The Late Show (Renée Ballard #1)(79)
Ballard pulled her Kimber from her jacket and handed it across the table. Feltzer checked the thumb safety and put it in a plastic evidence bag, then wrote something on it and placed it in a brown paper bag he put on the floor.
“Are you carrying a backup?” he asked
“No, no backup,” she said.
“Okay, so let’s start. I’m sure you know how this goes, Detective Ballard, but I’ll tell you anyway before we turn on the tape. I will give you the Miranda advisement and you will refuse to waive your right to remain silent. I will then give you the Lybarger admonishment and you’ll tell me what happened. After we have your story on tape, we’ll go into the house and you’ll walk me and my team through it all over again. You okay with all of that?”
Ballard nodded. The Lybarger admonishment was used to compel an officer to answer questions without an attorney present. It was named after an officer who was fired for refusing to do so. It compelled an officer to talk but had an exclusion that disallowed these statements from being used in a criminal proceeding against the officer.
Feltzer turned the video equipment on, went through both legal advisements, and then got down to business.
“Let’s start at the top,” he said. “Detective Ballard, tell me what happened and what led to the death of Thomas Trent by your hand.”
“Trent was a primary suspect in the abduction and assault of Ramón Gutierrez, a male prostitute, in Hollywood,” Ballard said. “Trent somehow found out where I live in Ventura and came there last night without my knowing. While I was prepping a surfboard in the garage with the door open, he came up behind me and pulled a plastic bag over my head. He abducted and drugged me and took me to this location—his home. He may have sexually assaulted me while I was unconscious, but I don’t know. I woke up naked and tied to a chair. He then told me he was going to abduct another victim and he drugged me again before apparently leaving the premises. I regained consciousness before he returned and managed to free myself. Before I could escape from the house, he returned with the second victim. Fearing for her safety, I stayed in the room where he had left me. I armed myself with a broomstick from the sliding-door track and a sharp piece of wood I had broken off the legs of a chair. When he entered with the second victim, I engaged him in a physical altercation, striking him several times with the broomstick until it broke. He then managed to get his arms around me and grab me. Knowing he was much bigger than me and fearing for my life, I stabbed him multiple times with the splinter of wood. He eventually let go of me, collapsed on the floor, and died shortly afterward.”
Feltzer was silent for a long time, possibly stunned by the complexity of the story, even in short form.
“Okay,” he finally said. “We’re going to go through this in greater detail now. Let’s start with the Gutierrez case. Tell me about that.”
It took Ballard ninety minutes to go through everything under Feltzer’s detailed but nonaccusatory questioning. At times he brought up seeming inconsistencies and at others questioned her decision-making, but Ballard knew that any good investigator asked some questions that were designed to incite upset and even outrage in their subject. It was called trying to get a reaction. But she maintained her cool and spoke calmly during the entire interview. Her goal was to keep it together through this phase, no matter how long it took, knowing that eventually she would be left alone and would be able to let herself go. Over the years she had read several primers in the police union newsletter and knew to repeatedly use key words and phrases like “fearing for the safety of myself and the other victim” that she knew would make it difficult for FID to find Trent’s killing other than justified and within the department’s use-of-force policy. FID would then recommend to the District Attorney’s Office that no action be taken against Ballard.
She also knew that it would come down to whether her words matched the physical evidence collected in Trent’s house, her van, and the garage up in Ventura. After not straying during the interview from what she knew had happened, she left the interrogation room, confident that there would be no contradictions for Feltzer and his team to grab on to.
When she emerged from the trailer, she saw that the crime scene had become a three-ring circus. Several police vehicles as well as forensic and coroner’s vans were clustered in the street. Three TV vans lined up outside the yellow tape on Wrightwood, and up above, news choppers circled. She also saw her partner, Jenkins, standing on the periphery. He nodded and held up a fist. She did as well and they mimed bumping from twenty feet apart.
By ten a.m. Ballard had completed the walk-through with the FID team. Most of the time had been spent in the bottom-level room, where Trent’s body remained, hands still tied behind his back with her bra. Ballard felt fatigue crushing her. Other than the minutes when she had been drugged into unconsciousness, she had been going for over twenty-four hours straight. She told Feltzer she was not feeling well and needed to crash. He said that before she could go home, she needed to go to a Rape Treatment Center to find out whether Trent had raped her while she was unconscious and for evidence to be collected. He was arranging for one of his detectives to drive her when Ballard asked if her own partner could be the escort.
Feltzer agreed. They made an appointment for a follow-up interview the following morning and then the FID lieutenant let her go.
As she was leaving, Ballard asked about her van and was told it was going to be impounded and examined by the forensics team. She knew that meant it would likely be a week or more before she got it back. She asked if she could take any belongings out of it and was again told no.