“Where will you be?”
“We’ll have a command post up on Ocean. A van. It looks like an Amazon delivery van.”
“I’ll be there too.”
“Renée, you can’t do that.”
“I’m there or I’m parking in the lot where I can put eyes on Bosch. Your choice.”
“You want this to go down, right? You want your badge back?”
“Fuck my badge. I don’t want Bosch to get hurt and I don’t think you guys really care about him.”
“And, what, you being in the command post is going to keep him safe? Your logic doesn’t add—”
“I’ll be able to make sure you guys don’t screw up.”
There was a long silence, and when Olmstead’s voice came back, it was angry but tight and controlled.
“Fine,” he said. “We’ll make room in the CP for you.”
“Thank you, Gordon,” Ballard said. “What time?”
“We set the meet for oh-eight-hundred. Before the parking lot gets too crowded with civilians but still busy enough to get our cars and people in there. We’ll be on-site at six.”
“Then so will I. Have you picked up Lionel Boden?”
Olmstead had said that Boden had to be taken out of circulation to ensure he didn’t reach out to Dehaven and warn him. After using Boden’s phone to set up the initial meeting between Dehaven and Bosch, Ballard had deleted the contact from the device and allowed Boden to return to the Eldorado. She knew it would be bad for business and his personal safety for him to warn Dehaven, since it was Boden who had snitched him off. But Olmstead had said that wasn’t good enough for operational integrity. Boden had to be kept under wraps.
“Yes, we quietly picked him up and moved him to our luxurious accommodations downtown,” Olmstead said. “We’ll keep him till this goes down. And probably then some.”
“Good,” Ballard said. “What else?”
“You covered it all. But one other thing.”
“What?”
“Thank you for dropping this in my lap. After we take these guys down, are you sure you don’t want to be there when we hold the press conference? We’re happy to share the credit.”
“I appreciate that, Gordon, but no, thanks. I’ll just see you Saturday at six.”
“You got it.”
Ballard disconnected and started the engine.
23
From the warehouse, Ballard took Sunset Boulevard over to Angeleno Heights. The two neighborhoods were five minutes apart by car and a century apart in design. Atop a steep hill at the edge of downtown, Angeleno Heights was the oldest unchanged neighborhood in Los Angeles. Only Bunker Hill was older, but that was all glass and concrete now, the future having plowed the past under.
Angeleno Heights was the same as it ever was. The neighborhood had long been designated a historic preservation zone by the city, so the place was frozen in time, its streets lined with pristine examples of the evolving architectures of early Los Angeles. Queen Anne and Victorian homes 150 years old stood side by side with turn-of-the-twentieth-century Craftsman and bungalow masterpieces. Ballard was counting on nothing having changed because of the strict rules regarding any modifications to homes in the neighborhood. She pulled in behind Maddie Bosch’s car in front of the house at the Kellam Avenue address Emmitt Thawyer had given, a one-story Craftsman with a driveway running down the left side to a garage in the back.
Maddie was leaning against her car, checking messages on her phone. She put the phone away when Ballard got out.
“You’ve already done some good detective work,” Ballard said. “Let’s keep it going. You do the door knock, show your badge, see if you can talk our way in.”
“Really?” Maddie said. “But you’re the real detective.”
“I’ll back you up. If needed.”
“So, we’re looking for information on the man who used to live here, but we’re not sure when he moved.”
“That’s a start. We want to get in, look around, see if anybody knew or remembers Thawyer. And I want to get into the garage in the back.”
“The garage? Why?”
“To see if there’s a drain.”
“Oh. Got it.”
As they went up the steps to the wide porch that ran the length of the front of the house, Ballard pulled her phone and opened the Zillow app. She had used the real estate database when looking for her place in Malibu. She plugged in the address of the Kellam Avenue house and scrolled down to the sales history. It showed that the house had not changed hands since 1996. The app did not provide the identity of current or previous owners.
Maddie knocked forcefully on the front door’s glass.
“The owner’s had it since ’96,” Ballard said, showing Maddie her phone.
“Got it,” Maddie said.
Through the glass they could see a woman slowly approaching. Maddie held up her badge. The woman cautiously opened the door. She was at least eighty, with gray hair, and she was wearing a baggy housedress.
“Yes?” she said.
“Hello, ma’am, we’re investigators with the LAPD,” Maddie said. “Can we ask you a few questions?”
“Did something happen?”
“Uh, no. We’re investigating an old case, a crime that may have happened in this neighborhood. Have you lived here very long?”
“Almost thirty years.”
“That’s a long time. Did you buy this house?”
“My husband did. He’s dead now.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Do you happen—”
“It was a long time ago.”
“I see. Uh, do you happen to know who the previous owner was?”
“Uh... I used to but I can’t remember. It’s been too long.”
“Does the name Emmitt Thawyer sound familiar?”
“Yes, that’s it. I remember because we got his mail for a long time after that. My husband used to take it to him.”
“Where was that?”
“The retirement home.”
“Do you remember which one?”
“I don’t know if I ever knew. I remember he’d go over to Boyle Heights to deliver the mail.”
“Can I get your name, ma’am?”
“Sally Barnes. My husband was Bruce.”
Ballard recognized the name and thought Sally Barnes might have been a midlevel actress at one time. She also thought that Maddie was doing well, but they weren’t inside yet. It was doubtful anything would be gained by that, but Ballard wanted to get a sense of the place and maybe learn some information about its previous occupant.
“Do you know if Mr. Thawyer had a family when he lived here?” Maddie asked.
“No, he lived alone,” Sally said. “He was a photographer and he traveled for work. It wasn’t good for a family.”
“Did your husband ever say anything about him after he dropped off the mail?”
“He just said Mr. Thawyer was grateful but said that we didn’t need to do it. He said we could throw his mail away. Eventually, we did. I need to get to my chair. Standing isn’t good for me. I fall.”
“Well, let me help you to your chair.”
“You don’t have to. I’ll be fine. I could move into the motion picture home in the Valley but it’s too hot up there. I won’t go there till I have to.”
“If it’s all right with you, can we come in? Our captain tells us that whenever we do a home visit, we should offer to do a security check of the house.”
“Well... sure, okay. Can’t be too careful these days with all the follow-home robberies you see on the news.”
“Exactly.”
Sally stepped back and they entered the house. To the right was a living room with a large stone fireplace, to the left a dining room. Bosch put her hand on the old lady’s elbow and led her to a chair in the living room.