Michael Connelly: The Late Show

Ballard left them there and went back to her partner.

“I’m going next door.”

“Don’t get lost,” he said. “As soon as I’m done babysitting, I want to go get next-of-kin over with and start writing. We’re done.”

Meaning the rest of the shift would be dedicated to paperwork.

“Roger that,” she said.

She left him sitting on the stone bench. As she made her way to the entrance of the Dancers she wondered if she would be able to get to the kitchen without drawing the attention of Lieutenant Olivas.

The interior of the Dancers was crowded with detectives, technicians, photographers, and videographers. Ballard saw a woman from the LAPD’s architectural unit setting up a 360-degree camera that would provide a high-density 3-D recording of the entire crime scene after all evidence was marked and investigators and technicians momentarily backed out. From it she could also build a model of the crime scene to use as an exhibit in court during an eventual prosecution. It was an expensive move and the first time Ballard had ever seen it employed in the field outside of an officer-involved-shooting investigation. There was no doubt that at this point, at least, nothing was being spared on the case.

Ballard counted nine detectives from the Homicide Special Section in the club, all of whom she knew and even a few she liked. Each of them had a specific piece of the crime scene investigation to handle and they moved about the club under the watchful eye and direction of Lieutenant Olivas. Yellow evidence placards were everywhere on the floor, marking shell casings, broken martini glasses, and other debris.

The victims, all except Cynthia Haddel, had been left in place to be photographed, videoed, and examined by the coroner’s team before being removed for autopsy. The coroner herself, Jayalalithaa Panneerselvam, was on scene. That was a rarity in itself and underlined the importance that the investigation of the mass killing had taken on. Dr. J., as she was known, stood behind her photographer, directing the shots she wanted him to take.

The club was a massive space with black walls and two levels. The bar ran along the back wall on the lower level, which also had a small dance floor surrounded by palm trees and black leather booths. The palm trees, hung with white lights, rose all the way to a glass atrium two floors up. To the right and left of the bar were two wings six steps up from the main floor and lined with more booths and served by smaller bars.

There were three bodies in a booth on the main level. It was located in a cloverleaf of four booths. Two of the dead men were still seated. The one on the left was a black man with his head tilted all the way back. The white man next to him was slightly leaning against him as though he had drunkenly fallen asleep. The third man had tilted all the way to his side and his head and shoulders dangled outside the confines of the booth into the aisle. He was white and had a graying ponytail that hung down and dipped into a pool of blood on the floor.

A fourth body was on the floor twenty feet away in a separate aisle created by the cloverleaf booths. He was a very large black man who was facedown on the floor, hands at his sides and his knuckles on the tile. On his belt on the right hip was an empty Taser holster. Ballard could see the yellow plastic stunning device under a nearby table.

Another ten feet past the fourth body was a smear of blood surrounded by evidence markers and some of the debris left by the paramedics who had tried to save Cynthia Haddel’s life. Among the items on the floor was a round stainless-steel cocktail tray.

Ballard walked up the steps to the second level and then turned around to look down and get a better view of the crime scene. Lieutenant McAdams had said the shooting erupted in a booth. With that as a starting point, it was easy to figure out what had happened in basic terms. Three men were shot where they sat. The shooter had them pinned in and pivoted efficiently from one to the other with the aim of his weapon. He then moved from the booth and down the lane separating the pods. This put him on a collision course with the bouncer, who had drawn his Taser and was moving toward the problem. The bouncer was shot, most likely killed instantly, and dropped face-first to the floor.

Behind him stood waitress Cynthia Haddel.

Ballard imagined her standing frozen, unable to move as the killer came toward her. Maybe she was raising her cocktail tray up like a shield. The killer was moving but still able to put the one shot dead center in her chest. Ballard wondered if the gunman had shot her simply because she was in the way or because she might have been able to identify him. Either way it was a cold choice. It said something about the man who had done this. Ballard thought about what she had said earlier to Jenkins about the person who had assaulted Ramona Ramone. Big evil. There was no doubt that the same callous malignancy moved through the blood of the shooter here.

Detective Ken Chastain came into Ballard’s view. He had his leather folder with the legal pad on one arm, pen in the other hand, the way he always did at a crime scene. He stooped down to look at the dead man who was half hanging out of the booth and started to take notes without noticing Ballard on the upper level, looking down at him. He looked haggard to Ballard and she hoped that was because guilt was eating at him from the inside. For nearly five years they had been partners in the Homicide Special Section, until Chastain had chosen not to back Ballard in the complaint she had filed against Olivas. Without his confirmation of the lieutenant’s behavior — which he had directly witnessed — there was no case. Internal Affairs concluded that the complaint was unfounded. Olivas kept his job and Ballard was transferred to Hollywood Division. The captain at Hollywood, an academy classmate of Olivas’s, put her on the night shift with Jenkins. The late show. End of story.

Ballard turned away from her old partner and looked at the ceiling and the upper corners of the club. She was curious about cameras and whether the shooting was caught on video. Pulling video from within the club and the streets outside would be a priority in the investigation. But she saw no obvious cameras and knew that many Hollywood clubs did not use cameras, because their clientele, especially the celebrities, did not care to have their nocturnal behavior recorded. Video ending up on the TMZ gossip site or elsewhere on the Internet was a prescription for bankruptcy for the high-end clubs. They needed celebrities because they drew the paying customers, the people who lined up at the velvet ropes outside. If celebrities started staying away, the paying customers eventually would as well.

Feeling conspicuous on the steps, Ballard returned to the lower level and looked for the forensic unit’s equipment table. It was out of the way and over by the other set of stairs. She went over and took a couple of plastic evidence bags out of a dispenser and then headed toward the main bar. A set of double doors to the right presumably led to the kitchen.

The kitchen was small and empty, and Ballard noticed that some of the gas burners on the stove were still on. The Dancers was not known for its culinary attributes. It was basic bar food that came off a grill or out of a deep fryer. Ballard walked behind the polished stainless-steel prep line and turned off the burners. She then came back around and almost slipped on a grease spot in the paper booties she had put on over her shoes before entering the club.

In the back corner of the kitchen she found an alcove with a freestanding rack of small lockers against one wall and a break table with two chairs against the other. There was an ashtray brimming with cigarette butts on the table just below a NO SMOKING sign. Ballard was in luck. Pieces of tape with each locker holder’s name were affixed to the lockers. There was no CINDY but she found a locker marked CINDERS and assumed it belonged to Cynthia Haddel, and that was confirmed when the key she had taken from the body of the fifth victim opened the padlock.