She said it with cheery sarcasm. She disconnected and then called Bettany back.
“It’s a go,” she said. “Set it up for tonight and then call me.”
“Roger that,” Bettany said.
38
The reinterview of Dennis Hoyle took place at 8 p.m. at the Van Nuys Division detective bureau. Bettany, Kirkwood, and Donovan were on hand and prepped Ballard on key points that she needed to get on the record. Hoyle was accompanied by his attorney, Daniel Daly, who vetted the immunity deal his client signed. Hoyle was getting off easy, agreeing to plead guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud in exchange for his testimony against Abbott and possibly others. He would take his chances in front of a judge as far as sentencing went. The deal was predicated on his honesty and his claim that he had never engaged in the planning of or had foreknowledge of the murders of people who had accepted loans from the consortium. It was the sweetheart of all sweetheart deals on paper, but Donovan and his superiors had made the call. The unspoken plan most likely included an effort to break the agreement by catching him in a lie. And barring that, the sentencing judge could always be informed of the extent of the crimes Hoyle had engaged in with his cohorts and max out the sentence for the conspiracy plea.
Ballard told Bettany and the others to stay outside the interrogation room and watch the interview on a screen. Since Hoyle claimed he would talk only to her, she didn’t want him to think she and Bettany were a team. She entered the small gray room and sat across from Hoyle and his attorney. She put her phone on her thigh, a concession to Donovan that would allow him to message her if he didn’t like what he saw on the screen.
“First off, I have to make the legal boundaries of this interview clear,” Ballard said. “You need to acknowledge that if you lie directly to me or lie in any way by omission, then the deal is off and you will be prosecuted for conspiracy to commit murder.”
Hoyle opened his mouth to answer but Daly reached his arm out like a father stopping a child from walking blindly into the street.
“He understands,” Daly said. “That’s in the deal.”
“I still want to hear it from him,” Ballard said.
“I understand,” Hoyle said. “Let’s get this over with.”
“I know it’s not in the deal but I also want something else,” Ballard said.
“What?” Daly said.
“I want him to give up any and all ownership rights in the property that was owned by Javier Raffa,” Ballard said.
“Forget it,” Daly said.
“Then you can forget this deal,” Ballard said. “I’m not going to let him walk away from this and then take that place away from the family of the man he and his asshole buddies had killed.”
Immediately her phone buzzed and Ballard looked down at the message from Donovan.
What the fuck are you doing?
She looked back up and directly at Hoyle, hoping her righteous glare would make him submit.
This time Hoyle put his arm out to stop his attorney.
“It’s okay,” he said. “I’ll agree to that.”
“You don’t have to,” Daly said. “We already negotiated the deal, and that’s not — ”
“I said it’s okay,” Hoyle said. “I want to do it.”
Ballard nodded.
“The deputy district attorney will prepare an amendment to the deal,” she said.
She paused for a moment to see if Daly had more to say. He didn’t.
“Okay, let’s start,” Ballard said.
And so it went. Hoyle’s story did not change much from the first time he told it to Ballard. This time, though, she asked questions designed to elicit more about the origins of the factoring consortium and whether the plan from the start was to eventually murder those who borrowed its money. Ballard knew that eventually lawyers for Abbott and anybody else taken down in the investigation would study the transcript of the interview for any crack through which reasonable doubt might slip into the case.
The interview wrapped near midnight and then Hoyle was taken by Bettany and Kirkwood to be booked and released on the conspiracy charge. Meanwhile, Donovan filed formal charges against Abbott with a no-bail hold until his arraignment. Bail would assuredly be argued then.
Soon after concluding the interview and watching them take Hoyle away, Ballard got a text from Robinson-Reynolds. He didn’t waste words.
You’re back on the bench.
She didn’t bother to reply. She went home without a thank-you from anybody. She had turned what was supposed to look like a random New Year’s Eve accident into a credible multiple-murder case, but because she had stepped at least one foot over the line, she needed to be pushed to the side and even hidden if possible from the lawyers for the defense.
She had left Pinto in his travel crate and had to wake him up when she got home. She snapped his leash to his collar and took him for a walk. It was a clear and crisp night. The lights of the houses in Franklin Hills sparkled and she walked that way, passing no one on the streets. Even the Shakespeare Bridge was deserted and the houses down below it were dark. After the dog did his business, she bagged it and turned around.
The late-night cable news was all a rehash of the day’s staggering events in Washington. There was now word that a police officer had succumbed to injuries sustained while defending the Capitol. All cops go to work each day, thinking it could be their last. But Ballard doubted that officer ever imagined that he would give his life in the line of duty in the way he did. She went to sleep with dark thoughts about the country, her city, and the future.
By virtue of her job, Ballard was used to sleeping during the day and did not change her schedule on her days off. Consequently, she slept lightly and stirred every time any noise penetrated her dozing. Pinto, still getting used to his new home and surroundings, also slept fitfully, moving about in his crate every hour or so.
A text woke Ballard up for good at 6:20 a.m. — not because she heard it come in but because it lit the screen of her phone. It came from Cindy Carpenter.
How dare you. You are supposed to protect and serve. You do neither. How do you sleep at night?
Ballard had no idea what she was talking about, but no matter what it was, the words shook her.
She wanted to call immediately but held back because she doubted her call would even be answered. Ballard wondered if the text had something to do with Cindy’s residual upset over Ballard’s contacting her ex-husband.
But then another, even more disturbing text came in. This one was from Bosch.
You need to check the paper. You’ve got a leak somewhere.
Ballard quickly got her laptop and went to the Los Angeles Times website. Bosch was old-school — he got the actual newspaper delivered. Ballard was an online subscriber. She found the story Bosch was referencing prominently displayed on the home page.
LAPD GAMBLED ON SERIAL RAPE
INVESTIGATION:
MORE VICTIMS ENDED UP ASSAULTED
by Alexis Stanishewski
Times Staff Writer
After two men broke into a Hollywood home and raped a woman, the Los Angeles Police Department launched a full-scale investigation.
But the supervisor of the investigation elected to keep it quiet in hopes of identifying and capturing the rare team of rapists. No warning was put out to the public and at least two more women were attacked over the next five weeks.