“I don’t know, maybe you should have stuck with the plan and let me handle the questions.”
“You were taking too long and I got him describing the house. Don’t pout.”
“I’m not pouting, Renée. But here we are, Sierra Vista. Where’s the yellow door?”
He gestured through the windshield. Ballard ignored the complaint. It was unfounded. If he hadn’t believed Nettles, he would have said something in the interview room. He didn’t, and now he was blaming Ballard for the seeming failure of the move.
She came to a point where Sierra Vista dead-ended into a T and she pulled over. She looked at the map on her phone screen to see if the street continued elsewhere. She found nothing and used her thumb and finger to expand the map. She checked other streets in the neighborhood to see if there was another Sierra. There wasn’t, but there was a Serrano Place two blocks south. She put the phone down and pulled the car away from the curb.
“Where are we going?” Compton asked.
“I want to check out another street over here,” Ballard said. “Serrano, Sierra — maybe Nettles got it wrong.”
“They don’t even sound close.”
“Yes they do. You’re just pouting.”
Serrano Place was only one block long. They covered it quickly, Ballard checking the houses on the left and Compton the right.
“Wait a minute,” Compton said.
Ballard stopped. She looked out his window at a house with a French door with a yellow frame. The house had tongue-and-groove wood siding. No bricks.
She inched the car forward past the driveway and saw that there was a single-car garage detached from the house at the back of the property. A wooden fence, grayed by exposure to the elements, enclosed the backyard.
“The fence is weathered, not stained,” she said. “Think there’s a pool back there?”
“If I wasn’t pouting, I’d say yes,” Compton said.
She punched him in the shoulder and kept driving. Two houses down the street, she pulled to the curb.
“Take off your belt,” Ballard said.
“What?” Compton said.
“Take off your belt. It will look like a leash. I’m going to see if there’s a pool. If I had my van, I’d have a real leash, but your belt will have to do.”
Compton got it. He slipped off his belt and handed it to her.
“Be right back,” she said.
“Be careful,” he said. “Fire a shot if you need me.”
She got out and walked down the sidewalk back to the house with the yellow French door. She dangled the belt from one hand and called the name Lola out repeatedly. She walked up the driveway that ran next to the house.
“Lola! Here, girl.”
She smelled the pool before she saw it. The sharp odor of chlorine pervaded the rear of the house. She got to the weathered fence and had to stand on her toes to catch a glimpse of what was on the other side. She confirmed the pool and was making a turn to go back out to the street when her eyes caught on the row of windows that ran along the top of the garage door. She hesitated because she wasn’t tall enough to look through the glass. Then she saw the handle on the door, situated about a foot off the driveway surface.
Ballard stepped over. She put one foot on the handle and tested some of her weight against it. It felt sturdy enough. She put her full weight on the handle, and her fingers gripped the thin sill below the windows. She pushed herself up the garage door and looked in.
Parked in the garage was a yellow Camaro.
She dropped to her heels and turned to get back to her car. A man was standing in the driveway, looking at her.
“Oh, hey, have you seen a dog?” Ballard said quickly. “A brindle boxer mix?”
“You mean in my garage?” the man said.
“Sorry about that, but when she gets loose, she likes to hide. It’s a real pain in the butt.”
He was Latino and wearing workout pants, running shoes, and a hoodie, like he was heading out for a jog. She kept her arm in motion so the dangling belt would not be still enough for him to see that it wasn’t a leash. She headed past him toward the street, hoping to not forget the plate number she had read off the Camaro.
“Do you live around here?” the man asked.
“Over on Sierra Vista,” Ballard said. “Have a nice day.”
She kept moving down the driveway. When she got to the street, she called her dog’s name out a few more times but walked on. She got to the Taurus and jumped back in.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, I blew it,” she said.
She wanted to run the Camaro’s plate before she forgot the number, but she realized she didn’t have a rover, and of course the rental car had no police radio.
“What happened?” Compton asked.
She was watching her side mirror, expecting to see the man step out of the driveway to track her.
“A guy came out,” she said. “I think he made me.”
“How?” Compton asked.
“I don’t know. Something about his eyes. He made me.”
“Then let’s blow.”
There was no sign of the man in the mirror. She started the car. Just then, she saw the Camaro come out of the driveway and turn the opposite way down Serrano.
“There he goes,” she said. “Yellow Camaro.”
She waited until the Camaro turned right at the end of the block and was out of sight. She U-turned away from the curb and headed in the same direction. She pulled her phone and called the communications center on speed dial. She then recited the license plate and requested a computer run.
“I’ll hold,” she said.
At the corner, she turned right. There was no sign of the Camaro. She gunned the Taurus, and they headed north, block by block, checking right and left for the Camaro. They didn’t see it.
“You think you spooked him?” Compton asked.
“I don’t know,” Ballard said. “He saw me looking through the window of the garage at the car.”
“Shit.”
“Well, what would you have—”
The dispatcher came back with the information and Ballard repeated it so Compton could get it.
“Eugenio Santana Perez, seven fourteen ’seventy-five. No record. Thank you.”
She disconnected.
“The guy’s clean,” Compton said. “Maybe we’re barking up the wrong tree.”
“Yellow door, yellow Camaro — it’s him,” Ballard said. “He matches Nettles’s story. Maybe the guy just bought the gun off somebody, but it’s not the wrong tree.”
They made their way up to Santa Monica, and there was still no sign of the Camaro.
“Right or left?” Ballard said.
“Fuck it,” Compton said. “He blew right out of there after seeing you. Now I have to call Welborne and tell him we may have fucked this up.”
“Not yet.”
“What are we going to do?”
“Just chill. I’m not finished looking. Besides, there’s still the house. You can give ATF-E that.”
She saw an opening in the traffic and went straight, crossing Santa Monica and staying north. They continued to check streets until they got to Sunset. She then took a right toward the 101 freeway.
“I’ll take you back downtown,” Ballard said, defeat in her voice.
“This is fucked up,” Compton said.
But as they approached the southbound freeway ramp, Ballard saw a glimpse of yellow two blocks ahead. A yellow car had turned into a lot and disappeared.
“Wait, did you see that?” she said. “It was yellow.”
“I didn’t see shit,” Compton said. “Where?”
Ballard drove past the freeway ramp and kept east on Sunset. When she got to the turn-in the yellow car had taken, she saw it was to a Home Depot with a massive parking lot. The entrance was clear and she remembered how it always used to be lined with men looking for day work. That had changed when Immigration and Customs Enforcement started routine immigration roundups.