The Late Show (Renée Ballard #1)(69)

“How the fuck do you know that?”

But then she shook her head. She didn’t need the answer, though Carr gave it.

“You know that every access to NCIC is logged,” he said. “I saw that you ran down the three stiffs in the booth and this Thomas Trent. I was wondering who this guy was and what the connection was.”

“Now you know,” Ballard said. “No connection. You people...That case has nothing to do with Chastain or the Dancers or anything else.”

“Good to know.”

“Look, are you going to do anything with what I just gave you or not?”

“I will, Ballard, but think about what you’re suggesting. A police lieutenant kills five people in a bar, then takes out one of his own people? For what? Because he’s got—what? Gambling debts? It’s a big fucking stretch.”

“There’s no explanation for why people kill. You know that. And if you cross that line, what’s to stop you from going from one to six?”

She looked off and down the hallway. In that moment, she saw a man avert his eyes from her. He was across the hall and one courtroom down. He was wearing a suit but he looked more cop than lawyer.

Ballard looked casually back at Carr.

“There’s somebody watching us,” she said. “Black male, stocky, brown suit, across the hall and down one.”

“Relax,” Carr said. “That’s Quick, my partner.”

“You brought your partner?”

“You’re a wild card, Ballard. I wanted to make sure things were cool.”

“Was he there yesterday when we had our ‘dinner date’ too?”

“He was nearby, yeah.”

Ballard looked back over at Carr’s partner.

“He doesn’t look that quick to me,” she said.

Carr laughed.

“His name is Quinton Kennedy,” he said. “We call him Quick.”

Ballard nodded.

“So look,” Carr said. “I’m taking all of this under advisement, okay? I’m going to go back and talk to my lieutenant and finesse out the thing about Robison’s phone. I’ll find out how we knew you called him. If it’s there like you think, I’ll get back to you, and then we have to talk about the next step. Where we take it.”

“We take it to the D.A.,” Ballard said. “We take it to J-SID.”

“Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. We need a lot more than knowledge about your phone calls. There still could be a reasonable explanation.”

“You keep thinking that, Carr. And keep Quick on your six. You don’t want to end up like my former partner.”

Ballard stood up again. Without another word she walked off toward the elevator alcove. She threw a mock salute toward Quick and he squinted his eyes at her as though he didn’t know who she was. But it was too late for that.





24

Ballard got good and bad news when she arrived at the acute-care nursing station on the third floor at County-USC. The good news came when she was informed that Ramona Ramone was conscious and alert and that she had been upgraded to fair condition. The bad news was that she was still intubated, unable to talk, and through hand signals appeared not to know why she was hospitalized or what had happened to her.

Ballard was allowed to visit, and as she entered the room, Ramona opened her still-swollen eyes a sliver and they looked at each other for the first time. Something about seeing this victim awake and coming to understand her dire circumstances was gut-wrenching. There was utter fear in her eyes. Fear of the unknown.

“Ramona,” Ballard began. “I’m Renée. I’m a detective with the Los Angeles Police Department and I’m going to find the man who did this to you.”

Ballard put the file she was carrying down on the side table and stood at the side of the bed. Ramona’s eyes were nervous and moving rapidly. Her face was still heavily swollen on the right, giving it an asymmetrical shape. Ballard reached over and held her hand, putting her thumb into the palm.

“You’re safe now,” she said. “Nobody will hurt you anymore. What I want you to do now is squeeze my thumb if you understand what I’m telling you.”

Ballard waited and soon she felt the squeeze.

“Okay, good. That’s good, Ramona. Let’s do this: I will ask you yes and no questions, okay? If your answer is yes, then you squeeze my thumb one time. If your answer is no, then squeeze twice. Okay?”

She waited and got one squeeze.

“Good. The nurse told me that you’re having trouble remembering what happened to you. Is it a total blank?”

Two squeezes.

“So there is some that you remember?”

One squeeze.

“Okay, let me tell you what we know and then we will go from there. Today is Monday. Late Thursday night you were found in a parking lot on Santa Monica Boulevard near Highland Avenue. It was an anonymous call, and the officers who responded at first thought you were dead. That’s how bad you looked to them.”

Ramona closed her eyes and kept them shut. Ballard continued.

“You were momentarily conscious as the officers waited for a rescue ambulance. You said something about an upside-down house and then you lost consciousness. That was all we had to go on. Since then I have been to the RV where you lived, and the people there said you had been gone for five days. I think someone held you all that time, Ramona. And he hurt you very badly.”