Ballard told herself not to be annoyed with Bosch. She knew that putting him on a team did not make him a team player. That was not in his DNA. She got up and went to his workstation. The package from the Wilson case that she had put together for him was sitting on the desk. He had said she’d have his review by the end of the day, but not if he did not have the records with him to review. She picked up the stack and went back to her station. She would do the work on it if Bosch wouldn’t.
In the breakout of team assignments on the case, Ballard had given herself the digital media associated with Laura Wilson. Data from the victim’s laptop and cell phone had been downloaded by the original investigators onto thumb drives that were slipped into the pocket on the inside cover of the murder book. Ballard had gone through the material on each drive earlier and had planned for a deeper dive. But she decided to put that digital work aside and to first review the materials she had given Bosch.
Since she had already studied the forensic reports and crime scene photos at length after connecting the Wilson and Pearlman cases, she decided to approach this new review differently. Whether in person at a crime scene or when looking at photos, the investigator always focuses on the center—the body. These photos were as horrible to look at as those of Sarah Pearlman. A young woman’s body violated in many ways. A still life of stolen hopes and dreams. Ballard decided to put these aside and work her way from the outside in.
The crime scene photographer had been thorough and had taken dozens of “environmental” shots depicting the victim’s entire home—inside and out—at the time of the murder. These included shots of the contents of closets and cabinets and drawers and of photos framed and hung on the walls. All of this allowed the case investigators ready access to the entire environment of the killing location. It also allowed them to better understand the victim by seeing how she had set up her home. It gave them an idea of the things that were important to her in life.
Though Wilson’s apartment had only one bedroom, there was ample storage space for clothes and other belongings. Ballard moved slowly through the photos, enlarging areas that caught her interest as she went. The clothes in the walk-in closet indicated that either Wilson dedicated a large amount of her income to what she wore or money for her wardrobe was part of the support that came from her parents or other acquaintances. Nothing in any of the records showed that she’d had a current boyfriend. She had been on two fledgling social media apps at the time—Myspace and Facebook—but Ballard’s earlier review of those did not show Wilson as a Hollywood party girl. She seemed to be quite serious about her five-year plan, and the rich assortment of clothes and shoes in her apartment were most likely part of that. Some taped auditions on her computer showed that she often tried out for young but sophisticated roles in movies and TV. In each of these she had dressed the part, and now Ballard was looking at the walk-in closet where Laura had put together those outfits. There was something depressing about it—that this young woman had had a plan, that she worked hard at it, prepared herself for it, stood in front of the mirror on the closet door and made sure she looked just right for a part, and that all her ambition was taken away in a horrible night of violence. Ballard made a vow to herself that she would never put this case back on the shelf. That no matter what happened, she would work this case as long as she was working cases.
The emotion of the moment hit her and made her go to the murder book to find the contacts page. The next of kin were listed as parents Philip and Juanita Wilson in Chicago. In short descriptions, Philip was listed as a fourteenth-ward committee member and Juanita was listed as a schoolteacher. Ballard knew she would be opening old wounds by calling, but she also knew parents never got past the death of a child at any age. Ballard wanted them to know the case was not on a shelf anymore and was being worked.
She called the number, and it was still good after seventeen years. An old woman’s voice answered. If Laura Wilson were still alive, she would be over forty, putting her parents at least in their sixties and probably older.
“Mrs. Wilson?”
“Yes, is this LAPD?”
Ballard realized that her desk phone probably carried a generic LAPD ID.
“Yes, ma’am, my name is Renée Ballard. I’m a detective with the LAPD. I’m in charge of the Open-Unsolved Unit.”
“Did you catch him? The man who killed my baby?”
“No, ma’am, not yet. I’m calling to tell you we have reopened the investigation and are pursuing new leads. I just wanted you to know.”
“What new leads?”
“I can’t really get into that right now, Mrs. Wilson. But if something happens and we make an arrest, I will be calling you and your husband to let you know first. For right now, I just wanted to introduce my—”
“My husband is dead. He got Covid and died two years ago. Right when it all started.”
“I’m so sorry to hear that.”
“He’s with Laura now. At the end he couldn’t breathe. He died like her, not being able to breathe.”
Ballard wasn’t sure how to exit the call. She thought she would be giving the parents of Laura Wilson hope, but she realized that she was just a reminder of the family’s ongoing trauma.
“I can tell you one thing, Mrs. Wilson, and this is just between you and me for right now. We have connected Laura’s case to another case and we are hoping that investigating them together will help lead us to the man who did this.”
“What other case? You mean a murder?”
“Yes, a case that happened before. The DNA matches.”
“You mean, before Laura was killed by this man, he killed someone else? Another girl? Did you put out a warning?”
“The connection was only made through DNA, and aspects of the crime were different enough that no connection was made back when these crimes happened. Do you have something to write my name down with? I will give you my direct cell number in case you have questions or anything else comes up.”
It was a clumsy transition, but Ballard hoped it would bring the call to an end. Juanita Wilson wrote down her name and cell number. Ballard ended the call with an invitation to Wilson to call anytime if she had questions or thought of something that might be helpful to the renewed investigation.
After Ballard finally put the phone back into its cradle, Colleen Hatteras poked her head up over the privacy wall.
“The mother?” she asked.
“Yes,” Ballard said.
She was annoyed that Hatteras had heard the conversation.
“The father is dead?” Hatteras asked.
“Yes,” Ballard said. “He never saw justice for his daughter.”
“Covid?”
“Yeah.”
Ballard looked up at her, wondering if that was an educated guess or an empathic feeling. She decided not to ask.
“How are you doing with the witness statements?” she asked instead.
Hatteras had been given the statements made by Laura Wilson’s professional and social acquaintances to determine if any were inconsistent or needed to be followed up. Such follow-ups would be a long shot, since the murder occurred so long ago and the people interviewed might now have little recall of that time period.
“Nothing is popping up so far,” Hatteras said. “But I have more to go.”
“Okay,” Ballard said. “Let me know.”
“Did you order the evidence from property?”
“I did. I said so during the briefing. It should get here today or tomorrow. Why?”
“Can I see the property list?”
“Sure.”
Ballard easily found it in the murder book, unsnapped the rings, and handed the sheet over the privacy wall to Hatteras.
“What are you looking for?” Ballard asked.
Hatteras didn’t answer until she had scanned the list of property and evidence stored back in 2005.
“I just wanted to see what was there,” Hatteras said. “They kept her nightgown and the bedclothes.”
“Right,” Ballard said. “It would have been evidence presented in court if a case had ever been made.”
“Sometimes I can get a communication from this sort of evidence.”
“What do you mean by ‘a communication’?”
“I don’t know, like a feeling. A message.”
“Colleen, I don’t think we’re going to go down that path. I have to safeguard our investigations so that they can’t be successfully challenged in court. You understand? I think if we go the psychic route—and please don’t take this personally—we will run into credibility issues.”
“I know. I understand. It’s just a thought, something to consider if we hit a wall with the investigation.”
“Okay, I’ll keep it in mind. But you said sometimes you get a communication from evidence like this. When have you done that before?”
“Well, I haven’t officially done it before. But sometimes families have called me because they’ve heard about my gift. It was how I got into the whole genealogy field. From families wanting answers.”
Ballard just nodded. She wished Hatteras had mentioned this during the interview process.
“I’m going to get back on this now, Colleen,” she said.
“Sure,” Hatteras said. “Me, too.”
Hatteras dropped out of sight behind the wall and Ballard tried to put aside the growing realization that she had chosen wrong in bringing her onto the team. She went back to reviewing the crime scene photographs. Laura Wilson’s bedroom walk-in closet had a built-in bureau next to the shoe racks. The photographer had opened each of the six drawers and photographed the contents without disturbing them. The first four drawers from the bottom were crammed with folded clothing, underwear, and socks. The two smaller side-by-side drawers that occupied the top tier of the bureau were filled mostly with jewelry, hair bands, and other accoutrements. One of these drawers also seemed to be the junk drawer. There were receipts, matchbooks, postcards, loose change, earbuds, phone chargers, Halloween candy, and other things.
But one thing in this drawer caught Ballard’s eye in a big way. It was a round white pin-on button with orange letters that said “JAKE!” Attached to its bottom edge were two short lengths of red-white-and-blue-striped ribbon.
This gave Ballard pause and she moved quickly to the computer to open Google and run the name Jake Pearlman. While the councilman was not an internationally known politician, he did rate a Wikipedia page that listed his pathway to power in Los Angeles. The page documented his first bid for election to the city council in 2005. He had run for the Hollywood seat left vacant when a councilman resigned following a federal indictment for campaign contribution violations. Jake Pearlman lost the election but remained active in politics, and more than a decade later, he won that same Hollywood seat on the council.
Ballard had not known about Pearlman’s early run for elected office but recognized the campaign button because the councilman had used its simple style in his more recent elections.
Ballard leaned back in her chair and thought about this. The 2005 election came on November 8, just three days after Laura Wilson was murdered. Somewhere in that campaign season she had picked up or been given a button that ended up in her junk drawer. What, if anything, did this mean? Was it coincidence that she ended up with a button supporting a candidate whose sister had been murdered eleven years earlier by the man who would also kill Wilson?
She had to consider that this was no coincidence and that the connection meant something to the case. She needed to pursue this and get more information.
And she had to talk to Harry Bosch.