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The lockdown room was what they called the interview room that had been converted to a storage room for murder books andevidence from sensitive cases. It was locked but everyone in the unit knew where Ballard hid the key—beneath the calendar on her desk.
“Who let her in there?” Ballard asked.
“She wanted to see the old cases,” Hatteras said. “I thought it would be okay, so I gave her the key.”
“That’s fine,” Ballard said. “Why don’t you go get her, Colleen, and we’ll go over the boards. I know it’s not Monday but we won’t be meeting Monday because of the holiday and I think it will be good for Maddie to see how we track cases.”
Ballard knew that it was also a way for her to spend time with the unit, make everyone feel like it was business as usual, when her mind was elsewhere and business was anything but usual.
Hatteras went to get Maddie. Ballard turned her attention to Masser. “Paul, I don’t suppose we’ve heard anything from Darcy or the DOJ?” she asked.
“Not yet,” Masser said. “Hopefully tomorrow. It’s like that old Tom Petty song.”
“What song?”
“‘The Waiting.’ You know, the bit about it being the hardest part.”
He sang the lyrics but Ballard shook her head like she didn’t recognize it.
“Oh, come on,” Masser said. “It was a huge hit.”
He sang some more, then stopped when he realized Ballard was playing him.
“Ah, fuck you,” he said.
Ballard and Aghzafi started laughing.
“You know they have an all-unit talent show every year in the auditorium at the PAB,” Ballard said. “I think you’d have a shot at a trophy.”
“Like I said, F you,” Masser said.
His face was turning red and Ballard decided to lay off and change the subject.
“I was talking to this guy on the Maui fire task force,” she said. “You know, about the fires and all the unidentified dead they have. He told me they have this mobile DNA lab that they take into the fields of ash that is all that’s left of Lahaina. They put in what they can find of the human remains and they get DNA comparisons done in ninety minutes.”
“Oh, wow,” Masser said.
“And here we are, and it takes days or weeks to get anything done,” Ballard said. “I’m going to apply for a grant to get one of those labs to use right here.”
“That would be cool,” Aghzafi said. “We’d really start kicking ass.”
“Well, I think we already do kick ass,” Masser said.
Ballard nodded as she realized that Masser probably wanted to ask her about why she was talking to an investigator in Maui. He was the only one in the unit she had confided in about her missing mother.
The awkward moment ended when Hatteras returned with Maddie.
“Hey, Maddie,” Ballard said. “Welcome to the unit.”
“Glad to be here,” Maddie said. “Exciting.”
“You see anything in the lockdown room you can solve?”
“Uh, not yet.”
“Okay, well, did you pick a desk yet? We’ve got two openings on the raft.”
“Uh, not yet. The raft?”
