Desert Star (Renée Ballard, #5; Harry Bosch Universe, #36) (37)

“No, I never call myself that.”

“ ‘Really? But don’t you get messages from the dead?’”

“Messages, no.”

“ ‘What about impressions?’”

“Well …”

“ ‘When you held the nightgown worn by the victim of this case on the night of her murder, did you get a psychic impression? Can you share it with the jury?’”

Hatteras pursed her lips and her eyes got glassy as tears started to form. Ballard spoke quietly and sympathetically.

“Colleen, I don’t want that to happen to you. I don’t want it to happen to a case where a family has waited years for justice. I’m protecting you as much as them. You need to keep that part of you out of your work here. You are great at IGG and that’s what I need from you. Do you understand?”

“I guess so.”

“I really need a yes or no, Colleen.”

“Yes. Yes.”

“Good. So why don’t you get back to it. I’m going to stay in here and make a call.”

“Sure.”

Hatteras got up and left the room, shutting the door behind her. Ballard looked at the case list she had put down on the table. She crossed a line through the entry about talking to Hatteras and surveyed what was left. The top entry was talking to whoever had been Jake Pearlman’s campaign manager in 2005. She pulled her phone to call Nelson Hastings, but there was a knock on the door before the call went through. She disconnected.

“It’s open.”

Bosch came in and shut the door behind him.

“What did you do to her?” he asked.

“Who?” Ballard responded.

“Colleen. She just walked stiff-legged out of the room. Looked like she was about to cry.”

“I told her she had to stow the psychic shit or she was off the team.”

Bosch nodded as if to acknowledge that it had to be done.

“Must be fun being boss,” he said.

“It’s a blast,” Ballard replied. “What do you need, Harry?”

“To go to Chicago. Juanita found the button.”

“Holy shit, where?”

“She and her husband came out after the murder and cleared Laura’s apartment. They boxed all the personal effects and sent them to Chicago. It’s pretty much been in a box ever since.”

“Did she handle it?”

“Not today, no. I told her not to. And she could not remember ever handling it in the past. So it’s there, and I want to go get it.”

“Why? Just have someone in Chicago PD pick it up.”

“Because that will take forever, first to get them to do it, then to get it shipped here. I know it’s unlikely that there’s a usable print or a dot of DNA on it, but if there is, then you will have chain-of-custody issues at trial. Every Chicago cop involved in the pickup and shipping will have to be brought in to testify. If I go, you just call me. It’s good case management. But really, none of that matters because Juanita told me she wouldn’t let the Chicago police in her house to collect the button. She lives in the fourteenth ward. You remember what happened there?”

“No, what?”

“That was where Laquan McDonald was shot by a cop a few years ago. Remember? Sixteen times in the back. They covered it up until a video came out, and the cop went to prison.”

“Another bad apple making us all look bad.”

Bosch nodded.

“I checked the airlines. I could get there tonight, go see Juanita in the morning, and be back here tomorrow afternoon.”

“I’m never going to get approval or a travel voucher today, Harry. If I put in the request, I’ll be lucky to hear back by the end of the week.”

“I know. I’m going on my own. I already booked it.”

“Harry, hold on. I don’t want you using your own money to—”

“I go, I get the button, you put in an expense request. If you get it, I get made whole. If you don’t, that was my risk, and I’m willing to take it.”

Ballard said nothing. She was thinking and coming to the conclusion that Bosch’s plan was best.

“If I’m gonna go, I need to get to the airport in an hour,” Bosch said.

“That’s not enough time for you to get home, pack clothes, and get back to the airport,” Ballard said.

“I have a go bag in my car.”

“Harry, what are you, seventy? And you drive around with a go bag?”

“I put it in this week. For this job. You never know where it’s going to take you. So we’re good? I’ll need some gloves, tape, and an evidence bag. Probably a print kit, too.”

“Hold your horses. I want to make sure this is legit.”

Ballard got up and went to the door. She called out to Paul Masser and asked him to come to the interview room.

Masser stepped in and Ballard invited him to take the remaining chair. She then ran the scenario of Bosch going to Chicago past him and asked if he, as a former deputy district attorney, saw any procedural or prosecutorial hiccups in the plan.

“Let me think for a second,” Masser said. “On its face it seems … kosher to me. Harry is a volunteer member of the unit. He has immense experience in cases and the finding and collecting of evidence. If the defense tries to challenge this, I think I’d be able to rely on Harry’s experience to head off any suggestion of impropriety or incompetence. Would you go alone?”