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“We can wait,” Ballard said.
Waxman stood up and left the office.
“Who did you say owned this place?” Ballard asked.
“Nancy Porter,” Maddie said.
“We’ll need an address for her too.”
“I already have it.”
“From Waxman?”
“Yes, I thought I—we—might need it, so I got it from him after he showed me the storage unit.”
“That was smart. Maybe we’ll go see her after this. If you have time.”
“I’m in. This is so much more interesting than patrol.”
For a moment Ballard considered warning her about vicarious trauma but decided not to get into it now.
Waxman came back a few minutes later with a file; he handed it to Ballard and went back behind his desk. The file contained severaldocuments, starting with a yellowed information sheet apparently filled out by Emmitt Thawyer and dated November 1, 1966. It listed a home address on Kellam Avenue.
“Kellam Avenue,” Maddie said. “That’s in Angeleno Heights. I remember when I was a kid, my dad and I used to drive around in there and look at the old houses. I love that neighborhood.”
“Well, it looks like a serial killer might have lived there,” Ballard said.
“He was probably there when we drove by his house.”
“Maybe.”
The information sheet also included Thawyer’s driver’s license number and a birth date of January 7, 1924.
“He just had a birthday last month,” Ballard said. “He’d be a hundred years old.”
Ballard did the math and determined that Thawyer would have been twenty-three when Elizabeth Short was abducted and murdered. It was a little young for a serial killer, but maybe she was his first victim.
“You think he did that on purpose?” Maddie said. “Put enough money in his trust fund to pay for storage till he was a hundred?”
“Who knows,” Ballard said. “But I like the way you’re thinking.”
Ballard didn’t know if telling Maddie she reminded her of her father would be taken as a compliment or not. She kept it to herself and went back to the documents in hand.
The rest of the pages in the file were annual invoices stampedPAIDwith a handwritten date of payment. All the dates were in late October or the first day of November, corresponding with when Thawyer first rented the storage unit.
“Mr. Waxman, we’re going to need to keep this file for a while,” Ballard said.
“It’s yours,” Waxman said. “I’m done with it.”
“Do you speak to Mrs. Porter often?”
“No, we don’t need to speak. I run the business for her and she’s happy being hands-off.”
“How old is she?”
“I don’t know. Very old. She inherited this business from her father. He did what I do—ran the business. She did too, but then she got tired and turned to me.”
“Did you tell her about this—what you saw in the unit?”
