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 way.”
“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.”