The Dark Hours (Harry Bosch #23)(65)

As she got out, she looked around the work yard and into the open bays of a garage. She assumed that most of the BSL trucks were already out in the field by now, but there were two trucks parked in the repair bays. They were white but they were not vans, and each carried a city seal on the driver’s-side door with bureau of street lighting printed beneath it. Jack Kersey had not mentioned the city seal in his description of the van he had seen up on Deep Dell Terrace.

Ballard stepped into the office, showed her badge, and asked to see a supervisor. She was ushered in to see a man named Carl Schaeffer, who had a cubbyhole office where the time cards and time clock were in his sight and a work schedule dominated the wall behind his desk. His title was yard supervisor. Ballard closed the door and took a good look at Schaeffer. He was in his fifties and far outside the age range the victims had estimated for the Midnight Men.

“I need to confirm some information related to streetlight repairs,” Ballard said.

“We cover Alvarado to Westwood and the ten north to Mulholland,” Schaeffer said. “If that’s where you’re looking, then I’m your guy. How can I help?”

“I’m looking for repair records for Deep Dell Terrace for … let’s go back the last two months.”

“Okay, that one I know without looking because we’re sending a truck up there today.”

“What’s going on up there?”

“Sounds like we have a tampering situation. A homeowner says two of our guys cut power to the post, but we didn’t have any guys up there. Sounds like it was vandalism.”

“When was this?”

“Happened December thirtieth according to the homeowner.”

“Can you cancel the service up there today?”

“Uh, sure I can. How come?”

“I’m going to have the post and access plate processed for fingerprints. There was a crime committed in the area and the suspects may have cut the light ahead of time.”

“What kind of crime? Was it a murder?”

“No.”

Schaeffer waited for Ballard to say more but she didn’t. He got the message.

“But you think somebody cut the light so no one could see them?”

“Possibly. Do you have any records of other work orders for Deep Dell?”

“No. I can go back and look but I would remember anything recent. They got a guy lives up there — whenever they lose a light, we hear from him, and this one on Deep Dell Terrace was the first time I’ve heard from him in about a year.”

“Jack Kersey?”

“Sounds like he calls you folks, too.”

“I ran into him up there.”

“He’s a character. Keeps us on our toes, I’ll tell you that.”

“I can tell.”

“What else can I do for you, Detective?”

“I have two other streets I want to check to see if you’ve had repair orders there recently.”

She did not give him the dates or exact addresses of the first two sexual assaults. She just asked if there had been any repairs to streetlights in the last three months in the 600 block of Lucerne Boulevard or the 1300 block of Vista Street. For these Schaeffer could not answer from memory. He punched the addresses into his computer and then sent two pages to his printer.

“The answer is yes,” he said. “I’m printing it out for you. We got calls on both streets. On Lucerne we got the complaint December second and repaired it the fourth. On Vista it came in on the twenty-eighth and we were shorthanded because everybody wants that week off. Repairs on Vista are going out today as well.”

“I want you to stop that repair too,” Ballard said.

“Not a problem.”

“Thank you. I have a couple more questions. On the Lucerne repair, did you get a report on what the problem was there?”

“Yeah, it’s on the printout. That was vandalism — wires cut at the base.”

“Multiple wires?”

Schaeffer checked his computer screen.

“We had to replace the whole circuit there,” he said. “The feed line and the loop.”

That was the street where the first rape occurred. Ballard considered that the Midnight Men had cut two wires there because they didn’t know which was the feed. By the time of the Deep Dell attack they had learned.

“So they actually disabled several lights at once?” she asked.

“Exactly,” Schaeffer said. “And we got complaints from multiple residents.”

By learning to cut just one light — the one nearest the intended victim’s house — the Midnight Men were improving their MO and less likely to draw immediate attention to their nefarious efforts.

“Okay,” Ballard said. “I noticed that most of your trucks are out in the field, but there are two in the bays. Do you use white vans for service calls?”

“Vans? No. We use flatbeds, so when we have to replace a post or a whole light assembly, we can take what we need on the work truck. You can’t put a fourteen-foot streetlight in a van, and that’s what we’re most often doing — replacing the whole assembly. People like hitting them with their cars.”

He smiled at his own attempt at humor.

“Got it,” Ballard said. “And your flatbeds are clearly marked as city vehicles? With the city seal and department name?”