The Night Fire (Renée Ballard, #3)(71)

Ballard disconnected and looked at Bosch.

“They’re going to secure him, one way or another,” she said. “I’ll call back in a bit to make sure.”

“Good,” Bosch said. “Now let’s see what Dupree has to say about it.”





35


Ballard and Bosch let Dupree marinate in an interview room at South Bureau while they drank coffee and schemed out how Ballard would handle the interview. They had agreed that it had to be her. Bosch had no police powers. If the interview became part of a court case, it could collapse things if revealed that Dupree was interviewed by someone other than an active-duty law enforcement officer.

They agreed that Ballard would sit across from Dupree with her cell phone on her thigh so she could look down and see any messages from Bosch, who would watch the interview in real time from the detective bureau’s video room.

An hour after Dupree had been placed in the room, Ballard entered. She and Bosch had just been informed by Deputy Valens at Men’s Central that Dennard Dorsey was safe and in protective isolation away from the Crip tank. He had also told them that a review of recordings off the two pay phones in the tank revealed that an inmate named Clinton Townes had placed a collect call at the exact time of the missed incoming call registered on Dupree’s burner.

Ballard was confident that she had all she needed to flip Dupree. She entered the interview room with a rights waiver form and a large evidence envelope containing the smaller envelope of cash recovered in Dupree’s arrest.

Dupree’s hands were cuffed behind him to a chair anchored to the floor. The room was ripe with his body odor, a sign that he was nervous—as anybody held in custody would be.

“What the fuck is this?” he said. “You hold me in here like this for fucking child support?”

“Not quite, Marcel,” Ballard said. “We pulled you in on the child support thing, but this isn’t about that and I’m pretty sure you know it.”

It suddenly dawned on Dupree that he recognized Ballard.

“You,” he said. “I seen you at Dulan’s.”

“That’s right,” Ballard said as she pulled out her chair and sat down across the table from him. “I didn’t hear everything you and Kidd talked about. But I heard a lot.”

“Nah, you didn’t hear shit. We were tight.”

Ballard took her phone off her belt and held it up to show him.

“I got it all on here,” she said. “Our tech unit can do amazing things with audio. Even bring up whispers. So we’re going to see about that, but it doesn’t really matter.”

She put the phone down on her thigh where he couldn’t see its screen.

“I’m here to explain to you what your situation is and how I can help you and you can help yourself,” she said. “But Marcel, for me to do that you have to waive your rights and talk to me.”

“I don’t talk to the po-lice,” Dupree said. “And I don’t waive nothin’.”

This was good. He did not say the magic words—I want a lawyer—and until he did, she could work on convincing him that it was in his best interest to talk to her.

“Marcel, you’re fucked. We found the gun in your car.”

“I don’t know nothin’ about a gun.”

“Nine-millimeter Smith and Wesson? Satin finish? I’d bring it in to show you but it’s against the rules.”

“Never seen no gun like that.”

“Except it was tucked up under the seat you were sitting in when you got popped a couple hours ago. So you can go with the never-seen-it-before claim, but it’s going to go down in flames—and you’re a twice-convicted felon, Marcel. That means five years back in a cage just for possession of a firearm.”

She let that sink in for a moment. Dupree shook his head woefully.

“You people planted it,” he said.

“That’ll work about as well as I-never-seen-it-before,” Ballard said. “Be smart, Marcel. Listen to what I can do for you.”

“Fuck. Go ahead.”

“I can help you with this. I can even make it go away. But it’s a trade, Marcel. I need you to cooperate with me or we shut this down here and now and I file the gun charge and whatever else I can come up with. That’s the choice here.”

She waited. He said nothing. She started reciting the Miranda rights warning. He interrupted.

“Okay, okay, I’ll talk to you. But I want it in writing.”

“Let me finish and then you have to sign the waiver.”

She started the warning from the beginning. She didn’t want any lawyer down the line to complain of improper advisement. When she was finished, she asked if he was right-or left-handed.

“Right.”

“Okay, I’ll take the cuff off your right hand and you sign. You get froggy with me and there are four guys watching this on the other side of that door. You try to hurt me and they will definitely hurt you in a way you’ll never recover from. Do you understand?”

“Yeah, I get it. Come on, let’s just do this. Let me sign the motherfuckin’ paper.”

Ballard set the waiver form and a pen down in front of Dupree. She then got up and moved behind him, uncuffed his right wrist, and snapped the open cuff closed around the middle bar of the chair’s backrest. She stayed behind him.