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“Harry always said the same thing.”
“Then you know. A lot of the people who want to volunteer for the unit come with a specific case in mind. Like a friend or a family member, someone from the neighborhood where they grew up. Is there a case like that with you?”
“Not really, no.”
“Okay, well, I know I could talk to Harry about a recommendation and—”
“I’d rather you didn’t. I’d really like to do this on my own.”
“I understand that, but Harry’s my friend and I think it would be odd if I didn’t at least tell him we’re going to work together.”
“Can you do that after you decide? I brought a sheet with me.” She took a printed sheet of paper from her pocket and unfolded it.
“This has the names and numbers of my supervisors,” she said. “Has my TO on there, though I’m no longer a boot. But she could tell you what a quick learner I am and how I react under pressure.”
Ballard took the paper and looked at it. She didn’t recognize any of the names, even though, until just a few years ago, she had been assigned to Hollywood Division as the midnight-shift detective.
“Man, it looks like a complete turnover of command staff since I was there,” she said.
“Yeah, just about everybody is new,” Maddie said.
Ballard nodded and continued to stare at the paper.
“So, what do you think?” Maddie prompted.
Ballard looked up at her. “Well, a couple of things I want you to know first,” she said. “I expect members of the unit to put in one day a week. I prefer two but I’ll take one. They don’t have to be eight-hour shifts, but I want to see you in here at least once a week. Will that be a problem?”
“No, not at all,” Maddie said. “Like I said, I have a lot of free time. The only thing that might be a scheduling conflict is if I have court. But that doesn’t happen a lot. What else?”
“If you’re running with a case, you stick with it or hand it off. And if you’re not running down a case, I want you pulling cases and reviewing them to see if there’s a shot at getting something done. We have a whole protocol for determining that. But there are six thousand unsolved cases going back to 1960. Right now the sweet spotis the eighties and early nineties. The cases are recent enough that there might be a live suspect out there, and those cases were originally worked before DNA was part of the landscape.”
“Okay.”
“Do you have any questions?”
“Um, the cases here, they go back only to 1960?”
“No, we’ve got cases from way earlier than that, but our cutoff point is currently 1975. With anything before that, it’s unlikely that anyone involved would be alive—suspects or immediate family.”
“Oh, right. I get it.”
“Yeah. So, anything else I can answer?”
“Not really… except when will you decide if you’ll take me on?”
“Well, I have to do a couple of things first. I have to talk to my captain and see if he’ll approve taking on someone who’s already full-time in the department. That hasn’t happened before. But I’ll tell you, and I’ll tell him: It would be really good to have someone else in the unit with a badge. It would take a lot of stuff off my shoulders. A lot of things come up that only a badge can do, like make arrests and testify in court. And I’m the only one. It would be nice to have you in the unit. Real nice, in fact.”
“Well, good. I hope you can convince the captain.”
“Me too.”
Ballard held out the paper she had been given. “Do these people know that I might call them?” she asked.
“Not really,” Maddie said. “Should I tell them?”
“Uh, no, it will be better if I call them cold. Do you want to see the unit and where you’ll be if this works out? A couple of the other volunteers are here today.”
“Sure.”
