Bosch looked back up at the house.
“This guy must go to a lot of funerals,” he said.
“Well, what he gave us was good,” Ballard said. “Javier wanted out of the contract. There’s a motive in that.”
“There is. But Hoyle’s going to be protected by the contract. Calvente said it was legit. We still need to find the factor man and hope he leads us to the man with the Walther P-twenty-two.”
“Tonight I’ll go back to Gang Intel. They had a snitch who told them years ago that Javier bought his way out of Las Palmas. I think it was a woman. They wouldn’t give me her name before but I’ll make them give it to me now. She might know who set him up with Hoyle.”
“That sounds like a plan.”
Fifteen minutes later Ballard had just dropped Bosch at his car and was on her way to the ER at Hollywood Presbyterian when she got a call from EMT Single.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
“Actually, I’m on my way to the ER,” she said.
“Oh, no, what’s happening?”
“Nothing, I’m fine. My boss won’t let me go back to work tonight unless I get a clean bill from the ER. I told him a very good EMT had cleared me today but they’re making me go anyway.”
“Oh, that’s too bad. I was about to invite you to a firehouse dinner.”
“Wow, I’ve never had an invitation like that before. What are you guys having?”
“All kinds of stuff. Grilled cheese, chili. I think somebody dropped off a couple of apple pies. We’ve got some salad, some corn on the cob.”
“Well, I’d take a salad and grilled cheese.”
“Ooh, it sounds like we’ve got a veggie on our hands.”
“Just no red meat anymore.”
“Not a problem, but I thought you’re going to the ER.”
“I’d rather come for dinner and go to the ER on company time.”
“Well, come on over. Dinner’s in thirty-five minutes. Unless we catch a call and go out on a run.”
“On my way. But are you allowed to invite a guest?”
“One of us can. One guest allowed a night. I traded with a guy to get tonight ’cause I hoped you’d like firehouse chili. But grilled cheese is just as good.”
“All right, cool. See you in a bit. One last question …”
“Sure.”
“What’s your first name?”
“Oh, it’s Garrett.”
“Garrett. Cool. I’ll see you soon, Garrett.”
After disconnecting, Ballard created an entry with Single’s full name in her contact list. She hoped it would stay in there for a while. She parked her car behind the police station. Before going over to the firehouse, she ducked into the locker room in the station and put on some light makeup. She was only going to a firehouse for a grilled cheese dinner, but she wanted to make an impression.
22
The dinner was fun, with Single introducing Ballard to his colleagues and her receiving a round of applause. And the grilled cheese was not bad, but the food and fun were cut short when EMT Single and his rescue team were called out on a traffic accident at Highland and Hollywood, one of the busiest intersections in the city. They raced off to the scene, and Ballard carried the second half of her grilled cheese sandwich on a napkin around the wall that separated the firehouse from the police station. She finished eating in the station while sitting in on the mid-watch roll call. Mid-watch rolled out at eight — Ballard’s usual start time — and it was small squad, making roll calls less crowded and more informal. No one objected to her finishing her sandwich.
After, she went directly down the second-floor hallway to the GED squad room to look for Sergeant Davenport. He was sitting where she had last seen him three nights earlier. If he wasn’t in different clothes, she might have thought he had never moved. She pulled the file he had given her out of her briefcase and dropped it on his desk. She pointed at the file.
“LP-three,” she said. “I need to talk to her. For real this time.” Davenport took his legs off the upside-down trash can where they had been propped up and sat up straight.
“Ballard, you know I can’t just hand out the name of a CI,” he said.
“I do know,” Ballard said. “You have to go through the captain. Or you could go see the CI and I could tag along. Either way is fine with me but this is now a premeditated murder case that’s connected to another premeditated murder case and I need to find out what she knows. So how do you want to play that?”