20
It seemed that every time Ballard dropped deeply into a dream, she was pulled out by the buzz of her cell phone, and it was EMT Single making good on his promise to check in on her. This cycle continued through the night into Sunday morning, when he finally said that it was safe for her to sleep uninterrupted.
“You mean now that the sun is up I can get a good night’s sleep?” she asked.
“I thought this would be your normal schedule,” Single said. “You do work the night shift, right?”
“I’m just giving you a hard time. Thank you for checking on me. It means a lot.”
“Anytime. Your next concussion, call me.”
She ended the call with a smile on her face despite the headache behind her eyes. She got up, wobbled as she got her footing, and went into the bathroom. After splashing cold water on her face, she looked closely at herself in the mirror. She saw bluish shadows under her eyes but the dilation of her pupils seemed to be back to normal, at least compared to what it had been when she got home the night before. She then thought of EMT Single’s keyhole pupil and smiled again.
It was 8 a.m. and she was still tired after the repeatedly interrupted sleep cycle. She stayed in her sweats and got back into bed, thinking she would doze for a little while longer. She knew there was a lot to do but she needed to be rested and ready for her next shift that night. She closed her eyes and soon all of that was forgotten.
In her dream, Ballard could breathe underwater. There was no need to charge to the surface for air. No burning in her lungs. She looked up through the blue to the sun, its rays penetrating the water with warmth and comfort. She twirled onto her back and moved languidly in the current, looking up and realizing that the sun was shaped like an acorn and was not the sun at all.
The phone’s buzz seemed to wake her as soon as she had shut her eyes, but as she reached for it, she saw the time was 3:50 and that she had been asleep for nearly eight hours. The call was from Bosch.
“Have you gotten my messages?”
“No. What? What happened? You called?”
“No, I texted. There’s a memorial service for Javier Raffa today.”
“Shit, when? Where?”
“It starts in ten minutes at St. Anne’s on Occidental.”
Ballard knew that wasn’t far from her. She put Bosch on speaker so she could scroll through her missed texts and emails. There were three from Bosch and one from her lieutenant. One of the emails that had come in was from Bobbi Klein, the first victim of the Midnight Men. The others were not important.
“I don’t know how I slept through all of — I got a concussion last night.”
“What happened?”
“I’ll tell you later. Are you at the memorial?”
“I’m here but I didn’t go in. I think I’d stick out. I’ve got a good spot and I’m watching people arrive. I think Hoyle is here. At least there’s one white guy that I think is him.”
“Okay, I’m on my way. Thanks for the wake-up.”
“You sure you’re all right?”
“I’m fine.”
Ballard quickly dressed and headed down to the garage. Her car was there because she had disregarded EMT Single’s orders and driven herself home after checking out with the watch lieutenant the night before.
She took Hillhurst all the way to Beverly and then over to Occidental. She found a spot at the curb a half block away and called Bosch.
“I’m here. Are you still in place?”
“I’m here.”
“Okay, I’m going to go in. I’ll see if we can talk to the widow after.”
“Sounds good.”
“Anybody else of note arrive?”
“There’s a lot of obvious bangers, tattooed to the ears. You want me to go in with you?”
“No, I’ll be fine. Do you think it’s worth following Hoyle, if it was Hoyle you saw?”
“I don’t know. Where’s he going to go on a Sunday night? He’s probably just here for appearances. There might be suspicions if he didn’t show — you know what I mean?”
“Yeah. But wait till the widow Raffa finds out what’s going on.”
“You’re going to tell her in there?”
“No, I’ll wait. Okay, I’m going now.”
Ballard disconnected and exited her car. She walked up the street and followed a few stragglers arriving late. She hurried to follow them in and use them as cover. The memorial was in a chapel to the side of the main church. That made it too crowded to enter and Ballard stood in the hallway outside with the stragglers. There were speakers in the ceiling, so she heard the testimonials and tearful memories from friends and co-workers as well as a hymn sung by the crowd. The hymn and most of the testimonials were in Spanish. Ballard understood enough to know that many people were lamenting that Javier Raffa had left the violent life to raise a family and run a business, yet in the end, violence still found him and took it all away.