Michael Connelly: The Late Show

“Got it. Thanks.”

The Dancers was next to an old Spanish-style building with a center courtyard and garden. It had been an outdoor seating area for the Cat and Fiddle, an English pub and major hangout for off duty and sometimes not-off-duty officers from the nearby Hollywood Station. But it went out of business at least two years earlier — a victim of rising lease rates in Hollywood — and was vacant. It had now been commandeered as a witness corral.

There was another patrol officer posted outside the gated archway entrance to the old beer garden. He nodded his approval to Ballard and she pushed through the wrought-iron gate. She found Jenkins sitting at an old stone table, writing in a notebook.

“Jenks,” Ballard said.

“Yo, partner,” Jenkins said. “I heard your girl didn’t make it.”

“Coded in the RA. They never got a pulse after that. And I never got to talk to her. You getting anything here?”

“Not much. The smart people hit the ground when the shooting started. The smarter people got the hell out and aren’t sitting in here. As far as I can tell, we can clear as soon as they get a bus for these poor folks. It’s RHD’s show.”

“I have to talk to someone about my victim.”

“Well, that will be Olivas or one of his guys, and I’m not sure you want to do that.”

“Do I have a choice? You’re stuck here.”

“Not like I planned it this way.”

“Did anybody in here tell you they saw the waitress get hit?”

Jenkins scanned the tables, where about twenty people were sitting and waiting. It was a variety of Hollywood hipsters and clubbers. A lot of tattoos and piercings.

“No, but from what I hear, she was waiting on the table where the shooting started,” Jenkins said. “Four men in a booth. One pulls out a hand cannon and shoots the others right where they’re sitting. People start scattering, including the shooter. He shot your waitress when he was going for the door. Took out a bouncer too.”

“And nobody knows what it was about?”

“Nobody here, at least.”

He waved a hand toward the witnesses. The gesture apparently looked to one of the patrons sitting at another stone table like an invitation. He got up and approached, the wallet chain draped from a front belt loop to the back pocket of his black jeans jangling with each step.

“Look, man, when are we going to be done here?” he said to Jenkins. “I didn’t see anything and I don’t know anything.”

“I told you,” Jenkins said. “Nobody leaves until the detectives take formal statements. Go sit back down, sir.”

Jenkins said it with a tone of threat and authority that totally undermined the use of the word sir. The patron stared at Jenkins a moment and then went back to his table.

“They don’t know they’re getting on a bus?” Ballard said in a low voice.

“Not yet,” Jenkins said.

Before Ballard could respond further, she felt her phone buzz and she pulled it out to check the screen. It was an unknown caller but she took it, knowing it was most likely a call from a fellow cop.

“Ballard.”

“Detective, this is Lieutenant Olivas. I was told you were with my fifth victim at Presbyterian. It would not have been my choice but I understand you were already there.”

Ballard paused before answering, a feeling of dread building in her chest.

“That’s right,” she finally said. “She coded and the body is waiting for a coroner’s pickup team.”

“Were you able to get a statement from her?” he asked.

“No, she was DOA. They tried to bring her back but it didn’t happen.”

“I see.”

He said it in a tone that suggested it was some failing on her part that the victim had died before she could be interviewed. Ballard didn’t respond.

“Write your reports and get them down to me in the morning,” Olivas said. “That’s all.”

“Uh, I’m here at the scene,” Ballard said before he disconnected. “Next door with the witnesses. With my partner.”

“And?”

“And there was no ID on the victim. She was a waitress. She probably had a locker somewhere inside that would have her wallet and her phone. I’d like to—”

“Cynthia Haddel — the bar manager gave it to me.”

“You want me to confirm it and gather her property or have your people take it?”

Now Olivas paused before responding. It was like he was weighing something unrelated to the case.

“I have a key that I think is to a locker,” Ballard said. “The paramedics turned it over to me.”

It was a significant stretch of the truth but Ballard did not want the lieutenant to know how she got the key.

“Okay, you handle it,” he finally said. “My people are fully involved elsewhere. But don’t get charged up, Ballard. She was a peripheral victim. Collateral damage — wrong place at the wrong time. You could also make next-of-kin notification and save my guys that time. Just don’t get in my way.”

“Got it.”

“And I still want your report on my desk in the morning.”

Olivas disconnected before Ballard could respond. She kept the phone to her ear a moment, thinking about his saying that Cindy Haddel was collateral damage and in the wrong place at the wrong time. Ballard knew what that was like.

She put the phone away.

“So?” Jenkins asked.

“I need to go next door, check her locker, and find her ID,” she said. “Olivas also gave us next-of-kin.”

“Ah, fuck.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll handle it.”

“No, it doesn’t work that way. You volunteer yourself, you volunteer me.”

“I didn’t volunteer for next-of-kin notification. You heard the call.”

“You volunteered to get involved. Of course he was going to give you the shit work.”

Ballard didn’t want to start an argument. She turned away, checked out the people sitting at the stone tables, and saw two young women wearing cutoff jeans and tank tops, one shirt white and one black. She walked over to them and showed her badge. The white tank top spoke before Ballard could.

“We didn’t see anything,” she said.

“I heard,” Ballard said. “I want to ask about Cindy Haddel. Did either of you know her?”

The white top shrugged her shoulders.

“Well, yeah, to work with,” said the black top. “She was nice. Did she make it?”

Ballard shook her head and both of the waitresses brought their hands to their mouths at the same time, as if receiving impulses from the same brain.

“Oh god,” said the white top.

“Does either of you know anything about her?” Ballard asked. “Married? Boyfriend? Roommate? Anything like that?”

Neither did.

“Is there an employee locker room over at the club? Someplace she would have kept her wallet and her phone, maybe?” Ballard asked.

“There are lockers in the kitchen,” the white top said. “We put our stuff in those.”

“Okay,” she said. “Thank you. Did the three of you have any conversation tonight before the shooting?”

“Just waitress stuff,” the black top said. “You know, like who was tipping and who wasn’t. Who was grabby — the usual stuff.”

“Anybody in particular tonight?” Ballard asked.

“Not really,” the black top said.

“She was all bragging because she got a fifty from somebody,” the white top said. “I actually think it was somebody in that booth where the shooting started.”

“Why do you think that?” Ballard asked.

“Because that table was hers and they looked like players.”

“You mean show-offs? Guys with money?”

“Yeah, players.”

“Okay. Anything else?”

The two waitresses looked at each other first, then back at Ballard. They shook their heads.