That night, Ballard returned to the late show. After roll call, she and Jenkins took the plain wrap and drove up Wilcox to the Mark Twain hotel. They parked out front and pushed the button on the front door to gain admittance.
When they had been partners, Ballard and Chastain had worked a murder-for-hire case in which they needed to stash the intended victim for a couple days so that her husband would think she had disappeared, as he had paid an undercover officer to make happen. They had put her in the Mark Twain. The following year, they had another case where they used the hotel to stash two witnesses brought in from New Orleans to testify at a murder trial. They needed to make sure the defense could not find them and attempt to intimidate them and dissuade them from giving their testimony.
It was Chastain who had picked the place both times. The Twain, as he called it, was his go-to stash house.
Ballard told Jenkins her theory about Robison being alive and he agreed to take a ride with her to the Twain.
After she held up her badge to a camera over the hotel door, Ballard and Jenkins were buzzed in. When they got to the desk, Ballard showed her phone to the night man. On the screen she had Robison’s driver’s license photo.
“William Parker, what room’s he in?” she asked.
William Parker was a legendary LAPD police chief in the 1950s and ’60s. Chastain had used the name for one of the witnesses from New Orleans.
The night man didn’t look like he wanted any part of the trouble the police could cause in the middle of the night at a hotel where most customers paid in cash. He turned to a computer, typed a command, and then read the answer out loud.
“Seventeen.”
Ballard and Jenkins moved down the first-floor hallway until they stood on either side of room 17. Ballard knocked.
“Matthew Robison,” Jenkins said. “LAPD, open the door.”
Nothing.
“Metro,” Ballard said. “My name is Detective Ballard. I worked with Detective Chastain, who brought you here. We’re here to tell you it’s over. You’re safe and you can go home to Alicia now.”
They waited. After thirty seconds, Ballard heard the lock flip. The door opened six inches and a young man looked out. Ballard was holding her badge up.
“It’s safe?” he asked.
“Are you Matthew?” Ballard asked.
“Uh, yes.”
“Detective Chastain brought you here?”
“That’s right.”
“It’s safe, Matthew. We’ll take you home now.”
“Where’s Detective Chastain?”
Ballard paused and looked at Robison for a long moment.
“He didn’t make it,” she finally said.
Robison looked down at the floor.
“You called him Friday and said you just saw the shooter on TV,” Ballard said. “Didn’t you?”
Robison nodded.
“Okay, well, we’re going to take you by the station first to look at some photos,” Ballard said. “After that, we’ll take you back to your apartment and Alicia. You’ll be safe now, and she’s worried about you.”
Robison finally looked up at her. Ballard knew he was trying to decide if he could trust her. He must have seen something in her eyes.
“Okay,” he said. “Give me a minute to get my stuff.”
44
Ballard got to the water late that morning because of the drive up the coast to collect her dog. By the time she had pitched her tent on Venice Beach and was walking toward the surf with her board under her arm, the morning layer had completely choked off the sun and visibility was low. She stepped in undaunted. It had been too long since she had been on the water.
She spread her feet to the edge of the board’s rails and bent her knees. She started digging deeply into the water and shocking her muscles with the workout.
Dig… dig… dig… glide… . Dig… dig… dig… glide…
She headed straight out into the fog and soon she was lost in it. The heavy air insulated her from any sound from the land. She was alone.
She thought about Chastain and the moves he had made. He had acted nobly on the case. She thought maybe it was his redemption. For his father. For Ballard. It left her bereft and still haunted by their last encounter. She wished in some way they had settled things.
Soon her shoulders began to burn and the muscles of her back cramped. She eased up and stood tall. She used the paddle blade as a rudder and turned the board. She realized there was no horizon in sight, and the tide was in that short moment of stasis before it shifted. It was not going in or out, and she wasn’t sure which direction to point the board.
She kept her momentum with languid paddle strokes, all the while looking and listening for a sign of land. But there was no sound of waves crashing or of people’s voices. The fog was too dense.
She pulled the paddle from the water and twirled it upside down. She rapped the handle end hard on the board’s deck. The fiberglass produced a solid sound that Ballard knew would cut sharply through the fog.
Soon afterward she heard Lola start to bark and she had her direction. She paddled hard again and started to glide across the black water, heading toward the sound of her dog.
As she came through the mist and caught sight of the shore, she saw Lola at the waterline, panicked and frantically moving north and then south, unsure, her bark now a howl of fear at what she could not understand or control. She reminded Ballard of a fourteen-year-old girl who had done the same thing on a beach a long time ago.
Ballard paddled harder. She wanted to get off the board, drop to her knees in the sand, and hug Lola close.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
A former police reporter for the Los Angeles Times, Michael Connelly is the international bestselling author of the Harry Bosch thriller series and the highly acclaimed legal thriller series featuring Mickey Haller, as well as several stand-alone bestsellers.
Michael Connelly has been President of the Mystery Writers of America. His books have been translated into 39 languages and have won awards all over the world, including the Edgar and Anthony Awards.
BOSCH, the TV series based on Michael’s novels, is the most watched original series on Amazon Prime Instant Video and its third series will go to air in 2017. It screens on SBS TV in Australia and on SKY TV in New Zealand.
Michael Connelly lives in Tampa, Florida, with his family. To find out more, visit Michael’s official website www.michaelconnelly.com.au or follow him on Facebook www.facebook.com/MichaelConnellyBooks or on Twitter @Connellybooks.
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COMING IN NOVEMBER 2017
TWO KINDS OF TRUTH
A BOSCH NOVEL
BY
MICHAEL CONNELLY
FOR AN EXCERPT, TURN THE PAGE.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author wishes to thank many people for their help with the creation of Renée Ballard and this novel. First, a great debt of thanks goes to LAPD detective Mitzi Roberts, who served in many ways as the inspiration for Renée. The author hopes that Renée has done Detective Roberts proud.
Also of immeasurable help were Detective Tim Marcia and his former colleagues Rick Jackson and David Lambkin.