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Ballard quickly put her phone on speaker and pulled out her mini-recorder. As she spoke she started a new recording.
“Hello, Mr. Best. This is Claudia Gimble with thePasadena Star-Newsin California. I was wondering if you had a few minutes for an interview.”
“Interview? For what?”
“As you probably remember from growing up here in Pasadena, we’re a small community paper and we’re doing a story on the twenty-fifth reunion of the St. Vincent’s class of ’99. Would this be a good time to ask you a few questions?”
“That’s a story? Or is this some kind of a prank?”
“No, sir, not a prank. It’s a feature, a where-are-they-now story, which people love to read. And I wanted to talk to you because you living all the way over in Hawaii makes you one of the most far-flung and exotic members of the class of ’99. My first question is, what made you make the move to Hawaii?”
“Look, I’m not sure I want to be involved in this… feature. Who else have you talked to from the class?”
Ballard recited three names of female classmates from the yearbook. She knew it was a risky maneuver; Best might be in contact with one of the randomly chosen women. But Best’s response didn’t indicate that he was.
“All right, I guess,” he said. “What do you want to know?”
“Well, let’s see,” Ballard said. “When did you move to Hawaii and why?”
“Uh, that would have been… 2003, and to be honest, I did it for a job. I went to the CIA—the Culinary Institute of America, not the spy agency—and the job here was a referral from the school. It was a sous-chef gig in Oahu and I thought, why not? It’s an adventure, right? And I’ve been here ever since. About nine years ago I moved from Oahu to the Big Island to work at a new restaurant, and it’s doing very well. And I can tell you this: I’m never leaving Hawaii. In fact, I’m looking for investors so I can open my own restaurant.”
“That’s great. Do you get back to Pasadena very often?”
“Hate to say it but no. My parents followed me over here when my dad retired, so there isn’t a big reason to go back.”
“What about for the twenty-fifth reunion?”
“Uh, I’m thinking about it, yeah. Not sure if I can swing it. We’re pretty busy here.”
Ballard suddenly heard typing and realized it wasn’t coming from Best’s side of the call.
“Mr. Best, can I put you on hold for a moment?” she said quickly. “It won’t be long.”
“Uh, sure,” Best said.
Ballard put her phone on mute and paused the recorder. She stood up and looked over the divider. Hatteras was at her workstation, typing something on her computer.
“Colleen, I thought you left,” she said, unable to hide her irritation.
“No, I was just putting murder books back on the shelves,” Hatteras said. “That is so cool how you got him talking. Like you’re undercover. I love it.”
“Look, you need to go home. You’re throwing off my concentration, Colleen, and this conversation is not something I want you hearing, because that could be an issue down the line.”
“Really? How? I’m just listening and learning.”
“I don’t want to get into it, but if this guy ends up beingtheguy,you could be called as a witness to the conversation. I don’t want that, you understand?”
“Okay, I’m sorry. I’ll just finish this email and send it and then I’m leaving.”
“That would be good.”
Hatteras moved her eyes back to the screen and the now-familiar pouting look returned to her face. Ballard sat back down, started the recorder again, and took her phone off mute.
“Sorry about that, Mr. Best,” she said. “Where were we?”
49
BALLARD’S FIRST STOPafter leaving the west side was Harry Bosch’s house up in the hills. She hadn’t called, emailed, or texted ahead of her arrival. Any one of those would have left a trail. She had thought about making an end-around play by calling Maddie Bosch and having her check to make sure her father was home, but that would have left a trail of its own. It would also bring Maddie into the matter, giving her knowledge of the badge-recovery scheme that she would be better off without. So Ballard turned her phone off and drove up Woodrow Wilson to the Bosch house unannounced. She knew there would be Ring cameras in the neighborhood and other ways to document her visit, but she counted on Internal Affairs making only a lazy effort from a desk to investigate possible collusion between her and Bosch. They’d check phone and email records but would likely not go out and knock on doors.
