Ballard parked and quickly moved to the store’s entrance. Covid protocols dictated that one door was an entrance, and the exit was on the other side of the front facade. Ballard entered and found the Starbucks concession immediately inside the entrance. There was a line of four people, with the woman with the weighted shopping bag in last position. Ballard checked the others in line, saw nothing suspicious and joined.
“Hannah,” she whispered. “I’m Renée.”
Stovall turned to look at her, and Ballard discreetly flashed her badge and put it away.
“Okay, so now what?” Stovall said.
“Let’s get coffee,” Ballard said. “And talk.”
“What is there to talk about? You’ve scared the hell out of me.”
“I’m sorry. But you will be completely safe now. Let’s wait till we’re sitting down to talk about the plan.”
Soon they were at a table off the side of the Starbucks counter.
“Okay, I have another investigator on his way,” Ballard said. “He’s going to take you to a hotel where you can check in and spend the night. He’ll be on guard the whole time. And hopefully this will all be over by morning.”
“Why did these men pick me? I’ve never hurt anyone.”
“We’ve tracked them through their patterns, but we don’t know all the answers yet. That just means we’ll find all of that out when we catch them. And thanks to you being vigilant in your neighborhood and noticing the streetlight, we are in our best position to do that now.”
“It was hard to miss. Like I said, it shines in my window at night.”
“Well, we got very lucky that you noticed it. So, while we’re waiting for my colleague, can I ask you about some of your routines?”
Ballard started going through the questions that were contained in the survey given to the other victims of the Midnight Men. She knew most of these by heart and didn’t need an actual copy of the questionnaire. Soon it became clear that Stovall was even more of an outlier than Cindy Carpenter up in the Dell. Though Stovall lived reasonably close to the first two victims, their worlds didn’t seem to intersect anywhere, other than favoring some of the same local restaurants. During the pandemic Stovall was working from home and rarely left the house except to shop for food. She didn’t even pick up food to go from restaurants, choosing instead to get home delivery. Home delivery had been a subject of interest early in the investigation because the first two victims used it from time to time. But the investigators learned they used different services, and a review of their transactions determined that they had never been served by the same driver.
It was when it came to her personal life that Ballard scored a connection between Stovall and the other victims. Stovall had never been married but she had been in a long-term relationship that had ended badly. Her partner had been furloughed from his job, and tensions rose when Stovall had to work from home like most of the rest of the world.
“I was on Zooms and calls all day and it sort of reminded him of what he had lost,” Stovall said. “He started to resent me for not losing my job and for being the one who brought in the money. We argued all the time and soon the house wasn’t big enough for the two of us. I own the house so I asked him to leave. It was awful. And talking about it is awful too.”
“I’m sorry,” Ballard said.
“I just wish this was over.”
“You’re going to get through it. I promise.”
Ballard looked around for Bosch but didn’t see him. She also looked for any man who might be watching them. She saw no one who drew her attention.
“What is your ex’s name?” she asked.
“Really?” Stovall said. “Why do you need to know that?”
“I need all the information I can get. It doesn’t mean it all fits or is important.”
“Well, I don’t feel comfortable giving out my ex-boyfriend’s name. I’m finally in a place where we can text each other without resorting to calling each other names. And this would totally fuck that up if you went knocking on his door to make sure he wasn’t one of the Midnight Men. I can assure you he’s not. He’s not even in town right now.”
“Where is he?”
“Cancún, I think. Somewhere in Mexico.”
“How do you know that?”
“He texted me, saying he was going to Mexico. I assume Cancún, because we went there once and he loved it.”
“So he wasn’t worried about Covid and going to a foreign country?”