Майкл Коннелли - Dark Sacred Night

Technically, Ballard was supposed to follow a protocol in which she would first study the crime scene and look for likely spots where the suspect could have left prints. Only upon finding possibilities should she call for the print car. But in reality, when it came to property crimes, the practice was the opposite. Delaying in calling the print car added up to long waits. She always called first to get her case in line and then started looking at the scene. She could then call the car off if she didn’t find any likely deposits.

Ballard knew she was pushing her luck with Dillon but took a shot anyway at asking if he had a spare breathing mask. He surprised her by saying yes.

He walked to the back of his truck and rolled up the door. The interior was stuffed with wet vacuums and other equipment. He pulled a box of throwaway masks out of a drawer in a tool chest and handed her one.

“The filter in there is good for a day,” he said. “That’s it.”

“Thank you,” Ballard said.

“And I’ve got my cards right here.”

He reached into another drawer and took out a stack of about ten business cards. He gave them to Ballard, who saw that the small print under CCB was the company’s formal name: Chemi-Cal Bio Services. She put the cards in her pocket and thanked Dillon, even though she knew her opportunities to recommend his services would be few.

She left him there and went back inside the house, pulling on the breathing mask as she went. She stood in the living room and took in the place, observing and thinking. The removal of the source of decomposition — the body — would explain the decrease in noxious odor. But Ballard had been in houses like this before in the days after death and she believed that more than the removal of the body had helped the process. She concluded that she was looking for an open window.

She moved to the far wall of glass and soon realized that the panels were on tracks that disappeared into a wall. The panels could be pushed into the wall, creating a wide opening onto the rear deck and giving the house an indoor-outdoor style. She slid open the first glass panel and stepped out onto the deck. She saw that it ran the length of the house behind the guest bedroom and the master. On the far end of the deck sat a rectangular air-conditioning unit. It had been removed from the wall below a window and left there. It must have been the burglar’s access point and the opening from which some of the decomp stink had escaped.

Ballard walked down the deck to look at the opening. It was at least two feet tall and three wide. The AC unit looked relatively new. The homeowner had probably added it to provide extra cooling in the bedroom during the hottest weeks of summer.

Ballard had the point of entry. Now the question was, how did the burglar get to it? The house was cantilevered over the steep hillside. She stepped to the guardrail and looked down. That was not the way. It would have been too difficult a trek, requiring ropes and hoists. That kind of planning conflicted with the fact that the air conditioner had been left out of its wall slot. This indicated the sloppy work of an opportunist, not a planner.

She looked up. The roof of the deck was supported in four places by ornate black ironwork that formed a repeating pattern of tree branches crossing between two risers. Whether intentional or not, each one created a makeshift ladder down from the roof.

Ballard stepped back into the house and went out the front door. Dillon was leaning against his truck. When he saw her, he straightened up and spread his arms wide questioningly.

“Where’s the print car?” he asked. “When am I going to get out of here?”

“Soon,” Ballard said. “Thank you for your patience.”

She pointed to his truck.

“But in the meantime, I saw you had a ladder on the wall inside your truck,” she said. “Could I borrow it for a few minutes? I want to get on the roof.”

Dillon seemed happy to have something to do, especially if it further indebted the LAPD to him.

“No problem,” he said.

While Dillon got the ladder, Ballard stepped out into the street and walked along the front of the house. The design of the structure was all geared toward the view out the other side. That’s where the deck, windows, and glass doors were. This side, which was just three feet from the curb, was drab and monolithic save for the front door and one small window to the master bathroom. This fortresslike design was softened with alternating concrete planters containing bamboo stalks and vine-entwined lattices. Ballard studied the latticework and saw places where the vines had been damaged by someone using the connections as foot- and handholds for climbing. It was another improvised ladder.

Dillon banged an extension ladder against the house. Ballard looked over and he gestured with his hand: all yours.

While Dillon held the ladder steady, Ballard climbed to the flat roof. She walked toward the back edge, looking for footprints in the gravel or any other evidence of a burglar. There was nothing.

She got to the far edge and looked out at the view. It was getting dark and the setting sun was turning the sky red and pink. She knew it would be a good sunset at the beach. She momentarily thought of Aaron and wanted to check in on him to see if he had any news on the man he had pulled out of the riptide.

Turning her attention back to the case at hand, she was now sure she had found the burglar’s path. He had climbed up the lattice in the front, crossed the roof and climbed down the ironwork on the back deck. After removing the air conditioner, he had entered and taken the three prints off the wall as well as whatever other property might be missing. At that point, he simply walked out the front door with the stolen goods, leaving the front door slightly ajar.

There were elements of genius mixed with naïveté. All aspects of the caper told her it had occurred under cover of darkness. That meant the burglary had happened on the night right after the discovery of the victim’s death. Someone had acted quickly, most likely with knowledge of the artwork in the house and its value — as well as its owner’s death.

She turned in a circle, scanning the immediate neighborhood. She knew it was a city of cameras. Finding them was always high on any investigative protocol. Nowadays you looked for video before witnesses. Cameras didn’t lie or get confused.

Hollywood Boulevard curved in and out along the mountain’s edge. The house she stood on was at a sharp bend around a blind curve. Ballard spotted a house on the curve that had a camera ostensibly aimed at a side stairway down to a landing below street level. But she knew that depending on the camera’s angle, there was a chance its field of view included the roof she stood on.

The print car arrived as Ballard was descending the ladder, again with Dillon holding it steady for her. She first walked the tech through the house and deck, pointing out as possible spots for latents the wall where the three Warhols had been located as well as the AC unit left on the back deck. Then she stepped out front and introduced Dillon, asking the tech to take his prints first for exclusionary purposes. She thanked Dillon for his time and the use of his ladder and told him he was clear to leave as soon as he was printed.

“You sure I’m not going to be able to do the cleaning tonight?” he asked. “I’ll wait around.”

“It’s not possible,” Ballard said. “Ms. Clark is going to have to do the walk-through with somebody from dayside burglary. We don’t want the place cleaned before that.”

“Okay, thought I’d try.”

“Sorry about that.”

“No worries. Make sure you use those cards.”

He gave a little wave and went to the back of his truck to close it. Ballard headed down the street in the direction of the camera she had spotted. Ten minutes later she was talking to the owner of the home around the blind curve and looking over his shoulder at the video playback from the camera located on the side of his house. It had a full but digitally murky capture of the entire roof of the home that had been burglarized.