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“Right.”
“He’s missing half his foot …”
“He must have a prosthetic. From what I saw last night and today, he’s got no limp.”
Ballard was squinting as she looked at her screen.
“You need glasses, Renée,” Bosch said.
“No, I don’t,” she said. “What was it, IED?”
“Doesn’t say in the field action report. When I was in Vietnam, some guys shot themselves so they could get the hell out of there.”
“In the foot?”
“Most of the time.”
“They must’ve really wanted out. Is that what you think Hastings did?”
“I have no idea. I was just talking about Vietnam.”
“Whether he did or he didn’t, what’s that got to do with Sarah Pearlman and Laura Wilson?”
“Nothing. Now open the second file.”
While Ballard did so, Bosch told her how he got the second file.
“Remember I said I got the military file without redactions? Hastings’s Social Security and military serial numbers were in the first file. I used them to access his VA file, and that’s what you have there.”
“Goddamn, Harry, we shouldn’t have this. We should have gotten a search warrant first.”
“No one’s ever going to know we got it, and it will never come up in court. Scroll through it until you get to 2008.”
“Shit, I can’t believe we’re doing this.”
It was Ballard’s last protest before following his directions. Bosch got up and came around the table to be able to see her screen.
“Okay, 2008,” Ballard said. “Says he came into the Westwood VA hospital for urinalysis. I can’t read these results.”
“They don’t mean anything,” Bosch said. “Since ’08, he has come in annually for a urinalysis test.”
“Is this about kidney disease?”
“It’s about this.”
Bosch leaned over her shoulder and pointed to a word in the treatment notes from Hastings’s 2008 visit.
“Nephrectomy,” she said. “What is that?”
“I had to look it up,” Bosch said. “It’s the surgical procedure for removing a kidney.”
Ballard turned from the screen to look at him.
“Harry,” she said. “It’s him.”
29
BALLARD STOOD ON the sidewalk on 1st Street near the corner of the Grand Central Market building. She was in a blind where Hastings would not be able to see her. It was 2:25 and she was waiting on the go-ahead from Bosch. An earlier text from him reported that he was in place and had eyes on Hastings, who had ordered and received a coffee and was looking at his phone while waiting for her.
