The Dark Hours (Harry Bosch #23)(27)

“I hope so.”

“Can you do something for me and then maybe we talk tomorrow?”

“I guess.”

“I’m going to send you a questionnaire. It’s called a Lambkin survey. It’s basically questions about your recent history of movements and interactions — both in person and on social media. There is a calendar to track your whereabouts that you will be asked to fill out as best as you can. I think it goes back sixty days but what you really want to focus on are the last two to three weeks. Every place that you can remember. These guys saw you at some point and some place. Maybe it was the coffee shop but maybe it was somewhere else.”

“God, I hope it wasn’t the shop. That’s awful.”

“I’m not saying it was. But we have to consider everything. Do you have a printer here?”

“Yes. It’s in a closet.”

“Well, if you could print out the survey and fill it in by hand, that would be best.”

“Why is it called a lamb-whatever-you-said?”

“It’s the name of the guy who put it together. He was the LAPD’s sex crime expert until he retired. It’s been updated with the social media aspects. Okay?”

“Send it to me.”

“As soon as I can. And I can come by tomorrow and go over it with you if you want. Or just pick it up once you’re finished.”

“I have to open tomorrow and probably will be there all day. But I’ll take it with me and fill it out when I can.”

“Are you sure you want to go in tomorrow?”

“Yes. It will help take my mind off things.”

“Okay. And I’m going to be in the neighborhood a little while longer. Just so you know, my car will be out front.”

“Are you telling the neighbors what happened to me?”

“No, I’m not. Actually, under California law I can’t anyway. I’m just saying there was a break-in in the neighborhood. That’s it.”

“They’ll probably know. They’ll figure it out.”

“Maybe not. But we want to catch these monsters, Cindy. I have to do my job, and maybe one of your neighbors saw something that can help.”

“I know, I know. Did anybody tell you they saw something?”

“So far, no. But I still have this end of the street to go.”

She pointed west.

“Good luck,” Carpenter said.

Ballard thanked her and left. She walked to the house next door. An old man answered, who proved to be no help, even revealing that he took out his hearing aids at night to sleep better. Ballard then crossed the street and talked to another man, who said he saw nothing but provided a helpful piece of information when asked what he heard.

“You being directly across from the garage across the street, do you ever hear when that goes up or down?” Ballard asked.

“All the F-ing time,” the man said. “I wish she’d oil those springs. They squawk like a parrot every time the door goes up.”

“And do you remember whether you heard it last night?”

“Yeah, I heard it.”

“Do you remember what time, by any chance?”

“Uh, not exactly, but it was sort of late.”

“Were you in bed?”

“No, not yet. But about to hit the sack. I never watch any of that New Year’s stuff. It’s not my thing. I just go to bed and it’s one year and then I wake up and it’s the next. That’s how I do it.”

“So, before midnight. Do you remember what you were doing or watching on TV? I’m trying to narrow in on a time.”

“Hold on, I got it for you.”

He pulled a cell phone out of his pocket and opened up the text app. He started scrolling through messages.

“I got an ex-wife in Phoenix,” he said. “We couldn’t live together but now we’re friends because we don’t. Funny how that works. Anyway, she watches the ball drop in New York so she can go to bed early. So I texted her happy new year on New York time. That was when I heard the garage.”

He held the phone’s screen out to Ballard.

“There you go.”

Ballard leaned in to look. She saw a “Happy New Year” text sent to someone named Gladys that went out at 8:55 the night before.

“And this is the same time you heard the garage?”

“Yep.”

“Did you hear it open and close, or just open?”

“Open and close. Not as loud going down as it is going up, but I hear it.”

Ballard asked the neighbor his name for her records and thanked him. She didn’t tell him that he had just helped her drop a piece of the puzzle into place. She was sure that he had heard the Midnight Men entering Cindy Carpenter’s house. Cindy had worked till 9 p.m. and didn’t park in the garage anyway.

Ballard could think of no other explanation. One of the rapists had entered the garage, used the screwdriver to easily open the kitchen door, and then waited in the guest room closet for Cindy to come home.

But adding a piece of the puzzle pushed another one out. If Cindy Carpenter was still at work and her car was with her, then how did the Midnight Men open the garage?





12


Harry Bosch’s house was in a neighborhood just across the freeway from the Dell. She called him once she started heading his way.