The Late Show (Renée Ballard #1)(14)

“Just left. Get me out of here.”

“On my way.”

Ballard re-engaged the GPS route to Pasadena so the phone’s screen would remain active and headed back to the Dancers. After she picked up Jenkins, they drove to the La Brea address on Cynthia Haddel’s driver’s license. The first step of the notification process was to go to the victim’s home to see if there might be a husband or other relative sharing the premises.

It was a recently built apartment building a half block north of Melrose in an area of shops and restaurants popular with the younger crowd. There were ramen noodle and build-yourown-pizza restaurants fronting the first floor, with the building’s entrance in the middle.

Haddel’s license listed her in unit 4B. Ballard used one of the keys on the ring taken from the locker to gain entrance through a security door to the elevator lobby. She and Jenkins rode to the fourth floor and found 4B at the end of the hallway leading to the back of the building.

Ballard knocked twice but no one answered. It did not mean there was no other occupant. Ballard knew from experience that someone could still be sleeping inside. She used the second key to open the door. By law they should have had a search warrant but both detectives knew they could cite exigent circumstances if a problem developed later. They had five people dead and no suspects and no motive. They needed to check on the safety of any possible roommates of their victim, no matter how peripheral to the case she might be.

“LAPD! Anyone home?” Ballard called out as they entered.

“Police!” Jenkins added. “We’re coming in.”

Ballard kept her hand on her hip holster as she entered but she did not draw her gun. There was a single light on in the living room, which opened off a short entrance hallway. She visually checked a galley kitchen to the right and then moved toward another hallway leading to the back of the apartment. It led to a bathroom and a single bedroom. The doors to these rooms were open and Ballard quickly hit light switches and scanned them.

“Clear,” she called out when she confirmed there were no other occupants.

She stepped back into the living room, where Jenkins was waiting.

“Looks like she lived alone,” she said.

“Yep,” Jenkins said. “Doesn’t help us any.”

Ballard started looking around, paying attention to the personal details of the small apartment: knickknacks, photos on shelves, a stack of bills left on the coffee table.

“Pretty nice place for a cocktail waitress,” Jenkins said. “The building is less than a year old.”

“She was slinging dope at the club,” Ballard said. “I found her stash in her locker. There may be more here someplace.”

“That explains a lot.”

“Sorry, I forgot to tell you.”

Ballard moved into the kitchen and saw a variety of photos on the refrigerator. Most of them were like the ones on Cynthia’s phone—outings with friends. Several were of a trip to Hawaii that showed Haddel surfing on a training board and riding on a horseback trail through a volcano crater. Ballard recognized the outline of Haleakalˉ in the background and knew it was Maui. She had spent many years growing up on the island and the shape of the volcano on the horizon had been part of her daily existence. She knew it the way people in L.A. knew the crooked line of the Hollywood sign.

There was a photo partially obscured by newer additions to the refrigerator but Ballard saw a woman of about fifty who shared the same jawline as Haddel. She carefully pulled it off and found that it showed Cynthia Haddel between a man and woman at a Thanksgiving table, the cooked turkey on full display. It was most likely a shot of Haddel and her parents, the lines of heredity clear in both their faces.

Jenkins came into the kitchen and looked at the photo in Ballard’s hand.

“You want to do it now?” he asked. “Get it over with?”

“Might as well,” she said.

“Which way you want to go with it?”

“I’ll just do it.”

Jenkins had been referring to the choice they had here. It is a harsh thing to learn by a telephone call that a loved one has been murdered. Ballard could have called the Modesto Police Department and asked them to make the notification in person. But going that way would remove Ballard from the process and she would lose the opportunity to get immediate information about the victim and any possible suspects. More than once in her career when she had made next-of-kin notification, she had come up with credible leads to follow in the investigation. That seemed unlikely with Cynthia Haddel, since she was probably not at the center of motivation for the mass shooting. As Olivas had said, she was collateral damage, a fringe player in what had happened. So it was a valid question from Jenkins, but Ballard knew that she would feel guilty later if she didn’t make the call. She would feel like she had skirted a sacred responsibility of the homicide detective.

Ballard pulled out Haddel’s phone. The GPS program had kept the screen active. She pulled up the contacts list to get the number for home and then called it from her own phone. It rang through to a voice-mail greeting confirming that it was the Haddel family home. Ballard left a message identifying herself and asking for a call back to her cell number, saying it was urgent.

It was not unusual for people not to answer a blocked call in the middle of the night, but Ballard hoped that her message would bring a quick return call. She stepped over to the refrigerator and looked at the photos once again while waiting. She wondered about Cynthia growing up in Modesto and then journeying south to the big city, where roles with partial nudity were okay and selling dope to Hollywood scenesters supplemented her income.