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“On it.”
43
THEY WERE SEARCHING the fourth of five dumpsters in the alley behind Montana Shoppes & Suites. They had started at the west end of the alley and worked their way east. Nothing relating to Rawls or the case had been found in the first three searches. Ballard, wearing rubber boots and navy blue overalls, was standing waist-deep in a green dumpster located behind a women’s apparel shop. It meant the refuse was largely innocuous and dry. The first dumpster they searched had been filled with coffee grounds and other garbage from the breakfast café that anchored the west end of the plaza.
Each dumpster search required the excavation of three days’ worth of refuse, since they were looking for something that Rawls might have dumped on Sunday.
“There’s nothing here,” Ballard said.
She was using the long handle from a push broom to poke around in the bottom layer of the dumpster. Bosch had borrowed it from the maintenance department along with a stepladder.
“All right, then come on out of there,” Bosch said.
He held his hand up to her. She took off a work glove, grabbed his hand, hoisted her hips onto the steel rim, and swung her legs over to the ladder. Bosch helped her down.
“The things I do for you, Harry,” she said.
“Hey, I didn’t ask you to come out here,” Bosch said. “If it makes you feel better, I’ll do the last one.”
“No, you’ll get your clothes all dirty. I’m just giving you a hard time because we haven’t found shit out here and these CSOs are hotter than hell.”
Once she was off the ladder, Bosch started throwing the bags of trash and other refuse they had removed back into the bin.
Ballard moved on to the final dumpster, carrying the stepladder with her. She put her glove back on, then flipped the heavy plastic cover back and started excavating the top layer of bags and boxes. The east side of the property was anchored by a large home decor store. It sold smaller furnishings like lamps, artwork, and candles. The trash here was similar to the last dumpster’s in that it wasn’t wet, didn’t smell particularly bad, and was easy to excavate. It had largely been deposited in shipping boxes stuffed with form-fitted foam packaging and Bubble Wrap. There were also broken pieces of wooden shipping crates.
Bosch joined her and they quickly emptied the top half of the dumpster, dropping everything they pulled out onto the alley’s asphalt.
“I can’t believe nobody’s come out of one of these places yet to ask what the hell we’re doing,” Ballard said.
“Maybe my pal, the angry homeowner on Seventeenth Street, will come over,” Bosch said.
“Who?”
“Some guy who lives in the neighborhood back here. I posted up in his driveway Sunday when I was waiting for Rawls to make a move. He came out and went full Mrs. Kravitz on me.”
“Mrs. Kravitz?”
“The busybody neighbor on that old sixties showBewitched. You never watched the reruns when you were a kid?”
“Before my time, I guess.”
“Jeez, I’m old.”
Once they had removed the first layer of debris, Ballard climbed the ladder, put her gloved hands on the rim of the dumpster for support, expertly swung her legs over the edge, and dropped into the bin.
“You’re getting good at that,” Bosch said. “The Olympics are coming to town in a few years. You’re the Simone Biles of homicide.”
“You’re a funny guy, Harry,” Ballard said. “This is just another useful skill I’ll hopefully never need again.”
She started handing boxes over the rim to Bosch, who found places for them on the ground.
She eventually found space for her feet on the floor of the bin and was better able to brace herself to lift the heavier debris. She focused on an open crate in the corner. It held a sculpture of a woman and child that had a one-inch-wide crack running through the plaster. She attempted to lift it but realized it would be too heavy to raise over the rim to Bosch. She instead lifted it slightly and swung it to her left to reposition it. When she turned back to the corner, she saw a crushed cardboard box that had been beneath the sculpture crate.
“Harry,” she said. “Take a look.”
She heard his feet clunk on the steps of the ladder, and then he was leaning over the rim.
“Be careful with that knee,” she said.
