“Do you have my phone?”
“Yes. They gave it to me.”
Robinson-Reynolds reached into his suit coat pocket and produced Ballard’s phone. She checked the screen to see what calls had come in. Five minutes earlier Bosch had once again tried to call her.
She decided not to call him back until she was alone, but while her lieutenant watched, she quickly fired off a text telling Bosch she was fine and would call him in a half hour.
Ten minutes later she was in the front passenger seat of Robinson-Reynolds’s car, telling him to get to Commonwealth Avenue and head south.
“You’re probably going to want to pack some things and stay somewhere else for a while,” Robinson-Reynolds said. “A friend’s place, or if you want a hotel, I’ll find a way to make the department cough up a chit for it.”
“No, I’ll be fine,” Ballard said.
“You sure? Your room is probably a mess — courtesy of Forensics.”
“I’ve got a big couch.”
“Okay, Renée.”
“So, what about West Bureau?”
“What about it?”
“Ross Bettany called me to take over the case. I’m supposed to meet him tomorrow.”
“Then meet him. He’s still taking it.”
“I want to know if they’re going to work it. Bonner was LAPD. It felt in there with Sanderson that this wasn’t going anywhere, because solving it means putting that out there: veteran LAPD officer turned hit man.”
“You really think they would cover it up — a murder?”
“It’s two murders — at least. And yes, I do, because Bonner, the shooter, is dead. As far as Sanderson goes, it’s case closed. Taking it the next step and going after the people who ordered the hits, that’s dangerous, because all of the Bonner stuff will tumble out and the department gets its ass kicked once again.”
“Don’t overthink it, Ballard.”
Ballard noticed he was back to addressing her by her last name.
“It’s not overthinking,” she said. “It’s the reality we live in.”
“Maybe,” he said. “But it’s going to be West Bureau’s reality, not ours. So just follow protocol, Ballard. Turn the case over to the guy and go back to work on the Midnight Men.”
“Roger that.”
She said it in a tone of resignation that signaled that she would never say those two words again.
31
Ballard crossed the center courtyard to use the stairs, because the building’s elevator was so slow. But before she got to the first step, she heard her name called. She turned and saw a man stepping out the door of his first-floor apartment. He came toward her. It was the bicyclist she had met over the weekend, but already she couldn’t remember his name.
“Hi,” she said.
“Some crazy stuff here today,” he said. “Is everything all right?”
“Everything’s fine now.”
“I mean, I was told a guy broke in and tried to kill you.”
“He did. But it’s complicated and the police are investigating.”
“But you are the police.”
“Yes, but I’m not investigating this, so I can’t really talk about it.”
She started to move back toward the stairs.
“We aren’t used to this sort of thing here,” the neighbor said.
Ballard turned back.
“That’s a good thing, then,” she said. “Neither am I.”
“Well, I know you’re new,” the neighbor said. “And I hope that this sort of thing isn’t going to be normal. I feel as HOA president that I need to say that.”
“I’m sorry, what is your name again?”
“It’s Nate. We met in the — ”
“The garage, I remember. Well, Nate, I don’t consider it normal when somebody tries to kill me in my bed. But you should know that he was a stranger and that it was a break-in, and I was thinking that the next time you have a homeowners’ meeting, you might want to review the security around here. He got in here somehow, and I’d hate to see the HOA be held responsible for anything. That could be expensive.”
Nate blanched.
“Uh, totally,” he said. “I, uh, I’m going to call a special meeting to review building security.”
“Good,” Ballard said. “I’d like to hear how that goes.”
This time she turned and Nate had nothing further to say. She took the steps two at a time and found her front door had been left unlocked by the investigators. Typical LAPD incompetence. She locked it after entering and quickly moved through the apartment to her bedroom. The junk drawer she had pulled out of the bed table that afternoon during the struggle with Bonner was still on the floor. She could see fingerprint dust on its handle. Rooting through the drawer, she found the burner phone she had buried in the junk. She snapped it open and saw that it had either been powered off or its battery had died.