36

36

COLLEEN AND MADDIE were still working when Ballard got back to the Ahmanson Center. They showed her the chart they had put together. They had located fifty-two of the sixty-six seniors listed in the 1999 St. Vincent's yearbook. Of the remaining fourteen, five were boys and nine were girls; the girls were more difficult to find because their last names sometimes changed when they got married. Additionally, Maddie had run criminal record checks, but those produced only two former students who had been convicted of crimes, the one for financial fraud that Ballard had also found, the other for indecent exposure.

They spent the next half hour putting together an interview-priority list. The name at the top was Rodney Van Ness, Mallory's date for his senior prom. Although he was first on the list, because he was located in Las Vegas, he was probably not going to be the first interview. Taking a road trip required planning and approvals.

Next on the list was Jacqueline Todd, one of Mallory's two best friends. She was still living in Los Angeles, according to LinkedIn, and working as a screenwriter. Mallory's other best friend, Emma, was third on the priority list, but she had not been located. They hoped that Jacqueline Todd would have her contact information.

Fourth on the list was Nathan Hyatt, the former student who had been arrested for indecent exposure a year after graduation. He was living in Venice, according to the DMV. He had no criminal record since that arrest but was an obvious choice for scrutiny, as the indecent exposure could have been a precursor to more serious sexually motivated crimes. Most serial offenders follow an escalating path of sex crimes, Ballard knew. Her only hesitation about Hyatt was that he had most likely been interviewed by the original Pillowcase Rapist task force. She would have to pull the records, but she knew that the task force had thrown out a wide net and interviewed almost all known sex offenders living in the county then.

"Maddie, how much time you got before you go in today?" Ballard asked.

"A few hours," Maddie said. "I have roll call at six."

"Let's go talk to Jacqueline Todd," Ballard said.

"Sounds good," Maddie said.

They took separate cars so Maddie could peel off and go to work if the interview went long or was delayed. Ballard took the lead, working her way to the 405 freeway and then heading north toward the Valley. Jacqueline Todd, according to the DMV, lived in Sherman Oaks.

Ballard's GPS app said it was a thirty-eight-minute drive. She decided to use the time to make phone calls. The first was to Gordon Olmstead at the FBI, but it went straight to voicemail. She assumed Olmstead was avoiding her after the earlier call and left a message: "It's Ballard. Just looking for an update on whether you shut down the leak. Call me back, please."

She knew he wouldn't. She thought about how aggressive she had been with Olmstead earlier and what Dr. Elingburg had said about her short temper. She called Olmstead back and left another message: "Gordon, me again. Sorry about being so testy last time we talked. A lot of stuff is going on and I overreacted. Call me when you can."

She disconnected and drove for a bit, thinking about the interview she hoped to conduct with Jacqueline Todd. She knew the apartment complex she and Maddie were headed to because she had been there on prior cases. It made her think about her mother, so she made her next call to Dan Farley in Maui. It was a holiday but he had told her that MINT members were not taking any holidays off, other than Christmas, because of the urgency of identifying the dead from the fires and informing their families.

Farley took the call and Ballard could tell he was in a car.

"Hello, Renée."

"Dan, did I catch you at a bad time? I thought you'd be working today."

"I am. On my way down to Wailea to make a notification. Members of the family are staying at the Four Seasons."

"Oh, man, that's tough. Not the Four Seasons, the notification."

"Yeah, but I find it's better face-to-face than over the phone. I've done a lot of those and they seem so impersonal. This one's a twenty-two-year-old son. He was bumming around the islands and went to Lahaina. Wrong place at the wrong time."

"Yeah."

There was a beat of silence before Farley spoke.

"If I had any news for you, I would have called, Renée."

"I know. I was just thinking about her today. My mother. Whenever I talk to you, it sort of calms me. I don't know why."

"I understand. You know you can call me anytime. I deal with a lot of families waiting to hear something, whether it's good or bad. But we haven't found her among the dead so far, and that's a good sign, right?"

"I guess so."

"I think that when we find Makani, she's going to be alive."

With all the cases he was working and all the families he was dealing with, the fact that Farley remembered her mother's name comforted Ballard.

"I hope so," she said. "Thanks, Dan."

"Call anytime," Farley said again.

The freeway took her over the Santa Monica Mountains through the Sepulveda Pass, and on the downgrade Ballard transitioned to the 101 and then immediately exited at Van Nuys Boulevard. Jacqueline Todd lived in an apartment complex on Magnolia called the Horace Heidt Estates. It was a very large complex with a distinctive Hawaiian-village feel, with tiki bars and facilities with names like the Aloha Room. Horace Heidt had been a radio bandleader in the 1940s and '50s and had built the apartments so members of his band could live and practice together. There were three pools and an executive golf course. There was also a mini-museum of Hollywood memorabilia that Ballard had toured with Heidt's son, who now ran the place. It was largely photos, costumes, and other keepsakes Horace Heidt had collected during his time as a bandleader.

Ballard drove through the complex and found the building where Jacqueline Todd lived. As she parked, Maddie pulled in next to her. Before getting out, Ballard looked up Jacqueline Todd on IMDb and found her writing credits. Over the past ten years she had written and produced several episodes of various television series. Most of them were crime shows. Her latest credits were on a streaming series called Apex, about a squad of LAPD detectives who went after the "biggest predators out there." The unit had a logo that showed a cartoonish great white shark's gaping mouth and double rows of teeth. Ballard noted that the writer went by the name Jackie Todd professionally.

She got out with her leather laptop bag, though she had left the computer at the office.

"Let me do the talking," she said to Maddie. "If I give you the nod, you take it from there."

The knock on the door of apartment 241 was answered by a woman wearing baggy sweatpants and a T-shirt with the same shark logo Ballard had just seen on IMDb. She had short-clipped hair like the lead actress on a show Ballard liked, Criminal Record.

"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 the Apex writing 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.

"Mallory?" she asked. "Why are you asking about Mallory?"

"She's come up in an investigation we're conducting," Ballard said. "What we would like to do is just ask you about the period when you two were friends. Is that all right?"

"Well, yeah. But you do know that Mallory's been dead for a long time, right?"

"Yes, we know."

"Are you saying she was murdered or something?"

"No, we're not. Her death is not why we're here. Can you tell us a little bit about your relationship with her? Like how you knew her and what sort of girl she was?"

"Well, we became friends because we went to school together."

"St. Vincent's in Pasadena?"

"Yes, St. V.'s, as we called it. And we weren't part of the popular clique. We sat at the odd-fellows table in the cafeteria and that's how we met."

"What was the odd-fellows table?"

"You know, for the kids who didn't fit in. That's what we called it. I was one of only three Black kids at the school, and the other two were boys and athletes. I was writing poetry, not playing sports, so I wasn't like them. The odd fellows were the nerds and outcasts. Late bloomers socially."

"I think you just described me in high school. But they called our table the losers club," said Ballard.

"Then you get it. So that's how I knew Mallory. But that was like twenty-five years ago. She left after tenth grade and I never saw her again. Her family moved out to the desert and we lost touch."

"Right. So you didn't have any contact with her the summer after tenth grade or later?"

"No, it was kind of weird. It was like she dropped off the planet. And then, like a year after that, we heard that she'd taken pills and killed herself."

"When you say ‘we,' who else do you mean?"

"There was another girl we were friends with."

"Was that Emma Arciniega?"

"Yes. Sounds like you already know a lot about it."

"Well, you write cop shows, you know how it goes. Are you still in touch with Emma?"

"On occasion. She's got her life and I have mine."

"What's that mean?"

"Marriage, kids, the whole thing. For her, I mean. I'm not married."

"What's Emma's last name now? Where does she live?"

"Emma Sepulveda. Like the street. She's still in South Pas."

"She work?"

"She's a court stenographer at the appeals court over there."

"And her husband?"

"Randy Sepulveda. He's an actor. Or trying to be. That's when I usually hear from her, when she wants me to get him cast in a show I'm working on."

"You ever do it?"

"You do know that I'm a writer, right? Writers don't make those kinds of choices. I've had to explain that to Emma many times."

Ballard turned slightly toward Maddie and gave her a single nod. Her turn.

"What about Rodney Van Ness?" Maddie asked. "Was he one of the odd fellows?"

Todd paused for a moment to search her memory.

"Rodney—no. He was two years ahead of us—a senior," Todd said. "Odd fellows didn't cross lines like that. You stuck to your own grade."

"He took Mallory to his senior prom."

"If you two already know everything, why come here?"

"We need to know more. Did you go to the senior prom when you were in the tenth grade?"

"I never went to the senior prom, even when I was a senior. Was never asked, and the patriarchy did not allow the girls to ask the guys back then."

There was an undertone of bitterness to that answer that could not be missed, a resentment that had not gone away even after all these years.

"How did Rodney Van Ness know Mallory if they were two grades apart?" Maddie asked.

"The older boys were always checking out the younger girls," Todd said. "I don't think he knew her that well when he asked her to the prom."

"Was she excited to be asked?"

"Sure."

"Did she tell you about the prom afterward?"

"No, she wouldn't talk about it."

"How come?"

"Because—as I'm sure you know because you already know things—something happened."

"What happened?"

"I don't know. I just said she didn't talk about it."

"Did her behavior change? What was the tell?"

"The tell?"

"That something had happened at the prom."

"I don't know if there was a tell. She wouldn't talk about it, that's all. Emma and me, we thought it had just been a really bad date. There were only a few weeks left of school at that point. And then she was gone and I never heard from her again."

"What about when she died? How did you find out about it?"

Todd thought for a moment.

"You know, I can't remember," she finally said. "I think maybe Emma told me. But that's when we started to think that something really bad had happened. Maybe at the prom."

"But you have no idea what that was?" Ballard pressed.

"Well, the obvious thing is that she'd had sex with Rodney and it was her first time and it didn't go well. Or she'd been coerced into having sex. Or even worse. But like I said, at the time I just thought it had been a bad date. Mal gave no indication it was anything else."

Ballard nodded but didn't say anything, waiting for Todd to continue, but she didn't.

"Okay," Ballard finally said. "We have a copy of the yearbook from when you were in tenth grade. I'm hoping you can look at it and tell me if you remember who some of the people in the photos are."

"I can try," Todd said. "But that was like twenty-five years ago."

"I know," Ballard said. "I just need you to give it a try. We're interested in identifying people in the photos from the prom. Also, I assume there were more than just the three of you at the odd-fellows table. It would be good if we could get those names as well."

"You know, you never said exactly what this is about," Todd said. "I mean, if Mallory wasn't murdered, then what are you investigating? Was it rape?"

"Like I said, we're not investigating her death," Ballard said. "But we can't really give more information yet. When it comes together, we will let you know."

Ballard pulled the yearbook out of her leather bag and opened it to the double-page spread of photos taken at the prom. There was a center photo showing the prom king and queen onstage with a cutline that identified the couple, but the four other photos did not have any captions beneath them.

"We're trying to figure out who was at the prom because we might need to speak to them," Ballard said. "Do you remember any of these people?"

Todd gazed down at the five black-and-white photos.

"I don't think I can—well, that's Rodney right there," she said.

She tapped a photo of a group of boys standing around a table where some of their dates were seated.

The individual in the photo she tapped had a beard.

"Really?" Ballard said. "I thought that was a teacher."

"No, he had a beard then," Todd said. "I remember that. Made him look old."

Ballard looked at the senior photo of Rodney Van Ness again and then flipped back and forth between that and the prom picture, doing a comparison between the clean-cut and studio-styled Rodney and the bearded prom-night Rodney.

"I think you're right," Ballard said.

"I know I'm right," Todd said. "He had a full beard by the end of the year. I think he might have been held back a year in grammar school. He was like a grown man by graduation."

Ballard counted six boys standing behind the table and only four girls seated.

"So if that's Rodney, where is Mallory?" she asked.

"She's not there," Todd said. "Maybe she was in the restroom or something."

"And maybe not," Ballard said. "Do you know the names of anybody else in this shot?"

Todd tapped the boy standing next to Rodney.

"That's Victor somebody," she said. "I can't remember his last name. He and Rodney were tight."

"Victor," Ballard said. She turned back through the senior photos looking for a Victor. There was only one. "Victor Best," she said.

"That's it," Todd said. "Victor Best. I should have remembered a name like that."

"He was friends with Rodney?" Ballard asked.

"Yes," Todd said. "He and Rodney and a few other guys used to hang out on these benches behind the school. Down in the arroyo. The rumor was that they'd get high there during lunch. Seniors were allowed to go off campus."

"You remember the names of any of the other guys in the photos?" Ballard asked.

"No. They weren't really on my radar, you know," Todd said. "They were seniors."

"What about the girls?"

"Same thing. I didn't know any seniors. In fact, I think Mallory was the only sophomore who went to the prom that year. From what I remember."

Ballard pointed to the arched windows behind the photo of the slow dancers.

"Was it at the Huntington that year?" she asked.

"I have no idea," Todd said. "I didn't go, remember?"

"Right," Ballard said. "Well, I think that's good for now, Jackie. Thank you for your help. We really appreciate it."

"Sure," Todd said. "I mean, I guess. If it was useful to you, that's cool."

"It was," Ballard said.

"Would you be able to give us contact information for Emma Sepulveda?" Maddie said. "It would save us some time."

"Sure," Todd said. "If you give me your contact information."

Maddie looked confused but Ballard had a sense of what was coming.

"I'm tired of working on other people's shows," Todd said. "I want to create my own and I need someone to bounce ideas off of. Maybe give me some ideas too. It will be a female lead."

"Uh," Maddie said. "I guess that's okay."

She looked at Ballard to see if she was making a mistake. Ballard just nodded.

After exchanging contact details, including an email address for Emma Sepulveda, Ballard and Maddie thanked Todd and left the apartment. When they got back to their cars, they stood between them to talk.

"Victor Best," Ballard said. "Did you and Colleen run him down?"

"He was one of the seniors we couldn't find," Maddie said. "But Colleen was still at it when we left."

"Well, I want to find him and talk to him. Along with Rodney Van Ness."

"Interesting that Mallory wasn't in that photo. What do you think that means?"

"That's what we're going to talk to Rodney and Victor about."