“The academy? Why?”
“Not the academy. The stadium. I’m going to get you vaccinated, Harry. You’re eligible, and I get the feeling that if I don’t help you get it done, it will never happen.”
“Look, just take me home. I can get that done on my own time and not waste yours.”
“Nah, we’re going. Get it done now. Trust the science, Harry.” “I do. But there are a hell of a lot of people who deserve it ahead of me. Besides, you need an appointment.”
Ballard pulled the badge off her belt and held it up.
“Here’s your appointment,” she said.
18
After Ballard cleared roll call without being pulled into anything new she told the watch commander that she was going up to the Dell for a second interview with the latest victim of the Midnight Men. He told her to make sure she had a rover.
She could have handled Cindy Carpenter by phone, but face-to-face visits with victims were always better. Not only was it reassuring to them to see a detective in person, but there was a better chance of them sharing newly recalled details of the crime. The brain protects itself by switching to essential life support in a time of physical trauma. Only after safety returns do the full details of the trauma start to come back. Carpenter’s remembering having the sense that she was filmed or photographed was an example of this. Ballard was hoping that a continuation of the bond between detective and victim would emerge in this visit.
But Carpenter, still wearing her work polo with the Native Bean logo on it, answered the door with “What?”
“Hey, everything all right?” Ballard asked.
“Everything’s fine. Why do you keep coming back?”
“Well, you know why. And I was hoping you’d have the questionnaire finished for me.”
“I’m not done.”
She made a move to shut the door and Ballard put her hand out to stop it.
“Is something wrong, Cindy? Did something happen?”
Ballard quickly reset her goals for the visit. She now just wanted to get inside.
“Well, for one, you called my ex-husband and I asked you not to do that,” Carpenter said. “Now I have to deal with him.”
“You didn’t tell me not to call him,” Ballard said. “You told me you didn’t want to talk about him, but you also gave the responding officer his name and number as your closest contact. And it — ”
“I told you I don’t know why I did that. I was confused and terrified. I couldn’t think of anybody else.”
“I understand all of that, Cindy. I do. But I have an investigation going and I need to follow it wherever it takes me. You put your ex’s name down on the incident report, then you don’t want to talk about him. That raised a flag for me. So, yes, I called him. I didn’t tell him that you were attacked. In fact, I worked my way around it. I take it he called you. What did he say?”
Carpenter shook her head like she was annoyed with how smoothly Ballard was handling this confrontation.
“Can I come in?” Ballard asked.
“Might as well,” Carpenter said.
She stepped back from the door. Ballard entered and tried to further diffuse the situation.
“Cindy, I hope you understand that my sole purpose right now is to find the men who attacked you and put them away forever. No matter what moves I make on the investigation, none are intended to cause you further harm or upset. That’s the last thing I want to do. So, why don’t we sit down and start with what happened after I talked to Reginald.”
“Fine.”
Carpenter took the spot on the couch where Ballard had last seen her the day before. Renée sat in a stuffed chair across a low-level coffee table.
“He called you?” Ballard prompted.
“Yes, he called me,” Carpenter said. “He asked what happened and I ended up telling him.”
“And was he sympathetic to you?”
“He acted like he was, but he always made it sound like he cared about me. That was the problem — it was always an act with him. But …”
“But what?”
“This is why I’m pissed off about you calling him. He now has this to hold over me.”
Ballard waited for her to say more but she didn’t.
“I don’t understand, Cindy. What is he holding over you?”
“I left him, okay? I was the one who wanted out.”
“Okay.”
“And he told me, he said I would regret it. And now, thanks to you, he knows what happened to me and, like I said, he pretended to be sympathetic, but I could tell he wasn’t. He was saying I told you so without saying it.”