“Well, it’s a wait-and-see situation,” she said. “But thanks to some out-of-the-box thinking by our newest team member, we have a pretty solid genetic lead. This morning down at the Piper Tech print archives, I pulled a card containing the partial palm print believed since day one to have been left by the suspect. I took it to the lab, and they pulled back the tape, swabbed the print, and got DNA. Not a lot but enough to send through the databases. Hopefully we get lucky.”

“Wow,” Masser said. “Be great if it hits.”

Ballard’s attention was drawn past Masser to the aisle next to the case shelves. Harry Bosch was walking toward the pod. He was wearing dusty blue jeans, lace-up work boots, and a denim shirt with perspiration stains under the arms.

“And speak of the devil,” Ballard said.

7

BOSCH APPROACHED THE cold case pod with the eyes of four people, three of whom he didn’t know, cast upon him.

“Harry,” Ballard said. “I was just updating the team on Pearlman. They got DNA off the palm print and we put a rush on matching. We should know yea or nay on a match by the end of the week.”

“That’s good,” Bosch said.

He held up a hand to the strangers in the pod he had not yet met.

“Hey, everybody,” he said.

“Oh, yes,” Ballard said. “This is Harry Bosch.”

As Bosch moved to his workstation, Ballard went around the pod, introducing Masser, Rawls, and Hatteras. Masser and Rawls nodded to him, while Hatteras stood and extended her hand over the privacy partition to shake his. She held it after the shake for an awkward two seconds like she was trying to get some sort of read off him, then released it. This prompted Rawls to stand and extend a hand.

“That was smart thinking on the palm print,” he said.

“Oh, I bet somebody here would have thought of it,” Bosch said.

“The councilman will be impressed,” Rawls said.

“Well,” Ballard said, “let’s not get ahead of ourselves till we see where the matching goes.”

Bosch remembered that Rawls was the one Ballard hadn’t chosen for the team. He quietly sat down at his station, and Rawls and Hatteras did the same as Ballard continued.

“So, we were sort of having a team meeting, Harry,” she said. “What I like to do is talk about the cases we’re all working, because we all come from different places and departments and agencies, and I think it’s good to put everything on the table. You never know where a good idea might come from. Like you with the palm print.”

“Okay,” Bosch said.

He felt uncomfortable with all eyes still on him. It felt like he was about to get called on in class and hadn’t done the homework.