The Late Show (Renée Ballard #1)(36)

“I heard she bought it from the previous guy for four hundred bucks and then he moved into the jungle.”

Denver now pointed toward the encampment. It was clear that the RVs, no matter how decrepit and despairing, were the choice habitats in the community. A cottage industry had recently arisen in which old inoperable campers were pulled out of junkyards and backyards, towed to street parking locations under freeways or in industrial areas, and sold cheap or even rented to homeless people. They were passed from hand to hand and were often the subject of ownership fights and unlawful evictions. The department was in the process of putting together a task force to deal with this and the many other issues of the city’s growing homeless population—the largest west of New York City.

“How long was she there?” Ballard asked.

“A year or thereabouts,” Denver said.

“Is somebody in there now?”

“Yeah, a guy. Stormy Monday took it.”

“That’s the name he uses?”

“Yeah. People ’round here use a lot of different names, you know? They’ve left their other names behind.”

“Got it. Let’s go talk to Stormy. I’ve got to look inside.”

“He’s not a happy guy when you wake him up. They call him Stormy Monday but he’s kind of a dick every single day.”

“I know the type. We’ll deal with that, Denver.”

As she started toward the front of the train of RVs, she brought her rover up and called in a request for a backup. She was given an ETA of four minutes.

“You know, when police come around here, it makes people upset,” Denver said after she lowered the radio.

“I understand,” Ballard said. “We don’t want to cause any problems. But it will be up to Stormy Monday.”

Ballard had a small tactical light in her pocket that she had gotten out of the glove box of her car. The butt end was a heavy steel point. She used it to rap on the door of the Dodge Midas. She then stepped a comfortable four feet back and two to the left. She noticed that there was no handle on the door, just two holes through which were threaded the links of a steel chain. It was a way to lock the vehicle when you were inside it as well as out.

There was no answer and no movement from the RV.

“It looks like somebody’s locked in,” Ballard said.

“Yeah, he’s in there,” Denver said.

Ballard rapped harder on the door this time. The sound echoed off the concrete overhead and could be heard well above the din of the freeway.

“Hey, Stormy!” Denver called out. “Come on out here a minute.”

A patrol car cruised slowly down Heliotrope, and Ballard flicked her light at it. The car pulled to a stop in the street beside the Midas. The two female blue suiters from roll call got out. Herrera was the lead and her partner was Dyson.

“Ballard, what’ve we got?” Herrera asked.

“Gotta roust a guy in here,” Ballard said. “Denver here says he’s not going to be happy.”

The RV’s springs were shot after so many decades of use. The vehicle started to creak and move as soon as there was movement inside. Then, from the other side of the door came a voice.

“Yeah, what do you want?”

Denver stepped in unbidden.

“Hey, Stormy, you got the police out here. They want to see inside the crib on account of Ramona used to live here.”

“Yeah, she ain’t livin’ here now,” Stormy replied. “I’m sleeping.”

“Open the door, sir,” Ballard said loudly.

“You have a warrant or something? I know my rights.”

“We don’t need a warrant. We need you to open the door, or what we’ll do is tow this vehicle with you in it to the police yard, where the door will be forcibly opened and you’ll be arrested for obstructing an investigation. You’ll be in county jail and this prime spot will go to somebody else. Is that what you want, sir?”

Ballard thought she had covered everything. She waited. Herrera stepped away to listen to a call on her shoulder mic. Dyson stayed with Ballard. Thirty seconds went by and then Ballard heard the rattle of the chain inside the door. Stormy Monday was opening up.

Based on the moniker and the prep that he was an angry guy, Ballard was expecting a big man to come out of the trailer, ready for confrontation. Instead, a small man with glasses and a gray beard stepped out with his hands up. Ballard told him to put his hands down and walked him over to Dyson and Herrera, who had returned to the group. Ballard questioned him about the ownership of the RV and its contents. The man, who identified himself as Cecil Beatty, said he had moved in only two days earlier, and that was after the RV had been picked through by others. He said that he didn’t think there were any belongings left that had been Ramona Ramone’s.

Ballard told the patrol officers to watch Beatty while she took a look inside the RV. She put on latex gloves and went up the two steps and in. She swept her light across a small two-room space that was littered with junk and smelled as sour as the Hollywood Station drunk tank on a Sunday morning. Ballard put her mouth and nose into the crook of her elbow as she moved through the debris that littered every surface and the floor. She saw nothing that stood out as possibly belonging to Ramona Ramone. She moved through the first room and into the back room, which essentially consisted of a queen-size bed piled with darkly stained sheets and blankets. She nearly lost it when the sheets suddenly moved and she realized there was someone in the bed.