The Late Show (Renée Ballard #1)(72)

“No, Ballard, I didn’t. I didn’t even ask, because that was not the part of the investigation I was given.”

“Of course not. I mean why go the extra mile when it’s easier to keep your head buried in the sand?”

“Ballard—”

She disconnected and rode the rest of the way to Ventura in silence, barely able to contain her frustration with being on the outside, looking in.

That night at dinner, Ballard’s grandmother tried to cheer her up by making her a childhood favorite: black beans and rice with guacamole and fried plantains. Ballard loved the food but still had little to say other than to compliment the cook. It was the cook who did most of the talking and asked the questions.

Tutu was a small woman and seemed to be shrinking with age. Her skin was nut-brown and hard from years in the sun, first teaching her only son to surf and then traveling to beaches around the world to watch him compete. Still, her eyes were sharp and she knew her granddaughter better than anyone.

“Are you working on a case?” she asked.

“I was,” Ballard said. “It kind of stalled out on me.”

“But you’re working on something. I can tell. You’re so quiet.”

“I guess so. I’m sorry.”

“You have an important job. It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not. I need to forget about things for a little while. If you don’t mind, after dinner I’m going to go out to the garage and do some laundry and wax a shorty to use tomorrow.”

“You’re not going to paddle?”

“I think I need a change of pace.”

“Do what you need to do, darling. After the dishes, I’m going to go up to bed.”

“Okay, Tutu.”

“But tell me, have you heard anything lately from Makani?”

“No, not since Christmas.”

“That’s a shame.”

“Not really. It is what it is. She finds a phone on Christmas and when she needs something. That’s fine.”

Makani was Ballard’s mother. As far as Renée knew, she was alive and well and living on remote ranchland in Kaupo, Maui. She had no phone and no Internet. And she had no inclination to be in regular contact with the daughter she had let go to the mainland twenty years ago to live in the home where her dead father had grown up. Even when Ballard had returned to her native Hawaii to go to the university, there was no connection. Ballard always believed it was because she was too strong a reminder of the man Makani had lost to the waves.

Ballard stayed in the kitchen to help with the dishes as she always did, working side by side with her grandmother at the sink. She then hugged her and said good night. She took Lola out to the front yard and looked up at a clear night sky while the dog did her business. Afterward, she walked Lola to her dog bed, then went to her room to retrieve the drawstring laundry bag she had brought in earlier from the van.

In the garage Ballard dumped her dirty clothes into the washing machine and started the cycle. She went over to the board rack that ran along the rear wall of the garage. There were eight boards arranged in slots according to size: her life’s collection so far. She never traded in boards. There were too many memories attached to them.

She pulled a short board out of the first slot and took it over to an upside-down ironing board she used as a waxing and cleaning stand. The board was a six-foot Biscuit by Slick Sled with pink rails and a purple paisley deck. It was her first board, bought for her by her father when she was thirteen, and chosen for the vibrant colors rather than the surfing design. The colors were faded now by years in sun and salt but it still made tight turns and could pound down the face of a wave as well as a newer model. As she got older, more and more it seemed to be the board she pulled from the rack.

From day one with it, Ballard had always liked the process of cleaning and waxing the board and preparing for the next day’s outing. Her father had taught her that a good day of surfing started the night before. She knew detectives at Hollywood Division who spent hours shining their shoes and oiling their leather holsters and belts. It demanded a certain focus and concentration and took them away from the burden of cases. It cleared their minds and renewed them. For Ballard, waxing a surfboard did the same trick. She could leave everything behind.

First she took a wax comb out of the toolbox on the nearby workbench and started stripping the old wax off the deck. She let it all flake to the concrete floor to pick up later. The last step of the process was the cleanup.

Once she got most of the old wax peeled off, she grabbed the gallon jug of Firewater off a shelf over the workbench. She poured the cleaning solvent onto a rag and wiped down the board’s deck until it held a shining reflection of the overhead light. She stepped over and hit the wall button that opened the garage door so the chemical smell of the cleaner would dissipate.

She came back to the board, dried it with an old terrycloth robe, and then grabbed an unopened cake of Sex Wax off the shelf. She carefully applied a base and then a thick top coat to the deck. She had always surfed goofy foot—right foot forward—and was sure to double down on wax on the tail section, where she would plant her left heel.

Every surfer was particular about how they combed their wax. Ballard always followed her father’s lead and combed front to back, leaving grooves that followed the waterlines.

“Go with the flow,” he would say.