The Dark Hours (Harry Bosch #23)(71)

“What about Lisa?”

“I don’t know about her. Probably she’ll stay where she is and I’ll ding her personnel jacket. But Ballard, don’t tell her I rescinded. I want her to stew about it for a week till the new DP is posted. That’ll be her punishment.”

Ballard shook her head.

“L-T, she’s got kids and she’s going to start making arrangements to get cover on the nights. I think you should tell her. Write her up, put it on her record, like you said, but don’t leave her swinging like that.”

“This needs to be a learning experience, Ballard. And don’t you tell her. Not a word. That’s an order.”

“Roger that.”

Ballard left the station, dejected.

It sometimes seemed to her as though the biggest barricades in the so-called justice system were on the inside, before you even got out the door.





28


The autopsy was routine, except that seeing Javier Raffa’s naked body on the exam table showed Ballard the lengths to which he had gone to escape the gang life and set an example for his son, Gabriel. In addition to what she had already seen on the neck, there were laser scars all over the chest, stomach, and arms, a painful map of tattoo removal. She guessed it had taken years to get rid of all the ink. It reminded Ballard of the monks who practiced self-flagellation with whips and other instruments to repent for their sins. Whatever Javier Raffa’s sins were, he had paid a painful price.

There was only one tattoo left on the body. It was a rising sun over water on the left shoulder blade. It showed no symbols or words of gang affiliation.

“Well, he got to keep one,” said Dr. Zvader, the deputy medical examiner handling the autopsy. “A setting sun.”

Ballard realized there was no telling whether it was a rising or setting sun, even though they might have significant differences in meaning.

“Funny,” she said. “I was thinking it was a rising sun.”

“It’s California,” Zvader said. “Has to be going down.”

Ballard nodded. He was probably right but it made her feel bad. A setting sun meant the end of day. A rising sun was a start. It was promise. She wondered if Raffa knew that his time was short.

Ballard stayed in the autopsy suite until Zvader found the bullet that had killed Raffa embedded in the cartilage of the nose. It had traversed the brain after entering near the top of the skull, killing Raffa instantly and lodging behind the nose.

“I think he was looking up at the fireworks when he died,” Zvader said.

“That’s so sad,” Ballard said.

“Well, it’s better than knowing it’s coming and being afraid,” Zvader replied.

Ballard nodded. Maybe.

The slug was heavily damaged, first by the impact on the skull and then by the cartilage. Zvader bagged the projectile and put his name and coroner’s case number on the package before handing it to Ballard.

Ballard headed to the Ballistics Unit to drop off the slug for comparison analysis in the NIBIN database. It was an even longer shot than the shell casing comparison because of the damage to the slug. The database was essentially for casing comparison. So much so that projectile comparison was backburnered, and Ballard knew she would not be waiting around for a tech to conduct the analysis. She would be lucky to hear anything within a week.

Along the way, she took a call from Carl Schaeffer, the BSL yard supervisor.

“We got one. A new one.”

“A streetlight out?”

“Yeah, call just came in. On Outpost.”

“First of all, Mr. Schaeffer, thank you for remembering to call.”

“Not a problem. I got your card right here on the desk.”

“Do you have any details yet?”

“No, she just said that the light outside her house is burned out. I was going to send a truck but thought I’d check with you first.”

“Thank you. Don’t send a truck. Let me make a call and see if I can get the print car out there first. I or one of my colleagues will call you when it’s clear to repair.”

“You got it, Detective.”

“And Carl, I don’t want you to forget to call me when these come in, but I’m not sure I want my card on your desk. Remember, I want this low profile, and I noticed you have the time clock in your office. Everybody punches out there, right?”

“Right, I got you. It goes in the drawer now.”

“Thank you, Carl. Can you give me the exact address or location of the streetlight we’re talking about and the name of the person who called it in?”

Schaeffer gave her the information. The streetlight in question was on lower Outpost Drive, a winding hillside road that went north from Franklin Avenue all the way up to Mulholland Drive. Ballard considered dismissing the call from Schaeffer because it was still eleven days from the next holiday weekend and in the previous cases the streetlight had been tampered with just a day or so before the Midnight Men attacked. But Outpost was just across the Cahuenga Pass from the Dell. The first two assaults had occurred in generally the same area — the same patrol zone, at least. The Dell case could be the start of a second cluster.

She also had to consider that a fourth attack had already occurred over the past holiday weekend and had not yet been reported. The bottom line was that she couldn’t dismiss the tip from Schaeffer.