The Dark Hours (Harry Bosch #23)(9)

“The word is that twelve or fifteen years ago, he bought his way out,” Davenport said. “And as far as we know, he’s been clean and legit ever since.”

“Or too smart for you?”

Davenport laughed.

“There’s always that possibility.”

“Well, do you still have a file on the guy? Shake cards, anything?”

“Oh, we’ve got a file. It’s probably a little dusty. Cordo, pull the file on Javier Raffa and bring it to Detective Ballard.”

Cordero got up and walked to the line of four-drawer file cabinets that ran the length of one side of the room.

“That’s how far this guy goes back,” Davenport said. “He’s in the paper files.”

“So definitely not active?” Ballard pressed.

“Nope. And we would have known if he was. We follow some of the OGs. If they were meeting, we would have seen it.”

“How far up was Raffa before he dropped out?”

“Not far. He was a soldier. We never made a case on the guy but we knew he was chopping stolen cars for the team.”

“How did you hear he bought his way out?”

Davenport shook his head like he couldn’t remember.

“Just the grapevine,” he said. “I can’t name you the snitch offhand — it was a long time ago. But that was what was said, and as far as we could tell, it was accurate.”

“How much does something like that cost?” Ballard asked.

“Can’t remember. It might be in the file.”

Cordero returned from the cabinets and handed a file to Davenport instead of Ballard. He in turned handed it to Ballard.

“Knock yourself out,” he said.

“Can I take this?” Ballard asked.

“As long as you bring it back.”

“Roger that.”

Ballard took the file, got up, and walked out. She had the feeling that several of the men were watching as she left the room. She was not popular in the office after a year of cajoling and then demanding intel and help in her investigations from people bent on doing as little as possible.

She went down the stairs and into the detective bureau, where she saw Lisa Moore at her desk. She was typing on her computer.

“You’re back,” Ballard said.

“No thanks to you,” Moore said. “You left me with those people and that kid cop.”

“Rodriguez? He probably has five years on the job. He worked Rampart before coming here.”

“Doesn’t matter. He looks like a kid.”

“Did you get anything good from the wife and daughters?”

“No, but I’m writing it up. Where is this going anyway?”

“I’m going to keep it for a bit. Send whatever you’ve got to me.”

“Not to West Bureau?”

“They’re running all teams on a double murder. So I’ll work this until they’re ready to take it.”

“And Dash is okay with that?”

“I talked to him. It’s not a problem.”

“What do you have there?”

She pointed to the file Ballard was carrying.

“And old Gang file on Raffa,” Ballard said. “Davenport said he hasn’t been active in years, that he bought his way out when he started a family.”

“Aw, isn’t that sweet,” Moore said.

The sarcasm was clear in her voice. Ballard had long realized that Moore had lost her empathy. Working sex cases full-time probably did that. Losing empathy for victims was a self-protective measure, but Ballard hoped it never happened to her. Police work could easily hollow you out. But she believed that losing one’s empathy was losing one’s soul.

“Send me your reports when you’re ready to file,” Ballard said.

“Will do,” Moore said.

“And nothing on the Midnight Men, right?”

“Not yet. Maybe they’re lying low tonight.”

“It’s still early. On Thanksgiving we didn’t get the callout till dawn.”

“Wonderful. Can’t wait till dawn.”

The sarcasm again. Ballard ignored it and grabbed an empty desk nearby. Because she worked the late show, she didn’t have an assigned spot. She was expected to borrow a desk in the room whenever she needed one. She looked at a few of the knickknacks on the one shelf in the cubicle where she sat and quickly realized it was the workstation of a dayside Crimes Against Persons detective named Tom Newsome. He loved baseball, and there were several souvenir balls on little pedestals on the shelf. They had been signed by Dodgers players past and present. The gem of the collection was in a small plastic cube to protect it. It wasn’t signed by a player. Instead the signature was from the man who had called Dodgers games on radio and TV for more than fifty years. Vin Scully was revered as the voice of the city because he transcended baseball. Even Ballard knew who he was, and she thought that Newsome was risking the ball getting stolen, even in a police station.

Opening the file in front of her, Ballard was greeted by a booking photo of Javier Raffa as a young man. He had died at age thirty-eight, and the photo was from a 2003 arrest for receiving stolen property. She read the details on the arrest report the photo was clipped to. It said Raffa had been pulled over in a 1977 Ford pickup truck with several used auto parts in the bed. One of these parts — a trans-axle — still had the manufacturing serial number embossed on it, and it was traced to a Mercedes G-wagon reported stolen in the San Fernando Valley the month before.