Dark Sacred Night (Harry Bosch Universe #31)(80)

After sending the email, Ballard felt her excitement wane and her fatigue return. She closed her laptop and left it on the bed. After setting her phone to sound an alarm in three hours, she slipped under the bedcovers, her robe still on, and fell immediately to sleep.

She dreamed that someone was following her but disappeared each time she turned around to look behind her. When the alarm woke her, she was in a deep stage-four sleep and disoriented as she opened her eyes and didn’t recognize her surroundings. It was the thick terry cloth of the robe that finally brought it all back and she realized where she was.

She ordered an Uber and got dressed in the fresh clothes she’d brought from her van. The car was waiting when she took the elevator down and walked out to the hotel’s entrance.

Harry Bosch’s abduction made the sergeant’s report at roll call. It was mentioned since it had occurred in his home, which straddled the line between Hollywood and North Hollywood divisions, and that home was now posted with uniformed and plainclothes officers from Metropolitan Division in an attempt to dissuade Tranquillo Cortez from sending more men to abduct Bosch again.

Otherwise the briefing was short. A cold front had moved across the city from the ocean, and lower temperatures were one of the best crime deterrents around. Sergeant Klinkenberg, a longtime veteran who kept himself in shape and wore the same size uniform as he did on graduation day from the academy, said things were slow out on the streets of Hollywood. As the troops were filing out, Ballard made her way against the flow of bodies heading to the door and up to Klinkenberg, who remained behind the lectern.

“What’s up, Renée?” he asked.

“I missed the last couple of roll calls,” Ballard said. “I just want to check to see if you guys put out the BOLO I gave Lieutenant Munroe about the guy named Eagleton.”

Klinkenberg turned and pointed to the wall where there was a corkboard covered with Wanted flyers.

“You mean that guy?” he said. “Yeah, we put that out last night.”

Ballard saw her flyer for the man who called himself Eagle on the board.

“Any chance you can give it another pop next roll call?” she asked. “I really want this guy.”

“If it’s as slow as tonight, then no problem,” Klinkenberg said. “Get me another stack and I’ll put it out.”

“Thanks, Klink.”

“How’s Bosch? I know you were involved in that.”

“He’s good. He got roughed up and cracked a few ribs. They finally persuaded him to stay the night at Olive View up there. With a guard on the door.”

Klinkenberg nodded.

“He’s a good guy. He got a rough deal around here but he’s one of the good ones.”

“You worked with him?”

“As much as a blue suiter can work with a detective. We were here at the same time. I remember he was a no-bullshit kind of guy. I’m glad he’s okay and I hope they catch the fuckers who grabbed him.”

“They will. And when they do, he and whoever was part of it will go away for a long time. You grab one of us, you cross a line, and that message will go out loud and clear.”

“There you go.”

Ballard went downstairs to the detective bureau, where she set up at a desk near the empty lieutenant’s office. The first thing she did was go online and connect to the live cams at the pet-care center where she had left her dog. It had been more than twenty-four hours since she had seen Lola and she missed her greatly. Ballard had always thought that when she rubbed the dog’s neck or scratched her hard head, she got more fulfillment out of it than Lola did.

She located her on one of the camera screens. She was sleeping on an oval bed. A smaller dog had pushed in and curled up on the bed with her. Ballard smiled and immediately felt the pang of guilt that came every time she caught a case that took over her schedule and required leaving Lola at pet care for extended periods. She had no qualms about the level of care. Ballard checked the cameras often and paid for extra things like walks around the Abbot Kinney neighborhood. But Ballard could not help wondering if she was a bad pet owner and if Lola would be better off being put up for adoption.

Not wanting to dwell on the question, she killed the connection and went to work, spending the next two hours of her shift going through the FI cards put aside for special attention and backgrounding the individuals who had caught the notice of patrol officers in Hollywood in the months surrounding the murder of Daisy Clayton.

At shortly after two a.m. she got her first callout of the night and spent the next two hours interviewing witnesses to a brawl that had broken out at a bar on Highland when the bouncer had attempted to clear the place at closing time and a group of four USC students had objected because they still had full bottles of beer. The bouncer was cut across the back of the head by one of those bottles and was treated at the scene by paramedics. Ballard took his statement first, but he could not say for sure which of the four students had wielded the bottle he was struck with. After securing his confirmation that he wished to press charges against his attacker, the LAPD released him to the paramedics, who transported him to Hollywood Presbyterian. Ballard next spoke to a bartender and the establishment’s manager before moving on to the students.

The students were locked two apiece in the back seats of patrol cars. Ballard had purposely put the two boys who looked the most scared together and had secretly left her digital recorder on the front seat where they couldn’t get it. It was a ploy that every now and then produced an unintended confession.