The Late Show (Renée Ballard #1)(46)

And it was good for one shot only. The shooter must have been confident that it would get the job done.

“Where was he last night?” Ballard asked. “What was he doing?”

“The lieutenant actually sent him home at six,” Steadman said. “He’d been running eighteen hours straight by then and L-T told him to take a break. But he didn’t go home. Shelby said he texted that he had to go wrangle a witness and would be home late.”

“That was the word he used in the text? ‘Wrangle’?”

“That’s what I heard, yeah.”

Ballard had heard Chastain use the word on multiple occasions when they had been partners. She knew that to him, wrangling a witness meant dealing with a complicated situation. It could be complicated for numerous reasons but most often it meant going out and looking for a reluctant witness, one that needed to be controlled and herded into court or into giving a statement.

“Who was the wit?”

“I don’t know. Somebody he heard about or had a line on.”

“And he was working by himself?”

“He’s been the squad whip. You know, since you...transferred out.”

The whip was a detective elevated to a role secondary to the lieutenant. Most often it was someone being groomed for promotion and without an assigned partner. It explained why Chastain might have gone out on his own.

“How is Shelby?” Ballard asked.

“I don’t know,” Steadman said. “I haven’t talked to her. The L-T was dealing with her inside.”

Mentioning Olivas seemed to conjure him. Looking over Steadman’s shoulder, Ballard saw the lieutenant step out of the garage and head toward them. He had his suit jacket off, the sleeves of his white shirt rolled up, and his shoulder holster exposed—counterbalanced with gun on the left and two bullet clips on the right. In a low voice she warned Steadman.

“Here he comes,” she whispered. “Tell me to get out of here again. Make it loud.”

It took Steadman a moment to understand the warning.

“I told you,” he said forcefully. “You can’t be here. You need to go back to your—”

“Corey!” Olivas barked from behind. “I’ll handle this.”

Steadman turned as if just realizing Olivas was behind him.

“She’s leaving, L-T,” he said. “Don’t worry about it.”

“No, go back in,” Olivas said. “I need to speak to Ballard.”

Olivas waited for Steadman to head back to the garage. Ballard stared at him, ready for what she knew would be a verbal assault.

“Ballard, did you have any contact with Chastain yesterday?” he asked.

“Not since I turned a witness over to him on the morning after the shooting,” Ballard said. “That was it.”

“Okay, then you need to leave. You’re not welcome here.”

“He was my partner.”

“Once. Until you tried to co-opt him with your lies. Don’t think for one minute you can make up for it now.”

Ballard held her hands wide and looked around like she was asking who could possibly hear them where they stood on the driveway.

“Why are you lying? There’s nobody else here. Don’t tell me you’ve told it to yourself so often, you actually believe it.”

“Ballard, you—”

“We both know exactly what happened. You made it clear on more than one occasion that my trajectory in the department relied upon you and that I had to put out or I’d get pushed out. Then at the Christmas party I get pushed up against a wall and you try to put your tongue down my throat. You think lying to my face about it will help convince me it didn’t happen?”

Olivas seemed taken aback by the intensity of her voice.

“Just leave. Or I’ll have you escorted off the property.”

“What about Shelby?”

“What about her?”

“Did you just leave her alone in there? She needs somebody to be with her.”

“You? Not in a million fucking years.”

“We were tight. I was her husband’s partner and she trusted me not to sleep with him. I could be of use to you here.”

Olivas seemed to take a moment to consider the option.

“We take care of our own here, and you’re not one of us. Show some integrity, Ballard. Show some respect. You have thirty seconds before I ask the patrol officers to remove you from the property.”

With that, Olivas turned and headed back toward the open garage. Ballard looked past him and saw that several of the people in the garage had been surreptitiously watching their confrontation. She could also see her ex-partner’s take-home plain wrap parked in the right-side bay. The trunk was open and she wondered if that was for processing or to help shield the view of his body slumped in the driver’s seat.

Chastain had betrayed their partnership in the worst way a partner could. It was unacceptable and unforgivable but Ballard understood it, considering Chastain’s ambitions. Still, she always thought there would be a personal reckoning and that he would eventually do the right thing, that he would back her and tell the world what he saw Olivas do. Now there would never be a chance for that. Ballard felt the loss for both Chastain and herself.

She turned and headed down the driveway to the street. She passed a black SUV pulling up that she knew was carrying the chief of police. Her eyes were stinging with tears before she made it to her car.