The Night Fire (Renée Ballard, #3)(56)

Still, something about the Manley angle bothered Bosch. There was no mention in the chronological record of the interview with Manley having been set up in advance. In fact, that would have been poor form. Investigators routinely approach subjects without warning. It is better to get extemporaneous answers to questions rather than prepared statements. It’s a basic rule of homicide work: don’t let them see you coming.

But with no indication in the documents that Reyes gave any prior warning that he was coming to talk to Manley, the attorney was apparently prepared for the interview: he had his own attorney present and alibi documentation ready to be turned over. Bosch wondered if that bothered Reyes or Gustafson. Because it bothered him.

True, Manley had had a protracted dispute with Montgomery, so he could probably assume the police would want to talk to him. That wasn’t suspicious to Bosch. Even having a lawyer present didn’t raise an eyebrow. It was a law firm, after all. But the detail of the alibi was what bothered Bosch the most. It appeared to be bulletproof, right down to his providing the digital time stamp with the Hawaii photo taken just a few minutes before Montgomery was bladed in L.A. It had been Bosch’s experience that an alibi—even a legitimate one—was seldom bulletproof. This one felt to Bosch like a setup. Like maybe Manley knew precisely when he would need an alibi.

Gustafson and Reyes apparently didn’t feel the same way. A week later they dropped Manley from consideration when the DNA report landed. Bosch didn’t think he would have done so, even with a direct DNA match to another suspect.

He wrote a note on his pad. It was just one word: Manley. Bosch was comfortable dropping the first two avenues of investigation he had reviewed, but he felt Manley warranted further follow-up.

Bosch got up from the table and worked the stiffness out of his knee. He grabbed the cane he had leaned into a corner next to the front door and went out for a short walk, up the hill for a block and then back down. The knee got loose and felt pretty strong. He looked forward to retiring the cane completely in a few more days.

When he got back inside the house he found Ballard sitting at the table where he had been working.

“Who’s Manley?” she said.

“Just a guy, maybe a suspect,” Bosch said. “I thought you were going to sleep longer than a couple hours.”

“Didn’t need to. I feel refreshed. Two hours on a bed is worth five on the sand.”

“When are you going to stop doing that?”

“I don’t know. I like being by the water. My father used to say that salt water cures everything.”

“There are other ways to accomplish that. You might be ‘refreshed’ now, but by tomorrow morning you’re going to be dragging ass when you go off to confront Kidd.”

“I’ll be fine. I do this all the time.”

“That’s not reassuring. We have to work out some kind of signal so I can get you backup if you need it. You going in by yourself is crazy.”

“I work every night by myself. This is nothing new.”

Bosch shook his head. He still wasn’t happy.

“Look,” Ballard said, “what I want to do now is show you the software on my laptop so you can monitor everything after I go out there and stir up his shit. I’m going to come by in the morning and leave my laptop with you before going out there.”

“You can’t just transfer it to my computer?” Bosch asked.

“Not possible. It’s proprietary. But it will only take a few minutes to bring you up to date on everything. I know you’re old school and never did it this way.”

“Just show me.”

Bosch cleared space on the table so she could sit next to him. She opened the monitoring program.

“Oh good, we’re up,” she said. “The tap is in place.”

“So the seventy-two-hour clock is already ticking,” Bosch said.

“Right. But of course nothing said today is going to be worth a shit, since he doesn’t even know he’s being investigated.”

Ballard showed him how to run the software. She set separate alarm tones for Elvin Kidd’s cell and landline, which would sound on the computer any time a call came in or went out. There was a third tone for text messages coming in or going out. She reiterated the rules of listening in. By law the police were forbidden from listening to personal calls. If a call was not specifically about the crime documented in the probable cause statement in the search warrant, the listener had to turn off the speaker but was allowed to check in briefly every thirty seconds to confirm the ongoing phone conversation was personal in nature.

The software recorded only what was live-monitored. Calls not listened to were not recorded. This was why a wiretap required around-the-clock monitoring. It had been at least ten years since Bosch had been involved in a wiretap case. The software was all new but the rules had not changed. He told Ballard that he understood all of that.

“What about the fact that I’m not a cop anymore?” he asked. “What if something good comes in after you shake his tree and I’m sitting here by myself?”

“You’re still a reserve with San Fernando PD, aren’t you?” Ballard asked.

After leaving the LAPD, Bosch had signed on as a reserve at the tiny city in the Valley’s police department to work cold cases. But his tenure there had ended almost a year before, when he was accused of cutting too many corners on cases.