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“Who’s jumping the gun? You said he went to see a witness—in a murder investigation, I assume. And no one has heard from him since. What’s wrong with this picture?”
“Okay, look, I have to go downtown for a meeting at the D.A.’s office. Let me do that, and then I’ll run down a locationon the witness. If your dad doesn’t show up by then, we’ll go see her tonight.”
Maddie said nothing and Ballard could tell she was frustrated by the delay.
“What you should do,” Ballard said, “is go back inside and write a note to your dad that says he needs to call you as soon as he gets home. Just in case he’s just out of pocket without a phone and we’re worrying over nothing. Will you do that?”
“Yes,” Maddie said sullenly.
“Okay, then I’m going to go, and let’s keep each other in the loop. You okay?”
“I’m okay.”
“Good. I’m sure everything’s fine. I’ll talk to you later.”
They went their separate ways, Ballard to her car and Maddie back into the house.
Ballard drove down the hill and jumped on the Hollywood Freeway. She headed south to downtown.
Checking the time on the dashboard, she saw that she could just make it to the SID lab before her appointment at the District Attorney’s office. She wanted to find out what the pills she had found loose in Bosch’s worktable drawer were and what he would be taking them for. She knew she was committing a breach of Bosch’s privacy that was far beyond what his own daughter had objected to earlier. But there was something going on with Bosch and she needed to find out what it was.
50
THE PARKING AT Charter Boat Row was wide open. All the action for the day was complete and most of the boats had been buttoned up for the night. Bosch walked along the seawall, reading the names of the boats and the signs showing contact information and charter availability. The boats ranged from thirty-foot open fishers to deep-sea cruisers with multiple decks, cabins, and lookout towers.
Near the end of the row, a man was using a hose to spray the decking of a large cruiser with an open salon and room for a large fishing party. It was low tide, so the boat and the man were below Bosch and the seawall. Eventually the man looked up and saw Bosch. He wore a salt-crusted baseball cap that saidDECK DOCTORon it. He pointed to the faucet where the hose he was using was attached.
“Hey, pal, can you turn the water off for me?” he called up.
Bosch walked over and turned off the hose.
“You get back in late?” Bosch asked casually. “Everybody else is gone.”
“I don’t go out,” the man said. “I just clean boats.”
“Got it. Deck Doctor. Do you clean Davy Byrne’s boat?”
The man shook his head.
“Uh, he doesn’t have a boat,” he said. “TheCJis Henry Jordan’s.”
“TheCJ,” Bosch said. “Which one is that?”
“About nine or ten down. You walked right by it.Calamity Jane.”
“Oh, right, I saw it.”
“Davy might act with the tourists like he owns it, but Henry kept a majority ownership. I know that for a fact.”
“So Davy’s just an investor?”
“More like an employee. But you’d have to ask Henry about that when he gets back.”
“Back from where?”
“No idea. Can you hand me down the charge line?”
Bosch looked around and saw a thick yellow electric cord coiled and left on a hook attached to a steel girder. The girders supported the corrugated shade structure that ran the length of the boat row. One end of the cord was attached to a high-voltage plug. He unhooked the coil, fed some of it out, and then tossed the rest down to the Deck Doctor. The man walked the other end over to an electric attachment port beneath the gunwale and plugged it in. Bosch assumed it would recharge the boat’s batteries and other electric devices.
