Michael Connelly: The Late Show

It was a cascade moment, when all the details of the investigation came together. Ballard now knew what Chastain knew and understood his moves in surreptitiously taking evidence from the crime scene and attempting to analyze and safeguard it from afar.

Ballard held up the plastic bag containing the Lawmaster cap.

“Professor Higgs, were you able to get a print off this?”

“Yes, I was. I got one good solid print.”

Ballard stayed in the Miyako again Wednesday night, taking sushi for dinner in her room once more before going to sleep. She had enough clothes in her bag for another day without replacement and in the morning made the quick drive over to the Piper Technical Center, which was home to the Latent Print Unit as well as the department’s aero squadron.

Every detective with more than a few years on the job has procured a tech in each of the forensic disciplines who can be counted on for an occasional favor or a jump in the waiting line when needed. Some of the disciplines are more important than others because they are more common to crimes. Fingerprints are found at just about every crime scene and therefore the Latent Print Unit was the most important place to have a connection in the entire forensic sandbox. Ballard’s go-to was a supervisor named Polly Stanfield.

Five years earlier, Ballard and Stanfield had worked a difficult case where fingerprints were the link between three separate sex-assault murders, but while the prints from each scene matched, Stanfield could find no match in the various databases that housed print records around the world. Only the relentless efforts of both women finally resulted in an arrest when Stanfield surreptitiously accessed a database of rental applications for a massive apartment complex in the Valley that was geographically central to the murders. Renters at the complex were required to give fingerprints with their applications, but nothing was ever done with them. It was just a way of discouraging applicants who might lie about having criminal records. Once Stanfield’s work identified the suspect, Ballard and her then-partner, Chastain, had to find another way to come up with his name so as not to reveal Stanfield’s hack of the apartment complex’s rental applications. They resorted to the tried-and-true anonymous call from a burner cell revealing the suspect’s identity to a department crime-tip line. And no one ever knew the difference.

Ballard got Stanfield in the divorce. That is, when she and Chastain split as partners, most people in the department and ancillary agencies chose a side to stand with. Stanfield, who, in a long career in law enforcement, had encountered her share of overly aggressive men and sexual harassment, sided with Ballard.

Ballard knew Stanfield worked seven to four, and she was there at the door of the LPU with two lattes at 6:55 a.m. An earlier phone call between the two women had covered the basics of what needed to be done, so Stanfield was not surprised by Ballard’s appearance or by the high sugar content of her latte. It had been special-ordered.

“Let’s see what you’ve got,” Stanfield said by way of a greeting.

As a supervisor, Stanfield had a small cubbyhole office but it was still better than the open work pod most of the other print techs got. Stanfield was well versed in how to deal with what Ballard was bringing in. The VMD process resulted in a fingerprint being temporarily identifiable on a surface of the holster cap. It had then been photographed under oblique lighting conditions by Professor Higgs.

What Ballard had for Stanfield was a photograph of a thumbprint.

Stanfield began her work with a magnifying glass, looking closely at the photo to confirm there was a usable print.

“This thumb is really good,” she finally said. “Good, clear ridges. But it’s going to take a while. It’s a scan-and-trace job.”

That was more than a hint from Stanfield that she would prefer not to have Ballard looking over her shoulder the whole time. She needed to scan the photo into her computer, then go through a tedious process of using a program to trace the lines and swirls of the thumbprint so that a clean print could be run through the Automated Fingerprint Index System. There were more than seventy million prints in the AFIS data bank. Sending a print through did not bring instantaneous results. And often the results, when they came, were not singular. A search often kicked out several similar prints, and that required the print tech to make the final comparison under a microscope to determine if there was a match.

“You want me to leave and come back?” Ballard asked. “How long?”

“Give me at least a couple hours,” Stanfield said. “If I get through it quicker, I’ll call.”

Ballard stood up.

“Okay, but remember,” she said. “Keep this under the table. Don’t tell anyone what case it is or what you’re doing. And if you get a match, tell only me.”

Stanfield put the magnifying glass down on the lab table and looked at her.

“Are you trying to scare me?” she asked.

“No, but I want you to be cautious. If you get a name and it’s the name I’m thinking it will be, then you’ll understand what I’m saying.”

Ballard didn’t want to share her investigative theory with Stanfield prior to the work. She didn’t want to infect her conclusions with any preconceived ideas of who the print would match.

“Holy shit,” Stanfield said. “Well, thanks a lot, Renée. You know I really liked working here.”

“Don’t be so dramatic,” Ballard said. “Just see what you get and I’ll be back.”

Ballard used the time to walk over to the print shed that was located behind Piper Tech. Knowing how citizens were often treated when they attempted to pick up their impounded and printed vehicles, she half expected a delay in the paperwork from FID releasing her van. But it was ready to go. She wasn’t wrong about her expectations about its condition, however.

The first clue was the driver’s door handle, which was still dusted with black fingerprint powder. She opened the door and found the driver’s compartment bombed with powder as well. She knew from crime scene experience that the black powder could ruin clothes and be impossible to get out with home car-washing. She went back to the garage’s office and angrily demanded that the van be returned in drivable condition. This resulted in a stare-down with the garage manager, but he changed his demeanor when Ballard produced her badge. He dispatched two of his garage greasers with a high-powered vacuum, a roll of paper towels, and a bottle of industrial-strength cleaner to the van.

Ballard stood by, watched the work, and pointed out every spot they missed. After an hour she thought about calling Polly Stanfield but she knew that would only annoy her. She decided to check in at Hollywood Detectives instead and called Lieutenant McAdams’s direct line.

“Ballard, what are you doing awake?” he asked. “I have you back on the schedule tonight.”

“I’ll be there, L-T, don’t worry,” she said. “Just checking in. What’s happening in the Six?”

“Only thing I got going is an assist with the feds. They got a takedown team surrounding some fool holed up in the Batcave.”

That was a reference to a cave up in Bronson Canyon that had been used during the filming of the 1960s Batman television show.

“What do they want him for?”

“A double-bagger in Texas. Killed two armored-car guards a couple years ago and lammed it over here.”

“What are we doing?”

“Crowd and traffic control.”

Ballard knew it was the guy she had spooked with Compton. She wondered if she would escape with no blowback from the feds if they successfully brought him down at the Batcave. Just then, she got a call-waiting buzz on her phone. She checked and saw it was Stanfield.