Rivera had spent most of his years working various assignments at Hollywood Division. He was considered an old-timer by department standards, but as he had joined early, he was still not even close to sixty years old. He’d take his 90 percent, supplement it with a part-time security job or a PI ticket and do nicely the rest of his days. But his years on the job had also wrapped him in a tight cocoon of inertia. He wanted each midnight shift to go by as smooth as glass. He wanted no waves, no complications, and no issues.
“L-T,” Ballard said. “What do we have happening tonight in the big bad city?”
“Nada,” Rivera said. “All quiet on the western front.”
Rivera always used that phrase, as if Hollywood were at the edge of the city. Perhaps at night that was valid, as the wealthy neighborhoods out west usually grew quiet and safe. Hollywood was the western front. Most nights, Ballard hated hearing him say all was quiet, because she was looking for a case or something to join in on. But not this night. She had work to do.
“I’ll be in the D-bureau and on my rover,” she said. “I have follow-ups on last night’s capers. Have you seen Spellman around?”
“Sergeant Spellman?” Rivera asked. “He’s next door.”
Ballard noted the correction as she left the watch office, and walked into the central hallway. She went down to the next office, which was informally called the sergeant’s office because it was a spot where the supervisors could separate themselves from the troops to make calls, write reports, or decide whether to write up officers for breaking procedure. Spellman was alone in the room and sitting at a long counter, looking at a video on his laptop. He immediately closed the laptop when Ballard walked in.
“Ballard, what’s up?”
“I don’t know. Came in to ask you what’s going on and to see if anything came up in roll call about my case up in the Dell.”
It looked like he had been watching body cam footage of an approach to a parked car. That was part of his job, so his quickly closing the laptop made Ballard think that what was on camera was one of the two Fs: use of force or people fucking — both of which could happen on any traffic or stationary car stop.
“Oh, yeah, forgot to get back to you,” Spellman said. “Things got hectic in roll call because we had Vice come in for an intel session, and then I had to get people out on the streets. But I grabbed Vitello and Smallwood at the kit room before they went out. They had nothing remarkable last night. Plus they got pulled out of their zone on a couple backups.”
“Okay,” Ballard said. “Thanks for asking.”
She turned and headed out of the room. It was small and stuffy and smelled like whatever cologne Spellman was wearing.
Ballard took the long way back to the D-bureau so she would not have to walk through the watch office again. She figured out of sight meant out of mind with Rivera. Back at the desk she had borrowed, she got out a notebook, opened her laptop, and called up her files on the Midnight Men cases. She found the cell number for the first victim, Roberta Klein, and called it. She checked the clock on the wall over the TV screens as she waited for an answer. She wrote 9:05 p.m. on a page in the notebook so she would have it when she updated the chrono. Roberta Klein picked up on the sixth ring.
“Hi, Bobbi, it’s Detective Ballard at Hollywood Division.”
“Did you catch them?”
“No, not yet, but we’re working the case — even on the holiday. I’m sorry to call so late.”
“It scared me. I thought, ‘Who’s calling me now?’ ”
“I’m sorry. How are you doing?”
“Not good. I don’t hear from you people. I don’t know what’s going on. I’m scared. I keep thinking they might come back, because the LAPD can’t catch them.”
Once more Ballard found herself annoyed with Lisa Moore. Sex assault cases required a lot of hand-holding of victims. They needed to be kept informed, because the more they knew what the police were doing, the safer they felt. The safer they felt, the more likely they were to cooperate. In a rape case, cooperating could mean staring down your attacker in a lineup or in court. That took guts and it took support. Here was just another situation where Lisa had dropped the ball. This was her case. Ballard was only the nightside detective — she wasn’t lead. Until now, apparently.
“Well, I promise we’re on this case full-time, and that’s why I’m calling,” Ballard said.
“I left my job,” Klein said.