The Late Show (Renée Ballard #1)(33)

“Got it. And thanks, Fernandez. I owe you one.”

“Happy hunting, Ballard.”

After disconnecting, Ballard pulled up the photos of Ramona Ramone’s bruises on her phone again. Now she could see it: the double O in GOOD and the V in EVIL. They read the same backward or forward.

Ballard knew that it was highly unlikely that Trent would have gotten back the brass knuckles he had been arrested with. After three years, they would have been destroyed by the property unit. But if the weapons were part of a paraphilia— in this case, a sadomasochistic fantasy—it was not a stretch to believe he would go back to wherever he got the original set and buy a duplicate pair.

The adrenaline jolt Ballard had felt earlier now turned into a locomotive charging through her veins. To her mind, Trent was no longer just a person of interest. The train had gone by that stop. She believed he was her man, and there was nothing quite like that moment of knowing. It was the Holy Grail of detective work. It had nothing to do with evidence or legal procedure or probable cause. It was just knowing it in your gut. Nothing in her life beat it. It had been a long time coming to her on the late show but now she felt it and she knew deep down it was the reason she would never quit, no matter where they put her or what they said about her.





12

Ballard went upstairs to the roll-call room early. It was always a good time to socialize, hear station gossip, and pick up street intel. There were already seven uniformed officers seated, including Smith and Taylor, when she walked in. Two of the others were a female team Ballard knew well from crossing paths in the locker room. As would be expected, the conversation under way was about the quintuple murder of the night before. One of the officers was saying that RHD had put a tight seal on internal news about the case, not even releasing the names of the victims as of twenty-four hours after the crime.

“You were inside, Renée,” said Herrera, one of the women. “What’s the scoop on the victims? Who were they?”

Ballard shrugged.

“No scoop,” she said. “I just handled one of the peripheral victims, the cocktail waitress. They didn’t bring me into the inner circle. I saw three dead guys in a booth but I don’t know who they were.”

“I guess they weren’t going to bring you in with Olivas in charge,” Herrera said.

It was a reminder that in a police station, there were few secrets. Within a month of her transfer to Hollywood, everyone in the station knew about her losing her complaint against Olivas, even though personnel matters were supposed to be kept secret by law.

Ballard tried to change the subject.

“So coming in, I saw FSD was inside there tonight,” she said. “They miss something last night?”

“I heard they never left,” Smith said. “They’ve been at it almost twenty-four hours.”

“That’s got to be a record or something,” Herrera added.

“The record is the Phil Spector case—forty-one hours on scene with forensics,” Smith said. “And that was for one body.”

Spector was a famous music producer who had killed a woman he brought home from a bar. It was a sheriff’s case but Ballard decided not to make that distinction.

More officers soon entered the room, followed by Lieutenant Munroe. He took a position behind the podium at the head of the room and convened roll call. It was uneventful and dry, with the usual reporting of area crimes, including the credit-card theft Ballard had handled the night before. Munroe had no news on the Dancers case, not even an artist’s drawing of a suspect. His report lasted less than ten minutes. He concluded by throwing it to Ballard.

“Renée, anything you want to talk about?”

“Not much. We had the assault last night. The victim is still hanging in. Happened on the he-she stroll and anything anybody picks up on that would be welcome. Note that the suspect used brass knuckles. Ask around about that. Other than that and five people murdered in the Dancers, quiet times.”

People laughed.

“Okay,” Munroe said.

The lieutenant moved on to housekeeping announcements about scheduling and body-camera training. Ballard wanted to leave but knew it would be rude, so she pulled her phone to surreptitiously check messages down by her thigh. She saw that she had received a text from Jenkins a few minutes before. He was just checking in with her, as was their custom on the shifts they worked alone.

Jenkins: Howzit going?

Ballard: I think I found the upside-down house.

Jenkins: How?

Ballard: Prior with brass knuckles.

Jenkins: Cool. Are you making a move tonight?

Ballard: No, still gathering string. I’ll let you know.

Jenkins: Good.

Roll call ended as she was finishing the text exchange. Ballard put her phone away and headed toward the stairs. Munroe called to her from behind as she was making the turn on the first landing.

“Ballard, you’re not going over to the Dancers, are you?” he asked.

Ballard stopped and waited for him to catch up.

“No, why?” she said.

“Just wanted to know what my people are doing,” Munroe said.

Technically, Ballard was not one of Munroe’s people but she let the remark slide. He ran patrol in the division during the late show, but Ballard was a detective and reported to Lieutenant McAdams, the dayside D bureau commander.