Dark Sacred Night (Harry Bosch Universe #31)(45)

“Okay, I have to ask you this question and I apologize ahead of time. Had you ever had anal sex before this occurred with Danny Monahan?”

“No, never. I think it’s disgusting.”

“Okay, Chloe, that’s all for now. I’m going to get you to a rape treatment center where they’re going to look for biological evidence and treat you for your injuries. They’ll also be able to talk to you about counseling and what steps to take from there.”

“I just want to go home.”

“I know, but this is a necessary stage in the investigation. We need to do this. Okay?”

“Okay, I guess.”

“Okay, you wait here. Officer Gardner is going to be outside the door at all times, and I’ll be back soon.”

When she stepped out through the door, Dvorek was gone. Gardner gave her a head wave and they walked up the hall so they could confer without Chloe hearing them. Gardner had ten years on the job, all of them at Hollywood Division. She was petite and wore her dark hair tied up in the back.

“She has her cell,” Gardner said. “I heard her whispering on a call.”

“Okay,” Ballard said.

“Just so you know, I heard her say, ‘This guy’s going to pay. I’m going to be rich.’”

Ballard pointed to the body cam affixed to her uniform.

“You think that picked it up?”

“I don’t know, maybe.”

“Make sure I get the video file at end of shift. I want you to write up a report as well. Anything else?”

“No, just that.”

“Thanks.”

“Sure thing.”

Ballard found Dvorek in the entertaining area and asked him to take her to the bedroom.

It was a large, round room with a round bed and a round mirror on the ceiling above it. Ballard kept her hands in her pockets as she leaned over the bed and looked down at the knot of sheets and pillows. She saw no blood or anything else that might constitute evidence. She went into the bathroom, which featured a large round Jacuzzi in the center. She inspected a large white-tiled shower stall but saw no blood or other evidence. In a wastebasket next to the toilet she saw a wad of blood-stained tissues.

“Okay, we’re going to need to call out a field unit to collect everything,” she said. “Can you make the call while I talk to the suspect?”

“You got it,” Dvorek said. “I’ll take you over to him first.”

Danny Monahan was sitting behind a desk that was notable to Ballard because it wasn’t big and it wasn’t round. It was old and scratched, and that told her it had sentimental value to the comic genius sitting behind it.

“You notice the desk, huh?” he said. “I was a schoolteacher once. Not many people know that.”

Monahan was midthirties, paunchy with success, his red hair too long, overly styled, and cut to look like he had just rolled out of bed and run his hands through it. A guy who cared about his looks but trying to look like he didn’t.

Ballard ignored the reveal about the desk.

“Mr. Monahan, I’m Detective Ballard. Has anyone read you your rights?”

“My rights? No. Come on, this is a shakedown. She wants money. She told me she would bleed me dry.”

Ballard showed him her digital recorder and turned it on. She then recited the Miranda rights warning and asked Monahan if he understood them.

“Look, it might have gotten a little rough but it wasn’t anything she didn’t ask for,” he said.

“Mr. Monahan,” Ballard insisted. “If you want to talk to me and explain what happened, then you need to acknowledge that you understand the rights I have recited to you. If not, then we’re done here and you are under arrest.”

“Arrest? That is fucking absurd. This was completely consensual.”

Ballard paused for a moment before speaking calmly and slowly.

“One more time,” she said. “Do you understand your rights as they have been explained to you?”

“Yes, I understand my rights,” Monahan said. “Happy now?”

“Do you want to talk to me about what happened here in your home tonight?”

“Sure, I’ll talk, because it’s all bullshit. It’s a con—she wants money, Detective. You can’t see that?”

Ballard put the recorder down on Monahan’s old teaching desk. She again stated the time and location as well as Monahan’s name and his agreement to give a recorded statement.

“Tell me what happened. This is your chance.”

Monahan spoke matter-of-factly, as if describing what he had had for dinner.

“I met her at the club tonight and then I took her home and fucked her. That’s what happened and it’s what I do all the time. But this time, she gets up and runs into the bathroom, locks the door, and starts yelling rape.”

“Did you try to break through the door to the bathroom?”

“Nope.”

“Let’s go back to the sex. Did she at any time say no or tell you to stop?”

“No, she stuck her ass up and said go for it. Anything else is a lie.”

It was a classic he-said-she-said case, as Lieutenant Munroe had warned and as many rape cases reported to the LAPD were. But Ballard had seen the blood in the wastebasket and she knew that would tip consideration toward Chloe’s side of the story. The results of the examination at the rape treatment center could also be probative if the victim’s injuries were quantifiable. The blood in the basket seemed to indicate that they would be.