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7
FIFTEEN MINUTES LATERthey had followed the Mercedes through the Old Town district of Pasadena to a restaurant called the Parkway Grill, where a valet took the Mercedes, and the couple from it went inside. Ballard had pulled to a stop at a red curb where they had an angle on the front door of the restaurant.
“What do you think?” she asked.
“It will be a DNA-rich environment,” Masser said. “The question is how do we make the capture without notice.”
“Right. So let’s go in, see what we see.”
“You sure?”
“If it’s not good, we start fresh tomorrow.”
“Reinforcements?”
Ballard thought about bringing back Laffont and Aghzafi and decided against it. “I think we can handle it.”
“Your call.”
Ballard pulled away from the curb and moved the Defender into the valet lane at the restaurant. Valets approached the car on either side and opened the doors. Ballard told the man holding her door that she had to get something out of the back. From a plastic carton, she grabbed two plastic evidence bags and stuffed them into the pocket ofher blazer. She knew that there might be more than one opportunity to capture Purcell’s DNA inside the restaurant. From another box she pulled latex gloves and put them in her other pocket.
They entered the restaurant. There was a bar to the right and a crowded dining room to the left. Ballard saw Purcell and the woman she assumed was his wife being led to a table in the front of the room. A team of young women in sleek black dresses stood behind the check-in stand. One of them asked how she could help, though she said it in a tone that conveyed her supreme power in the granting of tables for dinner.
“Do you have a table for two?” Ballard asked.
“Do you have a reservation?” the hostess responded.
“No, we don’t.”
“Our wait right now for a table without reservations is forty-five minutes. I can seat you at the bar, which is first come, first served. We offer the full menu there.”
“Perfect.”
They went into the bar and found two seats together on the end closest to the dining room. From there, Ballard could see the Purcell table clearly in the mirror behind the bar’s display of bottles of various bourbons.
“Well, do we order?” Masser asked.
“Might as well,” Ballard said. “They’re going to eat and we might be conspicuous if we don’t.”
They studied the menus. When the bartender came over, Ballard ordered the branzino and a tonic with a lime and a splash of cranberry juice, which she knew would pass for an alcoholic drink. Masser ordered the same. In the mirror they watched the Purcell table, where a bottle of wine was produced and decanted. Ballard settled in for what could be a long night. She hoped the food was good. She’d heard of the restaurant but rarely ventured to Pasadena to eat.
“You okay with this?” Ballard asked. “How’s your wife doing?”
“She’s fine,” Masser said. “I texted her.”
They sipped the nonalcoholic drinks the bartender put down and Ballard started thinking about the case. “Colleen said she’s already building a genetic family tree.”
“Why? If this is the guy, we won’t need a tree.”
“True, but it will keep her busy.”
Masser laughed. “There’s that,” he said. “Hey, look.”
Ballard checked the mirror. The woman—possibly the mother of Nicholas Purcell—had gotten up from the table and was walking toward the bar.
“We’ve been made,” Masser said, a panicked tone in his whisper. “What do we do?”
“Just hold on,” Ballard said. “Let’s see what—” She saw the woman make a turn at the end of the bar and go down a hallway to the left.
