Ballard got an email alert on her phone and opened the app to see that Officer Black had sent her a copy of the incident report. She opened it and scanned through the two pages on her small screen. Nothing stood out in the details as new information. She was closing down the app when she was startled by a silent vehicle whooshing by her. She turned and recognized it as one of the BMW electrics that were used by the forensics teams.
The department had bought a fleet of them for use by detectives, but the sixty-mile range per battery charge limited their usefulness when detectives needed to go farther while riding the momentum of a case. The advertised range also dropped considerably in freeway driving, and it was a rare thing to conduct an investigation in L.A. without driving on a freeway. Stories of detectives being marooned with dead batteries abounded, and the cars were withdrawn and parked on the roof of a city garage for more than a year before being distributed again, this time to units like Forensics and Audio/Visual, which conducted single-destination trips to crime scenes and then back to the mother ship.
Ballard started walking back toward Cindy Carpenter’s house and met the forensics tech as he was getting out of the BMW. He popped the rear hatch.
“Ballard, Hollywood Division,” she said. “I called.”
“I’m Reno,” the man said. “Sorry if I scared you back there. These things are so quiet. I’ve had people literally walk in front of me without looking.”
“Well, maybe if you slowed down some, that wouldn’t happen.”
“Do you know the speed on these things? You barely touch the pedal and you’re at forty. Anyway, what do you need here?”
He closed the rear hatch and stood ready, holding the handle of a large equipment case in one hand, its weight tilting his shoulders. He was a slightly built man in dark blue coveralls. sid was stitched in white letters over a breast pocket.
“We had a hot prowl rape with two suspects last night,” Ballard said. “I cannot find point of entry but I think it was the garage. I want you to start in there. There’s a screwdriver on a workbench — maybe we get lucky with that. After that, there’s a closet in the guest room I want you to take a look at.”
“Okay,” Reno said. “Victim in the hospital?”
“No, she refused further medical. She’s inside.”
“Oh.”
“She knows you’re coming and I’ll stay with you. But I want you to do the car, too.”
She pointed to the Toyota parked on the street behind Reno’s car.
“Was it in the garage?” Reno asked.
“No, but she left the remote in the car, and I’m thinking they got in the car, then got in the garage, then got in the house. Just a knob lock on the door into the kitchen.”
“Wasn’t the car locked?”
“Not sure. Possibly. The remote’s on the visor.”
“Got it.”
“Be quick, okay? She’s had a very bad day.”
“Sounds like it. I’ll be quick.”
“And I’ll go get the key to open the car.”
While Reno was organizing his equipment, Ballard stepped back into the house and asked Cindy for her car key. She explained why and Cindy seemed to take it as another level of violation — her house, her body, and now even her car had been invaded by these evil men. She started crying.
Ballard recognized that Cindy was moving into a very fragile state. She asked if there was a friend or family member she could call to see if they could stay with her. Carpenter said no.
“I saw on the incident report that you listed your ex-husband as closest relative,” Ballard said. “Would he come?”
“Oh my god, no,” Carpenter exclaimed. “And please don’t call him. I only put him down because I couldn’t think straight. And he’s the only one in L.A. My entire family is down in La Jolla.”
“Okay, I’m sorry I asked. It’s just that you seem kind of fragile.”
“Wouldn’t you be?”
Ballard realized she had walked right into that one.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “That was stupid. What about Lacey from the shop?”
“You don’t seem to understand. I don’t want people to know about this. Why do you think I thought about it for so long before calling you people? I’m fine, okay? Just do what you have to do and then leave me alone.”
There was no comeback to that. Ballard excused herself and took the key out to Reno. He was already using silver powder on the driver’s-side door handle, looking for fingerprints.
“Anything?” she asked.
“Just smears,” Reno said.
“Like it was wiped?”
“Maybe, maybe not.”
That was useless. Ballard put the car key on the roof of the car.
“I’m going to knock on a few doors. I should be back before you’re finished. If not, have coms call me. I don’t have a rover.”
“And she knows I’m coming in?”
“Yes, but knock first.”
“Got it.”
“Her name is Cindy.”
“Got that too.”
Ballard stuck with the houses on the east side of Carpenter’s house, her thinking being that there was a better chance of the residents on that side seeing something unusual, because the west side led to the dead end. Anyone leaving Carpenter’s house by foot or car would have to go east.
Canvassing a neighborhood after a rape was a delicate thing. The last thing a victim needed was for everyone on the street to know what had happened. Some victims steadfastly refused to be stigmatized but others ended up feeling ashamed and losing confidence after such an attack. On the other hand, if there was a danger in the neighborhood, residents needed to know about it.
In addition, Ballard was handcuffed by the law. Under California statutes, victims of sexual assault are granted full confidentiality unless they choose to waive that right. Ballard had not even broached the subject with Cindy Carpenter and was for the moment bound by law not to reveal her as a rape victim to anyone outside of law enforcement.
Ballard pulled her mask all the way up and was holding her badge up when the door of the house next door to Carpenter’s was opened by a woman in her sixties showing one of the signs of being locked down for nine months. She had a thick band of gray at the base of her brunette hair, marking the last time she had been to a salon for a dye job.
“LAPD, ma’am. I’m Detective Ballard and I’m sorry to bother you, but I’m talking to all the neighbors in the area. We had a crime on this street last night after midnight and I am just asking if you saw or heard anything at all unusual during the night.”
“What kind of crime?”
“It was a break-in.”
“Oh my gosh, which house?”
Her asking which house instead of whose house indicated to Ballard that this woman might not know her neighbors personally. That wouldn’t matter if she had heard or seen something. But it did mean she might not start a gossip line with neighbors after Ballard left. This was good. Ballard didn’t want neighbors already knowing she was coming when she knocked on their doors.
“Next door,” Ballard said. “Did you hear or notice anything unusual last night?”
“No,” the woman said. “Not that I remember. Was anyone hurt?”
“Ma’am, I can’t really discuss the details with you. I’m sure you understand. Do you live alone here?”
“No, it’s my husband and I. Our kids are grown. Was it the girl next door? The one who lives alone?”
She pointed in the direction of Cindy Carpenter’s house. But calling her “the girl” instead of using her name was another indication that this woman did not know her neighbors well, if at all.
“Is your husband home?” Ballard asked, ignoring the questions. “Could I speak to him?”
“No, he went golfing,” the woman said. “At Wilshire Country Club. He’ll be home soon.”
Ballard pulled a business card and gave it to the woman, instructing her to have her husband call if he remembered hearing or seeing anything unusual the previous night. She then took the woman’s name for her records.
“Are we safe?” the woman asked.
“I don’t think they’ll be back,” Ballard said.
“They? It was more than one?”
“We think it was two men.”
“Oh my gosh.”
“Did you happen to see two men on the street last night?”
“No, I didn’t see anything. But now I’m scared.”
“I think you’re safe, ma’am. Like I said, we don’t expect them to come back.”
“Was she raped?”
“Ma’am, I can’t talk about the case.”