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“You know what a fireman’s friend is?”
“Hmm, no.”
“You can google it. It’s like a T-shaped blade that slides into a doorjamb and pops the lock. Supposedly a guy on the LAFD invented it for getting into burning houses—hence the name.”
“Wow.”
“When the killer left, he had her computer and the extra hard drive under his arm.” Goring looked at the desks on the raft. “Which spot was the victim’s?”
Hearing Colleen referred to as “the victim” hit Ballard like a punch to the heart. She stood up and walked Goring over to Hatteras’s workstation.
“This is hers,” she said. “Was.”
Goring sat down and tapped the space bar on the keyboard. The screen lit up, and the password portal appeared.
“You think anybody on the squad would know her password?” she asked.
“Probably not,” Ballard said. “But I could check.”
“Don’t bother. I’ll take it down to the tech unit.”
“The guy there who set these up for us is named Chuck Pell.”
“Okay, I’ll take it to him.”
Goring tried the file drawer that was built into the workstation. It was locked. “How about a key for this?” she asked.
“I have one.”
Ballard went to her desk and opened the middle drawer. There was a ring of keys that opened the file drawers of every station on the raft. They were marked by number. She handed the ring to Goring.
“Number nine,” she said.
Ballard watched Goring open the file drawer, wishing she had thought to check it out earlier. The drawer contained several files with the names of victims written on the tabs. Ballard bent down so she could read some of them.
“Those look like closed cases,” Ballard said. “I think when we closed a case, she printed out all the IGG stuff and put it in a file. The active stuff was on the computer. She’d been working on what she called heritage patterns for several active cases.”
“‘Heritage patterns’?”
“Like a genetic family tree.”
“Got it.”
Goring closed the file drawer.
“I should get back over there,” she said. “I’m going to take the computer and drop it by the tech shop.”
“Fine by me,” Ballard said. “At some point I’ll need to get that stuff back. We have another guy on the squad who can continue Colleen’s work.”
“I’ll return it to you as soon as we’re finished with it.” Goring reached under the desk to unplug the CPU and detach it from Colleen’s oversize monitor.
Persson would inherit that screen, Ballard thought, unless she found another IGG specialist to take Colleen’s place. That thought led to another.
“Have you told Colleen’s daughters?” she asked.
“Not yet,” Goring said. “Too busy running with the case.”
Ballard nodded. “You want me to make the notification?” she asked. “I met them once when she brought them here.”
