The Night Fire

by Michael Connelly

  The four women found their voices after the driver was gone from the scene. Through Perez they one by one told stories that were sad and horrible, yet typical of such journeys made by desperate people. They had traveled from Oaxaca, Mexico, and were smuggled across the border in an avocado truck with a secret compartment, each forced to pay for the trip by having sex with several of the men involved. Once across in Calexico they were placed in the van, told they owed thousands of dollars more for the remaining trip, and driven north to Los Angeles. They did not know what awaited them at the address on Etiwanda in the Valley but Ballard did: sexual servitude in gang-operated brothels where they would never break even and would never be missed should they stop earning and their masters decide to bury them in the desert.

  After calling for a police tow for the van, Ballard made a call to a battered-woman’s clinic in North Hollywood, where she had delivered women before. She spoke to her contact and explained the situation. The woman agreed to take in the four Mexican women and see that they were medically treated and given beds and fresh clothes. In the morning, they would be counseled on their options: returning home voluntarily or seeking asylum based on the threat that the group that procured them would seek to harm them should they go back to Mexico. Neither choice was good. Ballard knew that many hardships awaited the women.

  After a flatbed from the police garage arrived to impound the van, Ballard and Perez each took two of the women in their cars to the shelter in North Hollywood.

  Ballard did not get back to the station until five a.m. She wrote up the arrest report on the driver of the van, using the name Juan Doe because he still refused to identify himself. That was okay with Ballard. She knew his fingerprint would provide his ID if he had had any previous engagement with U.S. law enforcement. She thought the chances of that were good.

  The department had a human trafficking task force operating out of the PAB. Ballard put together a package on the case and put it into the transit box to be delivered downtown first thing. It was one of the few times she didn’t mind passing on a case, as late-show protocol dictated. Human trafficking was one of the ugliest crimes she encountered as a detective and it left scars as well as drew up memories of her own past, when she’d been left alone on the streets of Honolulu as a fourteen-year-old.

  She left the station at seven a.m. and headed toward her van. She knew she had to be in the Crenshaw District by noon at the latest to be on-site and ready to shadow the meeting between Elvin Kidd and Marcel Dupree. But at the moment she needed the beach. As tired as she was, she wasn’t planning to sleep. She needed to get her dog and get out on the water to push herself against the current. To dig deep with the paddle until she had exhausted her body and mind and nothing could get in to haunt her.

  BOSCH

  31

  Bosch had risen early to complete his assessment of the five investigative tracks abandoned in the Montgomery murder case. He wanted to finish before he needed to leave the house to back up Ballard at Dulan’s soul food restaurant.

  The night before, after Ballard had left, he had reviewed the fourth branch of the investigation and found that it needed follow-up. It revolved around a ruling Judge Montgomery had made in a civil dispute. It started when a Sherman Oaks man named Larry Cassidy began marketing a lunch box that he claimed to have invented. The lunch box had insulated hot and cold compartments, but what made it stand out was its clear plastic window on the inside of the lid; a parent could slip a note or photo behind it for their child to see at school lunchtime.

  Sales of the lunch box were moderate until Cassidy’s wife, Melanie, started appearing on the Home Shopping Network cable channel to hawk the boxes for $19.95 each. She was going to the HSN studios in Tampa, Florida, twice a month to sell the boxes and was moving thousands of them during each appearance. Cost of manufacture was low and after HSN’s cut, the couple were making almost $200,000 a month. That’s when Cassidy’s ex-wife, Maura Frederick, demanded a share for being the one who designed the box while still married to Cassidy and raising their son, Larry Jr.

  Cassidy refused to share even a small percentage of the income generated by the so-called Love for Lunch box and Frederick sued him. He countersued, claiming her suit was a malicious money grab for something she had no right to.

  At an evidentiary hearing, Judge Montgomery had both sides proffer their stories on the inspiration for the product’s invention. Cassidy provided original drawings dated well after his divorce from Frederick, as well as the patent application he had filed, and receipts from a plastic manufacturer that produced the first mock-ups of the colorful lunch boxes from the design sketches.

  Frederick produced only a notarized statement from her son, Larry Jr., now seventeen years old, in which he said he remembered finding notes and cards and drawings from his mother in the Star Wars lunch box he carried to school as a young boy.

  Montgomery dismissed Frederick’s lawsuit and held for Larry Sr., ruling that while Frederick’s actions of long ago certainly might have inspired the Love for Lunch invention, her involvement stopped there; she took on none of the risks or creative aspects in the manufacture and sales of the product. He likened it to someone who used to prop their phone against a book or other object for viewing the screen suing the manufacturer of phone attachments that prop the devices for viewing. Frederick could not be the only parent who ever put a note in a lunch box for their child.

  It all seemed cut-and-dried and Bosch initially wondered why the case was included as a potential avenue of investigation in the Montgomery murder. But then he read a report stating that Larry Cassidy Sr. and his new wife, the public face of Love for Lunch, had been found murdered in Tampa, where they had gone to tape an HSN spot. The couple were found shot to death in a rental car in the empty parking lot of a country club, not far from a restaurant where they enjoyed dining while in town. Both had been shot in the back of the head by someone who had been in the back seat of the car. It was not a high-crime district and the assassinations remained unsolved as of the time Montgomery was murdered in Los Angeles. A copy of a probate filing in the case documents showed that Larry Jr. was the heir to his father and to the money earned by the Love for Lunch business. Larry Jr. still lived in the home of his mother, Maura Frederick.

  LAPD detectives Gustafson and Reyes included the case in their list of potential avenues of investigation under the theory that if Frederick was involved in the murder of her ex-husband and his new wife, her anger toward the couple might have also extended to the judge who ruled against her. They made initial efforts to interview Maura Frederick, but those efforts were blocked by an attorney representing Frederick and then dropped altogether when Herstadt was arrested and charged in the judge’s murder.

  Bosch put the name Maura Frederick on his list beneath the name Clayton Manley. He thought she should be given a fuller look.

  Now, with a mug of morning coffee on the table before him, Bosch took up the final strand of the original investigation. This was the third civil action that had caught the investigators’ attention. It again involved a lawsuit and a countersuit. This time the dispute was between a well-known Hollywood actor and his longtime agent. The actor accused the agent of embezzling millions of dollars over his career, and now that that career was on the wane, he wanted a full accounting and the return of everything that was stolen.

  A Hollywood dispute would not normally become the stuff of murder investigations, but the actor’s lawsuit contained allegations that the agent was a front for an organized-crime family—and that he had used his position in Hollywood to siphon money from clients and launder it through investments in film productions. The actor said he had been threatened with violence by the agent and his associates, including a visit to his home—the address of which was a carefully guarded secret—by a man who said the actor would get acid thrown in his face and his career ruined if he persisted with the lawsuit or attempted to change agents.

  In a case that spanned the entire three years t
hat Montgomery occupied his bench in civil court, the judge ultimately ruled in favor of the actor, awarding damages of $7.1 million and voiding the contract between actor and agent. The case was included in the Montgomery murder investigation because at one point in the long proceedings Montgomery reported to court authorities that his wife’s pet cat had turned up dead in their front yard by what appeared to be foul play. The animal had been slashed open from front legs to back and did not appear to have injuries that could be attributed to a coyote, even though Montgomery and his wife lived in the Hollywood Hills.

  An investigation of the incident pointed toward the dispute between the actor and his agent because of the threats alleged in the action by the actor. But no connection was found between the cat killing and the case, or any other case Montgomery was handling.

  Gustafson and Reyes put the case on their list of possibles but carried it no further. Bosch agreed that it was the least likely of the five tracks of potential investigation. Despite the fact that the actor won a rich settlement and the dissolution of his contract with the agent, no harm had come to him in the time since the case was resolved and he had made no complaint of further threats. It seemed unlikely that anyone would go after Montgomery while leaving the actor alone and paying him the awarded judgment.

  Bosch was now finished with his review of the murder book and had only two names on his follow-up list: Clayton Manley, the attorney Montgomery had publicly embarrassed, and Maura Frederick, to whom the judge had denied creative and financial rights in the Love for Lunch product.

  He wasn’t particularly fired up about either one. They bore a further look, but both were long shots and the individuals involved did not nearly reach the level of suspect in Bosch’s mind.

  And then there were the aspects of the case (and even possible suspects) not included in the discovery version of the murder book. Bosch had been on both sides of this. A murder book was the bible. It was sacred, yet there was something ingrained in every homicide detective to hold back and not give everything you’ve got to a defense attorney. He had to assume that Gustafson and Reyes had acted in such a way. But knowing that meant nothing. After what Gustafson had said to Bosch in court after the Herstadt case was dismissed, would he be willing to reveal anything else about the case to him? Would Reyes?

  Bosch was pretty sure the answer was a resounding no. But he had to make the call or he would never know for sure.

  He still remembered the main number at Robbery-Homicide Division by heart. He expected that he always would. He punched it in on his cell phone and when the call went through to the secretary he asked for Detective Lucia Soto. He was immediately connected.

  “Lucky Lucy,” he said. “It’s Bosch.”

  “Harry,” she said, with a smile he could hear in her voice. “A voice from the past.”

  “Come on, it hasn’t been that long, has it?”

  “Seems like it.”

  Soto was Bosch’s last partner in the LAPD. It had been more than three years since he had retired, but they had crossed paths several times since.

  “So I should be whispering,” Soto said. “You’re sort of persona non grata around here these days.”

  “Is that because of the Montgomery case?” Bosch asked.

  “You guessed that right.”

  “That’s the reason I’m calling. I’ve gotta make a run at Gustafson and Reyes. They might have dropped the case because they think they had the right guy. But me, not so much. I’m still working at it and I don’t know either one of them. Which one of them do you think would be more receptive to a call from me?”

  There was a short silence before Soto responded.

  “Hmm,” she said. “That’s a good question. I think the answer would be neither one of them. But if my life depended on it, I would try Orlando. He’s more even and he wasn’t lead. Gussy was and he’s taken what happened pretty hard. If he had a dartboard at his desk he’d have your photo on it.”

  “Okay,” Bosch said. “Good to know. Do you see Reyes in the squad right now?”

  “Uh … yes. He’s at his desk.”

  “What about Gustafson?”

  “No. No sign of him.”

  “You wouldn’t have a direct line for Reyes handy, would you?”

  “There’s always a catch with you, Harry, isn’t there?”

  “What catch? I’m just looking for a phone number, no big deal.”

  Soto gave him the number and followed it with a question.

  “So, what’s it like working for the other side?”

  “I’m not working for the other side. I’m doing this thing right now for myself. That’s it.”

  His tone must have been too strident. Soto backed off with the small talk and asked in a perfunctory tone if there was anything else Bosch needed.

  “No,” Bosch said. “But I appreciate your help. Who you working with these days?”

  “I’m with Robbie Robins. You know him?”

  “Yeah, he’s a good man. Sound detective, reliable. You like him?”

  “Yeah, Robbie’s okay. I like his style and we’ve cracked a couple good ones.”

  “Still working cold cases?”

  “As long as they let us. Word is the new chief wants to close down cold case, put more people on the street.”

  “That would be a shame.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “Well, good luck, Lucia. And thanks.”

  “Anytime.”

  They disconnected and Bosch looked at the phone number he had just written down for Detective Orlando Reyes. He didn’t think Soto would give him a heads-up about Bosch calling but he decided to call right away.

  “Robbery-Homicide Division, Detective Reyes. How can I help you?”

  “You can start by not hanging up. This is Harry Bosch.”

  “Bosch. I should hang up. You want my partner, not me.”

  “I talked to your partner. I want to talk to you now.”

  “I got nothin’ to say to you, man.”

  “You and Gustafson, you still think you had the right guy?”

  “We know we did.”

  “So you’re not working it any longer.”

  “Case is closed. We didn’t get the result we wanted—thanks to you. But the case is CBA.”

  “So then where’s the harm in talking to me?”

  “Bosch, I got here after you left but I heard about you. I know you fought the good fight and did some good work. But that’s in the past now. You’re history and I gotta go.”

  “Answer one question.”

  “What?”

  “What did you hold back?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “In discovery. I got the murder book you two turned over but you held something back. It always happens. What was it?”

  “Goodbye, Bosch.”

  “You know Clayton Manley’s alibi was cooked, right?”

  There was a pause and Bosch was no longer worried about Reyes hanging up.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “He knew Montgomery was going to get hit, so he goes to Hawaii and keeps receipts for every penny he spent. Lots of selfies, including one predawn on the charter boat—within an hour of the judge getting hit. That didn’t strike you guys as bullshit?”

  “Bosch, I’m not talking about the case with you. You want to go after Clayton Manley, have fun. But don’t expect us to back you on it. You’re on your own.”

  “What about Maura Frederick? Pretty little wife number two selling Maura’s invention and making millions? If that isn’t motive, I don’t know what is.”

  Bosch heard Reyes laughing over the phone. Bosch had been trying to get a rise out of him with his provocative statements, but he wasn’t expecting laughter.

  “You think it’s funny?” Bosch said. “You’re letting her get away with murder.”

  “I guess this is what happens when you don’t have a badge no more,” Reyes said. “Check your computer, Bosch. Google it. Tampa
PD cleared that murder a month ago and Maura Frederick had nothing to do with it. You owe me, man. I just saved you some big-time embarrassment.”

  Bosch seethed with humiliation. He should have checked the Florida case for an update before throwing it in Reyes’s face. He managed to gather himself and throw back something else.

  “No, Reyes, you still owe me,” Bosch said. “I saved you from convicting an innocent man.”

  “Bullshit, Bosch,” Reyes said. “A killer walks free because of what you and that asshole lawyer Haller have done. But it doesn’t matter because we’re done here.”

  Reyes disconnected and Bosch was left holding a dead phone to his ear.

  32

  Bosch got up from the table and went into the kitchen to make more coffee. He was still stinging from the rebuke Reyes had hit him with. He had no doubt about his actions regarding Jeffrey Herstadt, but it stung when a representative of the police department he had invested three decades of his life in dismissed him so harshly.

  A killer walks free because of you.

  Those words hurt enough for Bosch to want to take another look at his actions to see if he had taken a wrong turn somewhere.

  He checked his watch. He had an hour before he needed to get on the road to meet with Ballard. She had sent a message setting a rendezvous point at a gas station before she would go into Dulan’s to spy on the meeting between Elvin Kidd and Marcel Dupree.

  Bosch refilled his cup and went back to the dining room table. He decided he would do exactly what Reyes suggested: he would Google the Tampa case and get the latest update.

  Before he got the chance, his cell phone buzzed. It was Mickey Haller.

  “About that thing we talked about at lunch during the trial,” he said, “when do you want to do the video?”

  Bosch’s mind was so deep into his review of the Montgomery investigation that he had no idea what Haller was talking about.

  “What video?” he asked.