“Take him to South and put him in a room at the D-bureau,” she said. “I talked to Lieutenant Randizi and he cleared it. We’ll check the car and lock it up, then we’ll get over there.”
“Roger that,” Devlin said. “Pleasure doing business with you.”
“Thanks for the help.”
The two unies got in their car and took off with Dupree. Ballard went to the Chrysler, snapping on gloves as she approached.
“You worried about a warrant?” Bosch asked.
“No,” Ballard said. “Driver left his door open and has a past record of gun violence. If there is a weapon in here, we have a public safety issue. I think that qualifies as a ‘search incidental to a lawful arrest.’”
She was quoting from a legal opinion that allowed vehicle searches if public safety was an issue.
Ballard leaned into the driver’s seat through the open door. The first thing she checked was the center-console storage compartment, but there was no weapon. She leaned farther in and checked the glove box. Nothing.
She lowered herself and reached under the driver’s seat. There was nothing on the floor. She reached up blindly into the springs and electronic controls of the seat and her hand found an object that felt like the grip of a handgun.
“Got something,” she announced to Bosch.
She pulled hard and could feel tape coming free. She brought a small handgun out from beneath the seat, black tape still attached to it.
“Now we’re talking,” she said.
She put the gun on the roof of the car with the other property found on Dupree’s person. She picked up the phone and thumbed it open. On the screen she saw that Dupree had missed a call from a 213 number that looked vaguely familiar to her. It had come in just a few minutes before, while Dupree was being arrested. She took out her own phone and called the number. It connected right away to a recording that said it was a Los Angeles County number that did not accept incoming calls.
“What is it?” Bosch asked.
He had come up next to her.
“Dupree just missed a call from a county line that doesn’t accept incoming calls,” Ballard said. “Only calls going out.”
“Men’s Central,” Bosch said. “Somebody was calling him from jail.”
Ballard nodded. It sounded right. The phone didn’t appear to be password protected. Ballard wanted to know whom Dupree had been talking to before his arrest, but she did not want to risk the case by looking through the phone’s previous-call list without a warrant.
“What’s in the envelope?” Bosch asked.
Ballard closed the phone and put it back on the car’s roof. She then took up the envelope. It was not sealed. She opened it and thumbed through the stack of currency inside.
“Thirty one-hundred-dollar bills,” she said. “Kidd was paying Dupree—”
“To hit someone,” Bosch said. “You need to call Men’s Central and get Dennard Dorsey in protective custody as soon as possible. Call right now.”
Ballard tossed the envelope back on the roof of the car and pulled her phone again. She called the Men’s Central number she had stored on her phone for when she wanted to set up an inmate interview. It was the only number she had.
She got lucky. Deputy Valens answered the call.
“Valens, this is Ballard. I was in there a couple days ago to talk to a guy in the Crips module named Dennard Dorsey. You remember?”
“Uh, yeah, I remember. We don’t get many looking like you in here.”
Ballard ignored the comment. This was an emergency.
“Listen to me,” she said. “That conversation sparked something and you need to grab Dorsey and put him in protective custody. Nobody can get near him. You got that?”
“Well, yes, but I need an order from command for that. I can’t just—”
“Valens, you’re not listening. This is about to go down now. A hit was put on Dorsey and it could happen any minute. I don’t care what you need to do, just get him out of that module or he’s going to get whacked.”
“Okay, okay, let me see what I can do. Maybe I’ll move him into the visiting room and tell him you’re coming back. Meantime, I’ll work on a transfer.”
“Good. Do it. I’ll call you back when I know more.”
Ballard disconnected and looked at Bosch.
“They’re going to secure him, one way or another,” she said. “I’ll call back in a bit to make sure.”
“Good,” Bosch said. “Now let’s see what Dupree has to say about it.”
35
Ballard and Bosch let Dupree marinate in an interview room at South Bureau while they drank coffee and schemed out how Ballard would handle the interview. They had agreed that it had to be her. Bosch had no police powers. If the interview became part of a court case, it could collapse things if revealed that Dupree was interviewed by someone other than an active-duty law enforcement officer.
They agreed that Ballard would sit across from Dupree with her cell phone on her thigh so she could look down and see any messages from Bosch, who would watch the interview in real time from the detective bureau’s video room.
An hour after Dupree had been placed in the room, Ballard entered. She and Bosch had just been informed by Deputy Valens at Men’s Central that Dennard Dorsey was safe and in protective isolation away from the Crip tank. He had also told them that a review of recordings off the two pay phones in the tank revealed that an inmate named Clinton Townes had placed a collect call at the exact time of the missed incoming call registered on Dupree’s burner.
Ballard was confident that she had all she needed to flip Dupree. She entered the interview room with a rights waiver form and a large evidence envelope containing the smaller envelope of cash recovered in Dupree’s arrest.
Dupree’s hands were cuffed behind him to a chair anchored to the floor. The room was ripe with his body odor, a sign that he was nervous — as anybody held in custody would be.
“What the fuck is this?” he said. “You hold me in here like this for fucking child support?”
“Not quite, Marcel,” Ballard said. “We pulled you in on the child support thing, but this isn’t about that and I’m pretty sure you know it.”
It suddenly dawned on Dupree that he recognized Ballard.
“You,” he said. “I seen you at Dulan’s.”
“That’s right,” Ballard said as she pulled out her chair and sat down across the table from him. “I didn’t hear everything you and Kidd talked about. But I heard a lot.”
“Nah, you didn’t hear shit. We were tight.”
Ballard took her phone off her belt and held it up to show him.
“I got it all on here,” she said. “Our tech unit can do amazing things with audio. Even bring up whispers. So we’re going to see about that, but it doesn’t really matter.”
She put the phone down on her thigh where he couldn’t see its screen.
“I’m here to explain to you what your situation is and how I can help you and you can help yourself,” she said. “But Marcel, for me to do that you have to waive your rights and talk to me.”
“I don’t talk to the po-lice,” Dupree said. “And I don’t waive nothin’.”
This was good. He did not say the magic words — I want a lawyer — and until he did, she could work on convincing him that it was in his best interest to talk to her.
“Marcel, you’re fucked. We found the gun in your car.”
“I don’t know nothin’ about a gun.”
“Nine-millimeter Smith and Wesson? Satin finish? I’d bring it in to show you but it’s against the rules.”
“Never seen no gun like that.”
“Except it was tucked up under the seat you were sitting in when you got popped a couple hours ago. So you can go with the never-seen-it-before claim, but it’s going to go down in flames — and you’re a twice-convicted felon, Marcel. That means five years back in a cage just for possession of a firearm.”