Ballard left Bettany with his mouth open and Kirkwood with a you-go-girl smile on her face. She got back to her car and drove west until she reached an industrial corridor that ran along the 405 freeway. With the sound of the elevated freeway buzzing overhead, she sat on a bench in a fenced dog yard with Pinto, the rescued Chihuahua mix that was hers for the taking. The brown-and-white dog weighed nine pounds and had the long snout of a terrier and a hopeful look in his amber eyes. She was given a half hour to decide but took less than ten minutes.
The dog came with a metal crate for transport, a five-pound bag of dry food pellets, and a leash with an attached dispenser of biodegradable poop bags. Ballard took him to the beach off Channel Road at the mouth of Santa Monica Canyon, where she sat cross-legged on a blanket and let him run off the leash.
Here, the beach was at its deepest point along the county coastline and nearly deserted. The sky was clear, and there was a slight chill coming in off the Pacific on a wind strong enough to kick sand up onto the blanket. Ballard could see all the way to Catalina Island and the outline of the cargo tankers coming out of the port behind Palos Verde.
The dog had been in a kennel for five weeks. Ballard loved watching him dart back and forth in front of her on the sand. He instinctively knew not to stray far from her. He checked on her every few seconds and seemed to realize she had saved him from a bleak future.
When the dog finally grew tired, he crawled into Ballard’s lap to sleep. She petted him and told him everything was going to be all right now.
He was there when Ballard took the call she had been expecting since leaving Bettany and Kirkwood with the murder book. It was Lieutenant Robinson-Reynolds calling to inform her she had been suspended for insubordination until further notice. The lieutenant was formal and used a monotone in the delivery of the notice, but then he went off the record and expressed his disappointment in her in terms of what her actions meant to him.
“You made me look bad, Ballard,” he said. “You embarrassed me, running through the night on this — and I have to hear it first from West Bureau command? I hope they roll you out of the department for this. And I’ll be right here, waiting to help.”
He disconnected before hearing Ballard’s response.
“They tried to kill me,” she said into the dead phone.
She put the phone down on the blanket and gazed out to the blue-black sea. Insubordination was a firing offense. Suspended until further notice meant that the department had twenty days to reinstate her or take her to a Board of Rights hearing, which was essentially a trial, in which a guilty verdict could result in termination.
Ballard was not troubled by all of this. She had expected things to lead to this from the moment she had hidden Bonner’s burner phone in her junk drawer. That was when she had left the confines of acceptable police work.
She picked up the phone and called the one person she believed cared about any of this.
“Harry,” she said. “I’m out. Suspended.”
“Shit,” he said. “I guess we knew that was coming. How bad? CUBO?”
Conduct Unbecoming of an Officer was a lesser crime than insubordination. It was hopeful thinking on Bosch’s part.
“No. Insubordination. My lieutenant says they’re going to try to fire me. And he’s going to help.”
“Fuck him.”
“Yeah.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. Probably just spend a couple days on the beach. Surf, play with my dog, think things through.”
“You have a new dog?”
“Just got him. We’re getting along real nice.”
“You want a new job to go with your new dog?”
“You mean with you? Sure.”
“Not much of a fallback but you would easily pass the background check.”
Ballard smiled.
“Thanks, Harry. Let’s see how things play out.”
“I’m here if you need me.”
“I know it.”
Ballard disconnected and put the phone down. She looked out at the sea, where the wind was kicking up whitecaps on the waves bringing in the tide.
37
Ballard turned off her phone Tuesday night, got into her sweats, and slept for ten hours on her living room couch, still not ready to return to the bedroom, where she had almost died. She woke up Wednesday in pain, her body sore from the struggle with Bonner as well as the uneven support provided by the couch. Pinto was curled up asleep at her feet.
She turned on her phone. Though suspended, she had not been removed from the department-wide alert system. She saw that she had gotten a text announcing that all divisions and units in the department were going on tactical alert again following civil disturbances in Washington, D.C., and expected protests locally. It meant the entire department would mobilize into twelve-hour shifts in order to put more officers out on the streets. By prior designation Ballard was on B shift, working 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. under the response plan.