Майкл Коннелли - Dark Sacred Night

She walked back to the house in question and had to introduce herself to all three waiting men. She had little experience with day watch blue suiters. These two were named Felsen and Torborg. Both were young and cut with military precision and bearing. Ballard recognized the name Torborg and knew him by reputation. He was a hard charger nicknamed Torpedo, who had accumulated several one-day suspensions for overaggressive enforcement and behavior. Female cops referred to these as testosterone timeouts.

The man in the jumpsuit was named Roger Dillon. He worked for CCB, a biohazard cleaning service. He had reported the burglary. Though he had told his story to Felsen and Torborg, he was prompted to repeat it to the detective, who would actually compose the burglary report.

Dillon said the dead woman’s niece in New York hired his firm to clean and decontaminate the house after her aunt’s body was removed and the premises were cleared as a possible crime scene. She overnighted him her key but it didn’t arrive until the early afternoon, delaying his getting to the house to perform the job. He was under a deadline because the niece, whom Ballard had identified during the death investigation as Bobbi Clark, was due to arrive the following morning. She planned to stay in the house while she organized services and took stock of the property she would be inheriting as the dead woman’s only living relative.

“So, I get here and I don’t even need the key, because the door’s unlocked,” Dillon said.

“Unlocked and open?” Ballard asked. “Or unlocked and closed?”

“Unlocked and closed but so you could see that it wasn’t pulled all the way. I pushed on the door and it opened.”

Ballard checked his hands.

“No gloves on?” she asked. “Show me where you touched the door.”

Dillon moved up the short walkway to the front door. Ballard turned back to Felsen and Torborg.

“Hey, I don’t have my rover with me,” she said. “Can one of you call the watch office and tell them I’m code six here and to cancel the one-hour backup at Moonlight Mission? I forgot about it.”

“Got it,” Felsen said as he keyed his shoulder mic.

“Moonlight Mission?” Torborg said. “Talking to John the Baptist? I knew that freak would act out someday. What did he do?”

“Just talking to him about a cold case,” Ballard said. “It wasn’t much.”

She turned and followed Dillon to the door. Since Torborg obviously knew John McMullen, she wanted to talk to him about his interactions and impressions of the street preacher, but she had to deal with Dillon and the case at hand first.

Dillon was tall and his white coveralls seemed to be a size too small. The cuffs on the pants just ticked the top of his work boots and the overall picture to Ballard was of a boy who had outgrown his clothes. Dillon, of course, was no boy. Ballard pegged him in his midthirties. He had a handsome, clean-shaven face, a full mane of brown hair, and a wedding ring on his finger.

He was poised at the door, his finger running a clockwise circle around a spot shoulder-high on it. Ballard pulled a pair of gloves from her blazer pocket and started putting them on.

“You pushed it open and went in?” she asked.

“Yes,” Dillon said.

She opened the door and held her hand up to signal him to enter.

“Show me what you did next,” she said.

Dillon pulled an air-filtering mask up from around his neck and over his mouth as he entered. Ballard looked back at Felsen and Torborg. Felsen had just finished the radio call to the watch commander.

“Can you see if the print car is available and get an ETA?” she asked.

“Roger that,” Felsen said.

“And don’t leave,” she added. “I need you guys here.”

“The L-T’s already asking when we can clear,” Felsen said.

“Tell her I need you here,” Ballard said sternly.

She entered the house after Dillon. The odor of decay still hung in the air but it had dissipated since she had worked the death case two nights before. Still, she wished she had her air mask, but it was in her kit in her city ride. Along with her hermetically sealable coveralls. She knew her third-string suit would be toast after one wearing. Luckily, the suit she had dropped off at the dry cleaners the day before would be ready in the morning.

“Walk me through it,” she said. “How’d you know it was a break-in? The place was already pretty messed up.”

Dillon gestured over her shoulder to the front wall of the living room. Ballard turned and saw that the three side-by-side prints of red lips were gone. When Ballard had called Bobbi Clark to report that her aunt was dead, Clark had asked specifically about the well-being of the prints, mentioning that they were the work of Andy Warhol and were rare APs — artist’s prints — that were worth over six figures each and even more when combined as a series.

“Ms. Clark told me to be careful of these red lip paintings that were supposed to be in the living room,” Dillon said. “So, I come in and no red lips. I called you guys because this is why I rarely go into a house by myself. I don’t want to get accused of anything. We usually work in twos but my partner’s on another job and this lady Clark really wanted this done today. When she gets here, she doesn’t want to see blood or anything else. She told me about what the cat did.”

Ballard nodded.

“Is it your company or you just work for the company?” she asked.

“It’s mine,” Dillon said. “Two trucks, four employees, available twenty-four-seven. We’re a small shop. You wouldn’t think it, but it’s a competitive business. A lot of companies cleaning up after murders and bad things.”

“Well, this wasn’t a murder. How’d Ms. Clark come to hire you from New York?”

“Recommendation from the M.E. I give out a lot of business cards. And gifts at the holidays. People recommend me. I’ll give you a stack of cards if you’ll take them.”

“Maybe later. I don’t do many crime scenes like this. Not a lot of murders in Hollywood these days and I’m usually on graveyard.”

“They had that five-spot last year at the Dancers. I got that one. Worked four days cleaning up that mess and then they never reopened the joint.”

“I know. I was there that night.”

Dillon nodded.

“I think I saw you on TV for that,” he said.

Ballard decided to get back on track.

“So, you come in, you see the prints are gone. Then what?” she asked.

“I backed out and called you guys,” Dillon said. “Then I waited about an hour for them and then they waited an hour for you. I’m not getting any work done and Ms. Clark lands at ten tomorrow morning.”

“I’m sorry about that, but we have to conduct the investigation — especially if we’re talking about a major theft. We’ve hopefully got a print car coming soon and we’ll need to get yours so we can exclude them. I’m going to ask you to step outside now and wait with the officers while I work in here.”

“How long before I can go to work?”

“I’ll get you cleared as soon as possible but I don’t think you’re getting in here today. Someone will have to do a walk-through in as-is condition with Ms. Clark after she arrives.”

“Shit.”

“Sorry.”

“You keep saying that but I don’t make money on sorries.”

Ballard understood his concerns as the owner of the company.

“I’ll tell you what, get me some of your cards, and I’ll keep them handy down the line.”

“I’d really appreciate that, Detective.”

Ballard followed him out of the house and asked Felsen about the print car. He said the ETA was fifteen minutes and Ballard knew from experience that all waiting times on the print car should be doubled. The car was assigned to the entire West Bureau and was operated by a latent-print tech who responded to all needs, ranging from property capers to violent crimes. It was safe to say the print car tech never stopped working.