7

7

FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER they had followed the Mercedes through the Old Town district of Pasadena to a restaurant called the Parkway Grill, where a valet took the Mercedes, and the couple from it went inside. Ballard had pulled to a stop at a red curb where they had an angle on the front door of the restaurant.

"What do you think?" she asked.

"It will be a DNA-rich environment," Masser said. "The question is how do we make the capture without notice."

"Right. So let's go in, see what we see."

"You sure?"

"If it's not good, we start fresh tomorrow."

"Reinforcements?"

Ballard thought about bringing back Laffont and Aghzafi and decided against it. "I think we can handle it."

"Your call."

Ballard pulled away from the curb and moved the Defender into the valet lane at the restaurant. Valets approached the car on either side and opened the doors. Ballard told the man holding her door that she had to get something out of the back. From a plastic carton, she grabbed two plastic evidence bags and stuffed them into the pocket of her blazer. She knew that there might be more than one opportunity to capture Purcell's DNA inside the restaurant. From another box she pulled latex gloves and put them in her other pocket.

They entered the restaurant. There was a bar to the right and a crowded dining room to the left. Ballard saw Purcell and the woman she assumed was his wife being led to a table in the front of the room. A team of young women in sleek black dresses stood behind the check-in stand. One of them asked how she could help, though she said it in a tone that conveyed her supreme power in the granting of tables for dinner.

"Do you have a table for two?" Ballard asked.

"Do you have a reservation?" the hostess responded.

"No, we don't."

"Our wait right now for a table without reservations is forty-five minutes. I can seat you at the bar, which is first come, first served. We offer the full menu there."

"Perfect."

They went into the bar and found two seats together on the end closest to the dining room. From there, Ballard could see the Purcell table clearly in the mirror behind the bar's display of bottles of various bourbons.

"Well, do we order?" Masser asked.

"Might as well," Ballard said. "They're going to eat and we might be conspicuous if we don't."

They studied the menus. When the bartender came over, Ballard ordered the branzino and a tonic with a lime and a splash of cranberry juice, which she knew would pass for an alcoholic drink. Masser ordered the same. In the mirror they watched the Purcell table, where a bottle of wine was produced and decanted. Ballard settled in for what could be a long night. She hoped the food was good. She'd heard of the restaurant but rarely ventured to Pasadena to eat.

"You okay with this?" Ballard asked. "How's your wife doing?"

"She's fine," Masser said. "I texted her."

They sipped the nonalcoholic drinks the bartender put down and Ballard started thinking about the case. "Colleen said she's already building a genetic family tree."

"Why? If this is the guy, we won't need a tree."

"True, but it will keep her busy."

Masser laughed. "There's that," he said. "Hey, look."

Ballard checked the mirror. The woman—possibly the mother of Nicholas Purcell—had gotten up from the table and was walking toward the bar.

"We've been made," Masser said, a panicked tone in his whisper. "What do we do?"

"Just hold on," Ballard said. "Let's see what—" She saw the woman make a turn at the end of the bar and go down a hallway to the left.

"She's going to the restroom," Ballard said.

"That was close," Masser said.

"You keep your eye on him. I'm going to follow her."

"You sure?"

"I'm sure."

She got up, leaving her napkin on her seat, went down the hall, and pushed through the door to the restroom. There were four stalls and two sinks. Three of the stall doors were slightly open, and the fourth was closed. Ballard could see the cuffs of the purple pantsuit beneath the closed door. She went to one of the side-by-side sinks, buttoned her jacket to avoid exposing her weapon, pulled a tissue from a box, and leaned over the sink toward the mirror.

She waited.

The toilet in the fourth stall flushed.

Ballard started dabbing at her left eye with the tissue. The door to the stall opened and the woman from Judge Purcell's table emerged and went to the other sink. Ballard continued dabbing and the woman started washing her hands.

"I hope he pays for it," the woman said.

"Excuse me?" Ballard said.

"Whoever just broke your heart. I hope he gets his broken worse."

"Oh. No, I'm just trying to fix my contact."

"Oh, my mistake."

"No worries."

The woman finished washing and turned off the water. She pulled paper towels from a dispenser, dried her hands on them, and tossed them into a trash hole cut into the countertop. She reached into a pocket of the pantsuit, produced a lipstick in a gold case, and touched up her lips, then took a tissue from the box. After dabbing her lips with it, she dropped the tissue through the counter hole.

Ballard stepped back from the sink and fluffed her hair while looking in the mirror. The woman turned toward the door.

"Have a good night," she said.

"You too," Ballard said.

When she got back to the bar two minutes later, her branzino was waiting. Masser was already eating his.

"Sorry, I couldn't wait—it looked so good. What happened in the restroom?"

"I got a tissue with her lipstick on it," Ballard said. She patted her jacket pocket.

"But why?"

"Because I don't know who she is."

"What's that mean?"

"I had the opportunity. We don't know who she is. Is she Nicholas Purcell's mother? A stepmother? We need to know who the players are, and I had two evidence bags. The question is, are we going to get to use the second one?"

"Well… guess what, they're leaving."

Ballard checked the mirror. "That was fast," she said. "Did they even get food?"

"Just appetizers and soup," Masser said. "Then the judge got a call on his cell and they asked for the check."

"Something must have happened."

"Looks like it."

Watching in the bar mirror, Ballard saw a server go to the Purcell table and give the judge a to-go bag.

She took the second genetic-evidence bag out of her pocket and handed it to Paul under the bar. "You have gloves?" she asked.

"Got one already on," Masser said.

"Good. What are you going to go for?"

"Before he got the call, he had the soup. I'll go for the spoon."

Ballard nodded. Masser started to get off his stool. Ballard put her hand on his arm to stop him. "Not yet," she said. "Wait. Let them get out the door."

"But they might clear the table," Masser said. "There's people waiting."

Ballard kept her hand on his arm. In the mirror she watched the couple moving toward the door. She glanced over at their empty table with the judge's napkin balled up on top of it. She swiveled on her stool to watch them leave.

But they didn't.

The judge stopped in front of the trio of young hostesses to engage in conversation. He was probably a regular and was explaining his reason for departing early. Each hostess made a face of faux empathy and understanding. Ballard checked the table. A waiter hovered over it for a moment, then picked up the check folder the judge had left behind.

Ballard looked back at the judge. He was still talking.

"We've got to do this," Masser urged.

"Shit," Ballard said. "Okay, go. Try not to be seen."

"Yeah, right."

"You know what I mean."

Masser headed into the dining room just as a busboy was moving toward the judge's table. Masser pulled his phone from his pocket with his ungloved hand and walked with his head down, looking at its screen. He and the busboy converged at the table, and Masser tripped and lurched into it, his upper body leaning over the judge's former seat. He pulled back and apologized, holding his phone up in explanation—and to draw the busboy's attention from his other hand.

Masser returned to the bar and sat down.

"You learn that move in magic school?" Ballard asked.

"Oh, yeah," Masser said. "One hand distracts while the other hides the rabbit."

Ballard looked down and saw Masser had the evidence bag open between his legs and was placing the soupspoon in it. She checked the mirror and saw the judge and his wife finally pushing through the door. Ballard waved to the bartender and signaled for the check.

Ballard looked down at her uneaten dinner. The branzino was brushed with a beurre blanc sauce and looked like it had been perfectly grilled.

"We got what we need," Masser said. "You're not thinking of leaving this food behind, are you?"

"I want to see why they left without eating theirs," Ballard said.

"Then give me the valet ticket. You take a few bites while I get the car."

Ballard reached into a pocket and handed over the ticket. The bartender brought the check and she put down cash to cover it. Then she ate three bites of fish—it was delicious—and went out the door to her waiting car.

They followed the judge's Mercedes and were surprised when he went back to the house on Arroyo. There was a car sitting on the street outside the house. Its lights were on, and exhaust from its tailpipe steamed the crisp night air. It was a car Ballard immediately recognized as a city plain-wrap—a detective's car. As they approached, the doors opened and two men started getting out. The headlights of the Defender splashed across them and Ballard recognized the man on the driver's side.

"Keep going," she said.

"Well, I wasn't exactly planning to stop and say, ‘How y'all doin'?'" Masser said.

"Sorry."

"No worries. Who are they?"

"RHD."

"Robbery-Homicide? Why would they call him away from dinner?"

"Search warrant. Must be a case that can't wait."

"So what do we do?"

"I think we call it a night. He'll probably stay in after this and we got what we came for."

"Up to you."

"Yep."

"You recognized those two guys, didn't you?"

"One of them. Gil Perado. He's an old bull."

"You have a history with him?"

Ballard didn't answer, so Masser did.

"That's right. You have a history with everybody."

"Used to. Let's head back downtown. To your car. I want you to take the samples to Darcy Troy first thing tomorrow."

"Okay. But you usually do that."

"I have something to do in the morning. And I want no delays in getting that to the lab. I'll call Darcy. She'll be ready for it."

"You got it."

"After that, I need you to run down Nicholas Purcell's birth certificate. We need to cover all bases, make damn sure he's the judge's son. You might have to go down to Norwalk for that. We'll need the date the birth certificate was filed to be sure."

The main offices of the county registrar were down in Norwalk in the south county. While Ballard knew from prior cases that it was difficult and time-consuming to break through the seal on adoption records, the date that a birth certificate was filed with the registrar—meaning how many days after the birth—was a strong indicator of whether an adoption had occurred.

"Sure, I'll go straight there from the lab," Masser said.

"Thanks," Ballard said. "I might not be in till later, but let me know what you get."

"Of course."