Chapter 36
THEY HELD UP the briefing at the LAPD Open-Unsolved Unit until Stilwell could get there from Long Beach.
The room was crowded and there weren’t enough chairs for everybody.
Seven people were left standing, including Stilwell.
Ballard handled introductions at the top of the meeting.
She first introduced her team—her volunteers.
There were Laffont and Masser, a woman named Lilia Aghzafi, a Swedish tech guy named Anders Persson, and a young cop named Maddie Bosch, who Stilwell assumed was the wise old Harry Bosch’s daughter.
After that, Ballard introduced the captain of the Special Investigation Section, who in turn introduced the eight men he had brought with him.
The SIS was LAPD’s vaunted surveillance unit, known for its multiple takedowns of violent criminals caught in the act.
Many of these takedowns ended in fatal shootings of the alleged bad guys and subsequent wrongful-death lawsuits.
The ACLU and other civil rights groups as well as some local bloggers and podcasters had long labeled the SIS a kill squad.
And yet it was also the most sought-after assignment in the entire department.
The lead came back to Ballard, and Stilwell was introduced last and in embarrassingly glowing terms. She said that it was his good work that had led to recovering the body of a long-missing woman and identifying the suspect who was the focus of the meeting.
“Some of you know everything I know and some of you don’t,” Ballard said. “So, to make sure we’re all on the same page, we’re going to run it down from the top. It’s important that we act in concert. There is a life at stake.”
Stilwell raised his hand.
“Stil, you don’t have to raise your hand,” Ballard said. “If anybody has a question, just call it out. There are no dumb questions.”
“I was just wondering—if we’re all here, who’s watching the suspect?” Stilwell asked.
“Good question,” Ballard said. “What you see here is only half the SIS unit. The other eight guys are on overwatch on our suspect or prepping tomorrow’s op, which we’ll get to in a second.
At the moment, our suspect, Kent Middleton, is in a room at a hotel in Burbank.
If he makes a move, even to get a bucket of ice from the machine down the hall, he’ll have eight pairs of eyes on him.
He is covered and we don’t have to worry about that. ”
Stilwell waved in a That answers my question gesture.
“All right, Tom, why don’t you start us off?” Ballard said.
Laffont stood in front of a whiteboard with a map of northern L.A. County, including Burbank, displayed on it. He briefly summarized the activities on Catalina that had made Middleton a person of interest in the missing-hikers case.
“We developed intel that Middleton was looking to leave his job on Catalina and find work as a park ranger somewhere else,” Laffont said.
“Today was the first of three days off from his job on the island. And this morning he took the Catalina Express to the mainland and rented a car. He was followed to the Reagan State Building downtown, where he presumably had an interview with the state parks service.”
Laffont said SIS then took over the surveillance and followed Middleton from the state building to a Hilton hotel near Burbank Airport.
“For those of you not up on your local geography,” Laffont said, pointing to the whiteboard, “I draw your attention to the map. You will see that the airport and the hotel are here, situated at the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, which of course contain the vast Angeles National Forest. You’re talking about one thousand square miles of rugged wilderness.
This is of great concern to us because four and maybe five young women have disappeared while hiking in smaller but similar parks over the past fifteen years. ”
“So I made a call,” Ballard said. “Based on the exigent circumstances of Middleton’s proximity to the national park and the fact that a previous victim disappeared from this park, we began to infiltrate his electronic media.”
Exigent circumstances. Stilwell knew this meant they had justified a warrantless search of Middleton’s internet activities when he got near a public park and could be a threat to public safety.
“I’ll let Anders tell you how we accomplished that,” Ballard said.
In a Swedish accent, Persson explained that after Middleton left his appointment with the state parks service, Ballard went into the office and learned whom he had met with and what job he was seeking.
“With that information, I composed a Trojan horse email, which was sent to the suspect’s email address,” Persson said.
“The message appeared to be from the man Middleton had interviewed with earlier. It was a simple note thanking him for coming in and saying that he—Middleton—would hear from them soon regarding the job.”
Persson explained that when Middleton opened the email, it triggered a malware virus that installed keystroke-logging software on his computer. This allowed the cold-case team to set up a computer that mirrored every move the suspect made on his own device.
From there, Ballard took back the narrative.
“We basically watched while Middleton spent the afternoon cyberstalking a woman named Molly Young across multiple social media platforms using a variety of usernames and identities. We’re talking about Instagram, X, Facebook, and LinkedIn, as well as groups specifically for outdoor enthusiasts on Meetup, Strava, and Social Hikers.
Through these we learned that Molly Young is a hiking guide specializing in day trips into the Angeles National Forest.”
Ballard paused there in case there were questions. There was only rapt silence.
“Now, here’s the clincher,” she continued.
“Since we’ve been watching him, he’s responded to two emails from two different accounts reminding him of a prepaid hike reserved for tomorrow morning in Angeles National.
In other words, he paid twice under two different aliases for the same trip—a four-hour hike that leaves from the Tujunga entrance to the forest and goes to a remote waterfall and spring. ”
“Why did he reserve it twice?” one of the SIS men called out.
“Because Molly Young, according to her website, has a safety protocol,” Ballard said.
“She does not do one-on-one hikes into the forest. Her private tours require a minimum of two hikers. Our thinking was that Middleton reserved the two spots on the private tour under different identities—and by the way, one of the aliases he used is female—and then he’s the only one who shows up in the morning.
Molly Young then has to decide to cancel or break protocol and take him alone up to the waterfall.
If he presents as harmless, maybe even offers to do it another day, then he has a shot at going into the woods alone with her. ”
Ballard did not have to say what was expected to happen if Young proceeded with the hike.
The next half hour was spent discussing how tomorrow morning’s hike would be handled.
Ballard told them that the department’s command staff had informed the Park Service managers at Angeles National of the investigation and the need for secrecy.
Using a map that showed the trail to Switzer Falls, SIS officers were scouting locations and prepping to go into the forest shortly after dawn to set up surveillance blinds along the path that Molly Young would take.
Additional SIS men would be posing as hikers along the trail, attempting to restrict the alone time Middleton would have with Young to a short stretch of the trail called the control zone.
At no point would Young be out of sight or reach of the SIS.
The first debate that followed the reveal of the operational plan was about when the SIS team should move in on Middleton to make an arrest. There was talk of needing to see an overt act by him before engaging. Ballard countered by saying that an overt act could be a fatal act.
“The previous victims were strangled,” she said. “Hyoid bones crushed like potato chips. We can’t let it get close to that.”
“We won’t let that happen,” Captain Vance Dawkins, head of the SIS unit, stated confidently.
“This is what we do. In sixty years, SIS has not lost a single potential victim under surveillance. Not one. We are going to have men in the trees and on the ground in the control zone. We’ll have cameras on the gate and in the zone.
Believe me, we are putting all our resources into this.
This young woman is going to be safe as a baby.
She’ll be scared when we move in but abso-fucking-lutely safe. You have my guarantee.”
The force with which Dawkins spoke seemed to end the debate right there, but Stilwell could still see a trace of doubt in Ballard’s face.
“What’s the plan if Molly calls it when the second hiker doesn’t show up?” he asked.
“We have to be ready if he makes his move then,” Ballard said. “But if he doesn’t, we wait and take him once he gets back in his vehicle. Then we get him, whatever he’s carrying, and whatever’s in the car.”
She was talking about evidence. She moved on to what became another debate, this one about whether to tell Young about the operation and give her the option of not going forward with the hike.
It was decided pretty quickly that if she was informed and agreed to carry on with the hike, her nervousness might tip off Middleton that law enforcement was onto him.
There was also a brief discussion about replacing Young with a police officer with similar looks and build.
But Ballard said that plan was too risky because there were many photos of Young on her website and Instagram feed that showed her hiking in the forest. Many of these were close-up selfies.
Middleton had accessed these in his hotel room and might easily spot a stand-in for the real Molly Young.
On top of that, finding an officer or even a park ranger who could lead a hike as professionally and as well as the real Molly Young was a long shot, especially on such short notice.
It was decided: Molly Young would be a pigeon—SIS parlance for a potential victim who did not know she was under surveillance and was the intended target of a violent criminal.
Ballard finished the briefing by saying the meeting point Molly Young had set for the hike was the gated entrance to the forest on Angeles Crest Highway in Tujunga.
She said the command post vehicle for the operation would be in the parking lot of the LAPD’s Foothill Division station, which included Tujunga in its patrol zone but was located far enough from the forest gate for Middleton not to stumble upon it.
The report-to-duty time for the op was set at 0500 and Ballard finished the meeting with one last point.
“I want Paul Masser from my team to talk about the law and what we will need to make this a solid case,” she said. “Paul spent twenty-five years as a deputy DA, so listen up.”
Masser had been sitting. He stood up to address the group.
“Essentially, we are going to stop this crime before it happens, right?” he said.
“So we have to make sure we have the elements we need to charge this asshole with as many crimes as we can. An overt act was mentioned earlier. That can mean different things. It does not—let me repeat, does not—need to be a physical assault. We want to make the arrest before it comes to that. So then, what are we looking for? An overt act can obviously be him brandishing some kind of weapon, which could be anything, even a walking stick. If he stops to look around to see if there are any witnesses near him, that constitutes an overt act.”
“Tell them about evidence,” Ballard said.
“Right,” Masser said. “This guy buries his victims. We expect that he will have the backpack we saw on the surveillance with him and that it will likely contain a shovel or some other kind of digging tool. There will probably be bindings of some kind. Duct tape. Rope. The backpack will be key. If we get that and it has what we think it does, then we’ve got him and he will go away for a long, long time. Any questions?”
There were none. It looked to Stilwell as if the SIS guys weren’t paying attention. It was the first hint that maybe they weren’t planning on Middleton coming out of the forest alive. No need to worry about a prosecution case if there was nobody to prosecute.
“Okay, that’s it, people,” Ballard announced. “Remember, RTD zero five hundred hours. Go home, get some sleep. Be sharp in the morning.”
The meeting broke up. The SIS men headed to the exit, and Stilwell moved to the whiteboard to look at the map. Ballard came over to him.
“So, what do you think?” she asked.
“I was thinking about what Paul just said,” Stilwell responded. “If the backpack has all the evidence we need, why don’t we just take Middleton down at the forest gate?”
“I think we need the backpack plus the overt act to be sure. Paul talked to a filing deputy at the office earlier today.”
“All right. I guess so.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know. A lot of stuff can go wrong during a walk in the woods.”
“Then we just have to make sure it doesn’t.”
“Easier said. Have you worked with SIS before?”
“A couple times. They’re good at what they do.”
“Killing bad guys?”
“Sometimes. If it goes that way tomorrow, you’re not going to see me shedding a tear for Middleton. Only for the victim we haven’t identified.”
“Yeah, me too.”
“You got a place to stay tonight? You’re not going back across, are you?”
“Uh, no. But I’ll find a place.”
“Then I’ll see you at Foothill at zero dark early.”
“I’ll be there.”
Ballard went off to confer with Laffont. Stilwell looked back at the map. The Switzer Falls trail was a red squiggle with a lot of switchbacks, indicating an uphill climb. He had a bad feeling about the next day.
He tried to shake it off as he left the building. He pulled out his phone to call Tash and tell her that he wouldn’t be coming home.