Ballard smiled.
“That might be the sweetest thing anybody’s ever said to me. I’ll call you later.”
“I’m here. And Renée, I’m glad you’re okay.”
After hanging up, Ballard immediately called Bosch. He picked up, and there was no indication of stress in his voice.
“Harry, you’re okay?”
“Why shouldn’t I be?”
“Because Bonner just tried to take me out. He’s on the floor of my apartment.”
“Give me the address. I’m on my way.”
“No, it’s handled. But you’re okay? I thought maybe he went to you first.”
“All good. You sure you’re safe?”
“Yeah. I almost killed him. But I’ve got people coming. You stay back but be ready. After I clear this, I want to pay a visit to Dr. Hoyle.”
“I want to be there for that.”
Ballard disconnected. She heard the sirens cut off in front of the building. She knew she had to work quickly. She crouched down and started going through the pockets of Bonner’s pants. She found a phone that looked like a cheap convenience-store burner in one pocket and a small leather wallet holding a set of lockpicks — Bonner’s way into the apartment — in another. There was no vehicle key or anything else.
She put the pick set back in the pocket where she found it but buried the phone under the junk in the bed table drawer. The rattle of jewelry and other belongings made Bonner stir. There was a louder sound of rushing air from the breathing tube and he opened his eyes as Ballard pulled back from the drawer. He made a move to raise his upper body but then quickly stopped as he sensed something was wrong. He tried to move his right hand but it was cuffed to the bed frame. He brought his left hand up to his throat and found the protruding tube.
“You pull that out, you die,” Ballard said.
He looked at her.
“I crushed your windpipe,” she said. “That tube is what you’re breathing through.”
His eyes moved about as he took in the room and the circumstances. Without moving his head, he cast his eyes down and saw the handcuff. He then looked at Ballard and she saw something register in his eyes. It was like he understood where he was and what was going to happen to him.
In one swift move he reached up and yanked the breathing tube out. He threw it over the bed and across the room. He stared at Ballard as his face began to get red. It was then that she heard the rescue team coming through the door to her apartment.
30
Ballard was hours into her FID interview before she knew for sure that Bonner was dead. Her two interviewers had keyed in on what had happened after he had supposedly — their word, not hers — pulled the tube from his neck.
“Look, why would I put the tube into his throat and try to save the guy’s life and then pull the tube out again?” she asked.
“That’s what we’re trying to figure out,” Sanderson replied.
Captain Gerald “Sandy” Sanderson was the lead interviewer. He was also the officer in charge of the Force Investigation Division — the man who for years had been tasked with sweeping out the bad cops who got involved in questionable shootings, choke holds, and other unauthorized uses of force. Under the present pressures and politics of the department and the public, it was wholly believed across the ranks that any officer who got into a scrape of any kind was out. The details of the incident didn’t matter. Sanderson was there to sand down the sharp edges of the department and make everything smooth. That meant washing out anybody whose actions might be seen as controversial from any angle.
Ballard had felt it two minutes into her interview, not two hours. A murder suspect had obviously followed her and used lockpicks to break into her home while she slept. She had defended herself, and the man had died, whether by his own hand or not, and she was getting hammered by the very people who should have her back. The world had gone sideways, and for the first time in a long time Ballard thought she might lose her job. And for the first time in a long time she thought that might not be so bad.
The interview was taking place in the detective bureau of the Northeast Division, which encompassed Los Feliz. This was routine, but still Ballard felt cut off from her division and the people she worked with. At one point, when Sanderson’s second, Detective Duane Hammel, stepped out to get fresh batteries for his recorder, Ballard saw Lieutenant Robinson-Reynolds standing out in the bullpen. That gave her a moment of relief because she knew he would be able to confirm what he knew of her investigation. She had never told him about Bonner but he knew from her last briefing that she was closing in on something.
Ballard had not looked at the time since being woken by Bonner’s attack. She didn’t know how long she had slept and therefore couldn’t fix the hour. Her phone had been taken from her. It was daylight when Bonner attacked and when she was treated at the rescue wagon for the cut on her chin. But now she had been in a windowless interview room for what she estimated was two hours.
“So let’s connect the dots one more time,” Sanderson said. “You’re saying you did not know and had no previous interaction with Christopher Bonner, correct?”
“Yes, correct,” Ballard said. “The first time I met him — if you want to call it meeting him — was when I woke up and he was on top of me, trying to stick my gun into my mouth.”
“So, how is it that he knew where you lived, apparently knew your schedule, and knew you would be asleep at three o’clock in the afternoon?”
Ballard was thankful that Sanderson had slipped a time marker into his question. She could now extrapolate that it was somewhere between 6 and 7 p.m. But what was more important was Sanderson’s asking how Bonner would know her sleep schedule. There was no way Hoyle could know what her assignment or work schedule was from her business card or their brief interaction. She decided not to mention that in her answer to Sanderson.
“As I have said repeatedly in this interview,” she said, “I attempted to question Dennis Hoyle at the memorial yesterday for Javier Raffa. He was clearly spooked. In a homicide investigation, one of the first questions is, who benefits? The answer in this case is Dennis Hoyle. My attempt to interview him led to him jumping in his car and driving away. He didn’t want to talk to me. I now have to assume he called Bonner, and Bonner came after me. Those are the dots and that is the connection.”
“It will bear further investigation,” Sanderson said.
“I hope so, because I don’t want Hoyle to get away with this or with Raffa.”
“I understand, Detective. A moment please.”
Sanderson leaned back in his chair and looked down to his legs. Ballard knew he had his phone on his thigh and was probably getting texts from his other FID investigators. Ballard, when she had worked with a partner, had followed the same practice. It allowed for real-time information and questions.
Sanderson looked up at her after reading the latest text.
“Detective, why is Harry Bosch calling your cell phone every thirty minutes?”
Ballard had completely kept Bosch out of her story while being questioned. She now had to answer carefully so as not to step on any land mine. Having now been sequestered for over two hours, for all she knew, Sanderson’s team had already interviewed Bosch, and Sanderson already had the answer. She had to make sure their stories matched even though she didn’t know what Bosch had said or would say.
“Well, as you probably know, Harry is retired LAPD,” she began. “I have had cases in the past that involved some of his old investigations, and so I have known him for four or five years and he’s sort of taken on a mentor’s role with me. But specifically in this case, I told you that I linked the Raffa murder to another case through ballistics. That case — the victim’s name was Albert Lee — was investigated by Harry Bosch nine years ago. When I made that connection, I reached out to Bosch to pick his brain about the case and get any sort of angle on this thing that I could.”