“I’m telling you, I didn’t tell anyone.”
Hoyle had raised his voice enough for Bosch to hear it. He looked over his shoulder at Ballard through the windshield. She nodded slightly. Bosch pulled his phone and started making a call. He pushed off the front fender and walked to the front of the car while waiting for a connection.
“Who’s he calling?” Hoyle asked.
“I don’t know,” Ballard said. “But you need to think carefully here, Dr. Hoyle.”
Ballard paused and watched Bosch. He held his phone to his ear for a few moments, then took it down and ended the call. Ballard glanced over at the phone still in Hoyle’s hand. Its screen was dark. Hoyle had not sent the “Report” text to Bonner — at least not on the phone he was holding. Ballard now had to wonder who had sent it.
“Think carefully about what?” Hoyle said.
“This is one of the moments when the decision you make will affect the rest of your life,” Ballard said.
Hoyle turned toward the door and again reached for the handle.
“Now you’re scaring me. I’m getting out.”
“You get out, and the next time you see me will be when I kick down your door with a warrant and drag you out of there in front of your neighbors.”
Hoyle turned back to her.
“What do you want?”
“You know what I want. Who did you call after we met at the memorial?”
“Nobody!”
Ballard started reaching into the backseat of the car.
“I want you to look at something, Doctor.”
She pulled two thick files off the backseat floor and onto her lap.
“I want you to know we’ve been onto you since Albert Lee and John William James.”
“Onto what?”
“Onto everything. The factoring, the insurance fraud, the company you and your friends made, the murders …”
“Oh my god, this can’t be happening.”
“It is. And that’s why you have to make a choice here. Help or hinder. Because if you can’t help me, I’m going to the next partner. If he doesn’t help, I go to the next. Somebody’s going to be smart or get smart. And then it will be too late for the others. I only need to put one insider in front of the grand jury. I thought it was going to be you, but it doesn’t matter.”
Hoyle leaned forward and for a moment Ballard thought he was going to vomit onto the floor in front of his seat. But then he pulled back, eyes closed, misery all over his face.
“This is all Jason’s fault,” he said. “I should have never …”
“Jason Abbott?” Ballard asked.
“No, I’m not saying another word until you promise to protect me. He’ll send his guy after me!”
“We can protect you. But right now you need to give me what I need. Who did you tell about me after the memorial? That is question one.”
“All right, all right. I told Jason. I said the cops had cornered me, and he yelled at me for even going to that thing in the first place.”
“Do you know who Christopher Bonner is?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Who found the people you and the others would loan money to?”
“Jason had somebody. I never got involved.”
“You didn’t know he was going to have them — ”
“No! Never. I didn’t know any of that until he did it. And then it was too late. I looked guilty. We all did.”
“So you just went along with it.”
“I didn’t have a choice. Don’t you see? I didn’t want to get killed. Look what happened to J.W.”
“John William James.”
“Yes. He said ‘no more’ to Jason, and look what happened to him.”
“What about his wife? Was she part of this?”
“No, no, no — she doesn’t know anything.”
“How many were there?”
“How many what?”
“You know what I’m asking. How many times did the factoring lead to somebody dying?”
Hoyle bowed his head in shame and closed his eyes.
“If you lie to me one time, I will no longer help you,” Ballard said.
“There were six,” Hoyle said. “No, seven. Javier Raffa was number seven.”
“Including James?”
“Yes. Yes.”
Ballard looked through the windshield at Bosch. He had been watching them, seeing but not hearing Hoyle talk. They locked eyes and Ballard nodded. She had gotten what she needed. Hoyle was on video.
“Go back inside now, Doctor,” she said. “Don’t tell anyone about this. If you do, I’ll know and I’ll bury you.”
“Okay,” Hoyle said. “But what do I do now?”
“You just wait. You’ll hear from a detective named Bettany. Ross Bettany. He’ll tell you what to do.”
“Okay.”
“You can get out now.”
34
Bosch had brought a thermos of coffee with him. When Ballard had picked him up, he came out with the thermos and two to-go cups. Ballard had told him they weren’t going to a stakeout, but he’d said, you never know.
Bosch had always been a sort of homicide guru to Ballard. Ever since the night she caught him going through files in the D-bureau — long after he’d retired. She wasn’t sure whether it was wisdom or experience, or if experience brought the wisdom, but she knew he was never just backup. He was her go-to guy and she trusted him.
They didn’t get to Jason Abbott’s house until after one. The house was dark, and there was no answer to repeated knocks on his door. They debated whether he knew what was closing in around him and had fled. But that didn’t fit with the known facts. He may have learned that Bonner was dead, but even that was a stretch, as the man who had killed himself in Ballard’s apartment had no ID on his person. Ballard knew it was Bonner because she recognized him. But his identity would not have been released by the coroner’s office until it had been confirmed through fingerprints and other means.
Ballard believed that, at best, Abbott would know only that Bonner was missing in action. The hit man had not responded to the text or reported back to him in any other way. Abbott may have cruised Ballard’s neighborhood and seen the police activity, but again, it didn’t seem likely that he had enough information to cause him to flee. Ballard was the only one who had the whole picture, and she had shared it with no one but Bosch.
They decided to stay awhile and watch for Abbott’s return. And that was where the coffee in the thermos came in.
“How did you know we would end up out here — maybe all night?” Ballard asked.
“I didn’t,” Bosch said. “I just came prepared.”
“You’re like that guy in the Wambaugh books. The Original. No, the Oracle. They called him the Oracle ’cause he’s already seen everything twice.”
“I like the Original.”
“Harry Bosch, the Original. Nice.”
He reached to the back for the thermos.
“You ever see yourself stopping?” Ballard asked.
“I guess when I stop, it all stops, you know?” he said.
He put the two cups on the dashboard and got ready to pour.
“You want some?”
“Sure, but you can sleep if you want. These are my normal hours, so I’ll be fine.”
“The dark hours belong to you.”
“You got it.”
He handed her a cup of black coffee.
“It’s hot,” he warned.
“Thanks,” Ballard said, accepting it. “But really. I got good sleep until Bonner woke me up. One cup and I’ll be good to go all night. You can sleep.”
“We’ll see. I’ll keep you company for at least a while. What about the car? Aren’t the narcs going to need it back in the morning?”
“If you’d asked me that a year ago, the answer would’ve been … well, I wouldn’t have gotten the car in the first place. But now, post George Floyd and knee-deep in Covid and defunding the department and everything else? Nobody’s doing shit. I didn’t even ask for this car. I just took it because it’s not going to be missed.”
“I didn’t know it was that bad.”
“A lot of people are mailing it in. Crime is up but arrests are down. And a lot of people are quitting. I gotta be honest, I’m even thinking of quitting, Harry. Think you could use a partner?”
She said it with a laugh, but in many ways she was serious.
“Anytime — as long as you don’t need a regular paycheck. You’re pretty short of a pension, aren’t you?”