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“There is nothing I would like better than to take a pass on that job,” Goring said. “But I need to interview them, see when they last talked and all of that. So I’ll do it.”
“They should know soon.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll get to them today.”
Ballard nodded.
Goring successfully detached the CPU and slid it out from beneath the workstation. She lifted it, testing its weight.
“You want me to get a dolly to roll it out to your car?” Ballard asked.
“No, I’m strong,” Goring said.
She hefted the computer so she could get her hands under it and turned toward the aisle.
“In more ways than one,” she added.
Ballard took it as a reference to experiences that had led her to the Beanery meetings.
“Remember, if you think of anything, give me a call,” Goring said.
“Will do,” Ballard said.
Goring headed to the exit. She seemed to slow her walk and focus on the murder-book archive as she passed.
“All these cases,” she said. “Waiting to be solved.”
Ballard just nodded and watched her go.
SATURDAY, 8:42 A.M.
54
THE GARAGE DOORof Andrew Bennett’s home on Linda Vista Drive started to rise. Ballard had a good angle on it and locked in with a small set of binoculars. She was parked in front of a house on El Conejo Lane half a block away. Bennett’s home was at the top of the T where the two streets met. She could see directly into the garage and watched as a man she was pretty sure was Bennett popped the trunk on a Mercedes sedan. Along the left wall of the garage were a number of real estate signs of all sizes. Bennett chose the ones he needed and loaded them into the trunk. Ballard could see that all had his name and phone number on them. At least a few of them saidOPEN HOUSE.
Bennett closed the trunk, grabbed the briefcase and the Yeti cup he had placed on the roof of the car, and climbed into the driver’s seat. When Ballard saw the brake lights flare, she put the binoculars down, pushed the ignition button on the Defender, and got ready to follow.
Bennett took a meandering route to his open house, first driving toward the beach, then taking the coast highway north to Crystal Cove. He pulled into an upscale ocean-view shopping center and went into a Starbucks. The place was crowded and Ballard followed him in, knowing the other customers would provide camouflage. Shestudied him as he filled the Yeti with dark roast, looking for any indication that he was the man who had strangled and then shot a woman a little more than twenty-four hours before. Ballard had studied many murderers up close over her years on the job. She could find nothing in common about them other than a certain flatness in the eyes. But in the Starbucks she didn’t want to get that close and possibly tip Bennett off that she was watching him.
After the coffee stop, Bennett went south back to Laguna Beach and made stops at various corners to put upOPEN HOUSEsigns that gave an address on a street called Sunset Ridge and helpful arrows pointing the way. The signs said the house would be open from noon till four. It was only ten a.m., so Ballard decided against peeling off and going directly to Sunset Ridge. Bennett had two hours to kill and she suspected that he wouldn’t immediately go to the house he was selling.
After the last sign was placed on the last corner of the hillside neighborhood, Bennett took the coast road south through the beachside village before pulling into the parking lot behind the two-level business plaza where Destination Realty was located. He entered through a rear door, and Ballard assumed he would stay in his office until it was time to go to Sunset Ridge and host the open house.
Ballard lowered the windows and killed the Defender’s engine, readying herself for a possible ninety-minute wait. But only twenty minutes into it, Bennett came out the back door of the office and went to his car. With Ballard tailing from a distance, he drove north again. The traffic slowed as they went through the village, and at one point, Bennett stopped his car in a traffic lane and put on his flashers. This brought on an angry chorus of horns from cars that got stuck behind him. Ballard thought he had stopped because she had been made, that he had picked up on the single-car surveillance. She quickly switched lanes and passed the Mercedes just as Bennett was opening his door. She cut back into the right lane and checked the rearview mirror. Shesaw Bennett run around the front of his car, cross the sidewalk, and go into a business she couldn’t identify. She breathed a little easier. He didn’t seem to know he was being tailed.
Ballard saw an open space in the line of parallel-parked cars ahead and skillfully slid the Defender in, noting that the space was open on a Saturday morning in the beach village only because it wasn’t a legal parking spot—it was a red curb in front of a fire hydrant. Nonetheless, she stayed; she hit her flashers and kept her eyes on the mirrors. Within moments Bennett reemerged onto the sidewalk carrying a pink bakery box and ran back around the front of his Mercedes. He jumped into the car with a renewed blare of horns from drivers lambasting him for his selfish move.
The little moment checked a box for Ballard. It showed narcissism, a key trait of psychopaths. She turned off the flashers and pulled her car back into the traffic lane. She was now moving ahead of Bennett on the highway, but that was okay because she knew where he was going.
Sunset Ridge was at the top of a hillside neighborhood of multimillion-dollar homes with staggering views of the Pacific Ocean. Ballard positioned the Defender a block from the house Bennett was hoping to sell. She had an angle of view between two homes that showed her the whitecaps atop the blue-black waves coming ashore below. They were the kind of waves she waited for every time she was on the water.
She lowered the back of her seat so that Bennett would not notice her as he cruised by and checked the time on the dashboard. It was 11:11—still almost an hour before the open house was scheduled to begin. She saw this as an opportunity to engage Bennett while he was alone.
She started the car again.
55
THE FRONT DOORwas open. Ballard pulled into the driveway, not worried about announcing her arrival. She had already locked her holstered pistol and badge in the glove compartment. She got out and locked the car.
