Michael Connelly: The Late Show

Ballard came out of these thoughts when she saw Medore step back from the microscope and ask the other tech to take a look. She knew he was soliciting a second opinion because a lot was on the line with this case.

Ballard’s phone buzzed. It was a blocked number and she took it.

“Ballard, anything yet?”

It was Olivas.

“Your man C.P.’s on the scope. Shouldn’t be long. You want to hold? It looks like he’s just getting a second opinion.”

“Sure, I’ll hold a minute.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“What is it?”

“Carr knew I had been calling Matthew Robison to try to find him. When I asked him how he knew, he said that after Chastain got hit, RHD pulled a warrant for Robison’s phone records in an effort to find him. Was that true, or was Carr trying to cover that he had Robison’s phone because he had killed him?”

“No, we did do that. We first tried to ping his phone but it was turned off. So we pulled call records to see if there was anything there that would help. Why, Ballard? What’s it mean?”

“It means he might still be alive out there somewhere. Chastain may have gotten to him and hidden him before Carr even knew about him.”

“Then we have to find him.”

Ballard thought about that. She had an idea but wasn’t up to sharing it yet — especially with Olivas.

Just then, Medore turned to her from his lab bench. He gave her a thumbs-up.

“Lieutenant, we’ve got the first match. Chastain was killed with Carr’s backup. We’ve got Carr cold.”

“Excellent. We’ll start putting a package together for the D.A. Let me know on the other weapon as soon as you know.”

“You want me on the package?”

“No, my guys will handle it. Have you thought about my offer to come back to the team?”

Ballard hesitated before answering.

“Ballard?” Olivas prompted.

“Yes,” she finally said. “I thought about it. And I like the late show.”

“You’re telling me you’re going to pass?” Olivas said, surprise clearly in his voice.

“I pass,” Ballard said. “I went to you this morning with the Carr print because it was your team’s case and there was nowhere else to go with it. And I knew I could use you to draw Carr to MDC. But that’s it. I’ll never work for you again.”

“You’re making a big mistake.”

“Lieutenant, you tell the world what you did to me and you own it, then I’ll come back to work for you.”

“Ballard, you—”

She disconnected the call.

The second ballistics comparison was a match between Carr’s service weapon and the slug taken from Gino Santangelo’s brain. Late in the day, Carr was charged with six counts of murder, with special circumstances added on the Chastain kill.

That night, Ballard returned to the late show. After roll call, she and Jenkins took the plain wrap and drove up Wilcox to the Mark Twain hotel. They parked out front and pushed the button on the front door to gain admittance.

When they had been partners, Ballard and Chastain had worked a murder-for-hire case in which they needed to stash the intended victim for a couple days so that her husband would think she had disappeared, as he had paid an undercover officer to make happen. They had put her in the Mark Twain. The following year, they had another case where they used the hotel to stash two witnesses brought in from New Orleans to testify at a murder trial. They needed to make sure the defense could not find them and attempt to intimidate them and dissuade them from giving their testimony.

It was Chastain who had picked the place both times. The Twain, as he called it, was his go-to stash house.

Ballard told Jenkins her theory about Robison being alive and he agreed to take a ride with her to the Twain.

After she held up her badge to a camera over the hotel door, Ballard and Jenkins were buzzed in. When they got to the desk, Ballard showed her phone to the night man. On the screen she had Robison’s driver’s license photo.

“William Parker, what room’s he in?” she asked.

William Parker was a legendary LAPD police chief in the 1950s and ’60s. Chastain had used the name for one of the witnesses from New Orleans.

The night man didn’t look like he wanted any part of the trouble the police could cause in the middle of the night at a hotel where most customers paid in cash. He turned to a computer, typed a command, and then read the answer out loud.

“Seventeen.”

Ballard and Jenkins moved down the first-floor hallway until they stood on either side of room 17. Ballard knocked.

“Matthew Robison,” Jenkins said. “LAPD, open the door.”

Nothing.

“Metro,” Ballard said. “My name is Detective Ballard. I worked with Detective Chastain, who brought you here. We’re here to tell you it’s over. You’re safe and you can go home to Alicia now.”

They waited. After thirty seconds, Ballard heard the lock flip. The door opened six inches and a young man looked out. Ballard was holding her badge up.

“It’s safe?” he asked.

“Are you Matthew?” Ballard asked.

“Uh, yes.”

“Detective Chastain brought you here?”

“That’s right.”

“It’s safe, Matthew. We’ll take you home now.”

“Where’s Detective Chastain?”

Ballard paused and looked at Robison for a long moment.

“He didn’t make it,” she finally said.

Robison looked down at the floor.

“You called him Friday and said you just saw the shooter on TV,” Ballard said. “Didn’t you?”

Robison nodded.

“Okay, well, we’re going to take you by the station first to look at some photos,” Ballard said. “After that, we’ll take you back to your apartment and Alicia. You’ll be safe now, and she’s worried about you.”

Robison finally looked up at her. Ballard knew he was trying to decide if he could trust her. He must have seen something in her eyes.

“Okay,” he said. “Give me a minute to get my stuff.”

Ballard got to the water late that morning because of the drive up the coast to collect her dog. By the time she had pitched her tent on Venice Beach and was walking toward the surf with her board under her arm, the morning layer had completely choked off the sun and visibility was low. She stepped in undaunted. It had been too long since she had been on the water.

She spread her feet to the edge of the board’s rails and bent her knees. She started digging deeply into the water and shocking her muscles with the workout.

Dig... dig... dig... glide... Dig... dig... dig... glide...

She headed straight out into the fog and soon she was lost in it. The heavy air insulated her from any sound from the land. She was alone.

She thought about Chastain and the moves he had made. He had acted nobly on the case. She thought maybe it was his redemption. For his father. For Ballard. It left her bereft and still haunted by their last encounter. She wished in some way they had settled things.

Soon her shoulders began to burn and the muscles of her back cramped. She eased up and stood tall. She used the paddle blade as a rudder and turned the board. She realized there was no horizon in sight, and the tide was in that short moment of stasis before it shifted. It was not going in or out, and she wasn’t sure which direction to point the board.

She kept her momentum with languid paddle strokes, all the while looking and listening for a sign of land. But there was no sound of waves crashing or of people’s voices. The fog was too dense.

She pulled the paddle from the water and twirled it upside down. She rapped the handle end hard on the board’s deck. The fiberglass produced a solid sound that Ballard knew would cut sharply through the fog.