Desert Star Page 10

  “So you’re thinking maybe the alibi confirmation was extorted from Beecher. Does Harris still run the theater?”

  “No, he’s dead. Car accident last year—a month after he was exposed. He hit an abutment on the one-oh-one.”

  “Suicide?”

  “Most likely. Anyway, like I said, I hope I’m just checking this off a list. I don’t want a ‘cleared other.’ I don’t want to tell Jake Pearlman that we found the killer but he’s beyond the reach of earthly law.”

  “I get that. What about the ODs on Wilson? Have you talked to them yet? I saw in the Pearlman chrono that the originals on that case are dead.”

  “I’ve tried on Wilson. One’s dead. The other hasn’t called me back. He’s up in Idaho.”

  Many retired LAPD officers moved as far away from the place they had worked as was possible and affordable. Idaho was a favored spot, called Blue Heaven by many for its low crime, clean air, conservative politics, and don’t-tread-on-me attitude. One reason Ballard liked Bosch was his decision to stay in the city he had dedicated so many years to.

  “I’ve left two messages,” she said. “I think he’s one of those guys who’s not going to call. If he couldn’t solve it, nobody can. I hate that shit.”

  It wasn’t the first time she had encountered the issue when working cold cases, and she couldn’t understand it—putting a detective’s pride in front of justice for a victim and a family who had lost something precious. She also believed it had something to do with gender. Some of these old bulls didn’t like the idea of a female detective taking up their failed investigation and solving the case. She had to admit to herself that it was partially for this reason that she was not vigorously pursuing Dubose.

  “What’s the Idaho guy’s name?” Bosch asked. “Maybe I knew him back in the day.”

  “Dale Dubose,” Ballard said.

  “I don’t remember him. But let me give it a try. I’ll ask around, see if anybody knows him and can get a call through that will be answered.”

  “Thanks. Not sure what it will get us, but you never know. Sometimes these old guys take stuff with them after they retire. They shouldn’t, but they do.”

  “Funny. So was Dubose at Hollywood or RHD? I don’t remember that name at all.”

  “No, the case was flipped to Northeast. Apparently Hollywood had caught two homicides earlier in the day and had everybody going full field on them. The detective lieutenant threw it over the fence to Northeast.”

  Hollywood and Northeast Divisions were contiguous. It was not unusual for cases to be moved one way or the other, depending on caseloads and personnel availability.

  “All right, well, I’ll see if I can get to Dubose,” Bosch said. “I want to ask why they did nothing with the blood in the urine.”

  “I kind of give them a pass on that,” Ballard said. “There was only so much they could draw from the serology back then. Even if they had a list of everybody in L.A. with kidney and bladder disease, what do you do with that? It would be thousands.”

  “They could have at least looked for criminal records, sex offenders, narrowed it down from thousands.”

  “True. But remember, they were working out of Northeast, not Homicide Special downtown. They were second tier.”

  “Doesn’t matter. I was second tier, and everybody counts. You know what this is? She was Black and they didn’t run the lead out. This guy up in Blue Heaven, shoot me his number. I’m going to call him.”

  “And say what? You’ll get his voice mail.”

  “I’m going to say, if he doesn’t call me back, I’m going to come up there to see him. And he won’t like that.”

  “Okay, Harry. Thanks. I’ll send you the number after this interview.”

  Ballard merged onto the 101 and skirted the northern slope of the Santa Monica Mountains before exiting in Studio City. She headed to the address she had gotten from Adam Beecher’s driver’s license, a house on Vineland in the foothills.

  She suddenly realized something.

  “Damn. I’m sorry, Harry,” Ballard said. “I just realized we should have driven separately. We’re practically in your neighborhood, and now you’ll have to go all the way back to Ahmanson to get your car.”

  “It’s not a big deal,” Bosch said. “You got to fill me in on the case.”

  “And get you pissed off about Dubose. I’ll tell you what. After the interview, I can drop you off at home and then I’ll come get you on the way in tomorrow.”

  “Well…let’s decide that when we’re done. I have to think about whether I need my car tonight.”

  “Okay. Hot date?”

  “Uh, no. But speaking of hot dates, I was going to ask you: How are you and the fireman doing?”

  “He’s a paramedic, actually, and he’s gone.”

  “Oh, sorry, I didn’t know. I hope it was your call.”

  “It was.”

  “Too many hours apart?”

  “No, the opposite, actually. He was three on, four off, and all he wanted to do when he was off duty was barbecue brisket and sit around watching Chicago Fire reruns.”

  “Hmm,” Bosch said.

  Ballard knew she could tell Bosch more, but she didn’t go on. She wanted to stay focused on the case and the interview with Adam Beecher.

  She pulled over in front of a house built on a lot that sloped so steeply right to left that one side of the house was two stories and the other side just one. The front door was up a curving stone-and-stepped path to the upper level.

  “Harry, you going to be all right going up?” Ballard asked.

  “Not a problem,” Bosch said. “So this guy’s still an actor?”

  “No, not anymore. I looked him up on IMDb and he had a few roles on network TV ten, twelve years ago. His recent credits all say ‘Locations Department’ on various shows shot here in L.A.”

  “Must be pretty good at it. This neighborhood is seven figures easily.”

  “It could be rented. Shall we?”

  Ballard opened her door. The slope was so severe that the door immediately slammed shut under its own weight. She tried again, putting her foot out to push it all the way into a holding position. Bosch struggled to get out as well, and then came around the back of the city car.

  “He knows we’re coming?” he asked.

  “Nope,” Ballard said. “Wanted it to come out of the blue.”

  Bosch nodded his approval.

  “Hope he’s home,” Ballard said. “It was a lot easier catching people at home during the lockdown days.”

  Ballard got to the front door and then waited for Bosch to catch up. He had taken the steps up slowly and was huffing by the time he reached her.

  “You okay?” she asked.

  “Never better,” he said.

  Ballard punched a Ring doorbell, knowing that they were on camera. It wasn’t long before the door was answered by a man in blue jeans and a denim shirt.

  “Mr. Beecher?” Ballard asked.

  “That’s right,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

  Ballard badged him and identified herself and Bosch as her partner.

  “We’d like to come in and ask you a few questions,” she said.

  “About what?” Beecher said. “I’m actually working and have a Zoom in, like, twenty minutes that I have to prep for.”

  “This won’t take long, sir. May we?”

  “Uh, I guess.”

  He stepped back and opened the door for them. They entered a neat and expensively furnished living room with a dining area and kitchen beyond and a hallway toward the back of the house. There were large canvases framed in wood on the walls, all studies of the male figure.

  “Is this about the robbery?” Beecher asked.

  “What robbery is that?” Ballard asked.

  “The Tilbrooks next door. Their house got hit a few nights ago. First time out to the movies in more than two years, and their house gets robbed while they’re gone. What a town, right?”

  “That w
ould be a burglary and we’re investigating a homicide.”

  “A homicide? Shit. Who?”

  “Can we sit down, sir?”

  “Sure.”

  He gestured to the couch and chairs configured around a coffee table that appeared to be a two-inch-thick cut of redwood. There was a small sculpture on the table. An angel sitting in repose, one of his wings broken on the ground at his feet. Ballard sat down in the middle of the couch, on the front edge of the cushion, pulling out a small pad from the pocket of her Van Heusen sport coat. Bosch took a black leather chair off the corner of the coffee table, and that left Beecher the twin in the matching set.

  Ballard began the questioning.

  “Mr. Beecher, we have reopened an investigation into the 2005 homicide of Laura Wilson. You were acquainted with her, correct?”

  “Oh, Laura, yes, we were in theater together. Oh my god, I think about her all the time. It so bothered me that they never caught anybody. I can’t imagine what her family has gone through.”

  “You were questioned back then by Detective Dubose. Do you remember that?”

  “I do, yes.”

  “You told Detective Dubose that you were with Harmon Harris on the night of the murder.”

  Ballard watched as Beecher’s face darkened and his eyes flitted away. He obviously didn’t think of Harmon Harris in the affectionate way he thought of Laura Wilson.

  “I did, yes,” he said.

  “We are here because we want to give you the opportunity to retract that statement if you wish,” Ballard said.

  “What do you mean, that I lied?”

  “What I mean is, if it wasn’t true that you were with him, then now is the time to set the record straight, Mr. Beecher. This is an unsolved homicide. We need to know the truth.”

  “I have nothing to set straight.”

  “Are you still in the theater, Mr. Beecher? An actor?”

  “I rarely act. I just got too busy with my other work.”

  “What work is that?”

  “I’m in locations for L.A.-based productions. It’s more work than I can handle, to tell you the truth.”

  Ballard noted that he could not acknowledge that he didn’t quite make it as an actor. He claimed something else had pulled him away from that work.

  “You know that Harmon Harris is dead, right?” she said.

  “Yes,” Beecher said. “That was a tragedy.”

  “He drove into a concrete pillar on the freeway a month after being outed as being abusive to his students and employees at the theater. It was a story in the Los Angeles Times. Did you know about that, too?”

  Beecher nodded vigorously. His hands were gripped together tightly in his lap.

  “Yes, I knew about that,” he said.

  “The article anonymously quoted three different men who said that Harris threatened to spread the word in the industry that they were gay if they did not have relations with him. You read that, too, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re gay as well, sir—correct? Your alibi for him was that you spent the night together on the night Laura Wilson was murdered.”

  “Yes, all true, but what’s it got to do with the new investigation?”

  “Were you extorted in any way by Harris to provide an alibi for him?”

  “No, I wasn’t!”

  “Were you an anonymous source for that Times article?”

  “I was not! I think you really need to go now. I have a Zoom.”

  Beecher stood up but Ballard and Bosch did not.

  “Please sit down, Mr. Beecher,” Ballard said. “We have more questions.”

  “My Zoom is in, like, five minutes,” Beecher complained.

  “The sooner you sit down, the sooner you will get to your Zoom.”

  Beecher had moved behind his chair and put his hands on it as if for support. He bowed his head and then raised it angrily.

  “I want you to leave,” he said.

  “Sit down,” Bosch said. “Now.”

  Bosch’s first words in the house gave Beecher a jolt and he looked at Bosch as if scared.

  “Please,” Ballard offered.

  “Oh, whatever,” Beecher said.

  He came around the chair and dropped into it.

  “Laura’s father died of Covid last year,” Ballard said. “He never saw justice for his daughter. Her mother is still alive and waiting for justice. We need your help, Mr. Beecher. We need the truth.”

  Beecher ran both hands through his thick dark hair, messing up what had been a carefully composed front wave.

  “You’re barking up the wrong tree,” he said.

  Ballard leaned a few inches forward. It was not a denial or an admission that he had lied. But she took it as an indication that there was a new story to be told.

  “How so?” she asked.

  “Harmon didn’t kill Laura,” Beecher said. “There is no way in the world that happened.”

  “Is that why you gave him an alibi?”

  “He had an alibi but he couldn’t use it.”

  “Which was?”

  “He was with someone else, not me. But that person couldn’t go to the police. He was a famous guy and he couldn’t risk it coming out that he wasn’t straight. His career would have been over.”

  “You knew this man?”

  “At the time I knew of him. A lot of people did. So Harmon made me say I was the one with him that night, end of story.”

  “Who was it who was really with him that night?”

  “I’m not telling you. It’s the same risk today that it was back then. He’s still a star. I’m not going to ruin his career.”

  “We would keep it confidential. We wouldn’t even put it on paper.”

  “No. Nothing stays a secret forever, but if I told you, it would be a betrayal. Not just of him, but of all of us.”

  Ballard slowly nodded. She instinctively guessed that they had gotten all they could from Beecher. He had admitted that he lied but confirmed the alibi of Harmon Harris.

  “Okay, let me ask you this,” Ballard said. “If you weren’t with Harris, how do you know he was actually with this other person? This Mr. X movie star.”

  “Because I asked him.”

  “You asked Mr. X?”

  “Yeah, I wasn’t going to just take Harmon’s word and lie to the cops. I went to him and asked. He confirmed. End of story, and you have to leave now.”

  “You know, we could charge you for lying to us back then.”

  “After seventeen years? I really doubt that.”

  Ballard knew her threat had backfired almost as soon as she said it. She could think of no other way to get the name she needed from Beecher.

  “Are you still in touch with Mr. X?” she asked.

  “No, not really,” Beecher said. “He’s gotten so big you can’t get near him even to say, ‘Hey, you remember me?’”

  “Could you reach out and get him to call us anonymously? I just want to confirm this and move on with the investigation.”

  “No. It’s impossible for him to be anonymous. You’d know who you’re talking to within ten seconds.”

  Ballard nodded and glanced over at Bosch. It was her signal for him to ask any questions he might be sitting on. But he gave a slight shake of the head. He had nothing to ask that hadn’t already been asked.

  “Okay, Mr. Beecher, thank you for your cooperation,” she said. “I’m going to leave you my card, and I hope you’ll call if you think of any further information to share with me.”

  “Fine,” Beecher said. “But I don’t think I’ll be calling you.”

  All three of them stood up and headed toward the door. Beecher opened it and then stepped back to let Ballard and Bosch out. As Bosch passed him, Beecher spoke.

  “You don’t talk too much, do you?” he said.

  “I usually don’t have to,” Bosch said.

  18

  Bosch was listening to the King Curtis live album recorded at the Fillmore West just a few
months before he was murdered in 1971. He popped the volume two notches for “A Whiter Shade of Pale” and thought about all the music not recorded by the sax player because of his early demise in a fight in front of his New York apartment. Parker, Coltrane, Brown, Baker—the list of those who left the stage in mid-song was long. It got Bosch thinking about the Gallagher family and all that was lost with them. The kids never even had the chance to leave a song behind.

  There was a short honk from outside the house and Bosch lifted the needle off the record and killed the power to the stereo. He grabbed his keys and went out the front door. Ballard was in her city ride at the curb, the passenger door already open. It told Bosch that something had her in a hurry this morning. He got in quickly and pulled his seat belt on.

  “Morning,” he said.

  “Good morning,” she said. “Was that Procol Harum you were playing?”

  She said it with surprise in her voice as she pulled away from the curb and headed down to Cahuenga.

  “Close,” Bosch said. “It was a cover by King Curtis.”

  “My father loved that song,” Ballard said. “He’d sit on the beach after surfing and play it on this toy flute he had.”

  “First time I heard it was on a harmonica. A guy in Vietnam. It sounded like a funeral song to me. And that guy, he never made it home.”

  That ended the conversation and Bosch became self-conscious about the buzzkill. Ballard rescued him by handing him a piece of paper he knew came from her notebook.

  “What’s this?”

  “My case list. Look it over and pick something to run with. Pick more than one.”

  Bosch studied the list. There were several entries but some had already been crossed out as completed.

  “‘Photo to NH’?” he asked.

  “I was supposed to send Nelson Hastings a photo of Laura Wilson,” Ballard said. “But he already asked about her in the office before I got to it.”

  “I’d still send it. Sometimes a face is more memorable than a name.”

  “Yeah, but no one in the current office was around during that first election. I need to remind Hastings he has to get me the name of the campaign manager. I’ll see if he wants the photo then.”