She dug deep into the water with long, smooth strokes. As she worked, she let the details of the Dancers case flow through her mind. She tried to delineate what she knew, what she could assume, and what she didn’t know. If she assumed that the fourth man in the booth was a cop, that made it a meeting of individuals with expertise in several areas of vice and law enforcement — gambling, loan-sharking, and drugs. Fabian, the drug dealer, had asked his attorney about delivering a cop to trade for help on his case. That indicated that he knew of a cop who was involved in illegal activities. Perhaps a cop who had taken bribes or had run interference on cases. Perhaps a cop who owed money.
Ballard could see a scenario where a cop who owed money to a bookie would be introduced to a loan shark with perhaps the drug dealer as the go-between. Another scenario she paddled through had the cop already owing the bookie and loan shark and being introduced to the drug dealer to set up a deal that would pay off his debts.
There were many plausible possibilities and she could not narrow anything down without more facts. She changed the direction of the board and shifted her focus to Chastain. His actions indicated that he had been on the same path that Ballard was on now but that he had somehow drawn attention to it, and it had gotten him killed. The question was, how did he get there so fast? He did not have the information Ballard had gotten from Towson, yet something had told him it was a cop who had been in that booth.
She went back to the start, to the callout on the case. She quickly went through her own steps in the investigation, beginning at Hollywood Presbyterian and carrying it through to her dismissal by Olivas at the crime scene. She examined each moment as though it were a film and she was interested in everything in its frame.
Eventually she saw something that didn’t fit. It was that last moment at the crime scene, Olivas in her face, insulting her and telling her to leave. She had looked over his shoulder for a sympathetic eye. First it was to the coroner and then it was to her old partner. But Dr. J. had looked away and Chastain had been busying himself bagging evidence. He never even looked her way.
She now realized that that was the moment. Chastain was bagging something — it had looked like a black button to Ballard — while Olivas had his back turned and was looking at her. Chastain also had his back turned to Dr. J. so she would not have a view of what he was doing either.
Detectives didn’t bag evidence at crime scenes. The criminalists did. On top of that, it had been too early for anyone to be picking up and bagging evidence. The crime scene was fresh, bodies were still in place, and the 3-D crime scene camera had not even been set up. What was Chastain doing? Why was he breaking protocol and removing something from the crime scene before it was properly noted, recorded, and cataloged?
Ballard was exhausted but she picked up her pace, pushing herself harder with each dig of the paddle. Her shoulders, arms, and thighs were vibrating with the strain. She needed to get back. She needed to return to Chastain’s case files to figure out what she had missed.
As she cut into the shore, she forgot about the pain and her plans when she saw a man waiting next to her tent. He was in jeans and a black bomber jacket and wearing black aviators. She knew he was a cop before she could make out the badge on his belt.
Ballard came out of the water and quickly removed the board’s leash. She then wrapped the Velcro ankle strap around the ring on Lola’s collar. She knew Lola could easily break it if she lunged but Ballard was hoping that she would feel the tug of the strap and know she was under Ballard’s control.
“Be easy, girl,” Ballard said.
With the board under her left arm and her fingers in the grip hole, she walked slowly toward the man in the aviators. He looked familiar but she couldn’t place him. Maybe it was just the sunglasses. They were standard with most cops.
He spoke before Ballard had to.
“Renée Ballard? I’ve been trying to reach you. Rogers Carr, Major Crimes.”
“How’d you find me?”
“Well, I’m a detective. Some people, believe it or not, say a pretty good one.”
“Don’t joke with me. Tell me how you found me or you can go fuck off.”
Carr held his hands up in surrender.
“Whoa, sorry. I didn’t mean to piss anybody off. I put out a broadcast on your van and a couple of bicycle cops saw it in the lot. I came, I asked around. I’m here.”
Ballard put her board down next to her tent. She heard a low rumbling, like distant thunder, coming from Lola’s chest. The dog had picked up her vibe.
“You put out a broadcast on my van?” she asked. “It’s not even registered in my name.”
“I know that,” Carr said. “But I met Julia Ballard today. I believe she is your grandmother? I ran her name for registered vehicles and came up with the van. I heard you like surfing and put two and two together.”
He gestured toward the ocean as if it confirmed his investigative logic.
“I was paddleboarding,” Ballard said. “It’s not surfing. What do you want?”
“I just want to talk,” Carr said. “Did you get my message on your cell?”
“Nope.”
“Well, I left you a message.”
“I’m off today. My phone’s off too.”
“I’m on the Chastain case and we are retracing his moves in the last forty-eight hours. You had some interaction with him and I need to ask you about it. That’s it. Nothing sinister, strictly routine. But I have to get it done.”
Ballard reached down and patted Lola on the shoulder, letting her know everything was all right.
“There’s a place down there on Dudley called the Candle,” she said. “It’s on the boardwalk. I’ll meet you there in fifteen minutes.”
“Why can’t we go now?” Carr asked.
“Because I need to get a shower and to wash the salt off my dog’s legs. Twenty minutes tops. You can trust me, Carr. I’ll be there.”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Not if this is as routine as you claim it is. Try the mahimahi tacos, they’re good.”
“Meet you there.”
“Get an outside table. I’m bringing the dog.”
20
Carr was dutifully sitting at a table along the outer railing of the restaurant’s side porch when Ballard showed up. She hooked the leash to the railing so Lola could be next to their table but on the sidewalk outside the restaurant. She then walked around to the porch entrance — crossing behind Carr’s back — and sat down across from the Major Crimes detective. She put her phone on the table. As she passed his back, she had turned on the recording app she used for documenting her own interviews.
Carr didn’t seem to suspect anything. Putting a phone on a table was a routine, though rude, habit with many people. He smiled as Ballard sat down. He looked over the railing at her dog lying on the sidewalk.
“Is that a pit bull?” he asked.
“Boxer mix,” she said. “First things first, Carr. Am I a suspect in any criminal investigation or internal investigation? If so, I want a defense rep.”
Carr shook his head.
“No, not at all,” he said. “If you were a suspect, we’d be having this conversation in the box at Pacific Division. It’s like I told you. I’m on the Chastain thing and I’m part of a team retracing his steps in the last forty-eight hours of his life.”
“So I guess that means you guys don’t have shit,” she said.
“That’s a fair assessment. No suspects in the Dancers shooting, so no suspects on Chastain.”
“And you’re sure they are connected?”
“Seem to be, but I don’t think we’re sure about anything. On top of that, it’s not my call. I’m a gofer on this. Yesterday morning I was booking a bunch of Eastern European bastards for human trafficking. I got yanked off that and put on this.”