Michael Connelly: The Late Show

“Hey L-T, I have a call coming in. I gotta go.”

“Okay, Ballard, go.”

She disconnected and switched over.

“Polly?”

“I got a hit on that thumb. It’s a cop. What did you get me into, Renée?”

Ballard stepped out of an interrogation room at the Metropolitan Detention Center, crossed the wide hallway, and entered the control center. She looked at the monitor for the interrogation room. Lieutenant Olivas sat in the chair facing the overhead camera, his arms pulled into a locked position behind his back. He knew she was looking at him and had his head tilted back. He scowled at the camera.

Ballard raised her phone and took a photo of the monitor. She then texted the shot to Rogers Carr with a message.

I need help. He won’t talk to me.

As she expected, it didn’t take long for Carr to respond.

WTF?!!! Where are you?

Her reply was terse. She wasn’t interested in a text debate. She needed Carr to come to the jail.

MDC. You coming? I want to flip him.

There was no response. Minutes dragged by and she knew Carr was debating with himself whether to come over, whether to risk his career and the enmity of the department by getting involved in the attempted takedown of a prized lieutenant. Ballard tried one more time to coax him.

I have the evidence.

Another minute went by. It felt like an hour. Then Carr returned.

On my way.

Ballard realized she had been holding her breath. She released it in relief and turning to the two officers monitoring the screens told them that Carr was on his way.

She was still in the control center when Carr was announced and he entered the hallway fifteen minutes later. Ballard stepped out to meet him. His forehead was slick with a film of sweat. That told her that he had covered the three blocks on foot and must have left the PAB without hesitation after their text conversation. He glanced through the square window on the door to interrogation room A and looked at Olivas. He then quickly turned away as though he couldn’t take what he saw. He focused on Ballard and spoke in a low, controlled voice.

“What the fuck, Ballard? How the hell did you get him in here?”

“I lured him out of the PAB. I told him I had someone here who was ready to confess.”

“And then you fucking arrest him? On what evidence? ”

He said the last word too loud, almost as a shriek. He brought his hand to his mouth and checked the officers in the control center, then dropped back down to a whisper.

“Listen to me, you are moving too fast,” he said. “Everything I have? It points to Chastain, not Olivas. Not a fucking RHD lieutenant. Do you know what you’re doing here? You are committing career suicide. You need to stop this right now.”

“I can’t,” Ballard said. “I know it wasn’t Chastain. He took measures because he knew it was a cop. That’s why Olivas killed him.”

“What measures? Ballard, what evidence do you have? You are letting your issue with Olivas take this over and—”

“Kenny took evidence from the crime scene at the Dancers. Evidence that it was a cop.”

“What are you talking about? What did he take?”

“A piece of a holster that came loose when the shooter pulled his gun. I was there. I saw him take it. That and the wire — he knew it was a cop.”

Carr looked off for a moment as he composed his thoughts. He then leaned down and in close to Ballard.

“Listen to me. What you saw was Chastain covering his own tracks. He was the shooter and you have fucked this up beyond belief. Now I’m going to go in there and talk to Olivas. And I’m going to try to salvage this and save your job.”

Carr signaled to one of the officers in the control center to unlock the door. He then looked back at Ballard.

“If you’re lucky, you’ll end up riding a bike on the boardwalk,” he said. “But at least you’ll still have a badge.”

“You don’t understand,” Ballard protested. “There’s evidence. I have—”

“I don’t want to hear it,” Carr said, cutting her off. “I’m going in.”

The jail officer walked over to a wall unit of small lockers. He opened one and removed the key from its lock.

“Okay, you need to put your weapons in here,” he said. “Sidearm, backup, knife, everything.”

Carr walked over and put one of each into the locker, pulling his holstered sidearm off his belt, then a folding knife from his back pocket. He leaned one hand against the wall so he could raise his right leg, pull up the cuff of his pants, and detach an ankle holster containing his backup. The jail officer closed and locked the wall compartment and handed Carr the key. It was on an elastic band that Carr snapped around his wrist. He then looked at Ballard.

“I hope to fuck this doesn’t bring me down with you.”

The officer opened the door to the interrogation room and stepped back to allow Carr in. Carr walked across the threshold and toward the table, where Olivas sat.

Ballard followed Carr, and the jail officer closed the door, locking them in.

Carr started to turn when he realized that Ballard had come in behind him.

“I thought you—”

Ballard grabbed Carr by the right arm and, in a move taught to her at the academy and long practiced since, yanked it behind his back while throwing her left shoulder into him. Carr pitched forward across the empty chair and table. At the same moment, Olivas rose from his chair, revealing that his hands were not cuffed, and slammed Carr chest-down on the table.

Olivas put his full weight down on Carr as Ballard pulled the handcuffs off her belt and worked them around Carr’s wrists.

“Good,” she yelled.

Olivas then dragged Carr completely across the table and flung him onto the seat where he had just been. He grabbed him with two hands by the jacket collar and pulled him up into a sitting position. He then hiked a thumb over his shoulder toward the upper corner of the room.

“Smile for the camera, Carr,” he said.

“What the fuck is this?” Carr demanded.

“Had to separate you from your weapons,” Ballard said.

Everything seemed to dawn on Carr. He shook his head.

“I get it, I get it,” he said. “But you’ve got it wrong. You can’t do this.”

“Yeah, we can,” Olivas said. “We have a warrant for your weapons.”

“He had a hip holster on today,” Ballard said.

Olivas nodded.

“Of course he did,” he said. “His shoulder rig was falling apart without that screw cap he lost.”

“Listen to me,” Carr said. “I don’t know what you people think you have, but you’ve got no probable cause. You are totally—”

“What we have is your thumbprint on that cap from your rig,” Olivas said. “How’s that end up at the crime scene when you were nowhere near that crime scene?”

“Bullshit,” Carr said. “You don’t have shit.”

“We have enough to run ballistics on your guns,” Olivas said. “We match them up and we’ll have a six-pack to run across the street to the D.A.”

“And it will be adios , motherfucker, to you,” Ballard added.

“Funny how being a cop worked against you,” Olivas said. “Most guys would get rid of the weapons. Hard to do that when they’re registered with the job. Tough to go in to the boss and say you lost both your guns. So my bet is that you kept them and thought you were going to skate.”

Carr looked stunned by the turnabout of events. Olivas leaned down, put his palms on the table, and recited the Miranda warning. He asked Carr if he understood his rights, and the detective ignored the question.

“This is wrong,” Carr said. “This is fucked up.”

“You killed Chastain,” Ballard said. “You killed them all.”