Ballard got down on her knees and looked under the bed. It was clear except for a few books. She slid them out and saw that they were all written by female authors: Alafair Burke, Steph Cha, Ivy Pochoda. She slid them back under and got up. She swept her eyes across the room again but nothing stood out to her. She stepped back into the hallway and checked the second bedroom. This was neat and spare, obviously a guest room. The closet door was four inches ajar.
Ballard opened the closet all the way without touching the knob. Half the space was crowded with stacked cardboard boxes marked as Native Bean supplies. The other half was empty, apparently for the use of guests. She got down on her knees again to study the carpeted floor. She saw nothing on the carpet but there was a distinct pattern in the weave that was indicative of recent vacuuming. Still on her knees, she leaned back on her heels and called for Cindy to come to the room.
She came right away.
“What is it?”
“You said you have no Dustbuster, no vacuum at all, right?”
“No, why?”
“This closet was vacuumed. I think this is where he hid.”
Cindy stared down at the carefully manicured carpet.
“We put that in because the previous owner had stored paint cans there and some had spilled on the floor. It looks awful underneath.”
“ ‘We’?”
“My husband and I. We bought the place and then after the divorce, I kept it.”
“The door — do you leave it open? Like, to keep air circulating in there or something?”
“No, I keep it closed.”
“You’re sure you closed it after the last time you got stuff out for the coffee shop?”
“I’m sure.”
“Okay. Listen, I’m sorry, I know you probably just want to be left alone but I want Forensics to come here and process the closet and maybe the rest of the house.”
Carpenter was crestfallen.
“When?” she asked.
“I’ll call them right now,” Ballard said. “I’ll get it done as fast as possible. I know it’s an intrusion but we want to get these guys and I don’t want to leave any stone unturned. I don’t think you do either.”
“Okay, I guess. Will you be here?”
“If they can come now, I’ll stay. But in a few hours I start another shift. I’ll have to go check in at the station.”
“Try to get them to come now, please.”
“I will. Uh, you mentioned your husband. Is he still in L.A.? What is your relationship with him?”
“He’s here and we’re fine because we don’t see each other. He lives in Venice.”
But there was a clear tension underlying the way she said it.
“What’s he do?” Ballard asked.
“He’s in the tech industry,” Carpenter said. “Works for start-ups and stuff. He finds investors.”
Ballard stood up. She had to take a step to hold her balance. She realized that sleep deprivation was manifesting.
“You all right?” Carpenter asked.
“I’m fine — not enough sleep,” Ballard said. “How was your ex with you getting the house?”
“He was fine. Why? I mean he didn’t like it, but … What is this about?”
“I just have to ask a lot of questions, Cindy, that’s all. It’s not a big deal. Is he the one you were texting?”
“What?”
“When I came into the examination room today, you looked like you were texting or making a call.”
“No, I was texting Lacey at the shop, telling her she had to hold things together till I got back.”
“You told her what happened?”
“No, I lied. I said I was in an accident.”
She gestured to the injuries to her face.
“I have to figure out how to explain this,” she said.
This gave Ballard pause because she knew that what Carpenter told people now could come back around to haunt the case if it ever went to trial. As crazy as it seemed, a defense that the sex was consensual might gain support in a juror’s mind if there was testimony from the alleged victim’s friend that she had never mentioned being assaulted. It was a far-fetched possibility but Ballard knew she would need at some point to school Carpenter on this. But now was not the time.
“So, will you tell your ex about this?” she asked. “About what happened?”
“I don’t know, probably not. It’s not his business. Anyway, I don’t want to think about that right now.”
“I understand. I’m going to call Forensics now, see if I can get them out. You’re going to have to stay in the living room, if you don’t mind. I want them to do your bedroom.”
“Can I go get my book to read? It’s under the bed.”
“Yes, that’s fine. Just try not to touch anything else.”
Carpenter left the room and Ballard pulled her phone. Before calling for a forensics team, she squatted down and took a photo of the closet carpet, hoping the vacuum pattern would be discernible in the shot. She then called Forensics and got an ETA of one hour.
In the living room Ballard told Carpenter that the forensics tech would be at the house soon. She then asked if there was a remote in the house that opened the overhead garage door. She explained that she didn’t want to touch the knob on the door from the kitchen. Even a gloved hand might destroy fingerprint evidence.
“I use the garage for storage and just park out front or in the driveway,” Carpenter said. “So I have a clicker in my car that opens it, and there’s a button on the wall just inside the garage next to the kitchen door.”
“Okay,” Ballard said. “Can we go out to the car and use the clicker?”
They stepped out and Carpenter used a remote key to unlock her car. The parking lights blinked but Ballard did not hear a distinctive snap of the locks.
“Was your car locked?” she asked. “I didn’t — ”
“Yes, I locked it last night,” Carpenter said.
“I didn’t hear the locks click.”
“Well, I always lock it.”
Ballard was annoyed with herself for not first checking to see whether the car had been locked. Now she would never know for sure.
“I’m going to enter from the passenger side,” she said. “I don’t want to touch the driver’s door handle. Where is the garage clicker?”
“On the visor,” Carpenter said. “On the driver’s side.”
Ballard opened the door and leaned into the car. She had pulled her own set of keys from her pocket and used the end of her apartment key to depress the button on the garage remote. She then exited the car and watched the garage door open with a loud screeching of its springs.
“Does it always make that sound?” she asked.
“Yeah, I have to get it oiled or something,” Carpenter said. “My husband used to take care of things like that.”
“Can you hear it from inside when it opens?”
“I could when my ex still lived here.”
“Do you think it would wake you up in the bedroom?”
“Yes. It shook the whole house like an earthquake. You think that’s how they — ”
“I don’t know yet, Cindy.”
They stood on the threshold of the open garage. Carpenter had been right. There was no room for a car. The single bay was crowded with boxes, bikes, and other property, including three containers for trash, recycling, and yard waste. It looked like Carpenter stored more supplies from Native Bean in the garage as well. There were stacks of cups and snap-on covers in clear plastic sleeves as well as large boxes of various sweeteners. Ballard went to the door leading to the kitchen. She noted the button that operated the garage door on the wall to the left of the doorjamb.
She bent down to look at the keyhole in the knob but could not see any sign that it had been tampered with.
“So, we don’t know for sure that this door was locked,” she said.
“No, but it is most of the time,” Carpenter said. “And like I said, the garage was definitely closed.”
Ballard just nodded. She did not tell Carpenter her current theory, that one of the rapists got into the house before she even came home from work and hid in the guest room closet until she had showered and gone to sleep. He then made his move, incapacitated her, taped her mouth and eyes, and let the other rapist in.
A workbench to the right of the kitchen door was crowded with equipment that Ballard guessed had come from the coffee shop. There was an open toolbox with tools haphazardly piled on a top tray. She saw a screwdriver sitting on the bench by itself, as if it had been taken out of the toolbox and left there. She wondered if the rapists brought their own tools to break in or relied on finding something in the garage of a home lived in by a single woman.
“Is this screwdriver yours?” she asked.