The Dark Hours (Harry Bosch #23)(23)

“On the visor,” Carpenter said. “On the driver’s side.”

Ballard opened the door and leaned into the car. She had pulled her own set of keys from her pocket and used the end of her apartment key to depress the button on the garage remote. She then exited the car and watched the garage door open with a loud screeching of its springs.

“Does it always make that sound?” she asked.

“Yeah, I have to get it oiled or something,” Carpenter said. “My husband used to take care of things like that.”

“Can you hear it from inside when it opens?”

“I could when my ex still lived here.”

“Do you think it would wake you up in the bedroom?”

“Yes. It shook the whole house like an earthquake. You think that’s how they — ”

“I don’t know yet, Cindy.”

They stood on the threshold of the open garage. Carpenter had been right. There was no room for a car. The single bay was crowded with boxes, bikes, and other property, including three containers for trash, recycling, and yard waste. It looked like Carpenter stored more supplies from Native Bean in the garage as well. There were stacks of cups and snap-on covers in clear plastic sleeves as well as large boxes of various sweeteners. Ballard went to the door leading to the kitchen. She noted the button that operated the garage door on the wall to the left of the doorjamb.

She bent down to look at the keyhole in the knob but could not see any sign that it had been tampered with.

“So, we don’t know for sure that this door was locked,” she said.

“No, but it is most of the time,” Carpenter said. “And like I said, the garage was definitely closed.”

Ballard just nodded. She did not tell Carpenter her current theory, that one of the rapists got into the house before she even came home from work and hid in the guest room closet until she had showered and gone to sleep. He then made his move, incapacitated her, taped her mouth and eyes, and let the other rapist in.

A workbench to the right of the kitchen door was crowded with equipment that Ballard guessed had come from the coffee shop. There was an open toolbox with tools haphazardly piled on a top tray. She saw a screwdriver sitting on the bench by itself, as if it had been taken out of the toolbox and left there. She wondered if the rapists brought their own tools to break in or relied on finding something in the garage of a home lived in by a single woman.

“Is this screwdriver yours?” she asked.

Carpenter stepped over to look at it. She reached a hand out to pick it up.

“No, don’t touch it,” Ballard said.

“Sorry,” Carpenter said. “It might be. I can’t really tell. All of this stuff, the tools, were left by Reggie.”

“Your ex.”

“Yes. Do you think they used it to get in? Then how did they get in the garage?”

There was a shrill note in her voice.

“I don’t know the answer to either question,” Ballard said. “Let’s see what Forensics finds.”

Ballard checked her phone and said Forensics was now due in forty-five minutes. While she was looking at her screen, a call came in. It was Harry Bosch.

“I need to take this,” she said to Cindy. “Why don’t you go back to the living room for now.”

Ballard headed out of the garage to the street and answered the phone. But then she turned quickly to stop Carpenter from touching the knob of the kitchen door.

“Cindy, no,” she called. “I’m sorry, can you come out this way and go in through the front door?”

Carpenter did as instructed and Ballard returned to the call.

“Harry, hi.”

“Renée, sounds like you’re in the middle of something. I was just checking in. You get anything out of the chrono that helps?”

It took Ballard a moment to remember what case and what chrono he was talking about.

“Uh, no,” she said. “I got sidetracked, called out on a case.”

“Another murder?”

“No, serial rapists we’ve been looking for.”

“Plural? MOSA?”

“Yeah, weird,” she said. “It’s a tag team. Last night we got a third victim but she didn’t call it in till after I’d been by your place.”

There was a silence.

“Harry, you there?”

“Yeah, I was just thinking. A tag team. That’s pretty rare. MOSAs are usually gang rapes. Not two guys with the same psychopathy.”

“Yeah. So, I’ve been running with that all afternoon. We’re calling them the Midnight Men.”

“When you get two guys like that … you know, who think the same way …”

He went silent.

“Yeah, what about it?” Ballard asked.

“It’s just that one and one doesn’t make two, you know?” Bosch said. “They feed off each other. One and one makes three … they escalate, get more violent. Eventually the rape is not enough. They kill. You have to get them now, Renée.”

“I know. Don’t you think I know that?”

“I’m sorry. I know you’re on top of it. Anyway, I’ve got a book here somewhere that you should read.”

“What book?”

“It’s about the Hillside Strangler case way back. Bob Grogan — he was a legend in RHD. But on that one, it turned out it was two stranglers, not one. Grogan caught them and there’s a book about it. I have it here somewhere. It’s called Two of a Kind.”