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“Colleen, you’re not a nerd. You are a very important part of this unit. Look at all the leads you have come up with in just the past few days. But this is a team, and every member of the team needs to do their part so that we can get the best results on our cases. I’m sorry I have to keep explaining this to you.”
“I know, I know. I just wish—”
“Look, you’ve put in a long day and I want you to go home and rest up. I need your best work when you come in tomorrow. Okay, Colleen?”
Hatteras frowned and nodded. “Are you leaving now? I’ll walk out with you.”
“No, I still have more paperwork and emails to do,” Ballard said. “And this is only delaying it. I want you to go home, Colleen.”
“Okay, okay. I get it. I’m leaving.”
“Thank you. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Nine o’clock?”
“Right, though we both know you’ll be in before that.”
Hatteras smiled slightly and nodded again. She turned and finally headed to the door.
Ballard waited, half expecting to see Colleen round the corner by the first row of the murder archives and come back to the raft.
Luckily, she didn’t.
When she was sure Hatteras was gone, Ballard stood, opened her desk drawer, and grabbed the key to the lockdown room. She picked up the file containing Thawyer’s photos of Elizabeth Short and went to open her suitcase.
TUESDAY, 6:25 A.M.
38
BALLARD CALLED SETHDawson, hoping he was up and about, maybe even surfing. But when he answered, she could tell he was in a moving car with the windows open. She was in a moving car herself.
“It’s Detective Ballard,” she said. “Are you going to the water?”
“You guessed it.”
“Which break? I’m on my way out too, and I have something for you.”
“Zuma. Going with the app.”
Ballard had checked the Surf’s Up app herself and knew that Zuma was the recommendation. She was already heading toward Venice and she’d have to turn around on the PCH to get back to Zuma. She tried to judge how much time she’d get on the water going all the way up there.
“I’ll meet you there,” she said.
She finished the call and made a U-turn in front of Pepperdine. Thirty minutes later, she was on her board, waiting for her first wave. There was no sign of Dawson.
She got in two long runs on five-footers before she saw Dawsoncarrying his board across the beach. She paddled parallel to the shore to meet him on the break.
“Hey,” he said after paddling out. “How is it?”
“Not bad,” Ballard said. “Fives and sevens. Fives mostly.”
She paddled closer and turned her board so they were side by side.
“Got something for you,” she said.
She had the Breitling watch on her arm almost all the way to the elbow of her wetsuit. She slid it down and over her hand, then held it out to Dawson.
“No way!” he exclaimed, taking the watch. “You found it?”
