Michael Connelly - The Late Show

“Dr. Richardson has an interesting workup here,” Hinojos said, referring to the initial examiner. “He says disorder in your young life drew you to law enforcement. A job where you enforce laws and enforce order. What do you think about that?”

“Well,” Ballard said, stalling. “I think we need to have rules. They are what makes society civilized.”

“And Thomas Trent broke the rules, didn’t he?”

“Yes, big-time.”

“If you had the chance to relive the past seventy-two hours and make smarter choices, do you think Thomas Trent would still be alive?”

“I don’t know about smarter choices. I think I made the right choice in the moment. I would prefer answering questions about what did happen and why. Not speculation about what could have happened or what could have been.”

“So no regrets, then?”

“Sure, I have regrets but not for what you probably think.”

“Try me. What regrets?”

“Don’t get me wrong, I had no choice. It was him or me. In that situation I have zero regrets, and if faced with the same circumstances, I would do what I did again. But I do wish he were still alive so I could arrest him and we could take him to trial and he would rot in prison for what he did.”

“You believe that by being stabbed and losing his life he got off easy.”

Ballard thought for a moment and then nodded.

“Yeah, I do.”

Hinojos closed the file.

“Okay, Detective Ballard, thank you for your candor,” she said.

“Wait, that’s it?” Ballard asked.

“That’s it.”

“Well, do I get the RTD?”

“That will be forthcoming, but I am going to suggest that you take some time off to recuperate mentally. You have been through a trauma, and there are unanswered questions about what happened to you when you were drugged. Your mind is bruised as well as your body. Like the body, the mind needs time to heal. It needs time to settle from this.”

“I appreciate that, Doctor. I really do. But I have active cases. I need to wrap them up and then I can take time off.”

Hinojos smiled in a tired sort of way, as if she had heard what Ballard said a thousand times before.

“I guess all cops come in here and say the same thing,” Ballard said.

“I can’t blame them,” Hinojos said. “They are worried about losing their jobs and identities, not worried about the consequence both have on them. What would you do if you were not a police officer?”

Ballard thought for a moment.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I haven’t thought about it.”

Hinojos nodded.

“I’ve done this a long time,” she said. “I’ve seen long careers and careers cut short. The difference is in how you handle the darkness.”

“The darkness?” Ballard said. “I work the late show. There is nothing but—”

“I’m talking about the darkness within. You have a job, Detective, that takes you into the bleakest side of the human soul. Into the darkness of people like Trent. To me it’s like the laws of physics — for every action, there is an opposite and equal reaction. If you go into darkness, the darkness goes into you. You then have to decide what to do with it. How to keep yourself safe from it. How to keep it from hollowing you out.”

She paused there and Ballard knew not to speak.

“Find something that protects you, Detective Ballard.”

Hinojos got up from her chair then and the session was over. She walked Ballard to the room’s door. Ballard nodded a good-bye.

“Thank you, Doctor.”

“Stay safe, Detective Ballard.”

Ballard was twenty minutes late getting to Men’s Central Jail, but Compton was there, waiting for her. They signed in and Ballard stowed her backup gun in a locker before they were placed in an interview room to wait while Christopher Nettles was located and brought to them.

“How are we going to do this?” Ballard asked.

“Let me do the talking,” Compton said. “He knows I’m the one with the power. I filed on him with the gun. That’s our currency.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

While they waited, Compton reached over and lifted Ballard’s hands and somberly studied the bandages on her wrists.

“I know, it looks like I tried to end it all,” she said. “I’ll only need the bandages for a week.”

“The bastard,” Compton said. “I’m just glad you put him down.”

Ballard told Compton the short version of what had happened with Trent and how an illegal leak to the Times had bent the story against her. Compton shook his head. Ballard decided not to tell him about how the rough sex they had had Saturday morning had hindered the ability of the RTC nurse to determine if she had been raped. That discussion could keep for another time.

The conversation as it was ended when the door opened and Nettles was escorted in by two jail deputies. He immediately objected to the presence of Ballard, claiming that she had mistreated him during his arrest.

“Sit down and shut up,” Compton said sternly. “You don’t get to decide things like that.”

The deputies put him in a chair and locked one of his wrists to a steel ring at the center of the table.

“So what do you want?” Nettles said.

Compton waited until the deputies stepped out.

“Do you have any idea about your situation, Christopher?” he asked. “You’re going up in front of a judge tomorrow. Has a lawyer been by to talk to you?”

“Not yet,” Nettles said.

He flicked his cuffed hand in a gesture that suggested he wasn’t worried.

“Well, the reason you haven’t seen a lawyer is that a lawyer isn’t going to be able to help you,” Compton said. “Your parole has been revoked and you’re going back up to Corcoran, and there isn’t a damn thing a lawyer can do about it.”

“I only had a bullet left,” Nettles said. “I can do that, no sweat off my balls.”

He looked at Ballard as he said it. Ballard knew that a bullet was a year in the pen.

“And what? You think the D.A.’s going to just let all those burglaries slide?” Compton asked.

“What I hear people saying in here is that all the D.A.’ll do is stack ’em right next to my current situation, and I won’t do an extra day on account of overcrowding,” Nettles said. “How ’bout that?”

“Then how about the felon with a gun charge I just added to your résumé? That’s five years stacked on top of the bullet. You can do that, no sweat off your balls?”

“The fuck you talking about, man?”

“I’m talking about a plus-five.”

“That’s bullshit!”

Nettles shook the handcuff violently. He pointed his free hand at Ballard.

“This is because of you, bitch!” he yelled.

“Don’t blame me for your crimes,” Ballard threw back at him. “Blame yourself.”

Ballard kept her hands on her lap and below the table. She was wearing a long-sleeved blouse, but she didn’t want to risk Nettles seeing the bandages around her wrists and asking questions.

“Look, Christopher, why do you think we’re here?” Compton said. “You think we get off on giving you the bad news?”

“Probably,” Nettles said. “She does.”

“Actually, you’re wrong,” Compton said. “We’re not here to bring bad news. We’re the light at the end of your tunnel. We came to help you help yourself.”

Nettles settled down. He knew there was a deal to be made now. He looked suspiciously at Compton.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“I want to know about the guns,” Compton said. “I want to know where you stole them from. I want addresses, details. You give me that, and we start subtracting from the total. You see?”

Ballard appreciated that Compton was not directly asking about the Glock. It was better not to reveal their specific intention to Nettles. The ex-con might then attempt to manipulate the interview.