The Night Fire (Renée Ballard, #3)(74)

Ballard knew Robinson lived in Santa Monica on one of the college streets.

“How about Little Ruby’s?” she asked.

The restaurant was just off Ocean Boulevard in Santa Monica and just about equidistant for both of them. It was also dog-friendly.

“I’ll be there by nine,” Robinson said.

“Bring your earbuds,” Ballard said. “There’s some wiretap material.”

“Will do. You’re bringing Lola, I hope.”

“I think she’d love to see you.”

Ballard got to the restaurant first and found a spot in a corner that would give them some privacy to review the case. Lola went under the table and lay down, but then immediately jumped up when Robinson arrived and Lola remembered her old friend.

Robinson was tall and thin and Ballard had never known her to keep her hair in anything but a short Afro that was stylish and saved her time every morning while getting ready for battle in the courts. She was at least a decade older than Ballard and her first name had a deep history, her parents having met during the historic civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.

Ballard and Robinson hugged briefly but the prosecutor fawned over Lola for a full minute before sitting and getting down to the business of breakfast and crime.

“So like I said on the phone, I’m working on a case,” Ballard began. “And I want to know if I have it or not.”

“Well, then let’s hear it,” Robinson said. “Pretend I’m in my office and you’ve come over to file. Convince me.”

As succinctly as she could, Ballard presented the Hilton case, going over the details of the murder and then the long period the case spent gathering dust in a retired detective’s home study. She then moved into the investigation conducted in more recent days, and how it finally focused on Elvin Kidd and Ballard’s theory about the true motive for the killing. She revealed that she had flipped Marcel Dupree, stopped a murder from occurring in Men’s Central, and extracted a confession that could take Kidd off the streets for good. But what she wanted was to close the Hilton case, and with Dupree’s cooperation, she believed she was close. She asked Robinson to listen to the ninety-second wiretapped phone conversation set up between Dupree and Kidd late the afternoon before, assuring her that the wiretap had been authorized by Judge Billy Thornton.

One complication Ballard mentioned in introducing the wiretap was that the men on the call sounded very similar in tone and used similar street slang. Ballard repeated in her introduction to the playback that the first voice belonged to Dupree and the second voice was Kidd’s. Robinson put in her earbuds and plugged into Ballard’s computer. Ballard opened the wiretap software and played the phone call. At the same time, she gave the prosecutor a copy of a transcript she had produced during her work shift.

Dupree: Yo.

Kidd: Dog.

Dupree: That thing we were talking about? All done.

Kidd: It is?

Dupree: Motherfucker’s gone to gangsta’s paradise.

Kidd: I ain’t hear nothin’.

Dupree: And you prolly won’t out there in Rialto. The sheriffs don’t be puttin’ out press releases on convicts gettin’ killed in jail and all. That don’t look good. But you want, you can check it, my n____.

Kidd: How’s that?

Dupree: Call up the coroner. They gotta have him over there by now. Also, I hear they gonna put him out for a full gangsta’s funeral in a few days. You could come over, see him in the box for yourself.

Kidd: Nah, I ain’t doin’ that.

Dupree: I get it, seeing that you put the motherfucker in the box.

Kidd: Don’t be sayin’ that shit, n ____.

Dupree: Sorry, cuz. Anyway, it’s done. We good now?

Kidd: We good.

Dupree: You ever going to tell me the reason? I mean, that n____ was your boy back in the day. Now it come to this.

Kidd: He was putting pressure on me, man, that’s all.

Dupree: Pressure for what?

Kidd: A piece of work I had to handle back then. A white boy who owed too much money.

Dupree: Huh. And he was bringing that up now?

Kidd: He told me five-oh came round visiting him up at Bauchet and asking ’bout that thing. He then gets my number off you and calls me up. I can tell he’s on the make. He going to be trouble for me.

Dupree: Well, not anymore.

Kidd: Not anymore. I thank you, my brother.

Dupree: No thing.

Kidd: I’ll check you.

Dupree: Later, dog.

Robinson pulled out her earbuds when the call was over. Ballard held her hand up to stop her from asking any questions.

“Hold on a second,” Ballard said. “There’s another call. He does try to confirm Dorsey’s death and we had that set up with the coroner’s office.”

The next call was from Elvin Kidd to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office, where he spoke to a coroner’s investigator named Chris Mercer. Ballard handed Robinson a second transcript and told her to put her buds back in. She then played the second recording.

Mercer: Office of the Medical Examiner, how can I help you?

Kidd: I’m trying to find out if a friend of mine is there. He supposedly got killed.

Mercer: Do you have the name?

Kidd: Yes, it’s Dorsey for the last name. And Dennard with a D like dog for the first.