“Sounds good,” Maddie said.
Ballard took her position in front of the whiteboards and started the review of the cases the team was working on. They brought Maddie up to date on the Pillowcase Rapist case, but after that there was not much new to report, largely because Ballard’s pursuit of her stolen badge had hijacked most of the week. The one high point of the round-robin came from Masser.
“I just heard from John Lewin at the DA’s office, and Maxine Russell’s lawyer has reached out,” Masser said. “She wants to deal.”
“And she’ll give up her ex on the convenience-store shooting?” Ballard asked.
“I assume so,” Masser said. “There’s no deal if she doesn’t. They’re meeting tomorrow morning.”
“Good,” Ballard said. “Let us know.”
The rest of the review went quickly after that. “We’re expecting results from the DOJ tomorrow on our DNA capture from Monday,” Ballard said. “If it goes the way we expect it to, we’re going to have to set up a surveillance on the judge while I go to the PAB and get the okay for an arrest. Who’s coming in?”
All hands rose in response. Everybody wanted to be in on the kill, so to speak. Even Maddie Bosch raised a hand, although she would be working her patrol shift Friday night. Ballard appreciated the team’s enthusiasm but told them that it was highly unlikely that they would be involved in the arrest.
“For something like this — big case and big suspect — they’ll tell us to stand down, and SIS will come in, take over surveillance, and make the arrest,” she said.
That got a round of boos. SIS was the Special Investigation Section, which handled major-case arrests.
“Don’t worry, we’ll still get the credit for it,” Ballard said. “It’s still our case.”
She went on to thank the team for their dedication and hard work. As the meeting broke up, she invited Maddie to have a cup of coffee.
The cafeteria was largely empty except for a table full of men Ballard knew were academy instructors. Ballard got a coffee and Maddie got a bottle of sparkling water.
“Your dad is switching from coffee to tea,” Ballard said.
“Really?” Maddie said. “You saw him recently?”
Ballard realized her mistake.
“Uh, yeah, I asked him for some help on a case,” she said. “Advice. Did you tell him about joining the unit?”
“Not yet,” Maddie said. “Now that it’s official, I’ll call him.”
“Good. You should. But I sort of sense that there’s something else going on with you. Something in play you haven’t told me about. And so I just wanted to give you the chance to tell me now rather than later.”
“Wow. I guess you can really read people.”
“Comes with the territory. So what’s going on, Maddie?”
“Well — you have to hear me out, because this is going to sound... weird, I guess. And don’t laugh, but I think I might have solved the Black Dahlia case.”
Ballard had no urge to laugh at all. The fervency with which Maddie had said this told her that she was deadly serious.
“Tell me about it,” Ballard said.
21
Ballard was early pulling into the parking lot of Echo Park Storage. She thought about her activities at the You-Store-It in Santa Monica. The coincidence of it was not lost on her. Unrelated but similar things seemed to be happening in twos.
She parked and left the car running while she made another call to the number Gordon Olmstead had told her was his direct line. As before, it went straight to voicemail.
“It’s Renée,” Ballard said. “Again. Just wondering what’s happening. Give me a call.”
She disconnected. She wondered if her tone sounded too pleading. There was a hollow feeling building in her chest as she second-guessed herself for bringing Olmstead and the FBI into the Thomas Dehaven investigation. She tried to push the feeling aside by calling Harry.
He answered right away.
“Just checking to see if you’ve heard anything from Olmstead.”
“Yeah, he called a little while ago. He said they want to set up the gun buy for Saturday morning.”
Ballard was immediately annoyed that Bosch was in the loop but she wasn’t. At the same time, she understood that Bosch had to be in the loop since he would be the tethered goat they’d use as bait in taking down Dehaven.
“Are you good with that?” she asked.
“The sooner the better, as far as I’m concerned,” Bosch said. “But they need the time to set it all up and pick their spots.”
“Where is it going down?”
“They want the same place the first meeting was at, the parking lot at the beach. I told them Saturday morning, that lot will fill up fast. It’s a beach day for people. But they like that because, you know, they can get their people in there in cars and whatnot.”
“I get it. So have you texted the arrangements to Dehaven?”
“No, Olmstead and the Bureau people have sort of hijacked the texting. There’s a way they can do it without my phone.”
“Right. So when was the last time you talked to Olmstead or anybody with the Bureau?”
“Olmstead told me all of this a couple hours ago. He’ll probably call you once they have it set up.”
“Are they getting the plugged minis for you?”
“He said they’ll have them. They want the deal to go down because it will be an added case against him. Dehaven will never breathe free air again.”
“You’d think killing his ex would be enough for that, but I get it. They want more federal charges. They want to bury him in that supermax out in Colorado.”
Ballard saw a car glide into the open space next to her. It was Maddie Bosch.
“Okay, well, it looks like Olmstead doesn’t have me on the need-to-know list,” Ballard said. “So let me know what you know.”
“I will,” Bosch said. “This is your case whether you want credit for it or not.”
“Not anymore. But that’s the way it goes. Talk to you later, Harry.”
“Wait. I was going to call you. Did Maddie start with the unit today?”
“She did, yeah. It was good. I think she’s going to fit right in.”
“Okay. Good.”
“She told me she was going to call you today to tell you.”
“She hasn’t yet, but good.”
“Yeah. See ya, Harry.”
“Bye.”
Bosch clicked off and Ballard killed the engine. She put her phone in her pocket as she got out. Maddie was waiting behind her car, checking her phone.
“So,” Ballard said. “Storage Wars, huh? I would have had you down as a Kardashians girl.”
“What? Kardashians? No. And I don’t think I’ve ever watched Storage Wars either.”
Storage Wars was a reality-television show in which people bid at auction on storage units whose renters were more than three months delinquent in their payments. Under California law, the contents of these storage units could be discarded or put up for auction by the business owner. The show was basically a treasure hunt, with winning bidders hoping to find valuable contents in the storage units they bought.
Maddie had explained to Ballard that she had a unit at Echo Park Storage that she’d rented when she moved into her boyfriend’s apartment and had to store the furniture and other belongings from her place. She wanted to keep her furniture in case the relationship didn’t work out. One day while on her way to work, she had stopped by her unit to retrieve a lamp she wanted to bring to her new home. She was not in uniform but had her badge on her belt. The manager saw the badge and told her he was cleaning out a storage unit that was delinquent on payments and had found some disturbing things inside. He wanted Maddie to take a look. What Maddie found in the unit made her rent it on the spot and pay the manager five hundred dollars for its contents. Maddie had been going through those contents in her spare time. She decided to volunteer for the Open-Unsolved Unit after opening a file labeled Betty.