“Yeah, uh, Ballard, Ross Bettany here. Give me a call back. Have something to talk to you about. Thanks.”
The last message came in two hours later and was from Bettany again, his voice a little more intense.
“Bettany here. Really need a call back from you. This guy Hoyle and his lawyer, he says he’ll only talk to you, only trusts you. So we need to figure something out. We obviously need to start talking to the guy. We need to file on Abbott by tomorrow a.m. or the case goes pumpkins. Call me. Thanks.”
After an arrest and booking, the district attorney had forty-eight hours to file charges and arraign the suspect or reject the case. The fact that Hoyle was lawyered up also added a complication. Ballard guessed that Bettany had taken what she had given him to the DA, and the filing deputy had wanted more — as in Hoyle giving a formal, voluntary statement as opposed to the surreptitious recording she had made in the car.
Bettany had left his cell phone number with both messages. Ballard thought that calling him back might violate the orders to engage in no police work during her suspension, but she called anyway.
“You know I’m suspended, right?”
“I know, Ballard, but you left me a shit sandwich here.”
“Bullshit, I gave you a full package you just needed to walk down to the DA.”
“Yeah, I did that, but they said no go.”
“Who was the filing deputy?”
“Some stiff named Donovan. Thinks he’s F. Lee Bullshit.”
“What’s wrong with the package?”
“Your taping Hoyle without his knowledge. Hoyle already has a lawyer — this hotshot guy Dan Daly — and he’s screaming entrapment. So Donovan looks at the tape and has a problem with it. First of all, who were you talking to when you put down the window and said you might need to transport Hoyle?”
Ballard froze for a moment. She realized she had lowered the window and talked to Bosch while recording Hoyle. It was part of the play but it had been a mistake.
“Ballard?” Bettany prompted.
“It was Bosch, the guy who worked the original case. The Albert Lee murder.”
“Isn’t he retired?”
“Yeah, he’s retired, but I went to him about the case because the murder book’s gone. I needed him to tell me about that investigation and we were together when the Hoyle thing went down.”
There was a silence while Bettany digested this incomplete explanation.
“Well, that’s not a good look, but that’s not the problem here,” he finally said. “The problem is you told Bosch you might need a transport, and Donovan says that’s a threatening and coercive tactic that could get the whole tape tossed. He told me to walk Hoyle through it again, but Hoyle says he will only talk to you. And that’s kind of funky, because you tricked the guy but he only trusts you. That’s where we stand.”
Now Ballard was silent as she considered this change of fortune. A mistake she had made was now working in her favor.
“They have to reinstate me if they want me to do the interview,” she said.
“That’s about the size of it, yes,” Bettany said. “Meantime, Donovan is working on a qualified immunity deal with Daly.”
“Have you told anybody about this?”
“My L-T knows, and he’s been talking to yours, I guess. Somebody at Hollywood.”
Ballard almost smiled, thinking about the jam Robinson-Reynolds was in, having doubled down on her suspension that morning with his terse reply to her text and now needing her back on the job to salvage a multiple-murder case.
“Where is Hoyle?” she asked.
“He’s home, I guess,” Bettany said. “Or wherever Daly has him stashed.”
“Okay, I’ll call my L-T and get back to you.”
“Make it quick, Ballard, okay? We don’t want to kick this guy Abbott loose. He has the funds and the connections to disappear, if you ask me.”
Ballard disconnected and immediately called Robinson-Reynolds on his cell. He didn’t bother with any sort of greeting and Ballard wasn’t expecting one.
“Ballard, you talk to Bettany?”
“Just did.”
“Well, it looks like you fell into the shit with your antics the other night and are coming out smelling like a rose.”
“Whatever. Am I reinstated or what? We have to get to Hoyle tonight. Our forty-eight on Jason Abbott is up in the morning.”
“I’m working on it. Set up the interview tonight. You’ll be reinstated by the time you get in the room.”