The Late Show

28

Patrol units from North Hollywood Division arrived first, followed by a fire truck and two rescue ambulances. The paramedics checked Trent’s pulse and pupils and found no indications of life. They decided not to transport him and left his body in place for the investigators who would follow from the Coroner’s Office and the LAPD.

The other team treated Beatrice Beaupre for superficial injuries to her face and ribs and determined that there were no residual effects from the ketamine Trent had dosed her with. They then treated Ballard for the wounds on her wrists and mouth. They wrapped her wrists in gauze and tape, which left her looking like someone who had attempted suicide. They checked the bruising on her neck from when she was choked out by her abductor but found no additional injury.

Ballard asked the female paramedic to take photos of her injuries on her phone and then e-mail them to her. She also pulled down the side of her sweatpants for a photo of the blood on her hip. She was disgusted by it but knew that she should not clean herself of Trent’s blood. It was evidence. Not of Trent’s guilt, because there would never be a trial now, but in support of the story she would tell.

The first detectives to arrive were from North Hollywood Division, even though it was clear that the case would be handed off to the Force Investigation Division, since it involved a death at the hands of an officer. Following protocol, one of the locals called FID with the initial report and received instructions to sequester Ballard and send Beaupre in a car downtown to the PAB, where she would be interviewed by an FID base team.

Ballard was taken out of the house and also placed in a car, where she waited over an hour for the FID field team to assemble after being rousted from sleep. During that wait she saw dawn break over the Valley. She also borrowed a phone from one of the North Hollywood detectives and called the Ventura Police Department to ask for a welfare check on her grandmother. A half hour later, while she was still waiting in the backseat, the detective opened the door and told her that VPD had called back and reported that her grandmother was safe.

The FID team consisted of four detectives, a lieutenant, and a mobile command post, which was essentially a trailer that had work spaces, computers, printers, television screens, and Wi-Fi, as well as a camera-ready interrogation room.

The lieutenant’s name was Joseph Feltzer. Ballard knew him from what she called the Spago case, the tangle she and Jenkins had had with the burglar in the HVC house off Doheny Drive. He had been fair during that investigation, though in no way a homer automatically looking to clear cops of wrongdoing. But that had largely been an investigation of Jenkins and his clobbering of the burglar who attacked Ballard. This time the focus would be exclusively on Ballard and she knew that her history of making a complaint against Olivas made her a target for elimination from the department. She had to be very careful here until she knew whether Feltzer was a straight shooter.

While his four detectives put on booties and gloves before entering the house, Feltzer opened the door of the plain wrap and invited Ballard into the MCP. They didn’t speak until they were sitting on either side of a table in the interrogation room.

“How are you feeling, Detective?” Feltzer began.

“Pretty numb,” Ballard said.

It was an accurate assessment. All of Ballard’s systems had gone from overdrive during her captivity to cruise control upon her escape and later determination that her grandmother and Beaupre were safe. She felt dazed. Like she was watching someone else go through the investigation.

Feltzer nodded.

“Understandable,” he said. “I have to ask, are you wearing your sidearm?”

“Actually, it’s in my pocket,” Ballard said. “You can’t put a holster on these sweatpants.”

“I need to collect that from you before we start.”

“Really? I didn’t shoot the guy. I stabbed him.”

“Protocol. Can I have the weapon, please?”

Ballard pulled her Kimber from her jacket and handed it across the table. Feltzer checked the thumb safety and put it in a plastic evidence bag, then wrote something on it and placed it in a brown paper bag he put on the floor.

“Are you carrying a backup?” he asked

“No, no backup,” she said.

“Okay, so let’s start. I’m sure you know how this goes, Detective Ballard, but I’ll tell you anyway before we turn on the tape. I will give you the Miranda advisement and you will refuse to waive your right to remain silent. I will then give you the Lybarger admonishment and you’ll tell me what happened. After we have your story on tape, we’ll go into the house and you’ll walk me and my team through it all over again. You okay with all of that?”

Ballard nodded. The Lybarger admonishment was used to compel an officer to answer questions without an attorney present. It was named after an officer who was fired for refusing to do so. It compelled an officer to talk but had an exclusion that disallowed these statements from being used in a criminal proceeding against the officer.

Feltzer turned the video equipment on, went through both legal advisements, and then got down to business.

“Let’s start at the top,” he said. “Detective Ballard, tell me what happened and what led to the death of Thomas Trent by your hand.”

“Trent was a primary suspect in the abduction and assault of Ramón Gutierrez, a male prostitute, in Hollywood,” Ballard said. “Trent somehow found out where I live in Ventura and came there last night without my knowing. While I was prepping a surfboard in the garage with the door open, he came up behind me and pulled a plastic bag over my head. He abducted and drugged me and took me to this location — his home. He may have sexually assaulted me while I was unconscious, but I don’t know. I woke up naked and tied to a chair. He then told me he was going to abduct another victim and he drugged me again before apparently leaving the premises. I regained consciousness before he returned and managed to free myself. Before I could escape from the house, he returned with the second victim. Fearing for her safety, I stayed in the room where he had left me. I armed myself with a broomstick from the sliding-door track and a sharp piece of wood I had broken off the legs of a chair. When he entered with the second victim, I engaged him in a physical altercation, striking him several times with the broomstick until it broke. He then managed to get his arms around me and grab me. Knowing he was much bigger than me and fearing for my life, I stabbed him multiple times with the splinter of wood. He eventually let go of me, collapsed on the floor, and died shortly afterward.”

Feltzer was silent for a long time, possibly stunned by the complexity of the story, even in short form.

“Okay,” he finally said. “We’re going to go through this in greater detail now. Let’s start with the Gutierrez case. Tell me about that.”

It took Ballard ninety minutes to go through everything under Feltzer’s detailed but nonaccusatory questioning. At times he brought up seeming inconsistencies and at others questioned her decision-making, but Ballard knew that any good investigator asked some questions that were designed to incite upset and even outrage in their subject. It was called trying to get a reaction. But she maintained her cool and spoke calmly during the entire interview. Her goal was to keep it together through this phase, no matter how long it took, knowing that eventually she would be left alone and would be able to let herself go. Over the years she had read several primers in the police union newsletter and knew to repeatedly use key words and phrases like “fearing for the safety of myself and the other victim” that she knew would make it difficult for FID to find Trent’s killing other than justified and within the department’s use-of-force policy. FID would then recommend to the District Attorney’s Office that no action be taken against Ballard.

She also knew that it would come down to whether her words matched the physical evidence collected in Trent’s house, her van, and the garage up in Ventura. After not straying during the interview from what she knew had happened, she left the interrogation room, confident that there would be no contradictions for Feltzer and his team to grab on to.

When she emerged from the trailer, she saw that the crime scene had become a three-ring circus. Several police vehicles as well as forensic and coroner’s vans were clustered in the street. Three TV vans lined up outside the yellow tape on Wright-wood, and up above, news choppers circled. She also saw her partner, Jenkins, standing on the periphery. He nodded and held up a fist. She did as well and they mimed bumping from twenty feet apart.

By ten a.m. Ballard had completed the walk-through with the FID team. Most of the time had been spent in the bottom-level room, where Trent’s body remained, hands still tied behind his back with her bra. Ballard felt fatigue crushing her. Other than the minutes when she had been drugged into unconsciousness, she had been going for over twenty-four hours straight. She told Feltzer she was not feeling well and needed to crash. He said that before she could go home, she needed to go to a Rape Treatment Center to find out whether Trent had raped her while she was unconscious and for evidence to be collected. He was arranging for one of his detectives to drive her when Ballard asked if her own partner could be the escort.

Feltzer agreed. They made an appointment for a follow-up interview the following morning and then the FID lieutenant let her go.

As she was leaving, Ballard asked about her van and was told it was going to be impounded and examined by the forensics team. She knew that meant it would likely be a week or more before she got it back. She asked if she could take any belongings out of it and was again told no.

When she stepped outside the house, she saw Jenkins waiting for her. He gave her a sympathetic smile.

“Hey, partner,” he said. “You doing okay?”

“Never better,” she said, meaning the opposite. “I need a ride.”

“Absolutely. Where to?”

“Santa Monica. Where are our wheels?”

“Down behind the news vans. I couldn’t find any parking.”

“I don’t want to walk by the reporters. How ’bout you go get it and come back to pick me up?”

“You got it, Renée.”

Jenkins walked off down the street, and Ballard waited in front of the upside-down house. Two of Feltzer’s detectives came out the front door behind her and climbed into the MCP. They didn’t say a word as they passed Ballard.

Jenkins took Mulholland all the way to the 405 freeway before heading south. Once they were out of the hills and Ballard knew she’d get a clear signal, she asked to borrow her partner’s phone. She knew she would have to sit through a psychological exam before being allowed to return to duty. She wanted to get it over with. She called the Behavioral Science Unit and made an appointment for the next day, fitting it in after her follow-up appointment with Feltzer.

After giving Jenkins his phone back, Ballard collapsed against the car door and slept. It wasn’t until Jenkins was exiting the westbound 10 that he reached over and gently tapped her shoulder. Ballard awoke with a startle.

“Almost there,” he said.

“I just want you to drop me off and then go,” she said.

“You sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure. Don’t worry about me. Go home to your wife.”

“I don’t feel good about that. I want to wait for you.”

“John, no. I want to be by myself with this. I’m not even sure it happened, and if it did, I was out and I’ll never remember it. Right now I just want to do this by myself, okay?”

“Okay, okay. We don’t have to talk about it. But if you ever do, I’m here. Okay?”

“Okay, partner. But I probably won’t.”

“That’s okay, too.”

The RTC was part of the Santa Monica — UCLA Medical Center on 16th Street. There were other hospitals where Ballard could have gone to get a rape examination and evidence kit but the RTC had a reputation as one of the premier facilities in the country. Ballard had ferried enough rape victims there during the late show to know that she would be met with full compassion and professional integrity.

Jenkins pulled to a stop in front of the intake doors.

“You don’t have to talk about this, but at some point you need to tell me about Trent,” he said.

“Don’t worry, I will,” Ballard said. “Let’s see how FID goes, then we’ll talk. You thought Feltzer was fair on the Spago case, right?”

“Yeah, pretty much down the middle.”

“Let’s hope he doesn’t have anybody on the tenth floor whispering in his ear.”

The Office of the Chief of Police, or OCP as it was known, was on the tenth floor of the PAB.

Ballard opened her door and got out. She looked back in at Jenkins.

“Thanks, partner,” she said.

“Take care, Renée,” he said. “Call me if you want.”

She waved him off and he drove away. Ballard entered the facility, pulled her badge from her jacket, and asked to see a supervisor. A nurse named Marion Tuttle came out from the treatment section and they talked. Forty minutes later Ballard was in a treatment room. The blood had been cleaned off her hip, and cotton-swabbed samples had been placed in evidence jars.

Swabs had also been taken during a humiliating and intrusive examination of her body. Tuttle then conducted a presumptive test for semen on the swabs using a chemical that would identify the presence of a protein found in sperm. This was followed by an even more intrusive anal and vaginal examination. When it was finally over, Tuttle let Ballard cover herself with a smock while the nurse dropped her surgical gloves in the examination room’s medical waste container. She then checked off a form on a clipboard and was ready to report her findings.

Ballard closed her eyes. She felt humiliated. She felt sticky. She wanted to take a shower. She had spent hours bound and sweating, had been adrenalized by fight-or-flight panic, and had fought a man twice her weight, and all that after possibly being raped. She wanted to know, yes, but she also wanted this all to be over with.

“Well... ” Tuttle said. “No swimmers.”

Ballard knew she meant no semen.

“We’ll test the swabs for silicone and other indications of condom use,” Tuttle said. “There is some bruising. When was the last time you had sexual relations before this incident?”

Ballard thought about Rob Compton and the not-gentle encounter they had shared.

“Saturday morning,” she said.

“Was he big?” Tuttle asked. “Was it rough?”

She asked the questions matter-of-factly and without a hint of judgment.

“Uh, both,” Ballard said. “Sort of.”

“Okay, and when was the last time before that?” Tuttle asked.

Aaron, the lifeguard.

“A while,” Ballard said. “At least a month.”

Tuttle nodded. Ballard averted her eyes. When would this be over?

“Okay, so the bruising could be from Saturday morning,” Tuttle said. “You hadn’t had sex in a while, your tissues were tender, and you say he was big and not too gentle.”

“Bottom line is, you can’t tell if I’ve been raped,” Ballard concluded.

“No definitive indication internally or externally. Nothing came up on the pubic comb, because you don’t have a lot down there to comb. Bottom line, I couldn’t go into court and say under oath one way or the other, but I know in this case, that doesn’t matter. It’s just you. You need to know.”

“I do.”

“I’m sorry, Renée. I can’t tell you for sure. But I can introduce you to someone here you can talk to and she may be able to help you come to terms with not having an answer. She may be able to help you move on from the question.”

Ballard nodded. She knew that the same territory would likely be covered in the psych exam she would undergo the next day at BSU.

“I appreciate that,” she said. “I really do and I’ll think about it. But right now what I think I need most is a ride. Can you call a car service and vouch for me? My wallet and phone are up in Ventura. I need to get up there and I don’t have a car.”

Tuttle reached out and patted Ballard on the shoulder.

“Of course,” she said. “We can do that.”