Dark Sacred Night (Harry Bosch Universe #31)(72)

“Assholes,” she said.

She headed back toward Hollywood. She had to decide what to do next. She could turn in the city ride, get her van, and head to the beach to follow her routine of paddling and then sleeping. Or she could keep moving on the case. She had fifty-six field interview cards that needed a second look. And she had the GRASP files, which represented a new angle of investigation.

She had not been on the water in two days and knew she needed the exercise and the equilibrium it would bring to her being. But the case was calling to her. With the FI cards narrowed and the GRASP data in hand, she needed to keep case momentum going.

She pulled her phone and called Bosch for the third time that morning. It once again went straight to message.

“Bosch, what the fuck? Are we working together on this or not?”

She disconnected, annoyed that there was no way to do an angry hang-up with a cell phone.

As she slogged through heavy traffic, her annoyance with Bosch dissipated and turned into concern. When she got back to Hollywood, she headed north on Highland into the Cahuenga Pass. She knew Bosch lived in the pass. He had given her his address so she could talk to Elizabeth Clayton. She didn’t remember the number but she still had the street.

Woodrow Wilson Drive edged the mountain over the pass and offered clipped views between houses that held their ground on steel-and-concrete pilings. But Ballard wasn’t interested in the views. She was looking for the old green Cherokee she had seen Bosch driving earlier in the week. Her hope was that Bosch didn’t have a garage.

When she was three curves from the top of the mountain, she spotted the Jeep parked in a carport attached to a small house on the view side of the street. She drove past and pulled to the curb.

Ballard went to the front door and knocked. She stepped back and checked the windows for an open curtain. There was nothing, and no one answered. She tried the door and it was locked.

She moved to the carport and checked the side door. It too was locked.

Back out on the street, she walked to the other side and studied the house from afar. She thought about the way Bechtel, the art thief, had gotten in to steal the Warhols. She saw that the carport was supported by a cross-hatched ironwork with squares she judged to be large enough to use as footholds.

She headed across the street again.

Just as she had done three days before, Ballard climbed up to the roof and then crossed it to the rear edge. Every house with a view had a rear deck and she wasn’t disappointed by Bosch’s home. She checked a gutter for the strength of its moorings, then gripped it with both hands and swung down to the deck. She dropped the remaining three feet without a problem.

Something was definitely strange. The slider was open wide enough for her to slip inside without having to push it further. She stood in the middle of a small, sparsely furnished living room. Visually, nothing seemed wrong.

“Harry?”

No answer. She stepped further in. She noticed an odd food smell.

There was an alcove with a dining room table and a wall of shelves behind it that contained books, files, and a collection of vinyl records and CDs. On the table she saw an unopened bottle of water and a paper bag from Poquito Más, its sides stained with grease. She touched the bag and bottle. Both were room temperature. The bag was open and she looked down into it. She saw wrapped food items and knew the food had gone uneaten for a long time and was the source of the smell in the house.

“Harry?”

She said it louder this time but that didn’t change the lack of response.

Stepping into the entryway by the front door, she looked into the galley kitchen that led to the carport. Nothing seemed amiss. She saw a set of keys on the counter.

She turned and walked down the hallway toward the bedrooms. A series of thoughts rushed through her mind as she moved. Bosch had said Elizabeth Clayton had mysteriously moved out. Had she come back to harm him? To rob him? Had something else gone wrong?

Then she thought about Bosch’s age. Was she going to find him collapsed in the bed or bathroom? Had he pushed himself too far with lack of sleep and exhaustion?

“Harry? It’s Ballard. You here, Harry?”

The house remained silent. Ballard nudged open the door of a bedroom that obviously was Bosch’s daughter’s room, with posters and photos on the walls, stuffed animals on the bed, her own phonograph, and a thin collection of records. There was a framed photo on the night table of a young girl hugging a woman. Ballard assumed it was Bosch’s daughter and her mother.

Across the hall was another room, with a bed and a bureau. All very basic and spartan. Elizabeth’s room, she guessed. A communal bathroom off the hallway was next. And then the master bedroom, Harry’s room.

Ballard entered and this time only whispered Bosch’s name, as if she expected to find him asleep. The bed was made with a military precision, the spread tightly tucked under the edges of the mattress.

She checked the bathroom to finish the search but she knew Bosch was gone. She turned back and walked all through the house and out onto the deck. The last place she needed to check was the steep embankment below the cantilevered house.

The arroyo down below was overgrown with heavy brush and acacia and scrub pine trees. Ballard moved up and down the length of the deck, changing her angles of view so she would be able to see all of the ground below. There was no sign of a body or any sort of break in the natural shape of the canopy of branches.