The Night Fire Page 7

  After that, she reconfigured her list based on what she now knew about the names on it. She put them into two groups because of the angles from which she had to approach them.

  Dennard Dorsey

  Nathan Brazil

  Elvin Kidd

  Maxwell Talis

  Brendan Sloan

  Ballard was excited. She knew she was making progress. And she knew that the first three interviews, if she got the men to talk to her, would give context to the conversation she hoped to have with Talis, one of the original investigators on the case. She put Sloan in last position because, depending on whether Dorsey spoke with Ballard, he might not even be relevant to her investigation.

  Ballard logged out of the system and returned all the case materials to her backpack. She stood up and leaned on the partition to look at Amy Dodd. She had always worried about Amy, who had spent her entire career as a detective working sexual assault cases. Ballard knew it could wear you down, leave you feeling hollow.

  “I’m going to go,” Ballard said.

  “Good luck,” Amy said.

  “Yeah, you too. You all right?”

  “I’m good.”

  “Good. How are things around here?”

  “No controversies lately. Olivas seems to be lying low since he made captain. Plus I heard he’s only got a year left before he plans to cash in and retire. Probably wants things to go smoothly till he’s out. Maybe they’ll even send him out as a deputy chief.”

  Olivas was the lieutenant-now-captain who had been in charge of Ballard’s old unit, Homicide Special. He had been the one who drunkenly pushed her up against a wall at a unit holiday party and tried to stick his tongue down her throat. That one moment changed the trajectory of Ballard’s career and barely left a bruise on his. Now he was captain and in charge of all of the Robbery-Homicide Division squads. But she had made her peace with it. She had found new life on the late-show beat. The department brass thought they were exiling her to the dark hours, but what they didn’t know was that they were redeeming her. She had found her place.

  Still, knowing Olivas planned to cash out in a year was good intel.

  “The sooner the better,” Ballard said. “Take care of yourself, Doddy.”

  “You too, Balls.”

  11

  The Men’s Central jail was on Bauchet Street, a twenty-minute walk from the PAB. But Ballard changed her mind and decided to drive it so she could hit the road after speaking to Dennard Dorsey and move on to the next interview.

  She waited in an interview room for twenty minutes before a sheriff’s deputy named Valens brought Dorsey in and sat him at a table across from her. Dorsey had a casualness about himself that indicated he was comfortable in his surroundings. He was far from a wide-eyed first-timer in Men’s Central. He was African-American, with skin so dark that the complete collar of tattoos on his neck was unreadable and looked to Ballard like a set of old bruises. He had a full head of graying hair that was cornrowed and matched a goatee that was so long, it too was braided. His wrists were cuffed behind his back and he had to lean forward slightly in the chair.

  According to the records Ballard had pulled up on the computer, Dorsey had turned fifty in jail just a few days earlier, making him just twenty-one at the time of John Hilton’s murder. But the man in front of her looked much older, easily into his sixties. The aging seemed so extreme that at first Ballard thought there had been a mistake and Valens had brought the wrong man into the room.

  “You’re Dennard Dorsey?” she asked.

  “That’s me,” he said. “What you want?”

  “How old are you? Tell me your birth date.”

  “March ten, ’sixty-nine. I’m fifty, so what the fuck is this about?”

  The date matched and Ballard was finally convinced. She pressed on.

  “It’s about John Hilton.”

  “Who the fuck is that?”

  “You remember. The guy got shot in the alley off Melrose where you used to sell drugs.”

  “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

  “Yes, you do. You talked to your handler at the LAPD about it. Brendan Sloan, remember?”

  “Fuck Brendan Sloan, that motherfucker never did jack shit for me.”

  “He kept homicide away from you when they wanted to talk to you about John Hilton.”

  “Fuck homicide. I never killed nobody.”

  Dorsey turned around to see if he could get a guard’s attention through the glass door behind him. He was going to get up and go.

  “Stay in your seat, Dennard,” Ballard said. “You’re not going anywhere. Not till we have a conversation.”

  “Now why would I have a conversation with you?” Dorsey asked. “I talk to anybody I talk to my lawyer, that’s it.”

  “Because right now, I’m talking to you as a possible witness. You bring a lawyer into it, then I’ll be talking to a suspect.”

  “I tol’ you, I never killed nobody ever.”

  “Then I’ll give you two reasons to talk to me. One, I know your parole officer—the one you never showed up to meet after you got out of Wasco. We’ve worked cases together. You help me here and I’ll go talk to him. Maybe he lifts the VOP and you’re back on the street.”

  “What’s the other reason?” Dorsey asked.

  Ballard was wearing a brown suit with chalk pinstripes. She reached into an inside pocket of her jacket for a folded document, a prop she had pulled out of the murder book in prep for the interview. She unfolded it and put it down on the table in front of Dorsey. He leaned further forward and down to read it.

  “I can’t read this,” he finally said. “They don’t give me glasses in here. What is it?”

  “It’s a witness report from the John Hilton murder case from 1990,” Ballard said. “The lead investigator says there that he can’t talk to you because you’re a high-value snitch for the narco unit.”

  “That’s bullshit. I ain’t no snitch.”

  “Maybe not now, but you were then. Says it right there, Dennard, and you don’t want that piece of paper getting into the wrong hands, you know what I mean? Deputy Valens told me they got you in the Rolling 60s module. How do you think the shot callers in there will react if they see a piece of paper like that floating around?”

  “You just messing with me. You can’t do that.”

  “You don’t think so? You want to find out? I need you to tell me about that murder from twenty-nine years ago. Tell me what you know and what you remember and then that piece of paper disappears and you don’t have to worry about it ever again.”

  “Okay, look, I remember I talked to Sloan about it back then. I tol’ him I wudn’t there that day.”

  “And that’s what he told the detectives on the case. But that wasn’t the whole story, Dennard. You know something. A killing like that doesn’t go down without dealers on that street knowing something or hearing something before or after. Tell me what you know.”

  “I can’t hardly remember that far back. I done a lotta drugs myself, you know.”

  “If you ‘hardly’ remember, that means you remember something. Tell me what you remember.”

  “Look, all I know is we was told to get away from that location. Like we thought we had a tip that a bust was coming down or something. So I wudn’t there, man, like I tol’ Sloan back then and tell you now. I didn’t see nothin’, I don’t know nothin’, ’cause I wudn’t there. Period. Now rip up that paper like you said.”

  “Is that what you told Sloan, that you were told to clear out?”

  “I don’t know. I tol’ him I wudn’t there that day and it was no lie.”

  “Okay, who told you to clear out of that alley?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t remember.”

  “Had to have been a boss, right?”

  “I guess maybe. It was a long time ago.”

  “Which boss, Dennard? Work with me. We’re almost there.”

  “I ain’t working with you. You get me outta
here, then I tell you who it was.”

  Ballard was not happy that Dorsey was now trying to write the rules of the deal.

  “Nah, that isn’t how it works,” she said. “You help me, then I help you.”

  “I am helping you,” Dorsey protested.

  “No, you’re not. You’re just bullshitting. Tell me who gave the clear-out order and then I talk to your PO. That’s the deal, Dennard. You want it or not? I’m just about out of here. I hate being in jail.”

  Dorsey sat quietly for a moment, then nodded his head as though he had convinced himself internally to make the deal.

  “I think he dead now anyway,” he said.

  “Then giving him up won’t be a problem, will it?” Ballard said. “Who was it?”

  “An OG name a Kidd.”

  “I want a real name.”

  “That was his name.”

  “What was his first name?”

  “Elvin. Almost like Elvis. Elvin Kidd. He had that alley and he was the boss.”

  “Did he tell you to clear out for the day or what?”

  “No, he just said like take the day off. We were like already out there and he came up and said you all scram outta here.”

  “Who is ‘we’? You and who else were already out there?”

  “Me and V-Dog—but that motherfucker dead too. He not going to help you.”

  “Okay, well, what was V-Dog’s real name?”

  “Vincent. But I don’t know his last name.”

  “Vincent Pilkey?”

  “I just tol’ you I don’t know. We just work together back then. I don’t know no names.”

  Ballard nodded. Her mind was already going back to that alley twenty-nine years ago. A picture was forming of Dorsey and Pilkey running dope in the alley and Elvin Kidd driving in and telling them to clear out.

  It made her think Elvin Kidd knew what was going to happen in that alley to John Hilton before it happened.

  “Okay, Dennard,” Ballard said. “I’ll call your PO.”

  “Talk to him good.”

  “That’s the plan.”

  BOSCH

  12

  Bosch parked his Jeep Cherokee on the north side of Fremont close enough to walk without his cane to Station 3 of the Los Angeles Fire Department. The station was of modern design and sat in the shadow of the towering Department of Water and Power Building. It was also less than six blocks from the Starbucks where Jeffrey Herstadt had suffered a seizure and had been treated by Rescue 3 EMTs on the day of the Judge Montgomery murder.

  As he approached, Bosch saw that both of the double-wide garage doors were open and all of the station’s vehicles were in place. This meant nobody should be out on a call. The garage was two rows deep. A ladder truck took up one whole slot while the other three contained double rows of two fire engines and an EMT wagon. There was a man in a blue fireman’s uniform holding a clipboard as he inspected the ladder truck. Bosch interrupted his work.

  “I’m looking for a paramedic named Albert Morales. Is he here today?”

  Bosch noticed that the name over the man’s shirt pocket was SEVILLE.

  “He’s here. Who should I tell him wants to see him?”

  “He doesn’t know me. I’m just passing on a thank-you from someone he took care of on a call. I have …”

  From an inside coat pocket Bosch produced a small square pink envelope with Morales’s name written on it. Bosch had bought it at the CVS in the underground mall by the federal building.

  “You want me to give it to him?” Seville asked.

  “No, it sort of comes with a story I need to tell him,” Bosch said.

  “Okay, let me see if I can find him.”

  “Thanks. I’ll wait here.”

  Seville disappeared around the front of the ladder truck and went into the station house. Bosch turned and looked out from the station. There was an embankment supporting the 110 freeway and Bosch could hear the sound of traffic from above. He guessed that it was not moving very quickly up there. It was right in the middle of rush hour.

  He raised his foot and bent his knee a few times. It was feeling stiff.

  “You wanted to see me?”

  Bosch turned and saw a man in the blue LAFD uniform, the name MORALES above his shirt pocket.

  “Yes, sir,” Bosch said. “You’re Albert Morales, Rescue Three?”

  “That’s right,” Morales said. “What is—”

  “Then this is for you.”

  Bosch reached into an inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. He handed it to Morales. The paramedic opened and looked at it. He seemed confused.

  “What the hell is this?” he asked. “Seville said it was a thank-you note or something.”

  “That’s a subpoena signed by a judge,” Bosch said. “You need to be in court tomorrow morning at nine sharp. Jeffrey Herstadt thanks you in advance.”

  He offered the pink envelope to Morales, but he didn’t take it.

  “Wait, these are supposed to be served at headquarters, across the street from City Hall,” Morales said. “Then they come to me. So take it over there.”

  Morales held the subpoena out to Bosch.

  “There was no time for that,” Bosch said. “Judge Falcone signed it today and he wants you there first thing tomorrow. You don’t show, he’ll issue a warrant.”

  “This is bullshit,” Morales said. “I’m off tomorrow and going up to Arrowhead. I’ve got three days.”

  “I think you’ll be in and out. You’ll still get to Arrowhead.”

  “What case is this? You said Herstat?”

  “Jeffrey Herstadt. Spelled H-E-R-S-T-A-D-T. You treated him for seizure at the Starbucks by Grand Park seven months ago.”

  “That’s the guy who killed the judge.”

  “Allegedly.”

  Bosch pointed to the subpoena, still clutched in Morales’s hand.

  “It says you need to bring any documentation of the call you have. And your rescue kit.”

  “My kit? What the fuck for?”

  “I guess you’ll find out tomorrow. Anyway, that’s all I know. You’ve been served and we’ll see you at nine a.m. tomorrow.”

  Bosch turned and walked away, heading back toward his car and trying not to limp. Morales threw one more “This is bullshit” at his back. Bosch didn’t turn around when he responded.

  “See you tomorrow.”

  Bosch got back in his car and immediately called Mickey Haller.

  “You get the subpoena?” Haller said.

  “Yep,” Bosch replied. “In and out—thanks for greasing it.”

  “Now tell me you served Morales.”

  “Just did. He’s not too happy about it but I think he’ll be there.”

  “He better or my ass will be in a sling with Falcone. You tell him the subpoena includes his kit?”

  “I did, and it’s on the subpoena. Are you going to be able to get him on the stand?”

  “The prosecutor is going to carp about it, but I’m not counting on any pushback from the judge.”

  Bosch unlocked the Jeep and got in. He decided not to attempt the freeway at this hour. He would turn on First and take it to Beverly and ride that all the way into Hollywood.

  “Your DNA lady get in?” he asked.

  “Just got the word,” Haller said. “She says she’s in the car with Stace and heading to the hotel. She’ll be good to go tomorrow.”

  “You talked to her about this? She knows the plan?”

  “Ran it all by her. We’re good. It’s funny—today I was semi-bullshitting about her having a specialty and it turns out this is her specialty. She’s been doing transfer cases for five years. It’s like the gods of guilt are smiling on me today.”

  “That’s great. But you’ve got nothing to smile about yet. Morales has to answer the way we think he’ll answer. If he doesn’t, we’re cooked.”

  “I’ve got a good feeling. This is going to be fun.”

  “Just remember, Morales has
to go first, then your DNA lady.”

  “Oh, I got it.”

  Bosch turned on the Jeep’s engine and pulled away from the curb. He turned right on First Street and headed under the freeway. He changed the subject matter slightly.

  “You told me that when you were prepping the case you had Cisco look into third-party culpability,” Bosch said.

  Cisco Wojciechowski was Haller’s investigator. He had helped prep the Herstadt case but had to stop when he had an emergency appendectomy. He wasn’t due back on the job until the following week. Third-party culpability was a standard defense strategy: someone else did it.

  “We took a look at it,” Haller said. “But to get it into court for the defense you need proof and we didn’t have any proof. You know that.”

  “You focus on one subject?” Bosch asked.

  “Shit, no. Judge Montgomery had lots of enemies out there. We didn’t know where to start. We came up with a list of names—mostly out of the murder book—and went from there but never got to where we could point a finger in court. Just wasn’t there.”

  “I didn’t see any list in the material you gave me. And did you get a copy of the murder book?”

  “Cisco had the copy we got in discovery. But if this thing goes down the way we think it will tomorrow, we won’t need to prove third-party culpability. We won’t even need it. We’ll have big-time reasonable doubt already.”

  “You might not need it, but I will. See if you can get it from Cisco. I want to look at other avenues of investigation. The LAPD has to have looked at other persons of interest. I want to know who.”

  “You got it, Broheim. I’ll get it. And thanks for today.”

  Bosch disconnected. He felt uncomfortable being thanked for a ploy that might set an accused murderer free. He felt just as uncomfortable being an investigator for the defense, even if the defendant in this case was possibly an innocent man.

  13

  Bosch parked right in front of Margaret Thompson’s house. He thought about making the short walk to the house without his cane but he looked at the six steps leading up to the porch. His knee was aching from a full day of movement, with and without the cane. He decided not to push it, grabbed the cane off the passenger seat, and used it to amble up the front walk and stairs. It was getting dark now but there were no lights on that he could see. He knocked on the door but was thinking that he should have called ahead and avoided wasting time. Then the porch lights came on and Margaret opened the door.