Dark Sacred Night (Harry Bosch Universe #31)(26)

While McMullen was speaking, Ballard heard Bosch slide the van’s door closed. His footsteps came up behind her.

“Young girls?” Bosch said over her shoulder. “They part of your flock?”

McMullen lowered his foot to the ground.

“What is this?” he said. “Why’d you pull me over?”

“Because we’re looking for a girl who went missing last night,” Ballard said. “A witness said she got pulled into a van.”

“Not my van,” McMullen said. “It’s been parked all night behind a gate. You saw. There’s nothing in there.”

“Not now,” Bosch said.

“How dare you!” McMullen fired back. “How fucking dare you to try to impugn the good work of the mission! I am in the business of saving souls, not taking them. I’ve been going down these streets for twenty years and no one has ever accused me of anything improper. Anything!”

As McMullen spoke, tears filled his eyes and his voice grew tight and high.

“Okay, okay, sir,” Ballard said. “You have to understand, we need to ask these questions. When a young girl disappears, we have to do what we need to do and sometimes we step on toes. You can go now, Mr. McMullen. Thank you for your cooperation.”

“I want your names,” McMullen demanded.

Ballard looked at Bosch. They had intentionally not identified themselves when they had first stopped McMullen.

“Ballard and Bosch,” she said.

“I’ll remember that,” McMullen said.

“Good,” Bosch said.

McMullen climbed back into the van as Ballard and Bosch watched. He roared the engine and took a sharp turn onto Selma.

“What did you see?” Ballard asked.

“A couple bench seats and not much else,” Bosch said. “I took some photos I’ll show you in the car.”

“You mean no baptismal font full of bleach?” Ballard asked.

“Not quite.”

“So what do you think?”

“Doesn’t mean anything. I’m still interested. What do you think?”

“Something seems off but I don’t know. It will be interesting to see if he files a complaint.”

“If he’s our guy, he doesn’t file the complaint, because he won’t want the follow-up.”

They walked back to Ballard’s car and got in. Ballard was silent as she pulled away from the curb. She was wondering if joining forces with Bosch had been a career-threatening mistake.





Bosch





12



The search team was waiting outside Pacoima Tire & Muffler when the current owner opened up for a day of business. To say he was surprised by the police presence that greeted him was an understatement. After lifting the garage door, he held his arms aloft and stared wide-eyed at the vehicles amassed in front of him. Bosch was the first out of his car and the first to get to him.

“Mr. Cardinale?” he said. “You can put your hands down. I’m Detective Bosch with the San Fernando Police Department. We have a search warrant for these premises.”

“What?” Cardinale said. “What are you talking about?”

Bosch handed him the warrant.

“It’s a search warrant,” he said. “Signed by a judge. And it allows us to search for specific evidence relating to a crime.”

“What crime?” Cardinale said. “I run a clean business. I’m not like the guy who was here before.”

“We know that, sir. The crime relates to the prior ownership of the business but we still need to search, because we believe the evidence may still be in place.”

“I still don’t know what you’re talking about. There is no crime here.”

It took Bosch several more exchanges before Cardinale seemed to understand what was happening. He was about fifty with a midlife paunch and gray thinning hair. His hands were scarred from a lifetime spent working on cars. He had blurred blue tattoos on his forearms that looked to Bosch like old military insignia.

“How long ago did you take over the business?” Bosch asked.

“Eight years,” Cardinale said. “I bought it for cash. No loan. My own hard-earned money.”

“When you bought it, did you make any changes inside?”

“A lot of changes. I brought in all new tools. I modernized. Cleared out the old shit.”

“What about the structure of the building? Any changes?”

“I spruced things up. Patched and painted, the usual. Inside and out.”

Bosch assessed the building. It was standard cinder-block construction. Solid on the outside.

“What did you patch?”

“Holes in the walls, broken windows. I can’t remember everything I did.”

“You remember any bullet holes?”

That gave Cardinale pause. His eyes drifted away from Bosch’s as he remembered taking over the shop.

“Are you saying somebody got shot here?” he asked.

“No, not at all,” Bosch said. “We’re looking for bullets that were shot into the walls.”

Cardinale nodded and seemed relieved.

“Yeah, there were bullet holes,” he said. “I mean, they looked like bullet holes. I had ’em patched and painted over.”