The Night Fire (Renée Ballard, #3)(89)

“You can’t dwell on it. She made a choice. It was the wrong one. Is Kidd talking?”

“He lawyered up and isn’t talking. I think he thinks he can sue the city for his wife and get enough money for a big-time lawyer—maybe your boy, Haller.”

“I doubt that. He doesn’t voluntarily take murder cases anymore.”

“Got it.”

“So, should I expect a call about my involvement in the Hilton case?”

“I don’t think so. I just finished the report and left you out of it. I said the widow found the murder book after her husband’s death and contacted a friend to turn it in. Your name is nowhere in the report. You shouldn’t have any problem at all.”

“Good to know.”

Ballard drove down the ramp off Sunset onto the 101. The freeway was crowded and moving slow.

“I’m taking it down to Olivas right now,” she said. “I have a meeting at PAB anyway.”

“Meeting on what?” Bosch asked.

“That arson-murder I worked the other night. I’m back on it. They need a midnight detective to help work it. And that’s me.”

“Sounds like they’re finally getting smart down there.”

“We can only hope.”

“That’s Olivas, right? One of his cases.”

“He’s the captain, yes, but I’ll be working with a couple detectives and the LAFD arson guys. So, what are you doing?”

“Montgomery. I have something in play. We’ll see how it—hey, I almost forgot, that guy down in Orange I told you about that was creeping the houses where female students lived? They bagged him.”

“Fantastic! How?”

“He creeped a house Saturday night but didn’t know a boyfriend was staying over. He caught the guy, trimmed him up a little bit, then called the police.”

“Good deal.”

“Last night I called one of the OPD guys on it—the guy I gave the heads-up to about me watching over Maddie’s place. He said the guy had a camera with an infrared lens. He had photos of the girls sleeping in their beds.”

“That’s fucked up. That guy should go away and the key should get lost. He’s on a path, you know what I mean?”

“And that’s the issue. No matter how twisted this is, right now they have him for burglary of an occupied dwelling. That’s it until the DNA comes back on the other hot prowls. But meantime, their worry is he’ll bail out and disappear.”

“Shit. Well, who is he? A student?”

“Yeah, he goes to the school. They think he followed girls from the campus to their houses and then came back to creep the places and take his pictures.”

“I hope they put a rush on the DNA.”

“They did. And my guy’s going to let me know if he makes bail. The arraignment’s this morning and they have a D.A. who’s going to ask the judge to go high on the bail.”

“Did your daughter ever know that you were going down there on Saturday nights and watching her house?”

“Not exactly. It only would have worried her more.”

“Yeah, I get that.”

They ended the conversation after that. Ballard bailed from the freeway at Alvarado and took First Street the rest of the way into downtown. She was early for her meeting and early for most of the staff at the PAB. She had her pick of parking in the garage beneath the police headquarters.

She ended up on the Robbery-Homicide Division floor twenty minutes before the meeting time set by Olivas. Rather than go into the squad room and have to endure small talk with people she knew were predisposed not to like her, she walked up and down the hallway outside, looking at the framed posters that charted the history of the division. When she had worked for RHD, she had never taken the time to do so. The division was started fifty years earlier after the investigation into the assassination of Robert Kennedy revealed the need for an elite team of investigators to handle the most complex, serious, and sensitive cases—politically or media-wise—that came up.

She walked by posters displaying photos and narratives on cases ranging from the Manson murders to the Hillside Stranglers to the Night Stalker and the Grim Sleeper—cases that became known around the world and that helped cement the reputation of the LAPD. They also established the city as a place where anything could happen—anything bad.

There was no doubt an esprit de corps that came with an assignment to the RHD, but Ballard, being a woman, never felt fully a part of it, and that had always bothered her. Now it was a plus, because she didn’t miss what she’d never had.

She heard talking from the elevator alcove and looked down the hallway to see Nuccio and Spellman, the arson guys from the Fire Department, cross the hall and go through the main door to RHD. They, too, were early—unless Olivas had given them a different start time for the meeting.

Ballard stepped through another door, which led into the opposite end of the squad room. She headed down the main aisle, passing more historical posters and some movie posters until she reached the Homicide Special unit and the War Room. She entered, hoping that Nuccio and Spellman were the first to arrive and that she could talk to them before Olivas and his men got there.

But it didn’t work out that way. She knocked once and entered the War Room, only to find the same five men who had been there last time sitting in exactly the same positions. That included Olivas. They were in mid-discussion, which ceased the moment she opened the door. Since everybody was at least fifteen minutes early, Ballard took that as confirmation that Olivas had given the men an earlier start time, perhaps to discuss what to do about her inclusion in the case before she arrived. She assumed that would largely mean Olivas directing the other investigators to keep her at arm’s length. It would be something she needed to redirect.