“Detective?”
Ballard turned and saw that it was one of the paramedics who had brought the victim in. He held up a plastic bag.
“This is her apron,” he said. “It has her tips.”
“Thank you,” Ballard said. “I’ll take it.”
He brought the bag to her and she held it up to eye level.
“Did you guys get any ID?” she asked.
“I don’t think so,” the paramedic said. “She was a cocktail waitress, so she probably kept all of that in her car or a locker or something.”
“Right.”
“But her name’s Cindy.”
“Cindy?”
“Yeah, we asked back at the club. You know, so we could talk to her. Didn’t matter, though. She coded.”
He looked down at the body. Ballard thought she saw sadness in his eyes.
“Wish we had gotten there a few minutes earlier,” he said. “Maybe we could have done something. Hard to tell.”
“I’m sure you guys did your best,” Ballard said. “She would thank you if she could.”
He looked back at Ballard.
“Now you’ll do your best, right?” he said.
“We will,” she said, knowing that it would not be her case to investigate once RHD took over.
Shortly after the paramedic left the room, two hospital orderlies entered to move the body so that the operating room could be sterilized and put back into rotation—it was a busy night down in the ER. They covered the body with a plastic sheet and rolled the gurney out. The victim’s left arm was exposed and Ballard saw the unicorn tattoo again on her wrist. She followed the gurney out, clutching the bag containing the victim’s apron.
She walked along the hallway, looking through the windows into the other operating rooms. She noticed that Ramón Gutierrez had been brought up and was undergoing surgery to relieve pressure from the swelling of his brain. She watched for a few moments, until her phone buzzed, and she checked the text. It was from Lieutenant Munroe, asking the status of the fifth victim. Ballard typed out an answer as she walked toward the elevator.
KMA—I’m heading to scene.
KMA was an old LAPD designation used at the end of a radio call. Some said it stood for Keep Me Apprised but in use it was the equivalent of over and out. Over time it had evolved to mean end of watch or, in this case, the victim’s death.
While riding down on the slow-moving elevator, Ballard put on a latex glove and opened the plastic bag the paramedic had given her. She then looked through the pockets of the waitress’s apron. She could see a fold of currency in one pocket and a pack of cigarettes, a lighter, and a small notepad in the other. Ballard had been in the Dancers and knew the club got its name from a club in the great L.A. novel The Long Goodbye. She also knew it had a whole menu of specialty drinks with L.A. literary titles, like the Black Dahlia, Blonde Lightning, and Indigo Slam. A notebook would be a requirement for a waitress.
Back at the car Ballard popped the trunk and placed the bag in one of the cardboard boxes she and Jenkins used for storing evidence. On any given shift they might collect evidence from multiple cases, so they divided the trunk space with cardboard boxes. She had earlier placed Ramón Gutierrez’s belongings in one of the boxes. She put the bag containing the apron in another, sealed it with red evidence tape, and closed the trunk.
By the time Ballard got over to the Dancers, the crime scene was a three-ring circus. Not the Barnum & Bailey kind, but the police kind, with three concentric rings denoting the size, complexity, and media draw of the case. The center ring was the actual crime scene, where investigators and evidence technicians worked. This was the red zone. It was circled by a second ring, and this was where the command staff, uniformed presence, and crowd and media control command posts were located. The third and outer ring was where the reporters, cameras, and the attendant onlookers gathered.
Already all eastbound lanes of Sunset Boulevard had been closed off to make room for the massive glut of police and news vehicles. The westbound lanes were moving at a crawl, a long ribbon of brake lights, as drivers slowed to grab a view of the police activity. Ballard found a parking spot at the curb a block away and walked it in. She took her badge off her belt, pulled out the cord wound around the rear clip, and looped it over her head so the badge would hang visibly from her neck.
Once she’d covered the block, she had to search for the officer with the crime scene attendance log so she could sign in. The first two rings were cordoned off by yellow crime scene tape. Ballard lifted the first line and went under, then saw an officer holding a clipboard and standing post at the second. His name was Dunwoody and she knew him.
“Woody, put me down,” she said.
“Detective Ballard,” he said as he started writing on the clipboard. “I thought this was RHD all the way.”
“It is, but I was at Hollywood Pres with the fifth victim. Who’s heading it up?”
“Lieutenant Olivas—with everybody from Hollywood and West Bureau command staff to the C-O-P sticking their nose in.”
Ballard almost groaned. Robert Olivas headed up one of the Homicide Special teams at RHD. Ballard had a bad history with him, stemming from her assignment to his team four years earlier when he was promoted to the unit from Major Narcotics. That history was what landed her on the late show at Hollywood Division.
“You seen Jenkins around?” she asked.
Her mind was immediately moving toward a plan that would allow her to avoid reporting on the fifth victim directly to Olivas.
“As a matter of fact, I did,” Dunwoody said. “Where was that? Oh, yeah, they’re bringing a bus in for the witnesses. Taking them all downtown. I think Jenkins was watching over that. You know, making sure none of them try to split. Apparently it was like rats on a sinking ship when the shooting started. What I heard, at least.”
Ballard moved a step closer to Dunwoody to speak confidentially. Her eyes raked across the sea of police vehicles, all of them with roof lights blazing.
“What else did you hear, Woody?” she asked. “What happened inside? Was this like Orlando last year?”
“No, no, it’s not terrorism,” Dunwoody answered. “What I hear is that it was four guys in a booth and something went wrong. One starts shooting and takes out the others. He then took out a waitress and a bouncer on his way out.”
Ballard nodded. It was a start toward understanding what had happened.
“So, where is Jenkins holding the wits?”
“They’re over in the garden next door. Where the Cat and Fiddle used to be.”
“Got it. Thanks.”
The Dancers was next to an old Spanish-style building with a center courtyard and garden. It had been an outdoor seating area for the Cat and Fiddle, an English pub and major hangout for off duty and sometimes not-off-duty officers from the nearby Hollywood Station. But it went out of business at least two years earlier—a victim of rising lease rates in Hollywood—and was vacant. It had now been commandeered as a witness corral.
There was another patrol officer posted outside the gated archway entrance to the old beer garden. He nodded his approval to Ballard and she pushed through the wrought-iron gate. She found Jenkins sitting at an old stone table, writing in a notebook.
“Jenks,” Ballard said.
“Yo, partner,” Jenkins said. “I heard your girl didn’t make it.”
“Coded in the RA. They never got a pulse after that. And I never got to talk to her. You getting anything here?”
“Not much. The smart people hit the ground when the shooting started. The smarter people got the hell out and aren’t sitting in here. As far as I can tell, we can clear as soon as they get a bus for these poor folks. It’s RHD’s show.”
“I have to talk to someone about my victim.”
“Well, that will be Olivas or one of his guys, and I’m not sure you want to do that.”
“Do I have a choice? You’re stuck here.”
“Not like I planned it this w
ay.”
“Did anybody in here tell you they saw the waitress get hit?”
Jenkins scanned the tables, where about twenty people were sitting and waiting. It was a variety of Hollywood hipsters and clubbers. A lot of tattoos and piercings.
“No, but from what I hear, she was waiting on the table where the shooting started,” Jenkins said. “Four men in a booth. One pulls out a hand cannon and shoots the others right where they’re sitting. People start scattering, including the shooter. He shot your waitress when he was going for the door. Took out a bouncer too.”
“And nobody knows what it was about?”
“Nobody here, at least.”
He waved a hand toward the witnesses. The gesture apparently looked to one of the patrons sitting at another stone table like an invitation. He got up and approached, the wallet chain draped from a front belt loop to the back pocket of his black jeans jangling with each step.
“Look, man, when are we going to be done here?” he said to Jenkins. “I didn’t see anything and I don’t know anything.”
“I told you,” Jenkins said. “Nobody leaves until the detectives take formal statements. Go sit back down, sir.”
Jenkins said it with a tone of threat and authority that totally undermined the use of the word sir. The patron stared at Jenkins a moment and then went back to his table.
“They don’t know they’re getting on a bus?” Ballard said in a low voice.
“Not yet,” Jenkins said.
Before Ballard could respond further, she felt her phone buzz and she pulled it out to check the screen. It was an unknown caller but she took it, knowing it was most likely a call from a fellow cop.
“Ballard.”
“Detective, this is Lieutenant Olivas. I was told you were with my fifth victim at Presbyterian. It would not have been my choice but I understand you were already there.”
Ballard paused before answering, a feeling of dread building in her chest.
“That’s right,” she finally said. “She coded and the body is waiting for a coroner’s pickup team.”
“Were you able to get a statement from her?” he asked.
“No, she was DOA. They tried to bring her back but it didn’t happen.”
“I see.”
He said it in a tone that suggested it was some failing on her part that the victim had died before she could be interviewed. Ballard didn’t respond.
“Write your reports and get them down to me in the morning,” Olivas said. “That’s all.”
“Uh, I’m here at the scene,” Ballard said before he disconnected. “Next door with the witnesses. With my partner.”
“And?”
“And there was no ID on the victim. She was a waitress. She probably had a locker somewhere inside that would have her wallet and her phone. I’d like to—”
“Cynthia Haddel—the bar manager gave it to me.”
“You want me to confirm it and gather her property or have your people take it?”
Now Olivas paused before responding. It was like he was weighing something unrelated to the case.
“I have a key that I think is to a locker,” Ballard said. “The paramedics turned it over to me.”
It was a significant stretch of the truth but Ballard did not want the lieutenant to know how she got the key.
“Okay, you handle it,” he finally said. “My people are fully involved elsewhere. But don’t get charged up, Ballard. She was a peripheral victim. Collateral damage—wrong place at the wrong time. You could also make next-of-kin notification and save my guys that time. Just don’t get in my way.”
“Got it.”
“And I still want your report on my desk in the morning.”
Olivas disconnected before Ballard could respond. She kept the phone to her ear a moment, thinking about his saying that Cindy Haddel was collateral damage and in the wrong place at the wrong time. Ballard knew what that was like.
She put the phone away.
“So?” Jenkins asked.
“I need to go next door, check her locker, and find her ID,” she said. “Olivas also gave us next-of-kin.”
“Ah, fuck.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll handle it.”
“No, it doesn’t work that way. You volunteer yourself, you volunteer me.”
“I didn’t volunteer for next-of-kin notification. You heard the call.”
“You volunteered to get involved. Of course he was going to give you the shit work.”
Ballard didn’t want to start an argument. She turned away, checked out the people sitting at the stone tables, and saw two young women wearing cutoff jeans and tank tops, one shirt white and one black. She walked over to them and showed her badge. The white tank top spoke before Ballard could.
“We didn’t see anything,” she said.
“I heard,” Ballard said. “I want to ask about Cindy Haddel. Did either of you know her?”
The white top shrugged her shoulders.
“Well, yeah, to work with,” said the black top. “She was nice. Did she make it?”
Ballard shook her head and both of the waitresses brought their hands to their mouths at the same time, as if receiving impulses from the same brain.
“Oh god,” said the white top.
“Does either of you know anything about her?” Ballard asked. “Married? Boyfriend? Roommate? Anything like that?”
Neither did.
“Is there an employee locker room over at the club? Someplace she would have kept her wallet and her phone, maybe?” Ballard asked.
“There are lockers in the kitchen,” the white top said. “We put our stuff in those.”
“Okay,” she said. “Thank you. Did the three of you have any conversation tonight before the shooting?”
“Just waitress stuff,” the black top said. “You know, like who was tipping and who wasn’t. Who was grabby—the usual stuff.”
“Anybody in particular tonight?” Ballard asked.
“Not really,” the black top said.
“She was all bragging because she got a fifty from somebody,” the white top said. “I actually think it was somebody in that booth where the shooting started.”
“Why do you think that?” Ballard asked.
“Because that table was hers and they looked like players.”
“You mean show-offs? Guys with money?”
“Yeah, players.”
“Okay. Anything else?”
The two waitresses looked at each other first, then back at Ballard. They shook their heads.
Ballard left them there and went back to her partner.
“I’m going next door.”
“Don’t get lost,” he said. “As soon as I’m done babysitting, I want to go get next-of-kin over with and start writing. We’re done.”
Meaning the rest of the shift would be dedicated to paperwork.
“Roger that,” she said.
She left him sitting on the stone bench. As she made her way to the entrance of the Dancers she wondered if she would be able to get to the kitchen without drawing the attention of Lieutenant Olivas.
4
The interior of the Dancers was crowded with detectives, technicians, photographers, and videographers. Ballard saw a woman from the LAPD’s architectural unit setting up a 360-degree camera that would provide a high-density 3-D recording of the entire crime scene after all evidence was marked and investigators and technicians momentarily backed out. From it she could also build a model of the crime scene to use as an exhibit in court during an eventual prosecution. It was an expensive move and the first time Ballard had ever seen it employed in the field outside of an officer-involved-shooting investigation. There was no doubt that at this point, at least, nothing was being spared on the case.
Ballard counted nine detectives from the Homicide Special Section in the club, all of whom she knew and even a few she liked. Each of them had a specific piece of the crime scene investigation to handle and they moved about the club under
the watchful eye and direction of Lieutenant Olivas. Yellow evidence placards were everywhere on the floor, marking shell casings, broken martini glasses, and other debris.
The victims, all except Cynthia Haddel, had been left in place to be photographed, videoed, and examined by the coroner’s team before being removed for autopsy. The coroner herself, Jayalalithaa Panneerselvam, was on scene. That was a rarity in itself and underlined the importance that the investigation of the mass killing had taken on. Dr. J., as she was known, stood behind her photographer, directing the shots she wanted him to take.
The club was a massive space with black walls and two levels. The bar ran along the back wall on the lower level, which also had a small dance floor surrounded by palm trees and black leather booths. The palm trees, hung with white lights, rose all the way to a glass atrium two floors up. To the right and left of the bar were two wings six steps up from the main floor and lined with more booths and served by smaller bars.
There were three bodies in a booth on the main level. It was located in a cloverleaf of four booths. Two of the dead men were still seated. The one on the left was a black man with his head tilted all the way back. The white man next to him was slightly leaning against him as though he had drunkenly fallen asleep. The third man had tilted all the way to his side and his head and shoulders dangled outside the confines of the booth into the aisle. He was white and had a graying ponytail that hung down and dipped into a pool of blood on the floor.
A fourth body was on the floor twenty feet away in a separate aisle created by the cloverleaf booths. He was a very large black man who was facedown on the floor, hands at his sides and his knuckles on the tile. On his belt on the right hip was an empty Taser holster. Ballard could see the yellow plastic stunning device under a nearby table.
Another ten feet past the fourth body was a smear of blood surrounded by evidence markers and some of the debris left by the paramedics who had tried to save Cynthia Haddel’s life. Among the items on the floor was a round stainless-steel cocktail tray.
Ballard walked up the steps to the second level and then turned around to look down and get a better view of the crime scene. Lieutenant McAdams had said the shooting erupted in a booth. With that as a starting point, it was easy to figure out what had happened in basic terms. Three men were shot where they sat. The shooter had them pinned in and pivoted efficiently from one to the other with the aim of his weapon. He then moved from the booth and down the lane separating the pods. This put him on a collision course with the bouncer, who had drawn his Taser and was moving toward the problem. The bouncer was shot, most likely killed instantly, and dropped face-first to the floor.
The Late Show Page 3