The Late Show

31

At 8:25 a.m. Wednesday morning, Ballard walked into the FID offices at PAB with Dean Towson. It had been Towson’s idea to arrive late and to ignore Lieutenant Feltzer’s two calls and messages to Ballard, asking where she was. It put Feltzer on edge before they even got there.

As head of one of the unit’s two squads, Feltzer had a private office. It was small and they had to wheel a chair in to accommodate Towson. He and Ballard sat across a desk from the visibly annoyed lieutenant, who had closed the door.

“Detective Ballard, I’m not sure why you see the need to have an attorney present,” Feltzer said. “You are still subject to Lybarger and are compelled to answer questions. If anything criminal arises out of this investigation, then of course all statements from you will be disallowed.”

He raised his hands off his desk in a gesture that suggested this was simple stuff and they did not need a lawyer to complicate it.

“I intend to fully cooperate and answer all questions,” Ballard said. “But only if I have my attorney present. You said in your message that we needed to clear up some inconsistencies. Why don’t we do that and not worry about my having representation?”

Feltzer considered it, clearly looking like a man worried about walking into a legal trap of some kind.

“We’re going to record this,” he finally said. “As with the first interview.”

He opened a desk drawer and got out a digital recorder. As he was setting it to record, Towson removed his phone from the inside pocket of his suit coat and put it on the desk.

“We’ll be recording the session as well,” he said.

“Whatever floats your boat,” Feltzer said.

“Thank you,” Towson said.

“Let’s start with the other victim, Beatrice Beaupre,” Feltzer said. “In your statement yesterday, you said that she was unconscious when she was brought into the room by Trent.”

“I believe I said she ‘appeared’ to be unconscious,” Ballard said. “My focus was on Trent, not her.”

“Ms. Beaupre has told us that she was in fact conscious at the time and was pretending not to be so that she might have a chance of escaping from Trent.”

“Okay. That’s entirely possible.”

“She goes on to say that she saw you and Trent engage in the struggle that resulted in his fatal injuries. And her description of what happened differs markedly from yours.”

“Well, she would definitely have had a different view of it.”

“I’m giving you the chance to correct the record if you wish.”

“I would just defer to Ms. Beaupre’s account. I was engaged at the time in a life-and-death struggle with a man nearly twice my weight and size. I wasn’t stopping to take notes or commit my moves to memory. I was trying to stay alive and to keep Ms. Beaupre alive as well.”

It was an answer Ballard and Towson had rehearsed because they assumed that the discrepancies Feltzer alluded to in his phone message were the contradictions between her and Beaupre’s statements. Ballard and Towson had met at six-thirty that morning in the breakfast room at the Miyako Hotel to prepare for the FID appointment. The rehearsed response covered all contradictions with the threshold factor in justified homicide. Fear of death or great bodily harm to the officer or citizenry.

“I think that covers it, Lieutenant,” Towson said. “Do you have anything else for my client?”

Feltzer looked at Towson.

“Yes, I do,” he said.

There was a confidence in Feltzer’s voice that put Ballard on high alert.

“Have you had any communication with Ms. Beaupre since the incident occurred and you two were separated for questioning?” Feltzer asked.

“Nothing direct,” Ballard said. “She called my cell phone yesterday and I didn’t take the call. She left a message thanking me for saving her life. I haven’t responded to the call yet, because I thought it would be inappropriate to speak with her before your investigation is concluded.”

Another carefully crafted and rehearsed answer.

“I still have the message,” Ballard said. “I could put it on speaker and play it for the recording if you wish.”

“We’ll get to that later if we need to,” Feltzer said. “Your late arrival has backed me into other appointments, so let’s move on. Yesterday you said that when you managed to free yourself while Trent was gone, you did not immediately leave the house because you were not sure where you were and whether you could escape. Is that fair to say?”

“We are talking about a very brief moment,” Ballard said. “Those were my thoughts initially, but then I heard the garage door and knew that Trent was back and that he most likely had another victim with him, because he had told me he was going to abduct his ex-wife.”

“But your initial answer indicates you had no idea where you were.”

“Well, I certainly assumed I was in Trent’s house, and I knew where he lived because I had backgrounded him when he became a person of interest in my investigation.”

“Had you ever previously been in that house?”

There it was. Feltzer had information he hadn’t had when he’d questioned her the day before.

“No, I had never been inside that house,” Ballard said.

She had to assume that the two North Hollywood patrol officers she had met on Wrightwood on Friday night had come forward.

“Had you ever been on the premises of Thomas Trent’s home?” Feltzer asked.

“Yes, I had been on the premises,” Ballard answered without hesitation.

Towson leaned slightly forward. He was now flying blind. Ballard had not discussed at breakfast her attempt to ghost Trent’s house, because she’d had no idea it would come up. Towson now had to trust that Ballard knew how to navigate this set of questions.

“How so, Detective Ballard?” Feltzer asked.

“On Friday evening I confirmed that Trent was at his job at the car dealership and I went to his house to look around,” Ballard said. “My victim had described being taken to an upside-down house. I felt it was important to see if Trent’s home matched that description.”

“Detective, did you call in a false report of a prowler on Wrightwood Drive in order to facilitate this ‘look around’?”

Towson put his hand on Ballard’s arm to stop her from responding.

“She’s not going to answer that,” he said. “This is a use-of-force investigation. We are not going to discuss unrelated matters.”

“It is related,” Feltzer said. “My information is that Detective Ballard on Friday night was on the porch outside the room where she was later allegedly held captive and where she killed Thomas Trent. She said in her statement that she didn’t know where she was and couldn’t escape. That is in conflict with the facts I’ve accumulated.”

“Being outside a room and being inside a room are completely different,” Towson countered. “My client had been assaulted, drugged, and possibly raped — all of which affected her perceptions.”

“The curtains were closed,” Ballard added. “I didn’t know I was in the room off that porch.”

Towson waved a hand in a dismissive manner.

“This doesn’t fly, Lieutenant,” he said. “You are wasting our time. There is clearly an agenda here. You are attempting to build a case to dismiss Detective Ballard for reasons that don’t exist. She didn’t escape. She stayed back and risked her life to save another. Are you seriously trying to make this count against her? Where does this come from?”

“There is no agenda here,” Feltzer said. “And I strenuously object to your characterization of this investigation. You are completely out of line.”

“You want to talk about what’s out of line?” Towson said. “This is what’s out of line.”

The lawyer opened his briefcase, took out the folded A section of that morning’s Los Angeles Times, and dropped it on the desk. The story on the Trent killing had caught the bottom corner of the front page. The story was bylined with Jerry Castor’s name.

“I have nothing to do with what the media reports,” Feltzer said. “I have no say in how complete or incomplete the story is.”

“Bullshit,” Ballard said.

“This story includes details that go far beyond the official press release put out yesterday by the department,” Towson said. “Not only that, but the release of selective details and the omission of others puts my client in an unfavorable light. It’s a hit piece.”

“We will look into how the Times came to have their information,” Feltzer said.

“That’s hardly reassuring when the investigator is probably the one who leaked it,” Towson said.

“I warn you, sir,” Feltzer said angrily. “I will put up with a lot from you, but I’m not going to allow you to assault my reputation. I play by the rules here.”

Feltzer’s face grew red with anger. He was putting on a credible show. He was also playing directly into Ballard and Towson’s hands.

“Your anger indicates that you would agree that the leaking of details outside the agreed-upon press release is a violation of Detective Ballard’s privacy rights under the law and the policy of this department,” Towson said.

“I told you, we are going to look into the leak,” Feltzer said.

“Why?” Towson asked. “Was it illegal or just not fair?”

“It was against the law, okay?” Feltzer said. “We will investigate.”

Towson pointed toward Feltzer’s computer screen.

“Well, Lieutenant, we’d like to help with that investigation,” he said. “Let me give you a link to pull up.”

“What are you talking about?” Feltzer said. “What link?”

“It’s a website that we will be directing LAPD command staff and local media to at a press conference later today,” Towson said. “It’s Jerry and Joe dot com. Pull up your server and check it out.”

Feltzer’s computer screen was on a side extension to his desk so that it would not be a visible barrier between him and anyone sitting across the main desk from him. He turned now and activated the screen. He pulled up his server and started typing in the website address.

“Jerry with a J,” Ballard said. “As in Jerry Castor.”

Feltzer paused for a moment, his fingers hovering over the keyboard.

“It’s okay, Lieutenant,” Towson said. “It’s just a website.”

Feltzer typed. The website opened on his screen. It was a single page with a nine-second video playing in a loop: a downward view of Feltzer meeting with Jerry Castor at the Last Bookstore the night before. Towson had hatched the idea for the site at breakfast and had bought the domain and set it up while he and Ballard were eating.

Feltzer watched the video in stunned silence. After the third loop, he killed the screen. He was turned away from Ballard and Towson, so neither one of them could fully see the look on his face. But his head bowed as he obviously considered his predicament. In seconds he determined that the time-stamped video spoke for itself and that his situation was untenable. Like the political animal the video revealed him to be, he slowly turned back to Ballard and Towson, a look on his face that was somewhere between panic and acceptance of dire consequences.

“So what do you want?” he said.

Ballard was elated. Their plan to corner Feltzer had worked flawlessly.

“We want this obvious effort to drive Detective Ballard from the department to stop right here,” Towson said.

He waited and Feltzer nodded once, almost unnoticeably.

“And we want another story on the Times website by six p.m. tonight and in the hard copy tomorrow morning,” Towson continued. “We want fuller details leaked to your friend Jerry Castor, details that put Detective Ballard in the positive light she deserves. I want to see words like hero and in policy and justified in the story.”

“I can’t control how they write,” Feltzer protested. “You know that.”

“Try, Lieutenant,” Towson said. “Your friend Castor has just as much reason as you to set the record straight. He won’t look good if this comes out in some of the media around town. He’ll look like the shill for LAPD management that he is, and I don’t think the editors across the street will like that.”

“Okay, okay,” Feltzer said. “That it?”

“No, not even close,” Ballard said. “I want access to Trent’s house and access to all evidence your team took out of there. There’s still an investigation to conduct and close. I want to see if there is any indication that Trent did this to other victims.”

Feltzer nodded.

“Done,” he said.

“And another thing,” Ballard said. “I go from here to BSU to get my psych exam. I want my return-to-duty slip expedited.”

“You can’t expect me to reach into BSU and—”

“Actually, we do expect it,” Towson said, cutting Feltzer off. “You tell them you are under pressure from the chief’s office to wrap this up and get Ballard back on the job because the chief wants hero cops back on the street.”

“Okay, okay,” Feltzer said. “I’ll make it all happen. But I’ll need you to take that link down. Somebody could stumble across it.”

“It will go down when you make good on this agreement,” Towson said. “Only then.”

Towson looked at Ballard.

“We good?” he asked. “We covered everything?”

“I think so,” she said.

“Then let’s get out of here,” he said.

Towson said it in a tone that made his disgust clear. He stood up and looked down at Feltzer. The detective lieutenant was pale, like he had just seen his life flash in front of his eyes. Or his career, at least.

“In a previous life, I worked J-SID cases at the D.A.’s Office,” Towson said. “I’ve still got friends over there, and they’re always looking to take down guys like you, guys who let ego and power go to their heads. Don’t give me a reason to pick up a phone and get reacquainted.”

Feltzer simply nodded. Towson and Ballard left the office and closed the door.