Ballard and Bosch went to Hastings’s house first and found no one home. From there, they went west to Sunset Plaza and the home of Rita Ford. The black Tesla that Bosch had previously followed was there, parked in the same spot at the curb on St. Ives as before.
“Bingo,” Bosch said.
They pulled into the driveway and parked. Rita Ford answered the door.
“Detective Ballard, this is a surprise,” she said. “What brings you here?”
“We need to see Nelson Hastings,” Ballard said.
“Why do you think he would be here?”
Ballard pointed out to the street.
“Because that’s his car and because we know he is,” she said. “We need to talk to him, Rita. It’s important.”
“Just a moment,” Ford said.
She closed the door. Ballard looked at Bosch. They were expecting a cold welcome.
When the door reopened, Hastings was standing there.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded.
“We need your help,” Ballard said.
“You want my help? Jesus Christ, one minute you have me down as suspect number one, and now you want my help?”
“What makes you say we suspected you?”
“Come on, Detective. That charade yesterday where you tell me a bullshit story from Kramer after trying to catch me in lies from my earlier statements? I’m not stupid. You’ve got it in your head that someone from Jake’s circle killed Laura Wilson and Sarah Pearlman and that someone was me.”
“We don’t think that, Nelson. Can we come in? We really need you to help us with this.”
Hastings pointed at Bosch.
“And you, I know who you are,” he said. “You followed me from G&B’s. Yeah, I saw you. My guess is you’re Bosch. Well, you fucked up, Bosch, along with her, and tomorrow you’ll both be gone.”
“I fucked up,” Bosch said. “Not Renée. And if you let us in, we can explain it and you can help us catch the murderer of your friend’s sister.”
Hastings shifted his stare from Bosch to Ballard but didn’t move or say anything. Then the stare came back to Bosch. Hastings shook his head like he couldn’t believe what he was about to do and stepped back from the door.
“Ten minutes,” he said. “That’s how long you have to convince me not to have you both fired and maybe even prosecuted.”
Bosch almost told him he couldn’t be fired because he was a volunteer, and that any effort to charge him or Ballard with a crime would be laughed out of the D.A.’s Office along with Hastings.
But he let it go. They followed Hastings into the house, and he led them to a living room furnished in bright oranges and yellows. Rita Ford was sitting on the couch upholstered in white-and-yellow stripes.
“We need to talk privately with Nelson,” Ballard said.
“Fine,” Ford said in an insulted tone.
She got up and left the room. Hastings gestured to the now empty couch, and Bosch and Ballard sat down. The room had a glass wall with a view that extended over the top of the Sunset Boulevard shops a block below and out across West Hollywood.
Hastings stayed standing, arms folded tightly across his chest.
“So,” he said. “Just so we are clear, you two detectives have obviously been following me, investigating me, and suspecting me of murdering my best friend’s sister. Do you admit that?”
“I would like to know how you know all of that,” Ballard asked levelly.
“What does that matter?” Hastings said. “Is it true, or are you going to sit there and deny it.”
“Hastings, why don’t you sit down and cool off,” Bosch said.
“Don’t fucking tell me what to do, old man,” Hastings shot back.
“Look, we’re sorry if you got your feathers ruffled because we were just doing our jobs,” Bosch said. “Sure, we were looking at you, and for good reasons that we can tell you about if you’re interested in listening. So again, why don’t you sit down and help us catch a killer. Wouldn’t your best friend want that?”
Hastings held up his hand to stop all discussion. He briefly closed his eyes and went through some sort of internal calming exercise. He then opened his eyes and sat down on a chair with puffy orange cushions.
“What do you want?” he said.
Bosch looked at Ballard and nodded. She was lead.
“You had a kidney removed in 2008,” she said. “Why?”
Hastings shook his head like he couldn’t comprehend what the question had to do with the subject at hand.
“First of all, how do you know that?” he asked.
“We’re detectives, Mr. Hastings,” Ballard said. “We find things out. You lost a kidney. Why?”
“Okay, look, I didn’t lose a kidney,” Hastings said. “I gave it away.”
Ballard nodded.
“Sorry, poor choice of words,” she said. “You gave someone a kidney. That was a very unselfish thing to do. It must have been someone very close to you. A family member?”
“I’m surprised you don’t already know,” Hastings said. “I gave it to Ted Rawls.”
In the movies, the detectives always look at each other to underscore for the viewer the significance of a witness’s revelation. Ballard and Bosch couldn’t help exchanging a look, and this underscored the significance for Hastings.
“What?” he said. “Are you saying Ted’s the one? No way.”
“We’re not saying that,” Ballard said. “I just didn’t know that Ted had that kind of a health situation. If I had, I would have questioned why the councilman wanted him on our team.”
“The guy wanted to be a cop his whole life,” Hastings said. “LAPD wouldn’t take him but Santa Monica did. Then he gets sick and is forced to quit his chosen profession. So yeah, I gave him a kidney. I had an extra one.”
“What sort of issue did he have with his kidneys?” Ballard asked.
“Cancer,” Hastings said. “Took both kidneys, his spleen. He almost died. But he fought his way back, started a small business, and built it up. He’s amazing. But he never gave up on the dream of being a detective. So when he saw the press conference on TV where Jake announced the reboot of the cold case team, he came to me and said, ‘Put me on.’ I talked to Jake and we agreed. Jake went to you with it.”
“And he conveniently left out his medical history,” Ballard said. “You must have known that the LAPD would not have accepted the liability of that.”
“Jake didn’t want to give you any reason to push back on him,” Hastings said. “So Ted got added to the team. And now you’re saying he had something to do with Sarah and the Wilson girl? That is ridiculous.”
“Again, we’re not saying that,” Ballard said.
“Then what are you saying?” Hastings said. “Why all these questions about Ted?”
Ballard paused for a moment and looked back at Bosch. He knew she was trying to decide whether to trust Hastings not to pass on what she told him to his friends Jake Pearlman and Ted Rawls. Bosch nodded, giving her the go-ahead from his view of things.
“I told you that DNA from the Laura Wilson case matched her killer to the Sarah Pearlman case,” Ballard said.
“Yes, you told me,” Hastings said. “And Wilson had a ‘JAKE!’ button. It’s thin, Detective Ballard.”
“The DNA sample from the Wilson case came from blood found in urine on the toilet seat in her apartment,” Ballard said. “The blood also told us something else. That the killer had kidney disease.”
As staunch a defender of Rawls as he was, even Hastings blinked at the revelation. He was quiet for a few moments and then spoke in a reserved voice.
“So when you found out I was missing a kidney…,” he said, his voice trailing off.
“Plus, I thought you had lied when you told me that the ’05 campaign was before your time,” Ballard said.
Hastings nodded.
“And I knew Laura Wilson was Black before you told me,” he said.
Ballard let him sit with that for a moment and then continued.
“When was the last time you talked to Ted Rawls?” she asked.
“Uh, yesterday,” Hastings said. “He…I called him because I was upset about our conversation. He told me it was probably a setup, that you were getting my DNA. And I remembered the guy there who came up and took my cup. You, right?”
He looked directly at Bosch, who nodded.
“I’m sorry I called you an old man,” Hastings said. “That wasn’t cool at all.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Bosch said. “I am an old man.”
“What else did Ted tell you?” Ballard asked.
“I don’t really remember,” Hastings said. “I kind of went dark when he said, ‘She’s looking at you, man, and you’d better be careful.’”
“Anything else that you can remember?” she pressed.
“No, I just wanted to get off the phone,” Hastings said. “I was so angry once I realized what that meeting between us had really been about.”
“Who else have you talked to about this?” Bosch asked. “Did you tell the councilman?”
“No, I was going to tell him all about it tomorrow when I told him you needed to be fired,” Hastings said. “I talked to Rita about it, but she hasn’t told anyone.”
He held Ballard’s eyes for a long moment.
“You can’t talk to anybody else about this,” Ballard said. “Not the councilman and certainly not Ted Rawls. Rita, too.”
“We keep quiet while you do what?” Hastings asked.
“Continue the investigation,” Ballard said. “We’re very close, and you and the councilman will be the first we call when we get there.”
“What if Ted calls me?” Hastings said. “What do I say?”
“Just don’t take the call,” Bosch said. “If you talk to him, he might be able to read that you know something.”
“My god,” Hastings said. “I really can’t believe this.”
Ballard stood up and Bosch did the same. He knew that she understood that they had to get moving on Rawls—if it wasn’t already too late.
Hastings remained seated and looked like he was deep in thought.
“I just realized something,” he said.
“What?” Ballard asked.
“That I gave my kidney to the guy who killed Sarah,” Hastings said. “And Laura Wilson and who knows who else. I kept this guy alive to do that.”
“Nelson, we don’t know that yet,” Ballard said. “We are working this one step at a time. You’ve been very helpful but we need to continue our work. I promise I will personally keep you in the loop.”
Hastings was staring blankly at nothing.
“Are you okay, Nelson?” Ballard asked.
“Yeah,” Hastings said in a flat voice. “I’m just dandy.”
They left him there with his thoughts. Bosch looked around for Rita Ford as they were exiting the house but didn’t see her. It looked like Hastings was on his own for now.