The Late Show (Renée Ballard #1)(39)

She paced on the asphalt while waiting for the results and noticed that there was no water in the motel pool. She walked around to the corner of the office so she could get another visual on room 18. It was still dark behind the curtain. She checked the pickup truck and pegged it as at least twenty years old. It likely didn’t have an alarm and would not be useful in drawing Nettles out of the room.

The desk officer came back on the line and reported that there was a Christopher Nettles in the system with a 2014 conviction on multiple theft charges, including burglary of an occupied dwelling. This Christopher Nettles was white, twenty-four years old, and on parole after serving two years in state prison for the convictions.

Ballard asked the officer to put Lieutenant Munroe on the line.

“L-T, it’s Ballard. I’m at Siesta Village and I have a line on a suspect in the four-five-nine on El Centro last night. Can you send me a unit?”

“I can do that. I had all hands on a domestic but it’s calm now and I’ll pull a car off and send them your way. They’re ten out.”

“Okay, have them hold a block back and go to Tact four and I’ll call them in. I want to try to caper this guy out of the room.”

“Roger that, Ballard. You got a name I can write down?”

He was asking for the suspect’s name in case things went sideways and they had to go hunting for him without Ballard’s help. She gave him the details she had on Nettles and then disconnected. She switched her rover to the Tactical 4 frequency and went back into the office, where the counterman was waiting.

“How has Mr. Nettles been paying for his room?” she asked.

“He pays with cash,” he said. “Every three days he pays for three days in advance. He’s good till Monday.”

“Has he been getting deliveries here?”

“Deliveries?”

“You know, boxes, mail. Have people been sending him stuff?”

“I wouldn’t really know. I work during the night. The only deliveries are pizza deliveries. Matter of fact, I think Nettles got a pizza a couple hours ago.”

“So you’ve seen him? You know what he looks like?”

“Yeah, he’s come in and paid for the room a couple times at night.”

“How old is he?”

“I don’t know. Twenties, I’d say. Young. I’m not good at that stuff.”

“Big or small?”

“I’d say on the big side. Looks like he works out.”

“Tell me about the free Wi-Fi.”

“What can I tell you? It’s free. That’s it.”

“Does every room have a router, or is there a main router for the whole place?”

“We got the setup in the back here.”

He hooked a thumb over his shoulder toward the room behind him. Ballard knew that the router’s history could be examined for proof that Nettles had attempted to make purchases online with Leslie Anne Lantana’s credit card, but that would require a warrant and a commitment of time and money from the department’s Commercial Crimes Division that outweighed the importance of the case. It would never happen unless Ballard or someone working the daytime burglary unit did it.

“What about phones? Are there phone lines in the rooms?”

“Yes, we have phones. Except for a couple rooms where they got stolen. We haven’t replaced them.”

“But eighteen has a phone?”

“Yes, there’s a phone.”

Ballard nodded as she considered a plan for getting Nettles out of his room so she could question and possibly arrest him.

“Can you turn the light off in that alcove with the Coke machine?”

“Uh, yeah. I have a switch here. But it turns out the light on the second floor alcove too.”

“That’s okay, turn them both off. Then I need you to call his room and get him to come to the office.”

“How do I do that? It’s almost three o’clock in the morning.”

He pointed over his shoulder toward the wall of clocks to underline that it was too late for him to call Nettles’s room. As if on cue, her rover squawked and she heard her call code. She brought the rover up to respond.

“Six-William-twenty-six, you guys in position?”

“That’s a roger.”

She recognized the voice. It was Smith. She knew she had a solid cop and a gung-ho boot as backup.

“Okay, hold there. When I call you in, drive in the main entrance and don’t let anyone out. Suspect has a 1990s Ford one-fifty, silver in color.”

“Roger that. Weapons?”

“No known weapons.”

Smith clicked twice on the radio to acknowledge.

“Okay, five minutes,” Ballard said. “I’ll give you a standby pop, followed by a go sign.”

The counterman was looking wide-eyed at her when Ballard turned her attention back to him.

“Okay, so now I need you to call room eighteen and tell Nettles that the police were just here asking about him,” she said.

“Why would I do that?” the clerk said.

“Because it’s what just happened. And because you want to continue to cooperate with the LAPD.”

The counterman didn’t say anything. He looked very concerned about being pulled into something.