Dark Sacred Night - Ballard and Bosch #1;Renée Ballard #2

by Michael Connelly

  “Foothill gangs has a deep-cover snitch,” Cespedes said. “He got us the cell number of a shot caller on the same level as Cortez. We hijacked the cell and sent Cortez a message about a must-attend meet regarding you, Bosch, at Hansen Dam. We’re hoping that does the trick.”

  Cespedes had just described at least two things that were compromising, if not outright against department protocol, not to mention illegal—if hijacking the phone had been done without a warrant. He was attempting to draw Bosch in and make him complicit in what might go down later. If Bosch didn’t object now, he couldn’t claim innocence afterward.

  And that was all right with him.

  “Why Hansen Dam?” he asked.

  “The truth?” Cespedes said. “No cameras up there.”

  He turned to look at Bosch. It was another moment where Bosch could either raise a flag or go along.

  “Good plan,” he said, putting himself all in.

  The SIS held a unique position in the LAPD. Often investigated by outside agencies ranging from the FBI to the media to civil rights groups, often sued by the families of the suspects shot, routinely labeled a “death squad” by outraged attorneys, the unit enjoyed a completely opposite reputation within the rank and file of the department. Infrequent openings in the unit brought hundreds of applications, including from those willing to drop pay grades just to get in. The reason was that, more so than any other unit, this was seen as true police work. The SIS took violent offenders off the board. Whether they were taken alive didn’t matter. They took out shooters, rapists, serial killers. The ripple effect of crimes not committed because of SIS captures and kills was unquantifiable but huge. And there wasn’t a cop on the force who wouldn’t want to be part of that. Never mind the outside critics, the investigations, and the lawsuits. This was to serve and protect in its rawest form.

  Bosch felt no choice but to go all in. Tranquillo Cortez had not played by the rules. He’d had his men take Bosch from his home, from the place his daughter often slept. There can be no greater crime against a police officer than to threaten his family. You do that, and all bets are off. So when Bosch called it a good plan, he meant it, and he hoped that one way or another the threat from Tranquillo Cortez would be over before midnight.

  43

  At 8:10 p.m., the Mustang’s radio came alive with one call after another reporting that the target—Tranquillo Cortez—had been spotted and was on the move. Interpreting the radio code used by the SIS officers, Bosch deduced that Cortez was with an unidentified bodyguard/driver and had gotten into a white Chrysler 300 with a lowered suspension. The car had illegally smoked windows that made it impossible to identify those behind the glass.

  The Chrysler was eastbound on Roscoe, and Cespedes let the entourage of SIS vehicles go by before putting the Mustang in play. Still, he hung back to see if Cortez had initiated any countersurveillance techniques such as a long-lead follow car. When he was satisfied there was none, he pulled into traffic to catch up to the others. His role as commander of the unit was to hang behind and be ready to move up into one of the corners of the floating-box surveillance surrounding the Chrysler should one of the four cars rotating positions be made by the suspect or otherwise taken out of commission.

  Bosch heard over the radio that the Chrysler had turned north on Branford, which would lead directly into the park and golf course at Hansen Dam. Bosch listened as units identified themselves over the radio as Advance, Backdoor, and Outrigger One and Two and kept a running report on the moving surveillance. The voices were calm and slow, as if they were describing a golf match on TV.

  “Where are we going in the park?” Bosch asked.

  “The golf course parking lot,” Cespedes said. “Should be empty right about now. Can’t play golf in the dark, right?”

  Bosch had asked the question as an attempt to get Cespedes talking about the plan. They were about a mile from the park and Bosch didn’t know what the tactical strategy would be once they reached the takedown spot.

  “It’s going to come down to a choice,” Cespedes said. “It always does.”

  “What do you mean?” Bosch asked. “What choice?”

  “To live or die. The plan is always about containment first. We will put him into a situation where he knows he isn’t getting out of the box. He then has a choice. Go out on his feet or on his back. It’s amazing how many times these guys make the wrong choice.”

  Bosch just nodded.

  “This is the guy who had you abducted,” Cespedes said. “From the place your daughter calls home. Then he was going to torture you and feed your body to his dogs.”

  “That’s right,” Bosch said.

  “Sounds like a movie I saw once.”

  “I heard somebody say that. I missed it.”

  “Yeah, well, we need to teach these people that the movies aren’t real life. Bring a little truth to the situation, you know what I mean?”

  “I do.”

  “How’s the case against him going?”

  “Nowhere. We got a guy in a coma—a cop. If he comes out of it and talks, then maybe we make a case.”

  “But you never saw Cortez, right? When you were in the cage.”

  “No.”

  “So in other words, you don’t have shit. If we take him in on this bullshit child support thing, you get a shot at talking to him and you gotta hope that, first, he doesn’t lawyer up and, second, he says the wrong thing and craps on himself.”

  “That’s about right, yeah.”

  “Well, then, let’s hope he makes the wrong choice tonight.”

  The radio came alive a few moments later with reports that the Chrysler carrying Cortez was entering the Hansen Dam Recreation Area. Two of the surveillance cars from the floating box had entered ahead and were in layup positions waiting for the Chrysler to enter the felony- stop trap.

  “We got a decoy car in the lot,” Cespedes told Bosch. “A Ford pickup like the guy whose phone we used drives. Cortez goes to it, we move in.”

  Bosch nodded. By leaning into the center console of the Mustang he was able to get an angle on the laptop screen and watch the four dash cameras from the surveillance cars. He noticed that two cars were moving in traffic, not having entered the park yet, and two were static. The view on these was now set to infrared. One angle was simply down a driveway next to a building that Bosch assumed was the golf course club house. The other looked across a parking lot at a pickup truck backed into a space at the far end of the lot.

  “Is there a delay on these screens?” he asked.

  “About two and a half seconds,” Cespedes said.

  “Recording?”

  “Recording.”

  The radio went from an overlapping of voices reporting the movement of the target to complete silence for nearly thirty seconds before the trap was sprung.

  Soon Bosch saw the Chrysler enter the parking lot in one of the static camera angles. But it stopped dead before approaching the pickup.

  “What’s he doing?” Bosch asked.

  “Just being cautious,” Cespedes said.

  Cespedes then went on the radio.

  “Give him a wink, Jimmy.”

  “Roger that.”

  On the dashcam from the follow car in the lot, the pickup’s headlights blinked twice. Bosch noticed that all four of the camera views were static now and on infrared.

  “You got a guy in the pickup?” Bosch said, stating the obvious.

  Cespedes held up a hand for silence. Now was not the time to give Bosch the play-by-play. He went back on the radio.

  “Now bail, Jimmy. Get out of there.”

  The Chrysler started moving toward the pickup. Bosch saw no indication that anyone had gotten out of the Ford. Cespedes timed the Chrysler’s approach, factored in the delay on the cameras, and then stomped on the radio transmit button on the floor of the car.

  “Now! All units—go!”

  All four camera views started moving and closing in. Far behind, Cespedes picked up spee
d and the Mustang entered the park. The car bounced on the uneven roadway as they sped toward the golf course but Bosch couldn’t take his eyes off the laptop screen. He gripped his armrest with one hand and the laptop mount with the other in an effort to hold it steady and watch the action as it played out.

  The four surveillance cars closed in on the Chrysler as it pulled into a slot next to the pickup. Bosch could see as the cameras got closer that the truck was backed up to an ivy-draped wall. There would be no escape that way.

  The four follow cars moved in, their dashcams revealing that they had a classic spread formation on the Chrysler. It was trapped with its nose against a wall and four cars with armed officers fanned behind it across a 120-degree arc.

  The camera angles overlapped and Bosch could see SIS officers using the open doors of their cars as cover and pointing weapons at the Chrysler. There was no sound but Bosch knew they were yelling and demanding the surrender of the men inside.

  Bosch could see two officers in combat stances moving to the left and right of the SIS cars to further contain the Chrysler but still keep an angle that would clear them of any cross fire.

  For ten seconds, there was nothing. No movement from the Chrysler. Its smoked windows were up but the high-powered beams of the SIS cars cut through and Bosch could make out the silhouettes of the two men inside.

  The Mustang entered the parking lot and sped toward the confrontation. Bosch glanced up to get his bearings but then looked back down at the camera screens. It was then that the front doors of the Chrysler opened simultaneously.

  Bosch first saw the hands of the passenger come out of the car, held high and open as Tranquillo Cortez emerged to surrender. He was wearing the same flat-brimmed Dodgers hat he had worn on the day they met.

  The driver followed but held only his left hand up as he emerged.

  The Mustang had pulled behind one of the follow cars and was now close enough for Bosch to hear the tense voices from the officers. He looked over the laptop to watch the action play live.

  “Hands!”

  “Both hands!”

  “Hands up!”

  And then the warning turned to alarm.

  “Gun! Gun!”

  Bosch could only see the driver’s head and shoulders because one of the SIS cars was between them. He looked down at the laptop screen and to the camera angle showing the driver’s side of the Chrysler. The driver, a stocky man who had to twist his body to step out of the car, was emerging, turning and bringing his right arm up in a swinging motion. When his arm cleared his body, Bosch saw the gun.

  A tremendous volley of shots seemed to come from all around him.

  Tranquillo Cortez paid for his bodyguard’s bravado and suicidal decision to wield the gun. Cortez was centered in the killing ground and was fair game. Both men were hit repeatedly as fire continued from the eight shooters fanned around them. The Chrysler’s windows shattered and the men on either side of it went down. Cortez had actually turned, possibly seeking cover, and went face-first back into the car. His body then fell out, and he was left leaning against the door sill, head down. His hat never came off.

  Only when the gunfire stopped did Bosch look back up from the laptop screen. Through an angle between the open doors of two of the follow cars, he could see Cortez, the front of his white shirt soaked in blood. His head jerked as his body seized. For the moment, he was still alive.

  “Stay in the car, Bosch,” Cespedes yelled.

  He jumped out and ran between two of the cars and through the heavy smoke of the gunfire. He followed two of his men, who were cautiously approaching the Chrysler with guns trained on the men on the ground. Bosch went back to the laptop, turning it fully toward him now because the view was better.

  There was a gun on the ground next to the bodyguard’s body. One of the SIS officers kicked it away and then leaned down to check the body for a pulse. He made a hand signal, a flat line, indicating the bodyguard was dead.

  Cortez was pulled down flat on the ground and an officer knelt next to him. Even on the infrared screen, it was clear he was breathing. Cespedes was on the screen now, already talking on a cell phone. Bosch assumed he was calling for rescue ambulances or making notifications to command staff.

  Bosch wanted to get out of the Mustang and enter the scene, but he remained as ordered in the car. If it appeared that Cespedes had forgotten him, he would get out. He saw Cespedes disconnect from a call and make another.

  Bosch looked at the screen and saw the same action again, remembering that the feed to the laptop was delayed. He looked at the keyboard, located the left arrow, and pressed it. The video on the screen started rewinding. Bosch held his finger on the button until the images reversed past the shooting and the two SanFers were still in the white Chrysler.

  He replayed the fatal confrontation, tapping the reverse button intermittently to slow down the playback or to entirely replay moments. He wasn’t sure how to set the playback to slow motion. He focused on the camera angle on the upper-left corner of the screen. It was an almost straight-on view of the driver emerging from the car with one hand up.

  He focused on the driver’s right arm as it moved out of the shadows of the car. As the arm came up from behind his torso, Bosch could see the gun. But the hand was not grasping it by the grip. The driver was holding the weapon but it was not in a ready-fire grip.

  Then Bosch saw an impact on the car as a bullet hit the door frame and fragmented. The first shot. It had come before the gun could have been clearly seen and the driver’s intentions made apparent. Bosch took his finger off the keyboard and let the rest of the shooting play out. He looked up through the windshield and saw Cespedes walking toward the Mustang. He quickly put his finger on the forward arrow and sped the playback, catching it up to real time just as the SIS boss opened the passenger-side door.

  Cespedes leaned in.

  “He’s circling but conscious if you want to say anything to him,” he said.

  “Okay,” Bosch said. “Yeah.”

  Cespedes backed away and Bosch got out. They walked between two of the SIS cars and to the passenger side of the Chrysler. A heavy pall of smoke still hung in the air.

  Cortez’s eyes were open and looked fearful. Blood was on his tongue and lips and Bosch knew his lungs had likely been riddled with fragmented lead. Harry was shocked by how young he looked. The man who had sneered and postured in the lavandería parking lot a few days before was gone. Cortez now looked like a scared boy in a baseball cap.

  Bosch knew it was not the time to say anything, to play the victor or to taunt him with vengeful words.

  He said nothing.

  Cortez said nothing as well. He locked eyes with Bosch and then moved his arm and reached a bloody hand to the cuff of Bosch’s pants. He grabbed hold of it as though he might be able to hang on to life and keep from being pulled into the waiting darkness.

  But after a few seconds he lost his strength. He let go, then closed his eyes and died.

  Ballard

  44

  Ballard spread the final shake cards out on a table in the break room. There was more room here than on a borrowed desk in the detective bureau. She was waiting for Bosch. She had been through the cards and done the electronic backgrounding. It was time to work these in the field. If Bosch got in before it was too late, they could possibly knock off a few during the night. She wanted to text or call him to say she was waiting but remembered that he had no phone.

  She was sitting there, staring at the cards, when Lieutenant Munroe came in to get a cup of coffee.

  “Ballard, what are you doing in so early?” he asked.

  “Just working on my hobby case,” she said.

  She didn’t look up from the cards and he didn’t look up from his prepping of his coffee.

  “That old murder of the girl?” Munroe asked.

  “The girl, right,” Ballard said.

  She moved two cards across the table to the lesser priority side.

  “What�
��s it got to do with that tattoo artist?” Munroe asked. “That one was solved.”

  Now Ballard looked over at Munroe.

  “What are you talking about, L-T?” she asked.

  “Sorry, I guess I was being snoopy,” Munroe asked. “I saw a murder book in your mail slot when I was going through the records retention box. I took a quick look. I remember that one, but they got the bad guy on it pretty quick, from what I can remember.”

  The ZooToo book. Ballard had been waiting on it but had forgotten to check her slot when she had come in from dinner.

  “They did clear it,” she said. “I just wanted a look at it. Thanks for letting me know it’s there.”

  She walked out of the break room and down the back hallway to the mail room, where every officer and detective in the division had an open slot for internal and external deliveries. She pulled the plastic binder out of her slot.

  Munroe was gone when she got back to the break room. She decided to review the murder book there so she would not have to leave the spread of shake cards unattended. She sat down and opened the binder.

  The design of a murder book was consistent across all department homicide squads. It was divided into twenty-six sections—crime scene reports, lab reports, photos, witness statements, and so on. The first section was always the chronological record, where the case investigators logged their moves by date and time. Ballard flipped back to section sixteen, which contained the crime scene photos.

  Ballard pulled a thick stack of 3 x 5 photos out of a plastic pocket and started looking through them. The photographer had been thorough and clinical. It seemed that every inch of the tattoo parlor and the murder scene had been documented in the bright, almost overexposed prints. In 2009 the department was still using film, as digital photography had not yet been accepted by the court system because of concerns about digital tampering.

  Ballard moved quickly through the photos until she reached those taken of the victim’s body at the center of the crime scene. Audie Haslam had put up a fight. Her arms, hands, and fingers were all deeply lacerated with defensive wounds. Eventually, though, she succumbed to her larger and more powerful attacker. There were deep stab wounds in her chest and neck. Blood completely soaked the ZooToo tank top she was wearing. Arterial spray had splashed all four walls of the small storage room the killer had pushed her into. She died on the polished concrete floor with one hand clasping a crucifix on a chain around her neck. Incongruously, the tattoo artist had no tattoos herself, at least none that were visible to Ballard in the photos.