The Dark Hours (Harry Bosch #23)(41)

“I don’t know. Anything.”

“I’m going to take a shower and then I’ll leave. Text me what you want from Birds. It’s on the way. The menu’s online.”

“I already know what I want. Quarter chicken with baked beans and coleslaw. And I’ll take the regular barbecue sauce.”

“Text me anyway so I don’t forget.”

She disconnected, then sat on the bed for a long moment, wondering if she should have taken Bosch’s advice and tried to go back to sleep. She turned and looked back at her pillow. After four years on the night shift, working eight to six four nights a week, she had learned that cheating sleep could have bad consequences.

She pushed herself off the bed and headed to the bathroom.

An hour later she pulled to a stop in front of Bosch’s house. She carried her laptop and the bag from Birds. The restaurant was only a few minutes from her condo and had become her go-to place during the pandemic for takeout. They also gave anybody with a badge a discount, not that LAPD officers were supposed to take such perks.

Bosch took the bag from her and put it on the dining room table, where he had cleared space amid his laptop, printer, and paperwork. He started to take out the cartons containing their food.

“I got the same as you,” Ballard said. “Should be easy. You okay with me taking the mask off to eat? I have the antibodies. Supposedly.”

“Yeah, I’m okay. When did you get it?”

“November.”

“How bad?”

“I was down a few weeks but obviously I was luckier than others. You think the new president’s going to hurry the vaccine along? I don’t know anybody in the department who’s gotten it so far.”

“Hope so.”

“What about you? You’re eligible.”

“I never leave this place. Might be more dangerous for me to go out to get it.”

“You should make an appointment, Harry. Don’t turn it into a thing.”

“You sound like my daughter.”

“Well, your daughter’s right. How is Maddie?”

“Good. She’s doing well in the academy and has a boyfriend now.”

He offered nothing else but Ballard guessed that this meant he didn’t see her very often. She felt bad about that.

They both ate out of the sectioned cartons the meals came in. Bosch already had real silverware out and waiting, so they left the plastic stuff in the bag.

“In the old days, they used to give cops a discount,” Bosch said. “At Birds.”

“They still do,” Ballard said. “They like having cops as customers.”

She gave him some time to savor his first bite of rotisserie chicken slathered in barbecue sauce. It was the kind of food that made you bring a napkin to your mouth after every bite.

“So, tell me about this nexus you found,” she said.

“All I have is the public records that you can get online,” Bosch said. “Corporate records filed with the state. You’re going to have to go deeper with your access to confirm.”

“Okay, and what am I confirming?”

“I think it’s like the factoring that happened in the Albert Lee case. Ownership of the body shop, including the property it sits on, was transferred from Javier Raffa three years ago to a corporation owned by Raffa and a partner.”

“Who’s the partner?”

“A dentist named Dennis Hoyle. Office in Sherman Oaks.”

“Another dentist. Dennis the dentist. The dentist in the Albert Lee case was down in the Marina, right?”

“Yeah, John William James.”

“Any connection between Hoyle and James?”

“That’s the nexus.”

Ballard could tell Bosch was proud of whatever it was he had found, and of doing so without even leaving his house. She hoped she would still have that mojo if she was around and working cases at his age.

“Tell me,” she said.

“All right, you start with Hoyle and James being dentists,” Bosch said. “Completely different practices. James, he’s down in the Marina with that crowd: celebrities, singles, actors, whatever. Your guy, Hoyle, he’s up in the Valley, different clientele, probably more of a family practice. So it looks like never the twain shall meet, right?”

“I guess. Maybe they knew each other from professional associations. You know, Teeth Pullers of Los Angeles, or something like that.”

“Close. These guys — dentists — when they put in a crown or an implant or what have you, most of them don’t make that stuff in-house. They make a mold of the patient’s tooth and send it out to a dental lab that makes crowns and dentures.”

“They sent to the same lab.”

“They owned the same lab. They were partners — until somebody whacked James. It’s all in state corporate records. If somebody wants to spend the time chasing it through a maze of holding companies, it’s right there.”

“And you spent the time.”

“What else am I going to do?”

“Chase your guy Finbar McShane?”

“Finbar’s a white whale. You said so yourself. But this? This is real.”

Bosch wiped his hands thoroughly on a clot of napkins and then reached over for a sheaf of documents at the side of the table. Ballard could see the state seal of California on the top sheet.