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“That’s pretty good, right?” Maddie asked, looking brighter.
“That will be up to the DA’s office to decide,” Ballard said.
“When do we go to them?”
“Soon.”
34
BALLARD SPENT THErest of the morning running down the names from the yearbook with Hatteras and Maddie. Hatteras worked the social media and genealogy sites while Ballard and Maddie worked the DMV and law enforcement databases.
Ballard split the list with Maddie, telling her to start with the two girls Robin Richardson had identified as her daughter’s best friends. Ballard began with Rodney Van Ness, but she could find no current California license or criminal record in local, state, or national databases. From there, she moved on to the names of other boys in the class.
An hour into the project, Hatteras came to Ballard’s desk.
“Can I see the yearbook?” she asked. “Are there any pictures from the prom?”
“Yes and yes,” Ballard said. “There’s two pages of photos from the prom, but I already checked and Mallory isn’t in any of them.” She handed the book to Hatteras. “Is that what you’re looking for?” Ballard asked.
“Not really,” Hatteras said. “I just wanted to get…”
“A feel for it?”
“Sort of.”
Ballard was tired of trying to rein in Colleen’s “feelings.” “Have at it,” she said.
“I did the math,” Hatteras said. “I just think the prom is important.”
“The math?”
“Nicholas Purcell was born January twenty-ninth, 2000. You go back nine months from there and you are in April or May of 1999. Most proms are near the end of the school year.”
“You think something could have happened at the actual prom?”
“I do.”
Ballard was annoyed with herself for not having thought of doing the math.
“That’s good, Colleen,” she said. “Run with it. After you’re finished with the yearbook, see what you can find on Mallory’s date, Rodney Van Ness. He’s got a clean record, so I haven’t found him. His last California driver’s license expired in 2009. I think he moved out of state.”
“I’m on it,” Hatteras said.
Hatteras went back to her pod and Ballard checked her watch. She’d have to leave soon. Dr. Elingburg had texted her to say that she’d decided to keep her office open on the holiday because so many of her clients had expressed concern about missing their weekly therapy sessions and didn’t want to have them over Zoom. Ballard was not among those who had complained, but she was relieved when she read the text.
Elingburg had moved her usual noon appointment to one o’clock, so Ballard still had time to run a few names through the National Crime Information Center index. So far she had found only one senior boy with a criminal record, and that was for financial crimes.
After a few minutes Hatteras came back with the yearbook open to the two-page spread of photos from the senior prom.
“Look,” she said. “I think this was at the Huntington.”
The Huntington was an upscale hotel in a residential section of Pasadena. “Pretty nice for a prom,” Ballard said. “What makes you think it’s the Huntington?”
“I’ve been there for weddings over the years, including one about a month ago,” Hatteras said. “I remember these arched French doors leading out to the courtyard with the fountain.”
She pointed to the French doors that lined the wall behind the slow-dancing couples.
“Okay, so it was at the Huntington,” Ballard said. “What’s that get us?”
