The Dark Hours (Harry Bosch #23)(26)

“What kind of crime?”

“It was a break-in.”

“Oh my gosh, which house?”

Her asking which house instead of whose house indicated to Ballard that this woman might not know her neighbors personally. That wouldn’t matter if she had heard or seen something. But it did mean she might not start a gossip line with neighbors after Ballard left. This was good. Ballard didn’t want neighbors already knowing she was coming when she knocked on their doors.

“Next door,” Ballard said. “Did you hear or notice anything unusual last night?”

“No,” the woman said. “Not that I remember. Was anyone hurt?”

“Ma’am, I can’t really discuss the details with you. I’m sure you understand. Do you live alone here?”

“No, it’s my husband and I. Our kids are grown. Was it the girl next door? The one who lives alone?”

She pointed in the direction of Cindy Carpenter’s house. But calling her “the girl” instead of using her name was another indication that this woman did not know her neighbors well, if at all.

“Is your husband home?” Ballard asked, ignoring the questions. “Could I speak to him?”

“No, he went golfing,” the woman said. “At Wilshire Country Club. He’ll be home soon.”

Ballard pulled a business card and gave it to the woman, instructing her to have her husband call if he remembered hearing or seeing anything unusual the previous night. She then took the woman’s name for her records.

“Are we safe?” the woman asked.

“I don’t think they’ll be back,” Ballard said.

“They? It was more than one?”

“We think it was two men.”

“Oh my gosh.”

“Did you happen to see two men on the street last night?”

“No, I didn’t see anything. But now I’m scared.”

“I think you’re safe, ma’am. Like I said, we don’t expect them to come back.”

“Was she raped?”

“Ma’am, I can’t talk about the case.”

“Oh my god, she was raped.”

“Ma’am, listen to me. I said it was a break-in. If you start spreading rumors, you are going to cause a lot of pain for your next-door neighbor. Do you want that?”

“Of course not.”

“Good. Then please don’t. Tell your husband to call me if he heard or saw anything unusual last night.”

“I’ll call him right now. He should be driving home.”

“Thank you for your time.”

Ballard walked back to the street and went to the next house. And so it went. In the next hour she knocked on seven more doors and had conversations with residents at five of them. Nobody had any useful information. Two of the homes had a Ring camera on their door but a review of video from the night before provided nothing useful.

Ballard got back to Cindy Carpenter’s house just as Reno was packing the back of his electric ride.

“So, what’d you get?” Ballard asked.

“A big fat nothing,” Reno said. “These guys were good.”

“Shit.”

“Sorry.”

“What about the screwdriver in the garage?”

“Wiped clean. Which means you were probably right. They used it to pop the door, then wiped it. Thing is, that garage door is loud. The springs creak, the motor grinds. If they got in that way, how come it didn’t wake her up?”

Ballard was about to explain to Reno that she thought at least one of the intruders was already in the house when Carpenter got home from work. But she suddenly realized the fallacy of that theory. If they opened the garage with the remote from the car, then the car had to have been back at the house, meaning Carpenter was home from work. This changed her thinking on what connected the three victims.

“Good question,” Ballard said.

She wanted to get rid of him so she could work these new thoughts.

“Thanks for coming out, Reno,” she said. “I’m going to go back in.”

“Anytime,” Reno said.

Ballard went back up to the front door, knocked, and then entered. Carpenter was sitting on the couch.

“He’s leaving and I’ll get out of your hair as well,” Ballard said. “Are you sure there’s no one I can call for you?”

“I’m sure,” Carpenter said. “I’ll be fine. I’m getting a second wind now.”

Ballard wasn’t sure what a ‘second wind’ could be considering the trauma that had occurred. Carpenter seemed to read her.

“I’m thinking about my father,” she said. “I don’t remember who said it but he always quoted some philosopher when I would skin my knee or have something bad happen. He’d say, if it doesn’t kill you, it makes you stronger. Something like that. And that’s what I’m feeling now. I’m alive, I survived, I’ll get stronger.”

Ballard didn’t respond for a moment. She took out another business card and put it down on a small table near the door.

“Good,” she said. “There are my numbers if you need me or think of anything else.”

“Okay,” Carpenter said.

“We’re going to get these guys. I’m sure of it.”