The Late Show Ebook Michael Connelly Read Free Online
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Offset published in Australia and New Zealand by Allen & Unwin in 2017
Copyright © Hieronymus, Inc. 2017
All rights reserved. No part of this volume may be reproduced or transmitted in whatsoever form or by whatever means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one affiliate or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to exist photocopied by whatsoever educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.
Allen & Unwin
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Crows Nest NSW 2065
Australia
Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100
Email: [email protected]
Spider web: www.allenandunwin.com
Cataloguing-in-Publication details are available from the National Library of Commonwealth of australia
www.trove.nla.gov.au
ISBN 9781760630782
eISBN 9781760638740
Embrace design: Julia Eim
Cover photo: Getty images / EXTREME-PHOTOGRAPHER
In Accolade of Sgt. Steve Owen
Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department
Executed, shot through the badge, Oct 5, 2016
Contents
Chapter ane
Chapter two
Chapter 3
Chapter four
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Affiliate ix
Chapter ten
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter thirteen
Chapter 14
Chapter fifteen
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Affiliate 19
Affiliate xx
Affiliate 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Affiliate 27
Affiliate 28
Chapter 29
Chapter thirty
Affiliate 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Affiliate 35
Affiliate 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Affiliate 44
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Excerpt from Two Kinds of Truth
Extract Chapter 1
Excerpt Affiliate 2
Excerpt Chapter iii
Extract Chapter four
Excerpt Chapter 5
1
Ballard and Jenkins rolled up on the house on El Centro shortly before midnight. It was the first phone call of the shift. There was already a patrol cruiser at the curb out front and Ballard recognized the two blue suiters standing on the front porch of the bungalow with a greyness-haired woman in a bathrobe. John Stanley was the shift's senior lead officer—the street boss—and his partner was Jacob Ross.
"I retrieve this one's yours," Jenkins said.
They had found in their two-yr partnership that Ballard was the better of the two at working with female victims. Information technology wasn't that Jenkins was an ogre but Ballard was more than understanding of the emotions of female victims. The opposite was true when they rolled up on a case with a male victim.
"Roger that," Ballard said.
They got out of the machine and headed toward the lighted porch. Ballard carried her rover in her hand. As they went up the three steps, Stanley introduced them to the woman. Her name was Leslie Anne Lantana and she was 70-7 years onetime. Ballard didn't recall there was going to exist much for them to do hither. Nearly burglaries amounted to a written report, maybe a telephone call for the fingerprint automobile to come up past if they got lucky and saw some indication that the thief had touched surfaces from which latent prints were probable to be pulled.
"Mrs. Lantana got a fraud alert e-postal service tonight saying someone attempted to charge a buy on Amazon to her credit card," Stanley said.
"But information technology wasn't you," Ballard said to Mrs. Lantana, stating the obvious.
"No, it was on the card I continue for emergencies and I never use information technology online," Lantana said. "That's why the purchase was flagged. I utilise a unlike card for Amazon."
"Okay," Ballard said. "Did you lot call the credit-card company?"
"First I went to cheque on the menu to see if I'd lost it, and I found my wallet was missing from my purse. Information technology's been stolen."
"Any idea where or when it was stolen?"
"I went to Ralphs for my groceries yesterday, so I know I had my wallet and so. Afterwards that I came dwelling house and I haven't gone out."
"Did you use a credit card to pay?"
"No, cash. I e'er pay greenbacks at Ralphs. Merely I did pull out my Ralphs card to go the savings."
"Do you think yous could've left your wallet at Ralphs? Maybe at the cash register when you pulled out the carte du jour?"
"No, I don't recall and then. I'm very careful about my things. My wallet and my purse. And I'yard non senile."
"I didn't mean to suggest that, ma'am. I'k just asking questions."
Ballard moved in another direction, fifty-fifty though she wasn't convinced that Lantana had not left her wallet backside at Ralphs, where it could have been snatched past everyone.
"Who lives hither with y'all, ma'am?" she asked.
"No one," Lantana said. "I alive alone. Except for Cosmo. He's my dog."
"Since yous got back from Ralphs yesterday, has anyone knocked on your door or been in the house?"
"No, nobody."
"And no friends or relatives visited?"
"No, just they wouldn't accept taken my wallet if they had come past."
"Of grade, and I don't mean to imply otherwise. I'm just trying to get an idea of comings and goings. So you're maxim you lot take been domicile the whole fourth dimension since Ralphs?"
"Aye, I've been dwelling house."
"What about Cosmo? Do you walk Cosmo?"
"Sure, twice a day. But I lock the house when I become out and I don't arrive. He'southward an erstwhile domestic dog and I'm non getting any younger myself."
Ballard smiled sympathetically.
"Do yous have these walks at the same time every twenty-four hour period?"
"Yep, we keep a schedule. Information technology'south better f
or the domestic dog."
"About how long are your walks?"
"Xxx minutes in the morning and usually a little longer in the afternoon. Depending on how we feel."
Ballard nodded. She knew that all it would have taken for a thief cruising the expanse southward of Santa Monica was to spot the woman walking her dog and follow her dwelling. He'd go along picket to determine if she lived alone and so come back the next day at the same time when she took the dog out once again. Most people didn't realize that their simplest routines fabricated them vulnerable to predators. A good thief would be in and out of the house in ten minutes tops.
"Have yous looked around to encounter if annihilation else is missing, ma'am?" Ballard asked.
"Not yet," Lantana said. "I called the police as soon every bit I knew my wallet was gone."
"Well, let's go in and accept a quick await effectually and see if y'all detect anything else missing," Ballard said.
While Ballard escorted Lantana through the house, Jenkins went to check whether the lock on the back door had been tampered with. In Lantana's bedroom, at that place was a canis familiaris on a sleeping cushion. He was a boxer mix and his face up was white with age. His shining eyes tracked Ballard only he did not get up. He was too old. He emitted a deep-chested growl.
"Everything's all right, Cosmo," Lantana bodacious him.
"What is he, boxer and what?" Ballard asked.
"Ridgeback," Lantana said. "We think."
Ballard wasn't sure whether the "nosotros" referred to Lantana and the dog or somebody else. Perhaps Lantana and her veterinarian.
The old woman finished her survey of the house with a look through her jewelry drawer and reported that nothing other than the wallet seemed to be missing. It fabricated Ballard think most Ralphs again, or that the infiltrator perchance thought he had less time than he actually had to become through the business firm.
Jenkins rejoined them and said in that location were no indications that the lock on the front or back door had been picked, jimmied, or in any other style tampered with.
"When you walked the dog, did you see anything unusual on the street?" Ballard asked the old woman. "Anybody out of place?"
"No, nil unusual," Lantana said.
"Is there any construction on the street? Workers hanging around?"
"No, not around hither."
Ballard asked Lantana to evidence her the e-mail discover she had received from the credit-card visitor. They went to a small nook in the kitchen, where Lantana had a laptop estimator, a printer, and filing trays stacked with envelopes. It was obviously the abode station, where she took care of paying bills and online ordering. Lantana sat down and pulled up the electronic mail alert on her estimator screen. Ballard leaned over her shoulder to read it. She then asked Lantana to call the credit-carte du jour company again.
Lantana made the call on a wall phone with a long cord that stretched to the nook. Eventually the phone was handed to Ballard and she stepped into the hallway with Jenkins, pulling the cord to its full extension. She was talking to a fraud alert specialist with an English-Indian accent. Ballard identified herself as a detective with the Los Angeles Constabulary Department and asked for the shipping accost that had been entered for the credit-card purchase before it was rejected every bit possibly fraudulent. The fraud alert specialist said he could not provide that information without court approving.
"What do yous mean?" Ballard asked. "You lot are the fraud warning specialist, correct? This was fraud, and if you give me the address, I might be able to practice something almost information technology."
"I am sorry," the specialist said. "I cannot do this. Our legal office must tell me to do and so and they accept non."
"Let me talk to the legal office."
"They are closed now. It is lunchtime and they close."
"Then let me talk to your supervisor."
Ballard looked at Jenkins and shook her head in frustration.
"Expect, it'southward all going to the burglary table in the morning," Jenkins said. "Why don't you let them bargain with it?"
"Because they won't deal with it," Ballard said. "It will go lost in the stack. They won't follow upwards and that's not fair to her."
She nodded toward the kitchen, where the offense victim was sitting and looking forlorn.
"Nobody said annihilation about anything being fair," Jenkins said. "It is what information technology is."
After five minutes the supervisor came on the line. Ballard explained that they had a fluid situation and needed to motility quickly to catch the person who stole Mrs. Lantana's credit carte du jour. The supervisor explained that the attempted use of the credit card did not go through, so the fraud alert system had worked.
"There is no need for this 'fluid state of affairs,' as you say," he said.
"The system but works if nosotros take hold of the guy," Ballard said. "Don't you see? Stopping the carte from beingness used is only function of it. That protects your corporate client. It doesn't protect Mrs. Lantana, who had someone inside her house."
"I am sorry," the supervisor said. "I cannot assist you without documentation from the courts. Information technology is our protocol."
"What is your name?"
"My name is Irfan."
"Where are you, Irfan?"
"How practise you mean?"
"Are yous in Bombay? Delhi? Where?"
"I am in Mumbai, yes."
"And that's why you don't give a shit. Because this guy's never going to come into your firm and steal your wallet in Mumbai. Thanks very much."
She stepped back into the kitchen and hung upward the telephone before the useless supervisor could reply. She turned back to her partner.
"Okay, nosotros go back to the befouled, write it upwardly, requite it to the burglary table," she said. "Allow's go."
2
Ballard and Jenkins didn't make information technology dorsum to the station to brainstorm writing the report on the Lantana burglary. They were diverted to Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center past the lookout man commander to check out an assault. Ballard parked in an ambulance slot by the ER entrance, left the grille lights on, and then she and Jenkins entered through the automatic doors. Ballard noted the time for the report she would write later. Information technology was 12:41 a.thousand. according to the clock over the reception window in the ER waiting room.
At that place was a P-1 continuing there, his pare as white as a vampire's. Ballard gave him the nod and he came over to brief them. He was a slick sleeve and maybe even a boot and besides new in the sectionalisation for her to know his proper noun.
"Nosotros found her in a lot on Santa Monica by Highland," the officer stated. "Looked like she had been dumped in that location. Whoever did it probably thought she was dead. But she was alive and she sort of woke up and was semiconscious for a couple minutes. Somebody had worked her over really expert. One of the paramedics said she might take a skull fracture. They have her in the back. My TO's dorsum there also."
The assault may have now been elevated to an abduction, and that increased Ballard'southward level of interest. She checked the patrolman'due south plate and saw his proper noun was Taylor.
"Taylor, I'1000 Ballard," she said, "and this is Detective Jenkins, fellow denizen of the dark. When did you get to Super Half dozen?"
"Beginning deployment actually," Taylor said.
"Right from the academy? Well, welcome. Yous'll take more fun in the 6 than you'll have anywhere else. Who's your preparation officer?"
"Officeholder Smith, ma'am."
"I'm non your mother. Don't telephone call me ma'am."
"Deplorable, ma'am. I hateful—"
"You lot're in good hands with Smitty. He's cool. You lot guys get an ID on the vic?"
"No, there was no pocketbook or anything but we were trying to talk to her while we were waiting on the paramedics. She was in and out, not making a lot of sense. Sounded like she said her name was Ramona."
"She say anything else?"
"Aye, she said 'the upside-down house.'"
"'The upside-down house'?"
"That'south what she said. Officer Smith asked if she knew her a
ttacker and she said no. He asked where she was attacked and she said 'the upside-down house.' Like I said, she wasn't making a lot of sense."
Ballard nodded and idea almost what that could mean.
"Okay," she said. "We'll go back and cheque things out."
Ballard nodded to Jenkins and headed toward the door that led to the ER'southward treatment bays. She was wearing a charcoal-gray Van Heusen suit with a chalk pinstripe. She always thought the formality of the suit went well with her low-cal brownish skin and sun-streaked pilus. And it had an authorisation that helped overcome her slight stature. She pulled her jacket back enough for the receptionist backside the glass window to encounter the bluecoat on her chugalug and open the automated door.
The intake center consisted of six patient cess and treatment trophy backside airtight curtains. Doctors, nurses, and technicians were moving nigh a command station in the center of the room. There was organized chaos, everybody with a job to do and some unseen hand choreographing information technology all. It was a busy nighttime, but every dark was at Hollywood Pres.
Some other patrol officeholder was standing in forepart of the curtain for treatment bay 4 and Ballard and Jenkins proceeded directly toward him. He had three hash marks on his sleeves—fifteen years on the department—and Ballard knew him well.
"Smitty, the physician in at that place?" Ballard asked.
Officer Melvin Smith looked upwardly from his phone, where he had been composing a text.
"Ballard, Jenkins, how'south information technology hanging?" Smith said. Then: "Nah, she'southward solitary. They're about to take her upwardly to the OR. Fractured skull, brain swelling. They said they demand to open her head upwards to relieve the pressure."
"I know the feeling," Jenkins said.
"So she'southward not talking?" Ballard asked.
"Not anymore," Smith said. "They sedated her and I overheard them talking nigh inducing a blackout till the swelling goes down. Hey, how's Lola, Ballard? Haven't seen her in a while."
"Lola's practiced," Ballard said. "Did y'all guys observe her, or was it a call?"
"It was a hot shot," Smith said. "Somebody must've called it in just they were GOA when we got there. The vic was only lying there alone in the parking lot. We idea she was expressionless when we first rolled up."
"Did you call anybody out to hold the crime scene?" Ballard asked.
"Nah, there's nothing at that place but blood on the asphalt, Ballard," Smith said. "This was a body dump."
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