drug element in place. People steal drugs. People steal money to buy drugs, and stuff to pawn to get money to buy drugs. We’ve got it in SB. San Luis has it. I’m sure even the hoity-toity kids at McAster smoke pot.”
“Better-than-average pot,” Mendez said. “But someone comes in and steals your weed, you don’t call the cops. And I’ve sorted out the cases where money was taken or property with value was stolen. These cases reported a break-in only. Things messed with but not taken or things of seemingly little value missing.”
“Souvenirs,” Tanner said. “We need to go back and ask if their friendly neighborhood burglar did any laundry for them. Did you get prints at any of your scenes?”
“Nope,” Mendez said. “Nada. He’s been doing this too long to be careless. Did you get anything at any of yours?”
“Nothing that panned out.”
They compared each case, each detail, each meager scrap of evidence. They looked at the households that had been victimized, the sex and ages of the family members. In all cases, at least one girl living in the home had been between the ages of fourteen and nineteen.
“If we can go back and interview them,” Tanner said, “and we find these girls were athletes . . . Ballencoa might have photographed them . . . There’s our first connection.”
Or he might have connected with them through some other means, as he had with Denise Garland—through his art, Mendez thought.
“If this nurse, Denise Garland, is an example, he doesn’t pick his victims at random,” Mendez said. “He knows who lives in those houses. He does his homework. He establishes a connection.”
“We need to go to the girls who live in these houses and find out if they know him, if they’ve seen him,” Hicks said. “But even if the answer is yes, what do we have? Coincidence.” He looked to Tanner. “Did you establish a connection between Ballencoa and the Lawton girl?”
“He had photographed her,” Tanner said. “She had actually purchased photos from him—herself and her tennis partner in a tournament.”
“So you had that connection and he’s still walking around free.”
“He didn’t make any mistakes with Leslie Lawton,” she said. “If he’s made a mistake, it’s somewhere else, with someone else.”
“It only takes a crack to break a dam,” Mendez pointed out. “He’s got to have a flaw somewhere. He’s only human . . . I hope. Vince Leone is contacting ViCAP today, looking for open abduction cases in the San Diego area while Ballencoa lived there. He’s convinced this guy is too slick to be a first-timer with the Lawton girl.”
“There’s a comforting thought,” Tanner said.
The door opened and Detective Hamilton stuck his head inside. “Your guy Ballencoa is here.”
“For what?” Mendez asked, his heart picking up an extra beat. Had Ballencoa made them as they sat parked down the block, watching him stalk Denise Garland? Was he there to file another complaint?
“He’s claiming he’s being stalked.”
“Again?” Tanner said. “We should all be as popular as Roland. He gets more action than a Hollywood starlet.”
“What the fuck?” Mendez grumbled. “Where is he?”
“Interview one with Dixon. The boss told me to put you in the break room to have a look.”
The four of them went down the hall and into the break room, Mendez going to stand directly in front of the television set with his arms crossed over his chest and a hard frown pulling down the corners of his mustache.
Ballencoa was pacing the interview room, agitated, impatient, glaring at the door as he waited for someone to tend to him. His messenger bag sat on a chair at the end of the table.
Detective Trammell entered the room.
“Mr. Ballencoa,” he said. “Would you like a cup of coffee?”
“No,” Ballencoa snapped. “I would not like a cup of coffee. I would like to see Sheriff Dixon.”
Unconcerned with what Ballencoa wanted, Trammell took a seat at the table and opened the file folder he had brought with him into the room. “He’ll be along. He’s a busy man.”
“He should be busy in here,” Ballencoa said, irritated that he wasn’t being given due consideration.
“I’m your detective of record,” Trammell said. “You have to tell everything to me anyway. I’ll be the one writing the report. Why don’t we get started with that?”
“Because I don’t want to waste my breath speaking to you,” Ballencoa said. “I want to deal with Sheriff Dixon directly.”
“What a bitch,” Tanner muttered, tucking herself in front of Mendez for a better view of the television. He could have rested his chin on top of her head.
Trammell was unimpressed. “Yeah, well, I’d pull him out of my ass for you, but he doesn’t happen to be there. So why don’t we get to it, Roland? You think somebody’s stalking you?”
“I told you last night that woman is stalking me,” Ballencoa snapped, still pacing.
“Well, technically speaking, last night she was beating you up,” Trammell corrected him.
Ballencoa thrust a finger at him. “
Trammell heaved a sigh, got up from the table, and disappeared off the television screen. Seconds later he walked into the break room and went to the coffee machine, glancing over at the crowd that had gathered.
“What a fucking girl,” he muttered. “Can you believe this piece of dirt? First he lets a woman beat him up, now he’s crying because she’s picking on him. He should have been drowned in his own placenta at birth.”
He poured himself a cup of coffee and doctored it with cream and sugar, then came to stand with the rest of them, looking at Roland Ballencoa on the monitor.
“He knows we’re watching him,” Mendez said. “He keeps glancing up at the camera.”
Trammell sipped his coffee. “The boss said you caught him following some nurse home this morning.”
“The guy’s a perv,” Tanner said.
“Just because he’s a pervert doesn’t mean he can’t be a taxpaying citizen free to verbally abuse us,” Hamilton commented.
“He’s lucky Lauren Lawton didn’t pull a gun and shoot him last night,” Mendez said. “He should be more grateful.”
“I’ll tell him that,” Trammell said. “We can watch the top of his head blow off.”
“When you go back in, touch his bag,” Tanner said.
Trammell gave her a look. “Excuse me? Who’s the perv?”
“The
Trammell arched a brow at her. “Tony, who’s your little friend?”
Tanner introduced herself. “Detective Danni Tanner, SBPD.”
“You’re a girl,” Trammell said stupidly.
“The last I checked. I thought about growing a dick, but then none of my pants would fit right.”
“Huh.” Trammell didn’t know what to make of her. He stuck with safer ground. “You know Ballencoa?”
“Enough to hate him.”
“Good enough for me,” Trammell said, walking away. He spat in the coffee cup, then topped it off and went back into the interview room.
“The sheriff is on his way,” he said. “I brought you a cup of coffee, anyway.”
He set the coffee cup on the table and reached for the messenger bag on the chair. “Let me hang this up for you.”
Ballencoa snatched the bag away. “I’ll keep it.”
“My girlfriend keeps telling me men in Europe are carrying purses now,” Trammell commented.
“It’s a messenger bag,” Ballencoa corrected him, setting the bag on the seat of the chair across from Trammell, out of easy reach. He continued his pacing.
“Yeah?” Trammell said. “Maybe I should get one to carry my paperwork. Can I have a look?”
He reached across the table, backhanding the coffee cup, sending hot coffee spewing across the tabletop and onto the bag.
