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“Jackie Todd?” Ballard asked.
“Yes,” the woman said. “How can I… help you?”
“I’m Detective Ballard with the LAPD and this is Officer Bosch. We’d like to come in and ask you a few—”
Ballard didn’t finish. Todd had raised a hand to cover her mouth and hide a wide smile.
“Is something funny?” Ballard asked.
“Uh, no, I’m sorry,” Todd said. “Please, come in.”
She moved back so Ballard and Maddie could enter. They stepped into a living room with an old and lumpy couch and three cushioned chairs positioned around a bamboo-and-glass coffee table. A balcony off the living room looked down on a pool. It was a sunny day but February-cold, and the lounge chairs surrounding the water were empty. There was an adjoining dining room with a table holding an open laptop and several scripts and notebooks.
“Are you working today?” Ballard asked.
“I’m a writer,” Todd said. “I’m always working. Should I sit down, or how do you want to do this?”
“Sitting is good,” Ballard said. “How about over here?” She pointed to the couch and chairs.
“Sure,” Todd said. “But I’m warning you, don’t stand on the coffee table. It’s too rickety.”
“Uh, we weren’t planning to do that,” Ballard said, puzzled.
They moved toward the chairs, and Todd sat on the couch.
“Did you bring your music in that?” Todd asked. She pointed to Ballard’s laptop bag.
“Music?” Ballard asked. “No. We just want to ask you a few questions.”
“Okay…” Todd said. She smiled again and added a giggle.
Ballard was fully confused now, but Maddie apparently wasn’t.
“Do you think we’re fake cops?” she asked. “Like strippers or something?”
“Well, yeah,” Todd said. “Like a mother-and-daughter thing? Bernardo sent you, right?”
Ballard held up her hand as if to nip that thought in the bud.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “We’re not strippers and not mother and daughter. And I don’t know who Bernardo is.” Ballard pulled her badge off her belt as she said this and held it out across the coffee table. Maddie did the same.
“These aren’t props,” Ballard said. “They’re real.”
Todd sat straight up.
“Oh my God!” she said. “I thought it was—I’m so sorry. Today’s my birthday and I thought the writing room sent you. Like, as a gag. They pranked me last year and… I just thought… you know.”
“This is theApexwriting room you’re talking about?” Ballard asked.
“Exactly,” Todd said. “I was told to expect a delivery today, even though it’s a holiday. I’m so embarrassed.”
“Well, I’m glad we cleared that up.”
“I don’t understand, though. Why would you want to talk to me?”
“Well, we were told that twenty-five years ago, you had a friend named Mallory Richardson. Do you remember her?”
Todd’s face took on a serious look.
