“No problem,” Medore said.
Ballard stood back and observed. She had seen the exacting process done dozens of times before, and her mind shifted to what had happened back at the city jail after Carr had been arrested and Olivas had set assignments for the investigation’s new direction. Ballard was given the ballistic assignment, while three other detectives were assigned to Carr and ordered to take his life down to the studs in an attempt to link him to the men murdered in the booth at the Dancers and to learn the motivation behind the massacre. Olivas gave himself the assignment of apprising command staff of what was happening and of the need to alert the department’s media managers. It was unlikely that Carr’s arrest would stay under wraps for long, and the department needed to get out in front of the story.
When it was all said and done and people started going separate ways, Olivas told Ballard to hang back for a moment. When they were alone, he put out his hand. The gesture was so unexpected that she shook it without thinking. Then he wouldn’t let go of hers.
“Detective, I want to bury the hatchet,” he said. “This thing shows what kind of investigator you are. You’re smart and you’re fierce. I could use you back on my team, and I could make sure it happens. You’d be back working days, unlimited OT. A lot of good reasons to come back.”
Ballard stood there speechless at first. She was holding the evidence bags containing Carr’s weapons.
“I need to get these to firearms,” she said.
Olivas nodded and finally released her.
“Think about it,” he said. “You’re a good detective, Ballard. And I can turn the other cheek for the good of the department.”
Ballard had turned then to leave the jail. She walked out, thankful that she had held back from swinging the evidence bags and raking Carr’s guns across Olivas’s face.
As she watched Medore at the microscope, she tried to move her thoughts back to the case.
There were still many questions and loose ends. Chief among them was the missing Matthew Robison. Once Ballard learned that it was Carr’s thumbprint on the holster cap, she started running the facts of the case through the new angle of Carr as killer. She saw the connection that had eluded her before. Carr had been part of the Major Crimes task force that had taken down the human-trafficking cabal at the port on Friday morning. She had seen him herself on the five-o’clock news. She realized now that Robison, last seen by his girlfriend on the couch watching TV, could have seen the report and recognized Carr from the night before at the Dancers. He then could have picked up the phone at 5:10 p.m. and called Ken Chastain to tell him.
It was that call that set several things in motion. Chastain now had further confirmation that the Dancers shooter was a cop. He had to go out and wrangle Robison to lock down his information and make sure he was safe. The question was, who got to Robison first, Chastain or Carr?
As a Major Crimes detective, Carr had routine access to RHD computers as well as to the division’s war room. If he was back-reading the Dancers case reports as they were coming in Friday, he could have picked up on Robison and been suspicious of Chastain’s dismissal of him as a witness. In trying to cover the fact that Robison had apparently gotten a good look at the shooter, Chastain had labeled him as DSS — didn’t see shit. The effort may have had a completely opposite effect in that Carr might have thought Chastain was trying to camouflage a solid witness. Carr was the shooter, so he knew that the chances were good that someone in the club had gotten a look at him. He very likely would have been checking witness reports to see if that was so.
Ballard came out of these thoughts when she saw Medore step back from the microscope and ask the other tech to take a look. She knew he was soliciting a second opinion because a lot was on the line with this case.
Ballard’s phone buzzed. It was a blocked number and she took it.
“Ballard, anything yet?”
It was Olivas.
“Your man C.P.’s on the scope. Shouldn’t be long. You want to hold? It looks like he’s just getting a second opinion.”
“Sure, I’ll hold a minute.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“What is it?”
“Carr knew I had been calling Matthew Robison to try to find him. When I asked him how he knew, he said that after Chastain got hit, RHD pulled a warrant for Robison’s phone records in an effort to find him. Was that true, or was Carr trying to cover that he had Robison’s phone because he had killed him?”
“No, we did do that. We first tried to ping his phone but it was turned off. So we pulled call records to see if there was anything there that would help. Why, Ballard? What’s it mean?”
“It means he might still be alive out there somewhere. Chastain may have gotten to him and hidden him before Carr even knew about him.”
“Then we have to find him.”
Ballard thought about that. She had an idea but wasn’t up to sharing it yet — especially with Olivas.
Just then, Medore turned to her from his lab bench. He gave her a thumbs-up.
“Lieutenant, we’ve got the first match. Chastain was killed with Carr’s backup. We’ve got Carr cold.”
“Excellent. We’ll start putting a package together for the D.A. Let me know on the other weapon as soon as you know.”
“You want me on the package?”
“No, my guys will handle it. Have you thought about my offer to come back to the team?”
Ballard hesitated before answering.
“Ballard?” Olivas prompted.
“Yes,” she finally said. “I thought about it. And I like the late show.”
“You’re telling me you’re going to pass?” Olivas said, surprise clearly in his voice.
“I pass,” Ballard said. “I went to you this morning with the Carr print because it was your team’s case and there was nowhere else to go with it. And I knew I could use you to draw Carr to MDC. But that’s it. I’ll never work for you again.”
“You’re making a big mistake.”
“Lieutenant, you tell the world what you did to me and you own it, then I’ll come back to work for you.”
“Ballard, you—”
She disconnected the call.
43
The second ballistics comparison was a match between Carr’s service weapon and the slug taken from Gino Santangelo’s brain. Late in the day, Carr was charged with six counts of murder, with special circumstances added on the Chastain kill.
That night, Ballard returned to the late show. After roll call, she and Jenkins took the plain wrap and drove up Wilcox to the Mark Twain hotel. They parked out front and pushed the button on the front door to gain admittance.
When they had been partners, Ballard and Chastain had worked a murder-for-hire case in which they needed to stash the intended victim for a couple days so that her husband would think she had disappeared, as he had paid an undercover officer to make happen. They had put her in the Mark Twain. The following year, they had another case where they used the hotel to stash two witnesses brought in from New Orleans to testify at a murder trial. They needed to make sure the defense could not find them and attempt to intimidate them and dissuade them from giving their testimony.
It was Chastain who had picked the place both times. The Twain, as he called it, was his go-to stash house.
Ballard told Jenkins her theory about Robison being alive and he agreed to take a ride with her to the Twain.
After she held up her badge to a camera over the hotel door, Ballard and Jenkins were buzzed in. When they got to the desk, Ballard showed her phone to the night man. On the screen she had Robison’s driver’s license photo.
“William Parker, what room’s he in?” she asked.