According to the records Ballard had pulled up on the computer, Dorsey had turned fifty in jail just a few days earlier, making him just twenty-one at the time of John Hilton’s murder. But the man in front of her looked much older, easily into his sixties. The aging seemed so extreme that at first Ballard thought there had been a mistake and Valens had brought the wrong man into the room.
“You’re Dennard Dorsey?” she asked.
“That’s me,” he said. “What you want?”
“How old are you? Tell me your birth date.”
“March ten, ’sixty-nine. I’m fifty, so what the fuck is this about?”
The date matched and Ballard was finally convinced. She pressed on.
“It’s about John Hilton.”
“Who the fuck is that?”
“You remember. The guy got shot in the alley off Melrose where you used to sell drugs.”
“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do. You talked to your handler at the LAPD about it. Brendan Sloan, remember?”
“Fuck Brendan Sloan, that motherfucker never did jack shit for me.”
“He kept homicide away from you when they wanted to talk to you about John Hilton.”
“Fuck homicide. I never killed nobody.”
Dorsey turned around to see if he could get a guard’s attention through the glass door behind him. He was going to get up and go.
“Stay in your seat, Dennard,” Ballard said. “You’re not going anywhere. Not till we have a conversation.”
“Now why would I have a conversation with you?” Dorsey asked. “I talk to anybody I talk to my lawyer, that’s it.”
“Because right now, I’m talking to you as a possible witness. You bring a lawyer into it, then I’ll be talking to a suspect.”
“I tol’ you, I never killed nobody ever.”
“Then I’ll give you two reasons to talk to me. One, I know your parole officer — the one you never showed up to meet after you got out of Wasco. We’ve worked cases together. You help me here and I’ll go talk to him. Maybe he lifts the VOP and you’re back on the street.”
“What’s the other reason?” Dorsey asked.
Ballard was wearing a brown suit with chalk pinstripes. She reached into an inside pocket of her jacket for a folded document, a prop she had pulled out of the murder book in prep for the interview. She unfolded it and put it down on the table in front of Dorsey. He leaned further forward and down to read it.
“I can’t read this,” he finally said. “They don’t give me glasses in here. What is it?”
“It’s a witness report from the John Hilton murder case from 1990,” Ballard said. “The lead investigator says there that he can’t talk to you because you’re a high-value snitch for the narco unit.”
“That’s bullshit. I ain’t no snitch.”
“Maybe not now, but you were then. Says it right there, Dennard, and you don’t want that piece of paper getting into the wrong hands, you know what I mean? Deputy Valens told me they got you in the Rolling 60s module. How do you think the shot callers in there will react if they see a piece of paper like that floating around?”
“You just messing with me. You can’t do that.”
“You don’t think so? You want to find out? I need you to tell me about that murder from twenty-nine years ago. Tell me what you know and what you remember and then that piece of paper disappears and you don’t have to worry about it ever again.”
“Okay, look, I remember I talked to Sloan about it back then. I tol’ him I wudn’t there that day.”
“And that’s what he told the detectives on the case. But that wasn’t the whole story, Dennard. You know something. A killing like that doesn’t go down without dealers on that street knowing something or hearing something before or after. Tell me what you know.”
“I can’t hardly remember that far back. I done a lotta drugs myself, you know.”
“If you ‘hardly’ remember, that means you remember something. Tell me what you remember.”
“Look, all I know is we was told to get away from that location. Like we thought we had a tip that a bust was coming down or something. So I wudn’t there, man, like I tol’ Sloan back then and tell you now. I didn’t see nothin’, I don’t know nothin’, ’cause I wudn’t there. Period. Now rip up that paper like you said.”
“Is that what you told Sloan, that you were told to clear out?”
“I don’t know. I tol’ him I wudn’t there that day and it was no lie.”
“Okay, who told you to clear out of that alley?”
“I don’t know. I can’t remember.”
“Had to have been a boss, right?”
“I guess maybe. It was a long time ago.”
“Which boss, Dennard? Work with me. We’re almost there.”
“I ain’t working with you. You get me outta here, then I tell you who it was.”
Ballard was not happy that Dorsey was now trying to write the rules of the deal.
“Nah, that isn’t how it works,” she said. “You help me, then I help you.”
“I am helping you,” Dorsey protested.
“No, you’re not. You’re just bullshitting. Tell me who gave the clear-out order and then I talk to your PO. That’s the deal, Dennard. You want it or not? I’m just about out of here. I hate being in jail.”
Dorsey sat quietly for a moment, then nodded his head as though he had convinced himself internally to make the deal.
“I think he dead now anyway,” he said.
“Then giving him up won’t be a problem, will it?” Ballard said. “Who was it?”
“An OG name a Kidd.”
“I want a real name.”
“That was his name.”
“What was his first name?”
“Elvin. Almost like Elvis. Elvin Kidd. He had that alley and he was the boss.”
“Did he tell you to clear out for the day or what?”
“No, he just said like take the day off. We were like already out there and he came up and said you all scram outta here.”
“Who is ‘we’? You and who else were already out there?”
“Me and V-Dog — but that motherfucker dead too. He not going to help you.”
“Okay, well, what was V-Dog’s real name?”
“Vincent. But I don’t know his last name.”
“Vincent Pilkey?”
“I just tol’ you I don’t know. We just work together back then. I don’t know no names.”
Ballard nodded. Her mind was already going back to that alley twenty-nine years ago. A picture was forming of Dorsey and Pilkey running dope in the alley and Elvin Kidd driving in and telling them to clear out.
It made her think Elvin Kidd knew what was going to happen in that alley to John Hilton before it happened.
“Okay, Dennard,” Ballard said. “I’ll call your PO.”
“Talk to him good.”
“That’s the plan.”
Bosch
12
Bosch parked his Jeep Cherokee on the north side of Fremont close enough to walk without his cane to Station 3 of the Los Angeles Fire Department. The station was of modern design and sat in the shadow of the towering Department of Water and Power Building. It was also less than six blocks from the Starbucks where Jeffrey Herstadt had suffered a seizure and had been treated by Rescue 3 EMTs on the day of the Judge Montgomery murder.
As he approached, Bosch saw that both of the double-wide garage doors were open and all of the station’s vehicles were in place. This meant nobody should be out on a call. The garage was two rows deep. A ladder truck took up one whole slot while the other three contained double rows of two fire engines and an EMT wagon. There was a man in a blue fireman’s uniform holding a clipboard as he inspected the ladder truck. Bosch interrupted his work.