On Wednesday morning Ballard and Bosch were at the international terminal at LAX, awaiting the arrival of AeroMexico flight 3598 from Cancún. Bosch was in a suit and was holding a piece of paper Ballard had printed with the name gilbert denning on it. They were standing outside the baggage and U.S. Customs exit, where professional drivers waited for their clients. The flight had landed thirty-five minutes earlier but there had been no sign of Denning yet. Ballard had a photo of him on her phone that she had gotten from Hannah Stovall. But with the mask requirement, it was hard to match a half face to the photo.
The airport was nearly empty. What few travelers there were came through the automatic doors in waves — a clot of people pulling their suitcases or pushing luggage carts followed by minutes of zero traffic. The drivers and families waiting for loved ones continued staring at the six doors.
Ballard was beginning to wonder whether they had somehow missed Denning, if he had walked by them or had taken a shuttle to another terminal. But then a man wearing a Dodgers hat and sunglasses and carrying only a backpack slung over his shoulder stepped in front of Bosch and pointed at the sign he held.
“Hey, that’s me, but I didn’t arrange for a driver. My car’s in the garage.”
Ballard quickly stepped over and spoke.
“Mr. Denning? We need to speak to you about your former girlfriend.”
“What?”
“Hannah Stovall. We need to talk to you about her. Would you come with us, please?”
“No, I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what’s going on. Is Hannah okay?”
“We’re here to help you, sir. Would you please — ”
“What are you talking about? I don’t need any help. Are you police? Show me your badge, show me some ID.”
“We’re not police. We’re trying to keep this from getting to the police. I don’t think you would want that, Mr. Denning.”
“Keep what from getting to the police?”
“Your involvement in sending two men to Hannah’s house to have her beaten and sexually assaulted.”
“What? That’s insane. You two stay away from me.”
He stepped back so he could take an angle to Bosch’s left. Bosch shifted to block.
“This is your one and only chance to settle this,” he said. “You walk away and it’s a police matter. Guaranteed.”
Denning brushed past Bosch and headed toward the terminal’s exit door. Bosch turned to watch him. Ballard started to take off after him, but Bosch grabbed her arm.
“Wait,” he said.
They watched Denning go through the glass doors and step to the crosswalk that led to the parking garage. There were several people waiting for the light to change so they could cross.
“He’s going to look back,” Bosch said.
Sure enough, Denning looked back to see if they were still there. He quickly turned forward again and the traffic stopped as the crossing sign started flashing. People started moving toward the parking garage. Denning entered the crosswalk, took three steps, and then turned around. He walked with purpose through the doors, back into the terminal, and right up to Ballard and Bosch.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“For you to come with us,” Ballard said. “So we can talk.”
“I don’t have money. And the health people at the gate said I’m supposed to quarantine for ten days now.”
“You can quarantine for as long as you want after we talk. If not, I’m sure they’ll find a single cell for you at the county jail.”
The blood was draining from Denning’s face. He relented.
“Okay, okay, let’s go.”
Now they walked out of the terminal together.
In the garage Denning was ushered into the back seat of Ballard’s Defender. Ten minutes later, they cleared the airport and were moving down Century Boulevard.
“Where are we going?” Denning demanded. “My car’s back there.”
“Not far,” Ballard said. “We’ll take you back.”
A few blocks later, Ballard made a left into the Marriott Hotel parking lot.
“I don’t know about this anymore,” Denning said. “Take me back. I want to talk to a lawyer.”
Ballard pulled into a parking space in the lot in front of the hotel.
“You want to go back now, you can walk,” she said. “But everything changes if you walk. Your job, your home, your life.”
She looked at him in the rearview mirror.
“Either way, it’s time to get out,” she said.
Denning opened the door, got out, and slung his backpack over his shoulder.
Bosch and Ballard looked at him from the car, as if awaiting his decision. Denning threw his arms out wide.
“I’m still here,” Denning said. “Can we just go to wherever we’re going?”
Ballard and Bosch got out and started walking toward the entrance to the hotel. Denning followed them.
They had booked a room on the sixth floor. They didn’t know how long it would take for Denning to spill, and Bosch liked that there would only be one way out, which he could easily block. It was called an executive suite, with a wall partitioning the bedroom area from a small sitting area consisting of a couch, a padded chair, and a desk.
“Sit on the couch,” Ballard said.
Denning did as he was told. Ballard took the chair, and Bosch pulled the desk seat out and turned it so he would be facing Denning but also blocking his way to the door.
“I can give you six thousand — that’s all I have saved,” Denning said.
“And what would you want from us in return?” Ballard asked.
“I don’t know,” Denning said. “Why am I here? You said it would be a police matter if we didn’t talk. I don’t know what this is about but I don’t want to involve the police.”
Ballard waited to see if he would further incriminate himself. But he stopped talking.
“We don’t want money,” Ballard said. “We want information.”
“What information?”
“Do you know what happened at Hannah Stovall’s house two nights ago?”
“Yeah, I saw it online in Mexico. The two guys that broke in, she shot ’em.”
Ballard nodded as if confirming the fact. It was easy to understand how Denning had arrived at the wrong conclusion. In the news that came out after the Monday-night incident, the LAPD did not name the woman who had killed the Midnight Men, citing a policy of not identifying victims or intended victims of sexual assault. It was clear that had Ballard not prevailed in those moments in the hallway, she would have become the latest victim of the Midnight Men. The department had withheld her identity to avoid the entanglements and questions that would arise should her name and former affiliation be known.
Ballard was not interested in disabusing Denning of his belief. She wanted him thinking that any connection to him might have died with the Midnight Men.
“We know you gave them the layout of the house and the combination to plug into a garage opener,” Ballard said.
“You can’t prove that,” Denning said.
“We don’t have to,” Ballard said. “We aren’t the police. But we know that’s what happened and we’re willing to keep what we know to ourselves in exchange for the information we need.”
“What information?” Denning said. “And if you’re not the cops, why do you want this?”
“We want to know how you contacted the Midnight Men,” Ballard said. “Because there are others like you out there and we want to contact them.”
“Look, that’s not what they even called themselves,” Denning said. “The media did that. The whole thing blew up in the news last week and I wanted to stop them but it was too late. They went silent. But that’s one thing I can prove. I tried to stop it. And if there are others, I don’t know them. Can I go now?”
He stood up.
“No,” Bosch said. “Sit back down.”
Denning stayed standing and looked at Bosch, likely taking the measure of a man who was twice his age. Still, something about Bosch’s piercing stare chilled him and he sat down.
“You need to back up,” Ballard said. “Before you tried to stop them, how did you contact them?”