Kidd: Yes, it’s Dorsey for the last name. And Dennard with a D like dog for the first.
Mercer: Can you spell both names, please?
Kidd: D-E-N-N-A-R-D D-O-R-S-E-Y.
Mercer: Yes, we have him here. Are you next-of-kin?
Kidd: Uh, no. Just a friend. Does it say there how he died?
Mercer: The autopsy has not been scheduled. I only know that he passed while in custody at the Men’s Central jail. There will be an investigation and we will conduct the autopsy next week. You could call back for more information then. Do you know who his next-of-kin might be?
Kidd: No, I don’t know that. Thank you.
After hearing the call to the M.E., Robinson asked to hear the first call again. Ballard watched her as she listened. Robinson nodded at certain points as though checking things off a list. She then pulled her earbuds out again.
“The code-switching is interesting,” the prosecutor said. “He sounds like two different people on the two calls. All gangster on the call with Dupree, then light and bright with the coroner’s office.”
“Yeah, he knew how to play it,” Ballard said. “So what do you think?”
Before Robinson could answer, a waitress arrived at the table. They both ordered coffees and avocado toast. After the waitress was gone, Ballard watched Robinson lean forward on the table, furrowing her brow and wrinkling the otherwise smooth, mocha-brown skin of her forehead.
“I always have to look at a case from the defense point of view,” she said. “What are the weaknesses that could be exploited at trial? I think the conspiracy to commit is a slam dunk. We’ll convict on that no problem. That extra call to the Medical Examiner was genius. I can’t wait to play that to a jury and have the defense try to explain it.”
“Good,” Ballard said. “And on the Hilton murder?”
“Well, on the murder, he never says outright, ‘I killed the guy.’ He says he handled a ‘piece of work,’ which in some quarters is a euphemism for murder. He also says ‘white boy’ but doesn’t mention anybody by name.”
“But when you add in the conspiracy, it’s obvious he wanted to kill Dorsey to keep the cover on Hilton.”
“Obvious to you and me, but possibly not to a jury. Also, if you have one charge that’s a dunker and one that has issues, you drop the wobbler and go with the sure thing. You don’t want to show weakness to a jury. So I know you don’t want to hear this, but right now, I would only file the conspiracy. I would make the reason for the conspiracy the Hilton murder and put it out there, but I would not ask the jury to decide a verdict on that. I would say, ‘Give me a conspiracy-to-commit verdict,’ and this guy goes away for good anyway. I know that’s not the answer you wanted.”
Disappointed, Ballard closed her laptop and leaned back in her chair.
“Well, shit,” she said.
“Have you gone back to Dorsey since he was pulled out of the Crip tank?” Robinson asked.
“No, should I?”
“You said he wasn’t helpful before, but maybe if he knows that his old boss Kidd put a hit out on him, he might change his tune. And maybe he knows something he’s held back.”
Ballard nodded. She realized she should have thought of that.
“Good idea,” she said.
“What is Dupree’s status?” Robinson asked.
“Right now he’s in holding at South Bureau. He’s looking for a substantial-assistance deal. We have till Monday morning to charge him.”
“You’d better take good care of him. If Kidd finds out Dorsey’s alive, he’ll know he’s been set up.”
“I know. We have him on keep-away status.”
“By the way, who’s ‘we’?”
“My regular partner’s out on leave. This whole thing was actually brought to me by a retired homicide guy named Bosch. He got the Hilton murder book from John Jack Thompson’s widow after his funeral.”
“Harry Bosch, I remember him. I didn’t know he retired.”
“Yeah, but he’s got reserve powers through San Fernando PD.”
“Be careful with that. That could be an issue if he has to testify to anything you can’t be a witness to.”
“We talked about that. We know.”
“What about Kidd? Are you going to bring him in for a conversation?”
“We were thinking that was our last move.”
Robinson nodded thoughtfully.
“Well, when you’re ready, bring this back to me,” she finally said. “I’d love to try this case. On Monday, come see me and I’ll file the case on Dupree and work out the cooperation agreement. Does he have a lawyer?”
“Not yet,” Ballard said.
“Once he lawyers up, I’ll make the deal.”
“Okay.”
“And good luck with Dorsey.”
“As soon as we finish breakfast, I’m going downtown to see him again.”
As if on cue, the waitress came and put down their coffees and plates of avocado toast. She also had a dog biscuit for Lola.
37
They brought Dorsey to see her in the same interview room at Men’s Central. He had to be pushed into the room by Deputy Valens when he saw it was Ballard waiting for him.
“You set me up, bitch!” he said. “I ain’t talking to you.”
Ballard waited until Valens finished cuffing him to his chair and left the interview room.
“I set you up?” she said then. “How’s that?”
“All I know is, you drag me in here, next thing I know I’m in solitary with a snitch jacket,” Dorsey said. “Now people out to kill me.”
“Well, people are out to kill you but it isn’t because of me.”
“That’s some bullshit right there. I was doing fine till you come see me.”
“No, you were doing fine until you called Elvin Kidd. That’s where your trouble started, Dennard.”
“The fuck you talking about, girl?”
“We had Elvin up on a wire. We heard your call and then, guess what? We have him setting up the hit. On you.”
“You runnin’ a bullshit game now.”
“Am I, Dennard?”
Ballard opened her laptop on the table.
“Let me walk you through it,” she said. “Then, if you think it’s a game, I’ll tell them to put you back with your friends in the module. So you can feel safe and at home.”
She opened up the file that contained the recordings of calls made to and from Elvin Kidd’s phones.
“So the first thing you need to know is that we had a phone tap on Kidd,” she said. “So when you called to warn him about me asking questions, we got the whole conversation down on tape.”
She started playing the first recording and waited for Dorsey to recognize his own voice and Kidd’s. He unconsciously leaned forward and turned his head as if to hear the recording better. Ballard then cut it off.
“That ain’t legal,” Dorsey said.
“Yes, it is,” Ballard said. “Approved by a superior-court judge. Now, let me just jump ahead to the important part for you to hear.”
She moved the recording forward a minute to the part where Kidd asked Dorsey who gave him his number and Dorsey revealed that it had been Marcel Dupree. She turned the playback off again.
“So you tell Kidd that Marcel Dupree gave you his number and what does Kidd do? He hangs up on you and then sends a text to Marcel saying he wants a meet.”
Ballard now held up her phone and showed Dorsey a freeze-frame that clearly depicted Kidd, with Dupree in profile, sitting at the table at Dulan’s.
“I took this picture yesterday when they met at Dulan’s,” Ballard said. “You know the place down on Crenshaw? At that meeting Kidd gave Marcel three thousand dollars. What do you think that was for, Dennard?”
“I suppose you’re gonna tell me,” Dorsey said.
“It was to set you up for a hit in Men’s Central. To have you whacked by one of your fellow Crips. You know Clinton Townes, right?”
Dorsey shook his head, as if he was t
rying to keep the information Ballard was laying on him from getting inside his ears.
“You’re just spinning stories here,” he said.
“That’s why we had you pulled out of the tank, Dennard,” Ballard said. “To save your life. Then we picked up Marcel and flipped him as easy as a pancake. Got him to call Kidd back and tell him it was all taken care of and you weren’t going to be a problem. Take a listen.”
Ballard cued up the scripted call between Dupree and Kidd and played it in its entirety. She sat back and watched Dorsey’s face as he came to realize his own people had turned against him. Ballard knew how he felt, having once been betrayed by her partner, her boss, and the department itself.
“And wait, I’ve got one more,” she said after. “Kidd even called the Medical Examiner’s Office to make sure your cold dead body was there, waiting to be cut up in autopsy.”
She played the last recording. Dorsey closed his eyes and shook his head.
“Motherfucker,” he said.
Ballard closed the laptop but kept her phone on the table. It was recording the conversation. She stared at Dorsey, who was now staring down at the table, his eyes filling with hate.
“So … ,” she said. “Elvin Kidd wanted you dead and now thinks you are dead. You want him to get away with that? Or do you want to tell me what you really know about what happened in that alley where that white boy got murdered?”
Dorsey looked up at her silently. She knew he was an inch away from breaking.
“You help me, I can help you,” she said. “I just came from talking to a prosecutor. She wants Kidd for the murder. She’ll talk to your parole officer, see about getting your violation lifted.”
“You were supposed to do that,” Dorsey said.
“I was going to, but having a prosecutor do it is money. But that doesn’t happen unless you help me out here.”
“Like I tol’ you before, he told us to stay out the alley that day. Next thing I know, there was a murder back in there and police shut down our operations. We found a different location on the other side of the freeway.”
“And that was that? You never spoke to Kidd about it, never asked any questions again? I don’t believe that.”
“I did ask him. He told me some shit.”
“What shit, Dennard? This is the moment where you either help or hurt yourself. What did Elvin Kidd say?”
“He said he had to take care of this white kid he knew from when he was away.”
“Away? What does that mean?”
“Prison. They were up there in Corcoran together and he said the kid owed him money from up there for protection.”
“Did he mention the kid’s name?”
“Nope. He just said he wouldn’t pay what he owed so he arranged the meet and cleared us all out. Then the kid got shot.”
“And you assumed Elvin Kidd shot him.”
“Yeah, why not? It was his alley. He controlled everything. Nobody got shot there without his okay or him doin’ it his own self.”
Ballard nodded. It was not a direct confession from Kidd to Dorsey but it was close, and she thought it would be good enough for Selma Robinson. Then Dorsey, unprompted, added icing to the cake.
“When we had to move locations because the heat was on with the killing, I looked it up in the paper,” he said. “I only found one thing but I remember the kid got shot had a name like a hotel. Hilton or Hyatt or some shit like that. And so I wondered if’n he had all that hotel money, how come he didn’t just pay what he owed. He was stupid. He shoulda paid and then he’d be alive.”
Dorsey had just pulled it all together. Ballard was elated. She picked up her phone, ended the recording, and put it in her pocket. She wished it were Monday and Selma Robinson was at the Hall of Justice. She wanted to go there right now and file a murder charge against Elvin Kidd.
BOSCH
38
The suede couch in the waiting area at Michaelson & Mitchell was so comfortable that Bosch nearly nodded off. It was Monday morning but he still had not recovered enough sleep from his all-night surveillance of his daughter’s house the Saturday before. Nothing had happened and there had been no sign of the midnight stalker, but Bosch had kept a caffeine-stoked vigil throughout the night. He tried to make up the sleep on Sunday but thoughts about the Montgomery case kept him from even taking a nap. Now here he was, about to meet with Clayton Manley, and he felt like sinking into the waiting-room couch.
Finally, after fifteen minutes, he was collected by the young man from the reception desk. He led Bosch around a grand circular staircase, then down a long hallway past frosted-glass doors that had the lead partners’ names on them, and finally to the last office on the hall. He entered a large room with a desk, a sitting area, and a glass wall that looked down on Angels Flight from sixteen floors up.
Clayton Manley stood up from behind the desk. He was nearing forty, with dark hair but gray showing in his sideburns. He wore a light gray suit, a white shirt, and a blue tie.
“Mr. Bosch, come in,” he said. “Please sit down.”
He extended his hand across the desk and Bosch shook it before taking one of the club chairs in front of the desk.
“Now, my associate said you are looking for an attorney for a possible wrongful-death suit, is that correct?” Manley asked.
“Yes,” Bosch said. “I need a lawyer. I talked to one and he didn’t think he was up to it. So now I’m here, talking to you.”
“Was it a loved one?”
“Excuse me?”
“The decedent who was the victim of the wrongful death.”
“Oh, no, that would be me. I’m the victim.”
Manley laughed, then saw there was no smile on Bosch’s face. He stopped laughing and cleared his throat.
“Mr. Bosch, I don’t understand,” he said.
“Well, clearly I’m not dead,” Bosch said. “But I’ve got a diagnosis of leukemia and I got it on the job. I want to sue them and get money for my daughter.”
“How did this happen? Where did you work?”
“I was an LAPD homicide detective for over thirty years. I retired four years ago. I was forced out, actually, and I sued the department back then for trying to take away my pension. Part of the settlement put a cap on my health insurance, so this thing I’ve got could bankrupt me and leave nothing for my daughter.”
Manley had shown no visible reaction to Bosch’s mention that he had been an LAPD detective.
“So how did you get leukemia on the job?” Manley said. “And I guess the better question is, how do you prove it?”
“Easy,” Bosch said. “There was a murder case and a large quantity of cesium was stolen from a hospital. The stuff they use in minute quantities to treat cancer. Only here, the amount missing was not minute. It was everything the hospital had and I ended up being the one who recovered it. I found it in a truck but didn’t know it was there until I was exposed to it. I was checked out at the hospital and had X-rays and checkups for it for five years. Now I have leukemia, and there’s no way it’s not related to that exposure.”
“And this is all documented? In case files and so forth?”
“Everything. There are the records from the murder investigation, the hospital, and the arbitration on my exit. We can get all of that. Plus, the hospital made sweeping security changes after that—which to me is an admission of responsibility.”
“Of course it is. Now, I hate to ask this, but you said this was a wrongful-death case. What exactly is your diagnosis and prognosis?”
“I just got the diagnosis. I was tired all the time and just not feeling right, so I went in and they did some tests and I was told I have it. I’m about to start chemo, but you never know. It’s going to get me in the end.”
“But they didn’t give you a time estimate or anything like that?”
“No, not yet. But I want to get this going because, like I said, you never know.”
“I understand.”
“Mr. Manley, these a
re tough people—the lawyers the city’s got. I’ve fought them before. I went back to that attorney for this and he didn’t seem real motivated because of the fight it would involve. So I need to know if this is something you can do. If you want to do it.”
“I’m not afraid of a fight, Mr. Bosch. Or should I call you Detective Bosch?”
“Mister is good.”
“Well, Mr. Bosch, as I said, I’m not afraid of a fight and this firm isn’t either. We also have very powerful connections at our disposal. We like to say we can get anything done. Anything.”
“Well, if this works out, there are a few other people I wouldn’t mind doing something about.”
“Who was your previous attorney?”
“A guy named Michael Haller. A one-man operation. People call him Mickey.”
“I think he’s the one they made a movie about—he works out of his car.”
“Yeah, well, ever since he got famous, he doesn’t take on the hard cases anymore. He didn’t want this one.”
“And he told you to come to me?”
“Yeah, he said you.”
“I don’t know him. Did he tell you why he recommended me?”
“Not really. He just said you’d stand up to the department.”
“Well, that was kind of him. I will stand up to the department. I’ll want to get whatever records you and Mr. Haller have on the pension arbitration. Anything related to the medical issue.”
“Not a—”
Suddenly a bird slammed into the glass to Manley’s right. He jumped in his seat. Bosch saw the stunned bird—it looked like a crow—fall from sight. He had read a story in the Times about the mirrored towers on Bunker Hill being bird magnets. He got up and walked to the glass. He looked down into the plaza fronting the upper station of Angels Flight. There was no sign of the bird.
Manley joined him at the window.
“That’s the third time this year,” he said.
“Really?” Bosch said. “Why don’t they do something about it?”
“Can’t. The mirroring is on the outside of the glass.”
Manley returned to his seat behind his desk and Bosch went back to the club seat.
The Night Fire Page 23