Майкл Коннелли - Dark Sacred Night

Ballard looked up at the calendar. The photo showed a gold and maroon sunset and a quote:

Commit your way to the LORD. Trust HIM and HE will help you.

Her eyes scanned down to the dates and she noticed that a number was scribbled in each day’s square. Most were single digits but on some days the number was higher.

“What do the numbers mean?” she asked.

McMullen followed her eyes to the calendar.

“Those are the numbers of souls who receive the sacrament,” he said. “Each night I count how many people took the Lord and Savior into their hearts. Each dark sacred night brings more souls to Christ.”

Ballard nodded but said nothing.

“What are you really doing here, Detective?” McMullen asked. “Is Christ in your life? Do you have faith?”

Ballard felt herself being pushed onto the defensive.

“My faith is my business,” she said.

“Why not proclaim your faith?” McMullen pressed.

“Because it’s private. I don’t... I’m not part of any organized religion. I don’t feel the need for it. I believe in what I believe. That’s it.”

McMullen studied her for a long moment before repeating a question.

“What are you really doing here?”

Ballard returned the penetrating look and decided to see if she could draw a reaction.

“Daisy Clayton.”

McMullen held her eyes but she could see he was not expecting what she had said. She could also see that the name meant something to him.

“She was murdered,” he said. “That was a long — Is that your case?”

“Yes,” Ballard said. “It’s my case.”

“And what does it have to do with—”

McMullen stopped short as he apparently answered his own question.

“The stop this morning,” he said. “The detective looked in my van. For what?”

Ballard ignored his question and tried to steer things in the direction she wanted to go.

“You knew her, didn’t you?” she asked.

“Yes, I saved her,” he said. “I brought her to Christ and then he called her home.”

“What does that mean? Exactly.”

“I baptized her.”

“When?”

McMullen shook his head.

“I don’t remember. Obviously before she was taken.”

“Is she on the wall?”

Ballard pointed behind him. McMullen turned to study the collage.

“I think— Yes, I put her up there,” he said.

He got up and moved to the corked wall. He started pulling pins and tacks and removing the outer layers of photos, which he gently put down on the table. In a few minutes he had taken off several layers and then stopped as he studied one.

“I think this is Daisy,” he said.

He pulled down the photo and showed it to Ballard. It depicted a young girl with a pink blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Her hair had a streak of purple and was wet. Ballard could see some of the banners from the baptism room in the background. The photo was dated by hand four months before Daisy Clayton’s murder. Instead of writing her name she had drawn a daisy on the corner of the photograph.

“It’s her,” Ballard said.

“She was baptized into the grace of Jesus Christ,” McMullen said. “She’s with him now.”

Ballard held up the photo.

“Do you remember this night?”

“I remember all of the nights.”

“Was she alone when you brought her here?”

“Oh, well, that I don’t remember. I would have to find my calendar from that year and look at the number on that date.”

“Where would the calendar be?”

“In storage. In the garage.”

Ballard nodded and moved past McMullen to look at the photos still on the corked wall.

“What about here?” she asked. “Are there others who were baptized the same night?”

“If they allowed their pictures to be taken,” McMullen said.

He stepped next to Ballard as they scanned the images. He started taking down photos and checking the dates on the back, then pinning them back up to the side of the collage.

“This one,” he said. “It has the same date.”

He handed Ballard a photo of a dirty and disheveled man who looked to be in his late twenties. Ballard confirmed that the date on the back matched the date of Daisy’s baptism. The name etched in marker on the print said Eagle.

“Another,” he said.

He handed her another photo, this one of a much younger man, with blond hair and a hard look in his eyes. The dates matched and the name on this print was Addict. Ballard took the print and studied it. It was Adam Sands, Daisy’s supposed boyfriend and pimp.

“Looks like that’s it for that date,” McMullen said.

“Can we go look for the calendar?” Ballard asked.

“Yes.”

“Can I keep these photos?”

“As long as I get them back. They’re part of the flock.”

“I’ll copy and return them.”

“Thank you. Follow me, please.”

They went outside and McMullen used a key to open a side door on the free-standing garage. They entered a space crowded with stored furniture and wheeled racks of clothing. There were also several boxes stacked against the walls, some with the years marked on them.

Fifteen minutes later, McMullen unearthed the 2009 calendar from a dusty box. On the date corresponding to the photo of Daisy, the calendar recorded seven baptisms. Ballard then took the calendar and flipped it four months forward to look at the date when Daisy was abducted and murdered. She found no number in the calendar square for the date of the murder or the two days after it.

McMullen saw the empty spots on the calendar at the same time Ballard did.

“That’s funny,” he said. “I almost never take a night off from my work. I don’t — Oh, I remember now. The van had to have been in the shop. It’s the only reason I would miss so many days in a row.”

Ballard looked at him.

“You’re sure?” she asked.

“Of course,” McMullen said.

“You think you have any record of that? Which shop it was, what was wrong with the van?”

“I can look. I think this was a transmission problem back then. I remember I took it to the place on Santa Monica by the cemetery. Santa Monica and El Centro. On the corner. It begins with a Z but I can’t remember the name.”

“Okay. You take a look at your records and let me know what you find. Can I keep this calendar? I’ll copy and return it.”

“I guess.”

Ballard could have photographed the photos and the calendar but she needed to take the originals in case they became evidence in the investigation.

“Good,” she said. “I need to go now. I have a call I need to respond to.”

She pulled out a business card and handed it to McMullen.

“If you find the receipt for the transmission overhaul or remember anything about Daisy, give me a call.”

“I will, I will.”

“Thank you for your cooperation.”

Ballard walked out of the garage and down a walkway to the front gate. She trusted her instincts that John the Baptist was not the killer of Daisy Clayton, but she knew she still had a long way to go before he was in the clear.

A white box truck with CCB painted on its side was parked in front of the Hollywood Boulevard house where the woman whose face was eaten by her cat had been found. There was also a patrol car and two blue-suiters standing on the street with a man in a white jumpsuit. This time there was no space for Ballard, who was still driving her own van, so she drove by, gave a wave, and parked in front of a garage two doors down. Few houses on the edge side of the hills had driveways. The garages were right at the curb, and blocking one involved risking the potential ire of a homeowner, especially when the culprit was not obviously a police vehicle.