Bosch was listening to the King Curtis live album recorded at the Fillmore West just a few months before he was murdered in 1971. He popped the volume two notches for “A Whiter Shade of Pale” and thought about all the music not recorded by the sax player because of his early demise in a fight in front of his New York apartment. Parker, Coltrane, Brown, Baker—the list of those who left the stage in mid-song was long. It got Bosch thinking about the Gallagher family and all that was lost with them. The kids never even had the chance to leave a song behind.
There was a short honk from outside the house and Bosch lifted the needle off the record and killed the power to the stereo. He grabbed his keys and went out the front door. Ballard was in her city ride at the curb, the passenger door already open. It told Bosch that something had her in a hurry this morning. He got in quickly and pulled his seat belt on.
“Morning,” he said.
“Good morning,” she said. “Was that Procol Harum you were playing?”
She said it with surprise in her voice as she pulled away from the curb and headed down to Cahuenga.
“Close,” Bosch said. “It was a cover by King Curtis.”
“My father loved that song,” Ballard said. “He’d sit on the beach after surfing and play it on this toy flute he had.”
“First time I heard it was on a harmonica. A guy in Vietnam. It sounded like a funeral song to me. And that guy, he never made it home.”
That ended the conversation and Bosch became self-conscious about the buzzkill. Ballard rescued him by handing him a piece of paper he knew came from her notebook.
“What’s this?”
“My case list. Look it over and pick something to run with. Pick more than one.”
Bosch studied the list. There were several entries but some had already been crossed out as completed.
“‘Photo to NH’?” he asked.
“I was supposed to send Nelson Hastings a photo of Laura Wilson,” Ballard said. “But he already asked about her in the office before I got to it.”
“I’d still send it. Sometimes a face is more memorable than a name.”
“Yeah, but no one in the current office was around during that first election. I need to remind Hastings he has to get me the name of the campaign manager. I’ll see if he wants the photo then.”
“‘Juanita’—is that the victim’s mother?”
“Yes, in Chicago. We need to find out what happened to Laura’s belongings, see if the campaign button can be located.”
“Right, how about I talk to her, and I’m also going to get to Dale Dubose.”
“Great.”
“What else?”
“When we get in, I want to call Darcy Troy. She texted me on my way over. She has some preliminary info on our suspect’s health that she wants to share. I didn’t want to do it while driving and because I want you to hear it.”
“That’s why you’re in a hurry?”
“I didn’t say that, but, yeah, I want to find out what she’s got and I want you there. We can go into the interview room and call her. You can deal with Juanita afterward. Cool?”
“Cool.”
They had gotten to the 101 and were heading south, the spires of downtown in the mist ahead. They would end up taking three freeways to get to Westchester and the Ahmanson Center.
“So,” Bosch said. “You’ve had a night to sleep on it. What do you think about Beecher?”
“Well, I really don’t like being unable to confirm his story,” Ballard said. “But he wasn’t going to give up Mr. X and we had no leverage to make him.”
“What’s your gut say?”
“My gut says it’s a true story. And I have to tell you, I went down an internet rabbit hole last night, trying to check associations and crossing points between Harmon Harris and people in the business on the level that Beecher was talking about.”
“Are you going to tell me Brad Pitt is gay?”
“No, I’m going to tell you I wasted two hours that I could have used for sleep. I came up with nothing and nobody I could even hazard a guess at. What’s your gut say?”
“To quote Beecher, I think we’re barking up the wrong tree. We needed to do it, due diligence and all of that, but I don’t see Harmon Harris doing this and I think Beecher was believable.”
“Then we’re done with it. We move on.”
They got to the Ahmanson Center by eight o’clock and were the first members of the OU Unit to arrive at the pod. After a stop at the break room, they took their coffees into the interview room and closed the door so they could talk to Darcy Troy in private.
“Think Colleen’s going to come in today?” Bosch asked.
“I don’t care, as long as she keeps her hands off the property boxes.”
Ballard made the call on her cell and put it on speaker. Troy picked up right away.
“Hey, Renée,” she said.
“Darcy,” Ballard said. “Thanks for running with this. I’m here with Harry Bosch, who is one of the cold case investigators working with me.”
“Hi, Harry,” Troy said.
“Hello,” Bosch said. “Nice to meet you.”
“Oh, we’ve met,” Troy said. “It was many years ago, when I first came on in the DNA lab.”
“Oh, okay,” Bosch said, slightly embarrassed. “Then good to meet you again.”
“So, you have an update for us?” Ballard asked.
“I do,” Troy said. “I would term this preliminary because there’s more we can do, but I knew you were moving quickly, so let me tell you what we’ve got right now. As you know, they really didn’t do much with this when the case first came in, what, seventeen years ago. But there was enough of the sample stored here to allow for further analysis.”
“We got lucky,” Ballard said.
“We did,” Troy said. “So we ran a basic urine cytology test on what we had, and it does show high levels of albumin and renal epithelial cells. These are clear signs of damage somewhere in the kidneys, bladder, or urinary tract. Most of the time it signals what is called clear cell renal cell carcinoma. This man likely had a tumor in one or possibly both kidneys, but of course we can’t be sure, since we don’t have him to examine.”
“Would he have known he had cancer?” Ballard asked.
“He would have eventually,” Troy said. “But we can’t tell what he knew from what we have to go on now.”
“Would it have been fatal?” Ballard asked.
“If untreated, yes,” Troy said. “But if caught early, it can be treated. And if it is contained in only one kidney, the damaged organ can be removed. After all, we have two.”
“What about transplant?” Bosch asked.
“That, too,” Troy said. “But people are not really considered for organ transplant in cases of cancer unless it’s caught super early. Transplant is normally considered where the kidneys are damaged by disease other than cancer. I should say here that I’m not an expert on this by any means. Most of what I’m telling you I researched last night.”
“We really appreciate this, Darcy,” Ballard said.
“We girls have to stick together, Renée,” Troy said. “No offense, Harry.”
“None taken,” Bosch said. “What could be the cause of this cancer?”
“Oh, well, now you’re opening up a whole can of worms,” Troy said. “Again, we have an unknown subject and know nothing of his life and experiences. This could be a hereditary predisposition, or it could have been some sort of toxic exposure. I know you’re trying to identify this guy. I would say that it could be somebody who worked in an industry where there was prolonged exposure to carcinogens. I know that doesn’t really help you, but it’s the best I’ve got considering what we do know—which is not much.”
“Well, we know a lot more than we did before this call,” Ballard said. “You said there’s further work you can do on this?”
“Just a deeper dive into it—more analysis on the specimen we have,” Troy said. “We may be able to narrow down exactly what this person’s illness was. But this time it won’t be quick. I would need to find an oncology lab and send it out. I have to make some calls later but likely it will be County-USC.”
“Really appreciate it, Darcy,” Ballard said again.
“You got it,” Troy said.
All three said their goodbyes and disconnected. Ballard took a drink of coffee and then asked Bosch what he thought of the new information.
“It’s good stuff but it’s sort of after-the-fact,” he said. “Dubose and his partner missed the chance to put together a list of people with kidney disease back at the time of the killing. I don’t see how we could do that now. So after we arrest the guy, we use it to tie him in. But we’ll already be able to do that with DNA.”
“So there’s no way at all to use this to identify him?” Ballard asked.
“That’s the hard part, because we don’t know when he sought treatment, or if he even did seek treatment. Maybe he never knew and got sick and died.”
Ballard nodded.
“What about you?” Bosch prompted.
“I just think there has to be a way to use this as a search tool,” Ballard said. “The others may have some ideas when we bring them up to speed.”
“Maybe Colleen can tell you whether the guy’s dead or alive.”
“Harry, please. It’s not funny. I don’t know what I’m going to do about her. I think I’m going to ask Lilia to take over the hereditary part of this.”
“But you said Hatteras was the best on your team.”
“She is, but I can’t have her disobeying direct orders. The psychic bullshit I can actually deal with. But when I tell her not to handle property and evidence and she does exactly that, then I have to do something.”
“I guess so.”
Ballard stood up, ready to go.
“Okay,” Bosch said. “I’m going to call Juanita Wilson. Do you have her contacts?”
“I have her number,” Ballard said. “I’ll text it to you.”
They left the interview room and returned to the pod. Hatteras, Masser, Aghzafi, and Laffont were all at their stations. Bosch guessed they were working multiple days because they knew how important this case was to the longevity of the unit. He sat down at his station and made the call to Chicago as soon as Ballard sent him the number for Juanita Wilson. The call was answered right away.
“Mrs. Wilson?”
“Yes.”
“My name is Harry Bosch. I’m with the Los Angeles Police Department cold case squad. You spoke with my colleague Renée Ballard yesterday.”
“Yes. Have you made an arrest?”
“Not yet, Mrs. Wilson, but we’re working very hard on the case. I wondered if I could ask you a few more questions.”
“Yes, of course. I’m just so thankful that there is still an investigation. I thought you people had given up.”
“No, ma’am, we aren’t giving up. I know this must be very difficult for you to be thinking of those horrible times, but do you remember, after your daughter’s death, what happened to all her property and belongings that were here in Los Angeles?”
There was a long silence before Juanita Wilson responded.
“Well, let me see,” she said. “My husband and I went to Los Angeles to bring her home. And when we were there, we were allowed to go into her apartment after the police were all through. We packed all of her things in boxes and shipped them back here. And some of the furniture we put out in front of her building like a little garage sale and we sold it.”
Bosch tried to control his anticipation. But Juanita’s first answer gave him hope.
“How many boxes did you send back to Chicago? Do you remember?”
“Oh, there were quite a few. That’s why we sent them. There was too much to take on a plane.”
“And what happened to the boxes once they were in Chicago?”
“You know, for a long time I couldn’t bear to open them and look through her things. So they were in the closet in her bedroom for the longest time. And then I started taking a look from time to time, you know, just to get a sense of her.”
“Do you still have the boxes?”
“Of course, I couldn’t throw those things away. They were my daughter’s.”
“I understand that. Mrs. Wilson, the crime scene photographer took what we call ‘environmental photographs’ of your daughter’s apartment. These were photos that were not actually of the crime scene but of the rest of the apartment. Like what was on Laura’s refrigerator and in the drawers of her bureau, things like that. And we have one photo that shows a campaign button for a man who was running for city council out here at that time. We think it might be important to the case.”
“How would it be important?”
“Well, I can’t really talk about it at the moment, but I’m wondering if you would be willing to look through the boxes you have and see if you find it. It is probably a long shot, but it would help us if you could. If you give me an email address, I could send you the photo that was taken back then. Is this something you think you can do?”
“I could, yes.”
“When would that be?”
“As soon as I hang up this phone. If you think it will help the investigation, I’m going to do it right now.”
She gave Bosch her email address and he wrote it down.
“Give me ten minutes and then check your email,” Bosch said. “I’ll send you the photo and I’ll circle the button so you will know exactly what we’re looking for.”
He described the pin while looking at the photo of it.
“Send it to me,” Juanita said. “I’ll be waiting.”
“One thing, Mrs. Wilson,” Bosch said. “If we’re lucky enough that the button is still there, I don’t want you to touch it. Just identify it and then call me and we can talk about how to preserve it. But for now, I just want you to look for it but not touch it, okay? That’s important.”
“Okay. You’ll send the email?”
“Yes, I have to scan the photo first, so it might take a few minutes.”
“Good.”
“Thank you.”
Bosch disconnected. He thought there was only a slim chance that Juanita Wilson would find the campaign pin, but he felt his spirits boosted by her willingness to work with him. He believed that positive energy often paid off.