to find water. They were built to stand tall in the harshest of environments.
Bosch didn’t plan to stay long. But he knew that this had to be the starting point to the work he was beginning. Before going once more into the abyss, he had to find his grounding in the case. The emotional core. And he knew without a doubt that he was standing at it. The media and everybody else called it the Gallagher case. Bosch never did. He could not diminish it that way. To him it was the Gallagher Family case. An entire family had been murdered. Taken from their home in the night. Found here by happenstance a year later.
Squatting down amid the flowers, Bosch started to rebuild the rock columns, carefully stacking them again in solid balance. He was wearing old jeans and work boots. He was careful not to catch a finger beneath the heavier rocks as he restacked them. He knew that nature would eventually undo his work here but he felt the need to rebuild the rock garden as he began to rebuild the case.
He was almost finished when he heard a vehicle on the road behind him and the crush of sand and stone as it pulled off the paved road and came to a stop. Bosch glanced over his shoulder and saw the markings on the white SUV: INYO COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT.
A lone man in uniform made his way across the scrub to get to Bosch.
“Harry,” he said. “This is a surprise.”
“Beto,” Bosch said. “I could say the same. You just happened to be passing by in the middle of nowhere?”
“No, couple years ago we put a camera on the sun panel by the street. I get alerts. I saw a car pull over and then I saw it was you. Been a long time, brother.”
“Long time is right.”
Beto Orestes was the Inyo County investigator who first responded to the call about bodies being found in the desert eight years before. The grim discovery led to a unique partnership between Orestes and Bosch and their departments. The crimes committed against the Gallagher family were Los Angeles–based but the bodies were found in Inyo County. While the LAPD took the lead on the case, the crime scene investigation was headed by Orestes and run by his department. An ancillary investigation went into why this spot in the desert was chosen and whether it was completely random or possibly a decision that could help identify and link a suspect. It didn’t lead to a conclusion but it was thorough, and Orestes had impressed Bosch with his commitment to the case.
As the weeks and then months went by, Inyo County’s involvement grew less and less. Orestes’ superiors viewed it as an L.A. case inconveniently located in their jurisdiction. Orestes was handed other investigations and responsibilities. Meantime, Bosch was also taken off full-time status on the investigation and given other unsolved cases to pursue until he retired. As the two departments pulled back, and the Open-Unsolved unit was disbanded, the Gallagher Family case fell through the cracks between them.
“I called to check on you about a year ago and they told me you were retired,” Orestes said. “Now I find you in the rock garden we made all those years ago.”
“I’m back on it, Beto,” Bosch said. “I thought I should start here.”
“They take you back?”