Desert Star (Renée Ballard, #5; Harry Bosch Universe, #36) (14)

“McShane,” Hatteras said. “I think he was telling the truth when he wrote that he was innocent but couldn’t prove it.”

“What are you talking about?” Bosch said. “You weren’t even read—”

It hit Bosch then. But Ballard spoke before he could.

“Harry, let’s sidebar this for the moment,” she said. “I think it would be best if everybody went back to their own cases now, and I’ll finish showing Harry around the facility.”

Masser returned the brochure to Bosch, followed by Hatteras handing him the McShane letter, back in its protective sleeve.

Ballard stood up.

“Let’s start with our interview room,” she said.

Ballard started walking toward the aisle that led to the archive room entrance. Bosch put the brochure and letter sleeve back on the binder rings, snapped them closed, and then followed her.





8


BALLARD STEPPED INTO the interview room, bracing for what she knew would be coming from Bosch but acting like everything was routine and normal. Bosch closed the door after following her in.

“You put a psychic on the team?” he said. “Are you kidding me? You brought me in to work with a psychic? Are we going to hold séances to talk to the dead and ask them who killed the Gallagher family?”

“Harry, settle down,” Ballard said. “I knew you would lose your shit about Hatteras. I didn’t expect it to come out so fast. And for the record, she calls herself an ‘empath,’ not a psychic, okay?”

Bosch shook his head.

“Whatever,” he said. “It’s still kooky shit. You know you can never use her in court. She’ll get torn apart and it will shred the case. I don’t want her anywhere near Gallagher. She’ll taint it with this mumbo jumbo.”

Ballard didn’t respond at first. She waited for Bosch to settle and be quiet. She then pulled out one of the chairs at the interview table and sat.

“Sit down, Harry.”

Bosch reluctantly did as he was told.

“Look, I didn’t know anything about this empath stuff till after she was on the team,” Ballard said. “It’s not why she’s in the unit and it’s not what she does here. I told you, she’s on the genealogical work. And her people-reading skills—the so-called empathy—help with all the social engineering that is a necessary part of that work.”

“Like I said, I don’t want her near Gallagher and McShane. Because I’m going to find McShane and nothing is going to taint the case when I do.”

“Fine. I won’t let her near it.”

“Good.”

“So, can you cool off now?”

“I’m cool, I’m cool.”

“Good. You just steer clear of Colleen and I’ll make sure she steers clear of you. But you have to remember that, like you, these people are volunteers. They’re giving their time and talents to this, and Colleen does good work. I don’t want to lose her.”

“I get it. She does her thing and I do mine.”

“Thank you, Harry. Let’s go back.”

Ballard got up. Bosch didn’t.

“Wait,” he said. “Tell me about the palm print. It sounds like you told the whole team already.”

“I did, because it’s the best break on the case we’ve gotten,” Ballard said. “Darcy Troy—our DNA tech—swabbed it and said there was enough for a full analysis. She’s pretty stoked. I think she just wants to be first to pull DNA off a print, so she’s put it to the front of the line. We’ll know something soon, but there isn’t much to say until she gets back to me. And when I hear from her, you’ll be the first to know.”

“Okay.”

“So how are you going to attack the Gallagher Family case?”

“Dig into the books, go through property and evidence, see if anything pops all these years later. Gallagher had four other employees besides McShane. I’ll probably interview them again. And now that I have some authority, I’ll see if I can find McShane. He had family in Belfast, not that they’d give him up. But maybe he’s surfaced. You never know what will fall when you shake a tree after a few years.”

“Let me know how I can help. I’m not just the administrator here. I want to work cases. Especially this kind. Otherwise, I’ll just be babysitting the others.”

“Good to know.”

“I mean it.”

“Got it.”

“Good.”

They returned to the pod and each silently sat down at their respective workstations. Bosch took the stack of murder books from the Gallagher Family case and spread them out in front of him so he could see the labels on the front covers. He knew that volume 1 contained the investigative chronology, which would be the bible of the case, a multipage listing of the moves he had made during the original investigation—each entry noted by date and time with an addendum reference to any larger report written in follow-up.

He knew he would be working with the chrono now, getting his footing in the case again while also looking for any step that he had missed the first time or interpretation of the facts that bore rethinking. But what he first wanted was the 8 x 10 photo of Emma Gallagher in a plastic sleeve at the front of the book. He had put it there many years before so it would be unavoidable every time he and whoever might follow him on the case opened the first murder book to check the chrono.