The Waiting

31

The ride out to the desert took two hours. Masser did the driving while Ballard typed a case summary on her laptop. She was far behind on the digital paperwork on the Pillowcase Rapist investigation and knew if she got something filed by the end of the day, it would buy her time with Captain Gandle. Once she was finished, they stopped for a quick lunch at an In-N-Out in Cabazon — Ballard had gone back to eating meat after being vegetarian for some time. They sat in the car, and while Ballard ate her hamburger, she pulled up the L.A. Times website on her phone and checked the news stories on the shootout in Santa Monica the day before.

The violent takedown of two men, Thomas Dehaven and Frederic Standard, and the arrest of four of their coconspirators quickly became national news Saturday when the FBI announced that the group had been planning a mass shooting on Presidents’ Day at the Malibu pier. But so far Ballard had received no inquiries from the media, so Olmstead must have been keeping his promise. Ballard held an ace in that Olmstead knew that if he leaked any information and she was dragged into the media frenzy, she could reveal things that were not consistent with the narrative the feds were spinning publicly.

She looked at the top stories on the site and saw that there were already two follow-up reports on the events of the day before. One was a profile of Thomas Dehaven, the ringleader of the group that had come to Los Angeles in a caravan of vans and RVs.

Ballard stopped reading.

“Allegedly,” she said. “They always use the word allegedly.”

“You talking about that thing in Santa Monica yesterday?” Masser said.

Ballard realized that she had almost revealed that she knew more about the incident than she should.

“Yes,” she said. “Seems from what I’ve read like there was nothing alleged about their plan to shoot up the pier.”

“Yeah, true believers,” Masser said. “They’ll be martyrs for the cause now, like that woman who got shot at the Capitol.”

After finishing their food, they got out of the car and switched seats so Ballard could give Masser a break. They got back on the road into the Coachella Valley.

Smoke Tree Ranch was a small private enclave of mostly historic desert homes passed down from generation to generation by moneyed East Coast, Midwest, and Southern California families. Its best-known resident over the century of its existence was undoubtedly Walt Disney, who had had a home on the ranch until he sold it to raise money to build an amusement park that would be called Disneyland. After the success of the park, Disney came back to the ranch and built a new house. Following a long-held tradition, residents of the ranch referred to themselves as colonists.

Ballard had traced Robin Richardson through DMV records to a home on San Jacinto Trail on the back perimeter of the ranch. The street ran alongside the Palm Canyon Creek wash below the majestic San Jacinto mountain range. There was a guard gate at the ranch’s entrance and Ballard used her recovered badge to convince the uniformed security officer to let them through. Ballard didn’t mention Robin Richardson. There were guest cabins on the property and she told the guard that they had police business at the management office.

Once they were through the gate, however, they quickly discovered that the Richardson home was difficult to find because there were no street signs or house numbers on the ranch. The only markers were numbers painted on large white rocks at each corner. It was only with the help of a woman walking a dog that Ballard and Masser located the home:

“Robin’s house is on rock seventeen, fourth house on your right.”

With those directions they found the house and pulled into the gravel driveway. Like almost every home they had passed in the private enclave, it was a sprawling ranch house surrounded by desert landscape and cacti. Its wood siding had been burned gray over the years by the unrelenting sun.

The desert air was crisp and Ballard and Masser put on their jackets after getting out of the car. Ballard’s knock on the front door was answered by a diminutive woman in her mid-sixties. Her long gray hair was in a braid. She wore rimless glasses and had the deep tan of a full-time desert resident.

“Mrs. Richardson?” Ballard asked.

“Yes, that’s me,” she said. “How did you get into the ranch?”

Ballard once again showed her badge. “We’re police officers, ma’am,” she said. “From Los Angeles. We’d like to ask you a few questions.”

“About what?”

“Well, we’d rather not talk about it here on the doorstep. Could we come in and sit down with you?”

“Not until you tell me what this is all about.”

“It’s about your daughter, ma’am. Mallory.”

If Richardson had been tipped off to their impending arrival by Judge Purcell, she did a masterful job of covering and looking surprised, then apprehensive. Ballard read the reaction as legit. Richardson opened the door all the way and invited them in.

She led them into a living room with a mid-century design to the furnishings. Richardson took a seat on a couch while Ballard and Masser sat across a glass-topped coffee table in two cushioned chairs.

“We work cold cases for the LAPD,” Ballard began. “We were given your name by Judge Purcell, who was your neighbor when you lived in Pasadena.”

“Why would he give you my name?” Richardson said. “What is this about?”

“It’s about an old case involving sexual assault and murder. We went to Judge Purcell because of his son, Nick. A familial DNA match in our case indicated that Nick’s father is our suspect. Only it turns out, Judge Purcell is not Nick’s father. And his wife is not Nick’s mother. When we found out that Nick was adopted, the judge told us that his biological mother was Mallory.”

“You’re saying that the son my daughter gave up is a killer?”

“No, not at all. We believe his father is the man we’re looking for. We came out here to ask you who that was.”

“There must be a mistake. How could this be?”

“The DNA analysis confirms it. Do you know who the father was, Mrs. Richardson? Did your daughter ever tell you?”

“She didn’t, because she was afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

“What my husband might do to him.”

“Why? Did someone hurt your daughter, Mrs. Richardson?”

“I don’t like talking about this. You’re bringing up the worst part of my life.”

“I understand and I apologize. But the person we’re looking for may still be out there hurting women. We need to find him and I’m sure you want to help. Do you remember anything at all from that time that could tell us who the father might have been?”

“You have to understand that I’ve blocked so much of it out. Those years — they were the worst years of our lives for my husband and me. And now suddenly you come here and... I don’t know anything that can help you.”

Ballard leaned in. She knew the next part of her questioning would be especially difficult.

“We understand that your daughter took her own life, Mrs. Richardson. We are very sorry for your loss. Did she leave behind anything that might help us identify the father of her child?”

Richardson’s eyes were not focused on anything in front of her. She was time-traveling back to those difficult years. She slowly shook her head. “She was never the same, you know,” Richardson said. “After giving up the baby, she wasn’t the same. She used my pills. She didn’t leave a note.”

Ballard nodded. She was aware that she had upended this woman’s fragile existence with just a few questions, and she didn’t think pushing her further would yield anything useful. It had been a long drive to another dead end.

“Can I ask a question?” Masser said. “Mallory went to school at St. Vincent’s, right?”

“That was our church too,” Richardson said.

“Was it possible that the father was a boy — a student — from the school? Was she dating anyone at the time?”

“She didn’t have a boyfriend. That year a boy asked her to the senior prom and she went, but they weren’t dating.”

“Do you remember his name?”

“It was Rodney.”

“Do you remember a last name?”

She shook her head.

“That’s okay,” Masser said. “The name Rodney helps us. Was he a senior?”

“Yes, he must have been,” Richardson said.

“Did your daughter by any chance have any yearbooks from St. Vincent’s?”

“There’s one. From when she was in tenth grade. I kept it because she is so beautiful in the photos.”

Ballard nodded. She said nothing. Masser was connecting and making headway.

“Do you think we could borrow the yearbook?” Masser said. “I guarantee I will personally get it back to you.”

“I can go see if I can find it in the library,” Richardson said.

“Thank you, that would be very helpful.”

Richardson stood up and left the room. Ballard looked at Masser and nodded.

“Good one on the yearbook,” she said. “I hope she can find it.”

32

Ballard made Masser drive the initial leg back to L.A. so she could get first crack at the yearbook. It was thin with a thick leather binding. Angled across the cover it said Veritas 1999.

“Veritas,” Ballard said.

“‘The truth,’” Masser said.

“You know your Latin.”

“I’m a Jesuit boy. They made us take Latin. Came in handy a few times in law school. Ipse dixit and all of that.”

“Ipse dixit? What is that?”

“It means ‘He said it himself.’ It’s an argument that states that if someone of authority said it, it can be held to be true. It goes back to Cicero and the Roman Empire.”

“And they still use it in the courtroom?”

“Sometimes. Mostly in rulings by the judge.”

“What about Mortui vivos docent?”

“That one I’m not familiar with.”

“‘The dead teach the living.’ It’s the motto of the California Homicide Investigators Association.”

“I get it. Good one.”

“I only know it because it’s on the challenge coin.”

Ballard started paging through the yearbook. The inside covers had no autographs or messages written to Mallory Richardson by other students. Ballard assumed that was because the yearbook had been published after she left school and Pasadena. It was probably sent to her at Smoke Tree and she never had an opportunity to have other students sign it.

Ballard leafed through sections dedicated to sports and class field trips. When she got to the section dedicated to the seniors, she looked at the photos of the boys; two were named Rodney.

“We have a Rodney McNamara and a Rodney Van Ness in the senior class,” she said.

“I wonder if they’re still around,” Masser said.

“We’ll find out when I get to my computer. There’s a total of twenty-nine boys in the senior class. We’ll run them all and see what comes up.”

“What’s your take on the suicide?”

Ballard was looking out the window at a wind farm they were passing.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Well, it feels like a contradiction,” Masser said. “What was she depressed about? Was it having to give up the baby? Was she raped and still experiencing trauma? But if that was the case, why didn’t she tell anyone, especially her parents? It was like she was protecting the father of the child, but at the same time she goes into a spiral that leads to suicide. You see what I’m saying?”

“I do, but there’s no accounting for why people do what they do. And people respond to being raped in all kinds of ways. If she was raped, that is. We need to find out more, and hopefully one of these Rodneys will help.”

Ballard turned the pages until she reached the tenth-grade photos. She located Mallory Richardson. It was a flattering photo and Ballard understood why her mother liked it. The girl had blond hair that hung down to her shoulders and curved in at the neck, framing her face in a stylish oval. Ballard thought about the friends Robin Richardson had named when she gave them the yearbook.

“Her girlfriends were Jacqueline Todd and... was it Emma?” she asked.

“Emma Arciniega,” Masser said. “But Robin said there was no contact after they moved out to the desert. It was before social media. Nowadays people stay in touch forever. My daughter’s twenty-seven and she’s still in touch with kids she knew from kindergarten.”

Ballard flipped through the pages to look for the friends’ photos. Jacqueline Todd was one of the few Black students in Mallory’s class and Emma Arciniega was one of the few Latinas.

“A white girl from Pasadena has Black and brown BFFs,” Ballard said.

“Interesting,” Masser said. “Think they know anything that will help us?”

“Who knows? But sometimes the besties know more than the parents.”

Ballard closed the book. The conversation made her think about her mother. She needed to call Dan Farley in Maui to get an update on the ongoing search. She decided she would do it once they got back to L.A. and she could make the call in private.

“You thinking about your mother?” Masser asked.

“Jeez, don’t go all Colleen on me, Masser,” Ballard said. “How did you guess that?”

“That look on your face. Wistful, I’d call it. I’ve seen it before.”

“You should keep your eyes on the road.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And don’t call me ma’am.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Before she could respond, her phone buzzed. She didn’t recognize the number but took the call.

“Detective, it’s Robin Richardson. You were just in my home and left your business card.”

“Yes, Mrs. Richardson, is something wrong?”

“Uh, no. It’s just that I remembered Rodney’s last name. Rodney Van Ness.”

“Thank you, that’s very helpful.”

“Will you let me know what you find out? I really need to know.”

“Of course I will. Thank you for calling.”

Ballard disconnected and told Masser that the prom date was Rodney Van Ness. She opened the yearbook again and flipped the pages until she was looking at his photo.

“You think it’s him?” Masser asked.

“Maybe. That would be too easy,” Ballard said. “And so far nothing about this case has been easy.”