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“What’s John going to offer her?” Laffont asked.
“I don’t know where he’ll start but he told me he’ll go to full immunity,” Masser said, “if she delivers the ex.”
“And you think she’ll go for it?” Laffont said.
“Yeah, I do,” Masser said. “I tried to pull the divorce file but it’s sealed. But twice since the divorce, she’s asked for a restraining order against him. It doesn’t look like she has a whole lot of love for him anymore. She’s going to flip.”
“Hope so,” Ballard said. “Let me know when you know.”
“Roger that,” Masser said.
“Okay, then, that’s it,” Ballard said. “Sorry I was late and I appreciate everybody sticking around. Let’s dig down and make cases.”
Ballard always ended the weekly meeting with the same message, taken from a Muse song she loved: “Dig Down.” The words were on a sign on the wall of her pod. It was her code when it came to both life and cases.
4
BACK AT HERdesk, Ballard pulled up one of the crime reports she had reviewed earlier. This one was for a car burglary that had occurred at the Topanga break a few months ago. What drew her back to it was the officer’s note in the summary that there had been a fruit vendor in the parking lot where the theft occurred. The vendor said he had seen nothing, but the officer had taken down his name and phone number for follow-up. Ballard copied the information about the fruit vendor and the victim of the theft into a small notebook. The victim was named Seth Dawson. He reported that in addition to his brand-new iPhone 15, a Breitling watch worth three thousand dollars, a gift from his father, had been taken. Those two items pushed the crime beyond petty theft and well into felony territory.
As she was putting the notebook back in her jacket pocket, Colleen poked her head up over the partition wall again.
“Did you forget something today?” she asked.
Ballard immediately thought about the staff meeting and wondered what she had possibly missed covering. “I don’t think so,” she said. “Like what?”
Colleen lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Like your badge, for example.”
Ballard dropped her hand to her right hip as if to feel for the badge on her belt.
“Shit, you’re right,” she said. “It’s in my car under the seat. I’ll get it when I go out. Thanks for noticing, Colleen.”
“Anytime,” Hatteras said.
One of the two lines on Ballard’s desk phone started flashing. “Can you get that?” she asked Colleen.
“Sure,” Hatteras said.
She dropped from sight and answered the phone. Then she spoke to Ballard without poking her head over the partition. “It’s Darcy Troy on line one,” she said. “She said it’s important.”
Ballard punched the button and picked up the phone.
“Darcy, let me guess. Shaquilla Washington?”
“Shaquilla Wa—? No, it’s about something else. We just got a hot shot on the Pillowcase Rapist.”
Ballard said nothing as a cold finger slid down her spine.
“Renée?”
“Yeah, sorry, I’m here. Where do they have him?”
“They don’t have him. It was a hit on the familial search you put in last year.”
“Tell me about it.”
“A guy was arrested by West Valley Division on a felony domestic. His swab was taken and we sent it up to DOJ. It came back as a familial match in the Abby Sinclair case.”
It was one of the first cases Ballard had submitted for comparative genetic analysis after restarting the unit two years ago. The Pillowcase Rapist had terrorized the city for five years beginning at the turn of the century. Dozens of women were assaulted in their homes. Each had been sleeping and woke up as a pillowcase was pulled over her head, blinding her to her attacker. After the rape, he choked each victim into unconsciousness, hog-tied her with plastic snap ties, and escaped.
