“I understand,” Hoyle said. “Let’s get this over with.”
“I know it’s not in the deal but I also want something else,” Ballard said.
“What?” Daly said.
“I want him to give up any and all ownership rights in the property that was owned by Javier Raffa,” Ballard said.
“Forget it,” Daly said.
“Then you can forget this deal,” Ballard said. “I’m not going to let him walk away from this and then take that place away from the family of the man he and his asshole buddies had killed.”
Immediately her phone buzzed and Ballard looked down at the message from Donovan.
What the fuck are you doing?
She looked back up and directly at Hoyle, hoping her righteous glare would make him submit.
This time Hoyle put his arm out to stop his attorney.
“It’s okay,” he said. “I’ll agree to that.”
“You don’t have to,” Daly said. “We already negotiated the deal, and that’s not—”
“I said it’s okay,” Hoyle said. “I want to do it.”
Ballard nodded.
“The deputy district attorney will prepare an amendment to the deal,” she said.
She paused for a moment to see if Daly had more to say. He didn’t.
“Okay, let’s start,” Ballard said.
And so it went. Hoyle’s story did not change much from the first time he told it to Ballard. This time, though, she asked questions designed to elicit more about the origins of the factoring consortium and whether the plan from the start was to eventually murder those who borrowed its money. Ballard knew that eventually lawyers for Abbott and anybody else taken down in the investigation would study the transcript of the interview for any crack through which reasonable doubt might slip into the case.
The interview wrapped near midnight and then Hoyle was taken by Bettany and Kirkwood to be booked and released on the conspiracy charge. Meanwhile, Donovan filed formal charges against Abbott with a no-bail hold until his arraignment. Bail would assuredly be argued then.
Soon after concluding the interview and watching them take Hoyle away, Ballard got a text from Robinson-Reynolds. He didn’t waste words.
You’re back on the bench.
She didn’t bother to reply. She went home without a thank-you from anybody. She had turned what was supposed to look like a random New Year’s Eve accident into a credible multiple-murder case, but because she had stepped at least one foot over the line, she needed to be pushed to the side and even hidden if possible from the lawyers for the defense.
She had left Pinto in his travel crate and had to wake him up when she got home. She snapped his leash to his collar and took him for a walk. It was a clear and crisp night. The lights of the houses in Franklin Hills sparkled and she walked that way, passing no one on the streets. Even the Shakespeare Bridge was deserted and the houses down below it were dark. After the dog did his business, she bagged it and turned around.
The late-night cable news was all a rehash of the day’s staggering events in Washington. There was now word that a police officer had succumbed to injuries sustained while defending the Capitol. All cops go to work each day, thinking it could be their last. But Ballard doubted that officer ever imagined that he would give his life in the line of duty in the way he did. She went to sleep with dark thoughts about the country, her city, and the future.
By virtue of her job, Ballard was used to sleeping during the day and did not change her schedule on her days off. Consequently, she slept lightly and stirred every time any noise penetrated her dozing. Pinto, still getting used to his new home and surroundings, also slept fitfully, moving about in his crate every hour or so.
A text woke Ballard up for good at 6:20 a.m. — not because she heard it come in but because it lit the screen of her phone. It came from Cindy Carpenter.
How dare you. You are supposed to protect and serve. You do neither. How do you sleep at night?
Ballard had no idea what she was talking about, but no matter what it was, the words shook her.
She wanted to call immediately but held back because she doubted her call would even be answered. Ballard wondered if the text had something to do with Cindy’s residual upset over Ballard’s contacting her ex-husband.
But then another, even more disturbing text came in. This one was from Bosch.
You need to check the paper. You’ve got a leak somewhere.
Ballard quickly got her laptop and went to the Los Angeles Times website. Bosch was old-school — he got the actual newspaper delivered. Ballard was an online subscriber. She found the story Bosch was referencing prominently displayed on the home page.
After two men broke into a Hollywood home and raped a woman, the Los Angeles Police Department launched a full-scale investigation.
But the supervisor of the investigation elected to keep it quiet in hopes of identifying and capturing the rare team of rapists. No warning was put out to the public and at least two more women were attacked over the next five weeks.
The case, according to sources, is an example of the choices investigators face in pursuing serial offenders. A suspect’s routine can lead to capture, but drawing public attention to a crime spree can result in identifiable patterns changing, making the culprits more difficult to apprehend.
In this case, three women were sexually assaulted and tortured by men who broke into their homes in the middle of the night, prompting investigators to label them the “Midnight Men.” On Wednesday, officers in the Media Relations Unit remained mute on the case, while Lieutenant Derek Robinson-Reynolds, supervisor of Hollywood Division detectives, refused to explain or defend his decision to keep the investigation quiet. The Times has filed a formal request for police reports related to the crimes.
One of the victims said she was upset and angry to learn that the police knew of the rapists before she was assaulted on Christmas Eve. Her name is not being used because of the Times’s policy not to identify victims of sex crimes.
“I feel like maybe if I knew these guys were out there, I could have taken precautions and not been a victim,” the woman said tearfully. “I feel like first I got raped by these men and then again by the police department.”
The victim described a harrowing four hours that began after she was awakened in her bed by two men wearing masks, who blindfolded her and took turns assaulting her. The victim said she believed that the two men were going to kill her when the brutal attack was over.
“It was horrible,” she said. “I keep reliving it. It is the worst thing that has ever happened to me.”
Now she wonders if her ordeal could have been prevented if the police department had informed the public of the Midnight Men.
“Maybe they would have stopped or maybe they would have just moved on if they knew the police were onto them,” the victim said.
USC crime sociologist Todd Pennington told the Times that the Midnight Men case underlines the difficult choices faced by law enforcement.
“There is no good answer here,” he said. “If you keep the investigation under wraps, you stand a much better chance of making an arrest. But if you keep quiet and don’t make that arrest quickly, the public remains in danger. You are damned if you do and damned if you don’t. In this case, the decision backfired and there were additional victims.”