Feltzer paused for a moment, his fingers hovering over the keyboard.
“It’s okay, Lieutenant,” Towson said. “It’s just a website.”
Feltzer typed. The website opened on his screen. It was a single page with a nine-second video playing in a loop: a downward view of Feltzer meeting with Jerry Castor at the Last Bookstore the night before. Towson had hatched the idea for the site at breakfast and had bought the domain and set it up while he and Ballard were eating.
Feltzer watched the video in stunned silence. After the third loop, he killed the screen. He was turned away from Ballard and Towson, so neither one of them could fully see the look on his face. But his head bowed as he obviously considered his predicament. In seconds he determined that the time-stamped video spoke for itself and that his situation was untenable. Like the political animal the video revealed him to be, he slowly turned back to Ballard and Towson, a look on his face that was somewhere between panic and acceptance of dire consequences.
“So what do you want?” he said.
Ballard was elated. Their plan to corner Feltzer had worked flawlessly.
“We want this obvious effort to drive Detective Ballard from the department to stop right here,” Towson said.
He waited and Feltzer nodded once, almost unnoticeably.
“And we want another story on the Times website by six p.m. tonight and in the hard copy tomorrow morning,” Towson continued. “We want fuller details leaked to your friend Jerry Castor, details that put Detective Ballard in the positive light she deserves. I want to see words like hero and in policy and justified in the story.”
“I can’t control how they write,” Feltzer protested. “You know that.”
“Try, Lieutenant,” Towson said. “Your friend Castor has just as much reason as you to set the record straight. He won’t look good if this comes out in some of the media around town. He’ll look like the shill for LAPD management that he is, and I don’t think the editors across the street will like that.”
“Okay, okay,” Feltzer said. “That it?”
“No, not even close,” Ballard said. “I want access to Trent’s house and access to all evidence your team took out of there. There’s still an investigation to conduct and close. I want to see if there is any indication that Trent did this to other victims.”
Feltzer nodded.
“Done,” he said.
“And another thing,” Ballard said. “I go from here to BSU to get my psych exam. I want my return-to-duty slip expedited.”
“You can’t expect me to reach into BSU and—”
“Actually, we do expect it,” Towson said, cutting Feltzer off. “You tell them you are under pressure from the chief’s office to wrap this up and get Ballard back on the job because the chief wants hero cops back on the street.”
“Okay, okay,” Feltzer said. “I’ll make it all happen. But I’ll need you to take that link down. Somebody could stumble across it.”
“It will go down when you make good on this agreement,” Towson said. “Only then.”
Towson looked at Ballard.
“We good?” he asked. “We covered everything?”
“I think so,” she said.
“Then let’s get out of here,” he said.
Towson said it in a tone that made his disgust clear. He stood up and looked down at Feltzer. The detective lieutenant was pale, like he had just seen his life flash in front of his eyes. Or his career, at least.
“In a previous life, I worked J-SID cases at the D.A.’s Office,” Towson said. “I’ve still got friends over there, and they’re always looking to take down guys like you, guys who let ego and power go to their heads. Don’t give me a reason to pick up a phone and get reacquainted.”
Feltzer simply nodded. Towson and Ballard left the office and closed the door.
32
In the courtyard in front of the PAB, Ballard thanked Towson for saving her career. He said she had done that herself.
“You following the reporter last night — that was genius,” he said. “That’s all we needed, and the beauty of it is, it will keep Feltzer in line. As long as you have that, you’re in good shape.”
Ballard turned back to look up at the PAB. The tower of City Hall was reflected in the glass facade.
“My partner on the late show, he says PAB stands for Politics and Bullshit,” she said. “This is one of the days I think he’s right.”
“You take care, Renée,” Towson said. “Call if you need anything.”
“You’re going to invoice me, right?”
“I’ll think about that. This is a situation where the accomplishment is its own reward. The look on Feltzer’s face after he saw the loop? That was worth a million dollars.”
“I’m not a pro bono case, Counselor. Send me a bill — just not for a million dollars.”
“All right. I will.”
The mention of money reminded Ballard of something.
“By the way, do you have a business card?” she asked. “I’m going to recommend you to someone.”
“Sure do,” Towson replied.
He dug into his suit coat pocket and gave her a short stack of cards.
“Take a few,” he said. “They’re free.”
She smiled and thanked him.
“You know, I forgot to ask: Has anyone from the Dancers case come to talk to you about Fabian?”
“I assume I have you to thank for that. Yes, I was interviewed.”
“Who came?”
“A detective named Carr.”
Ballard nodded.
“You tell him anything you didn’t already tell me?” she asked.
“I don’t think so,” Towson said. “As I recall, you were quite thorough.”
Ballard smiled again and they headed their separate ways, Towson across the courtyard toward the federal courthouse a block away, and Ballard to the steps that were to the east side of the PAB. She was pleased to hear that Carr had followed up with Towson. Maybe that meant he also was finally buying into her suggestion that a cop was involved in the shooting.
At the top of the stairs, Ballard turned right and went to the Memorial for Fallen Officers. It was a contemporary sculpture in which the names of officers killed in the line of duty were etched on brass plates and attached to a cagelike wooden edifice. Most of the brass plates had weathered over time, leaving those marking recent deaths brighter than the others. It was easy for her to pick out the brightest and shiniest plate. She stepped up and saw that it had the name Ken Chastain on it.
She stood there somberly for a few moments, until her phone buzzed, and she pulled it out of her back pocket. It was Rob Compton.
“Renée, I just heard! What the fuck! Are you okay?”
“I’m good.”
“Why didn’t you call me, baby? I just read about this in the fricking paper.”
“Well, don’t believe everything you read. That’s not the whole story, and it’s going to get fixed. I didn’t call you yesterday because I didn’t have my phone most of the day. I finally got to it last night. What’s the story with the ATF?”
“Never mind, that can wait. I just want to make sure you’re okay. When can we get together?”
“I don’t want the ATF to wait, Robby. I need to stay busy. What’ve you got?”
She started walking down the steps and back to the courtyard. Her rental car was still in a lot behind the Times Building and she headed that way.
“Well, an agent from over there called me on the weapon search we put in,” Compton said. “His name is John Welborne. You know him?”
“I can count on one finger the number of ATF agents I know,” Ballard said. “I don’t know him.”
“Do you know it’s now called the ATFE? They added Explosives.”